Have you ever spoken something, written something, or just expressed a view of someone else's experience and found that they took such a different view of your expression that it had a massive effect between you?

Our wonderful system of written and spoken language is a very useful tool for communicating ideas and information. However, as with most tools, it is subject to user error. However, in the subject of interpersonal communication, this is only half of the equation.

The second and possibly more important tool in communication is perception. Its a tricky thing that we can't easily define, track down, or observe. It is in essence how the listener perceives the message, as communicated by the speaker. Perception is influenced greatly by an individuals background, experiences, and their wants or needs of the moment.

So with this in mind, an idea from one individual is 'encoded' into a language and communicated to a listener. If the listener manages to even receive the message in its entirety, they must 'decode' the message using their experiences and knowledge of the meaning of the elements of language used. So here we have had two easy opportunities for error, not counting the direct failure of the language message to be communicated.

If the initial listener finds they have need to communicate back, as happens often in interpersonal communication, they have to repeat this process back to the initial speaker as the new listener.

Again, there are so many areas for error or mis-perception of an intended message, its really not funny. In addition to these sources of error, the individual themselves can make mistakes in gauging important factors that must be considered within the listener, to communicate effectively and without causing unintended consequences.


This has been a public service journal, and largely something I simply had to work out for myself. Thank you for reading and I hope my message gets across. Good luck to everyone out there.