Interesting Concepts

I have always felt that being a good listener is one of the most important parts of any kind of relationship. I found the concept of decoding messages: Listening and perception to very interesting. I found this to be interesting because listening is such an important part of communication and I think that some people don’t really understand that. While listening is an essential in creating and maintaining relationships, listening is a complex process. I also found the chapter on Language and Social Identity interesting especially when it talks about expressive cultures and how emotions that we use without even thinking are portrayed. Language gives us power if we use language wisely, we can control communication as the book says. I think this quote is spot on and have seen this happen in everyday life. I also like how the book says, language is a powerful tool. It allows us to influence, regulate, persuade, and dominate one another. It makes us the humans we are. The list goes on about the interesting concepts that I have taken from this book, and this class but these were the few that really stood out to me.

Throughout This Course...

This class has kept me interested all along. From curiosity of what our next week discussion is going to be, to what everyone is class has to say, I have thoroughly enjoyed the steps throughout this class. My favorite thing about this class had to be hearing what my fellow peers had to say and their feedback to what I wrote. I think you can really learn a lot about someone through their writing. I also really enjoyed making the journal entrees because it put the work that we were doing for this class into our own lives and we had to perceive that in any which way we pleased. I really enjoyed the freedom that came with this class as well. At first I didn’t really understand how this class could work being as though normally a communication class would be in person. I think the balance of this class has been a phenomenal experience for me. My least favorite part of this class was that we all never had a chance to meet, but that is what happens when you sign up for a online course. If I could change anything, there were times when I wish that people had commented on my posts just so that I could get some feedback, maybe I would make a rotation of whose blog you write on. I don’t know if that would work well or not but it would be worth a shot. Other than that, the class has been a great experience and I have gained so much from the book, and the discussions.

My favorite

This class has made me interested all along. From curiosity of what our next week discussion is going to be, to what everyone is class has to say, I have thoroughly enjoyed the steps throughout this class. My favorite thing about this class had to be hearing what my fellow peers had to say and their feedback to what I wrote. I think you can really learn a lot about someone through their writing. I also really enjoyed making the journal entrees because it put the work that we were doing for this class into our own lives and we had to perceive that in any which way we pleased. I really enjoyed the freedom that came with this class as well. At first I didn’t really understand how this class could work being as though normally a communication class would be in person. I think the balance of this class has been a phenomenal experience for me. My least favorite part of this class was that we all never had a chance to meet, but that is what happens when you sign up for a online course. If I could change anything, there were times when I wish that people had commented on my posts just so that I could get some feedback, maybe I would make a rotation of whose blog you write on. I don’t know if that would work well or not but it would be worth a shot. Other than that, the class has been a great experience and I have gained so much from the book, and the discussions.

Communication a game?

When I consider the pragmatic perspective, and I do think it is valid to say that we think of communication as a patterned interaction. Let me and try and put this into perspective, we have so many routines when it comes to communication. When you see someone you say, "hello", "how are you?" The list goes on and on. We use communication as something that we can relate to in all of us and that we can depend on as well. When I think of communication and how it is relating to a game, it brings me to the beggining of a relationship, and how according to "who ever" playing a "game" to try and tease the person and make them want you more is what we are all suppose to be doing. I personally HATE games when it comes to a relationship and think that you should just be honest and open about how you feel. But I do think that communication can work with and be a game if you want it to. I know that in some way or another we have all used communication to our advantage either to get us somewhere or make something happen for ourselves. Communication is a beautiful thing and such an important attribute in any kind of relationship. At the same time thinking of communciation in my eyes as such a honest, natural tool , I don't see why anyone would want to really use it as a game because why cant it speak for itself.

Building Words

In and throughout communication we are constantly “building words” either with family, friends, coworkers, or even random people on the streets. I think that a big part of building of words is how we when we first see someone that we haven’t seen in a while, we give them a compliment because it is a polite thing to do. Such as, “wow you look amazing” or “oh my god have you lost weight?” the list of comments go on. Why do we feel like we need to compliment someone right of the bat of seeing them? Is it because we want to break the ice with one another, and we feel like setting the tone with a compliment makes it easier? I know we all do it and it is a part of nature. I don’t think that there is anything wrong with it but thinking more deeply into to it is very interesting. I think this is something in communication that we don’t think twice about and it comes naturally and that helps us “build words” in a way to make the environment seem a little less uncomfortable. In a strange way, I think this does make us happy and can in turn make us successful, you see compliments have a funny way of bringing you confidence and that can lead to a boast in your self esteem in the long run.

Ch.2 Is Communication Intentional?

Chapter 2, had a lot of interesting definitions, models and perspectives about communication but if I had to pick one concept that interested me enough to the point of reading it more than once, it would have to be the question of whether or not communication is intentional. I can agree with the book when it says that, “Some people think it’s impossible to know whether a message is intentional.” I sometimes don’t know how to read people while we are communicating, and I think that happens with a lot of different people. I know we have all seen people from feet away and just assumed by their body language or facial expressions that they are either upset about something, or you can tell from feet away if they are in a good mood. Are we just assuming, or are their actions intentionally happening to affect our thought process and try to feed off their mood? I think we could ask ourselves these questions for days and I don’t know if I would ever get a straight answer because I think that we are all very different. Communication with certain situations can string us to believe one thing to another. I think that we should all keep an open mind and never assume anything in communication is intentional.

Research Methodologies

When looking at popular research methodologies I would have to say that Conversation Analysis was the most interesting to me. It has the researcher describing the content, structure, and function of everyday spoken interaction. I think that this would be a difficult task because people’s interactions are widely misconstrued and this is widely constructed to try and figure out exactly what your conversations are meaning. A research questions I would ask would have to be something like, How does seeing different relationships in conversation change the analysis for you during your research? I would answer the question using performance research, this way it would open the person up. If people know they are being analyzed they are most likely not going to be themselves and that would through off your whole analysis. A good way to approach it would be if you were in the person you are researching own environment, because you know that they would be at ease.