BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES - Universitatea de Medicină şi Farmacie

4.1. What is Communication?
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Chapter 4
Communication: Definitions and Functions
Without knowing the force of words
it is impossible to know men.
Confucius
Communication has existed since the beginning of human beings,
but it was not until the 20th century that people began to study the process.
When World War I ended, the interest in studying communication
intensified as communication technologies developed and the socialscience
study was fully recognized as a legitimate discipline. During the
last decade, the outpouring of scientific research on human communication
has increased at a staggering rate. This burst of research activity is due to
the ever-widening usage of the term "communication" and to a declaration
of vested interest in communication research by numerous scientific
disciplines. One review of developments in the field lists more than twenty
academic disciplines which currently provide content and method for
research on some phase of human interaction. This increase in
communication research or studies reveals that communication is central
to the human experience and life. The interest of many discipline in
communication studies also reveal that communication is not so univocal
or obvious subject.
What is communication? The word communication derived from
Latin communis – common and communication - to give and make
something common. Beginning from these original meaning of Latin
words different modalities of defining or explaining communication were
elaborated. Each of modality emphasizes one aspect of communication as
phenomenon. Thus, communication can be defined as speech,
understanding, social process, reduction of uncertainties, transmission,
commonality, behavior modifying response, power etc.
Communication as speech: “Communication is the verbal
interchange of thought or idea” (Hoben, 1954).