As you may have read, there is a lot to say about communication. It’s not just as simple as just a conversation with somebody. There are a lot of other factors that also play a major role when it comes to communication.
160,000 to 200,000 years ago our species arose and lives as hunter-gatherers. In Oued Djebbana (northern Algeria) researchers found evidence for an economic activity by humans. The species were engaging in trade. This activity is special because how could you make a deal about trade with someone if you can’t speak?
Animals communicate through sounds, signals, colours, roars etc. There is a big difference between human and animal communication. We explain, describe and combine words. We have much more of a variety in our word choice.
The oldest spoken language in the world is called Tamil. This language is still being used nowadays and changed a couple of times. Especially the shapes of the letters changed a lot. This is because of diglossia which means that there are two or more languages spoken in one country, kinda looks like a dialect.
Another topic that has to do with communication is miscommunication. This topic is compelling because miscommunication occurs every day. There are 8 common causes of miscommunication and misunderstanding. For example implicit and explicit. Implicit means that you communicate with people that stay close to you, for example, your family and friends. Explicit means the exact opposite, communication between you and strangers. Some people see you as a friend and trust you but others see it differently. That’s one cause were the miscommunication start. When you talk informally to a stranger he would think negative about you because his expectations are different.
Another example is written vs verbal. There is a major difference between saying something or writing something. When you write something it’s all about the receiver his interpretation. Because of our negative bias, we mostly think that the message is negative. If you have a conversation face to face you could use body language and the listener sees your expression which makes the communication much easier.
In our questionnaire, we asked if and what kinds of online communication platforms people use. The average teenager uses the following social media platforms: Snapchat, Instagram, Whatsapp, Twitter and maybe Facebook. We asked the students which kinds of platforms their parents use. Children and adolescents seem to communicate with their peers more electronically than face to face. They chat with their friends through instant messaging, texting, social network sites such as Facebook and email. Often times they are multi-tasking; they may be texting several of their friends while chatting via instant message and at the same time listening to
the latest music download. Their world is insular, in constant motion and seemingly never-ending. There is information sharing in these messages which appear to be slightly exaggerated sound bites. Discussions about homework, sports, and the latest trends are shared. Drama and conflicts are also included in these conversations, but there are no real means to resolve them.
Their online conversations tend to be short, but the back and forth dialogue with a multitude of friends can last for hours and simultaneously they are playing the latest video game. They also consider playing online games with their friends as meaningful contact and conversation. This seems more like parallel play as opposed to really being engaged with one another. Another research is the differences between male and female and old and young people. While researching we noticed that there are a lot of differences between these generations.
These days technology and internet play a very big role in our daily routine and life, you actually don’t see people without mobile phones. Phones are also a big thing in communication these days because of social media like Whatsapp and Instagram. In our questionnaire, we asked what type of communication people use the most.
With online communication comes the use of emoticons. Emoticons are small pictures of illustrated faces and expressions. The full word for emoji is emoticons. Using these emoticons you can express emotions, feelings and give your opinion. This is actually very useful because sometimes when typing something you want to add an extra feeling.
Also very interesting, and maybe not topics you would think of immediately, are the subtopics discussed in this assignment like the art part of communication. You may think that art is something on its own, which it also is beside communication, but it actually plays a major role when talking about communication. It is a tool of expressing and sending out a message via ( most of the time ) non-verbal communication. It makes people think, talk and maybe change their opinions about the shown subject. Different forms of art were being discussed, like paintings, statues, and dance. Dance is a whole other side of art, but definitely import when talking about sending out a message or communication in general.
Another subject that was discussed was how people communicate with disabilities and what the symptoms can be. Communication disorders also influence the way people communicate. Because for most of us it is so normal that we can just communicate without any problems, but some people can’t just do that and need to find alternatives in order to live properly with their disabilities.
Content
Preface (materials & method)
Introduction
How does language work?
How do we communicate in artistic forms?
What does miscommunication mean and how can meanings of words differ?
How do people with disabilities communicate?
What are the differences in communication between generations?
Is there a difference between real-life and online communication and how does technology play a role in it?
Results & conclusion
Reflection & discussion
Sources
Preface
We are Quinty van Doorn (16), Lisanne Mulder (17) and Morris Wijnands (16). We’re all in year 5 HAVO. We all like to sport. Quinty is a fantastic dancer, Morris plays soccer three times a week and Lisanne is the coach from a hockey team.
We chose this subject because we like to know more about communication. We all thought that communication would be an interesting subject so that’s actually the reason for making this project. This project is readable for everyone who’s 14 years or older, this due to the language that we use (difficult words).
This project will be all about communication in varied ways. Of course, we know that talking with each other is the most common way of communicating. But there are a lot of other ways to do so. In this school research project, you will be reading about those other ways and how they work and influence one another. You can think about visual, verbal, written, non-verbal, physical and artistic communication.
But what does the word ‘communication’ itself mean? Where did it form in the existence of humanity? And what role played our mobile phones in communication?
The main question which is going to be discussed and researched is “How has communication evolved in the history of humanity?”. This research is an explanatory and descriptive project.
The sub-questions which are very important in this assignment are:
How does language work?
How do we communicate in artistic forms?
What does miscommunication mean and how can meanings of words differ?
How do people with disabilities communicate?
What are the differences in communication between generations?
Is there a difference between real-life and online communication and how does technology play a role in it?
The material and methods being used in this assignment will be very varied. As materialistic tools, we will be using visual objects which can give a certain message to someone or maybe a text or quote. We have made a questionnaire for the students at our school. This is a perfect way to measure and to see the differences in opinions.
Our P and H sentences.
There is a possibility that our questionnaire isn’t interesting for the students so we have to come up with something else. We could just go out and ask general people in the city. Because of the new privacy law, we will first ask if the person is okay with our little interview and we will not share the name of that person. If the questionnaire doesn’t work we could also do a kind of interview with different teachers, with different ages. So we still see the differences in our research. We’re also thinking of an experiment with language, so if we really can’t do anything anymore we could think more about that idea.
Introduction
Nowadays communication is something we can’t imagine living without. And especially not when it doesn’t happen as quickly as possible. Imagine sitting in bed, calling friends or messaging your mom about the dinner time tonight. We communicate through an outside source we call ‘internet’. If something is on your mind, we tell it, someone, immediately. It is in our nature to share what’s on our mind or to convince others of our brilliant ideas. That’s not something from only the last decade or two. We already communicate with words since 500,000 BC. So it’s not quite a new invention. But the way we communicate has evolved for sure. Think about language, visuals, symbols, the meaning of words that have changed, tools that have changed, the technology that has come up. All these things have had a big influence on the way we communicate.
A couple of years ago there wasn’t any WiFi or internet. People used to communicate through letters and pigeons. And if we go even a bit further in the past. Cavemen made wall paintings in caves. They communicated with paintings and no single letter was written on the wall but they still could understand each other. Nowadays WhatsApp and Facetime make it easier for people to communicate. Due to technology communication changed a lot. Internet users send texts but also pictures and emoticons. It’s even normal to call 3 friends at the same time! It is incredible how big the effect of the internet alone on communication already is.
Not to forget, is that a big part of communication is nonverbal. Body language, visuals or symbols can sometimes even give a better message than words. You know those moments in which you say to someone: “I can’t really come up with the right words to say this but…”. That’s when other ways of communication can be used to make something clear to someone or to spread your message in general.
We also use art as an example to spread certain messages or opinions. People can make a beautiful piece of art ( painting, statues, dance performances etc. ) to spread a message in a non-violent or fierce way. Some artists are known for there pieces of arts to spread a certain message or to protest against prejudices, laws, conceptions etc. Some of them will be named in this research as well, including their art pieces.
This research is about how communication has evolved in human history, what the biggest influences were on it and what the effects have been. Multiple examples will be given to make some things more clear and more deeply explanations on certain subjects to think about things more deeply instead of just reading them, but maybe you can relate to some things in your personal life as well.
How does language work?
History
Our species arose from 160,000 to 200,000 years ago in Africa. Thousands of years later human groups were living as hunter-gatherers. Those people were self-sufficient, they made their own food and had to hunt because at that time there were no shops to buy their groceries. In Oued Djebbana, nowadays known as northern Algeria, and several places in the Mediterranean is evidence for a economic activity by humans. The species were engaging in trade. How is it possible to trade when there is nothing like language? Those economic transactions go beyond every other species because no one else does it. (Quora, 2012)
Trust
It’s still odd because how do I know that I get something from you which is the same value as the things that I give to you? And how do I know that you won’t run away when you have my goods? And how on earth could we make an agreement about our goods? (The Atlantic, 2015)
Language
The origins of language might be in our earliest economic behaviours. Animals communicate through sounds, whistles, colours, chemical signals or roars. Human language is compositional which means that we use discrete words that take the roles of verbs, objects, and subjects. Unlike animals, we can make an endless variety of messages because we can combine and recombine words. So, humans can actually tell a story and explain their feelings, goals, plans, or other adventures. We can describe what we’ve done today and what we're doing tomorrow. Animals can only show their emotions with sounds, they can’t talk to us and tell why they have that specific feeling. (The Atlantic, 2015)
Tamil
So, it’s clear that language is something that we just developed. Species didn’t think about having a language, species just started to do it. The oldest spoken language in the world is Tamil. Tamil is the language of a couple of countries for example: Sri Lanka, Singapore, South Africa and Malaysia. More than 66 million people were (at the beginning of the 21st century) speaking Tamil. (Quora, 2015)
There were 3 periods with different names for ‘Tamil’. Period 1 from 450 bc 700 is called Old Tamil, period 2 700-1600 called middle Tamil and the last period 3 from 1600 called Modern Tamil. In those periods Tamils written language, the shapes of the letters, changed a lot. Tamil stopped with changing her letters when the invention of the printer came. Spoken Tamil changed extensively over time. The structures of the words have changed. Due to the change of spoken Tamil, this change leads to diglossia. Diglossia means that there are two or more languages spoken in the country such as a dialect. Some people also use the word diglossia for bilingualism which has the same definition. (Quora, 2015)
Artistic forms of communication
Have you ever walked on the street and saw a poster of a statue with a strong message that made you think about it and maybe change your own opinion because of it? That’s what artists with the goal to spread messages do but in a non-violent way. Even better, in an artistic way.
So, therefore, this is a very import part of communication. Not through words, but ( mostly ) through visuals. You see something and feel or understand what the artist is trying to say. Art is communication without words ( most of the time ).
Differences normal communication versus artistic communication
A big difference in communication in art versus verbal communication is that it comes from a subjective point of view and that the message is subjective as well. You can, for example, make a tree with only the natural colours like green and brown, but you could also change the whole game and make it more subjective and abstract by means of visual manipulation. Like changing the colours or forms of the tree.
Visual manipulation simply means to edit a piece of art from its usual treats into the message or image the artist wants to create or show. If you’re using words to give a certain message or to just communicate in general, the words ( most of the time ) have a fixed meaning, which makes it more objective. The thing with art is that it gives the message but you can see or interpret it in your own way.
Why do we use artistic communication
A reason why visuals or art pieces are being used to spread a certain message is that research has found that some people learn or understand things better by seeing, feeling or touching things instead of someone telling it to them or read it out of words. So some paintings are being made purely to make people understand or learn a certain message or certain information. But this is not a form of art, but simply a visual communication method.
This allows the viewer to experience the world in different ways than usual and allows feelings to come up which you normally wouldn’t feel as often. (Study.com, no date)
A short history on art
Ever since we were put on this earth, humans have searched for tools to make art, or symbols to spread messages to other organisms/ humans. Think about the paintings we still find now and then in caves from maybe longer than 15.000 years ago. They made paintings and other forms of art to celebrate victories, newborn babies, or to mark their territory. All without the use of words. A very important example of this is the oldest ever found a painting in a rock in India, called the Bhimbetka petroglyphs, with an age of at least 290.000 years old. It could be way older according to scientists that have investigated the piece. Scientists say that by creating art in the prehistoric era, was associated with language, creative expression en aesthetics. So it said a lot about how you were as a person, how smart you were, what kind of status you had, etc. ( Britannica, no date )
Paintings
The first form of artistic communication that will be discussed are paintings. Paintings have been made almost since the beginning of humanity, representing the creative processes and ideas of people, expressed via colours, symbols, drawings etc.
Looking back to the Greek and Roman era, people mostly drew paintings of Gods or holy persons that had an important status. This continued until the 20th century when people started creating more abstract and conceptual pieces of art. With this development, a new way of thinking arose.
But let's go back in time a little bit more. When we talk about the first paintings ever made ( at least the oldest we were able to find/ discover ), we talk about prehistoric art. This mostly includes cave paintings. The most famous pieces of cave paintings are the ones in Chauvet and Lascaux.
( visuals arts cork, no date )
Chauvet
This cave is located in the southern part of France, Ardèche, on a limestone cliff next to the Ardèche river. The painting was discovered in 1994 on the 18th of December by 3 speleologists ( people that study caves or climbs in them for sport ) called Eliette Brunel-Deschamps, Christian Hillaire, and Jean-Marie Chauvet. They were the first people in 30.000 years visiting the cave. The painting is between 30.000 and 40.000 years old. What the purpose of this painting was, never became 100% clear but a student of prehistoric arts and culture predict that it had a ritual, magical or shamanic meaning to it.
( Experience Ardèche, 2015 )
Lascaux
The cave paintings found in France were found in the caves of Lascaux. The paintings are about 17.000 years old, and this cave is the richest one in prehistoric cave paintings ever discovered by mountain hikers. There are over 600 paintings found here. But what do all these paintings mean? And why are they all painted in these areas? Art historians have made up different theories. Some think they were created to show what the people had hunted, so to show off their success. Others think it maybe has a ritual purpose to keep their way of hunting strong and to pass it to future generations. One other theory could be that it was an artistic way of expressing themselves. Nowadays people also create art to express them self, without having a goal by creating it.
( historiek, 2016 )
Famous artists with a message
Georges Rouault
Georgia O'Keeffe
Blake McGrath
Dance
A well-known way of expressing and communicating a message is via dance. You don’t need to be a dancer to understand what kind of a message a dance piece wants to give. It can be shown in multiple ways. Think about a theatre you would attend, a dance video that is going viral that really hits you because you understand what they are trying to say, or even a flash mob can do something to you. The beautiful thing about dance is that words aren’t needed to feel what a dancer is trying to say. The way they move, the way they use their faces or the way they use the music to combine body movement and lyrics or beats to express is something artistic and in my opinion something magical.
The thing with dance is that body and soul are so separate from each other, but the way they come out are combined as one. The mind, on the other hand, is not really present. It’s a combination of body and soul. The way the soul feels is expressed by the body. Not everyone will understand this, whether you’re a dancer or not. But the message can always come over, to anyone.
Another well-known term for dance is ‘body language’. This term refers a lot to the subject we’re talking about, which is communication. But what is the right definition of body language? Body language is a form of the mental and physical ability of human non-verbal communication, which consists of body posture, gestures, facial expressions and eye movements. Humans send and interpret these signals almost entirely subconsciously.
( SlideShare, 2013 )
What does miscommunication mean and how can meanings of words differ?
Due to social media, we are connected with each other. We’re more connected than ever. We share photos, messages and movies. We’re watching the same series on Netflix, everyone follows the voice and we’re sharing our opinions on all kinds of platforms. But sometimes things can get tough because understanding information is way more complicated.
There is a big difference between hearing something and understanding it. When someone is speaking in Chinese you hear the sound of the words, but you do not understand the words. Miscommunication is something that happens every single day. Miscommunication is a failure to communicate ideas or intentions successfully.
There are 8 common causes of miscommunication and misunderstanding:
Implicit and explicit
The first one is implicit and explicit. Implicit is communication with friends or family. For example, you need 10 dollars for groceries but you forgot your wallet. You ask your neighbour if he could give you 10 dollars. You do not make any appointments about giving the 10 dollars back.
With explicit communication, you actually make those appointments. You should do this because explicit means outside. Most of the time explicit communication is with total strangers. For example, you’re going to buy a house. You want to have a contract and everything on paper etc. You do not want to get problems later.
In this, case it’s all about the tone you pronounce the words. You speak differently with friends and strangers. It’s not really about informal and formal but more about the tone.
between explicit and implicit is often a miscommunication because of the misalignment between the sender and receiver. People could be unclear but others are straightforward. (Userlike, 2017)
Written vs verbal
The second one is written vs verbal. For implicit communication, it's better to use verbal communication, for example, Whatsapp or voicemail. For explicit communication, it's better to use written communication, for example, e-mail or live chat. When you have written something down it's all about the interpretation from the receiver which makes it easier to not miscommunicate. Nowadays we have something called emoticons. Emoticons express a certain feeling or emotion which helps the reader to understand your messages. (Userlike, 2017)