7 - Communicational Aspects of Behavior

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter presents the study of human communication—nonverbal communication and language. To communicate is to be joined to another, to transfer a part of oneself, to inform and to converse, to have intercourse and to infect, to get in touch, to say, and to correspond. People share experience and accomplishment in a myriad of ways. The study of the spoken language provides a convenient point of departure because the data, spoken words, seem more discrete and therefore, more explicitly in awareness than other aspects of communication, nonverbal movements. The most important principle involves the attribution of meaning. The meaning of any particular unit of communication is derived from the relationship of that unit—syllables or words—to the context in which the unit or sound occurs. The view of humans as essentially alone gains support from the damaging experiences because the utility of anxiety as an interpersonal signal is denied. The avoidance of anxiety as a signal and of others as stimuli that produce anxiety is the proper domain of the sociopathology and psychopathology of communication.