BARRIERS TO COMMUNICATION

Man has been using language as a tool of communication for

centuries. Communication is thus essentially a social affair.
There are a number of barriers which prevent us from achieving the
desired result. Some of these are absence of a Common Frame of Reference
i.e. the social context in which communication takes place. Both the sender
and the receiver can focus their mind meaningfully only when the context is
well-defined. Secondly the badly encoded messages (to change ordinary
language into letters or symbols), disturbance in the process of passing
message from one person to others, poor retention i.e. the lack of
ability to store or remember the message, obscure or unqualified
assumptions, mistrust between the sender and the receiver, premature
evaluation of the message, different ideas of reality are some of the causes
of barriers to communication.
However the semantic (meaning of the word or sentences) difficulties
occur when the speaker uses unclear expressions or very difficult
vocabulary, in inappropriate situation.
Sometimes the attitude or the way the speaker thinks may be different
from the way the receiver thinks. Hence due to the attitudinal difference,
the communication suffers. Sometime one is unable to communicate freely
and effectively due to some previous unpleasant experience in similar
situations. In oral communication some person may be unwilling to speak due
to the hesitation of being evaluated by their peers, superior’s.
The language has number of varieties depending upon the place the person
belong, his social status above all the profession he is engaged in for
example if a lawyer using the legal language of law to explain his family a
case he argued in a court would be a barrier to communication.