SEMANTIC NOISE &

SEMANTIC RECEIVERS
Semantics – as a science which deals with meaning; whereas
phonetics deals with the sounds

Sounds/phonetics is the basis for our coding systems

Problems arise when the meaning which emerges at the receiving

terminal is different from the one intended at the transmitting
terminal
 INTRINSIC & SYMBOLIC
MEANING
• Intrinsic – the information content is associated with the
objective properties of the cue itself
• Symbolic – information content is associates with the
emotional state of the perceiver/receiver
• Example: Mother denies the child of an ice-cream – two
general categories of interpretation are possible:
1. Mother refused me ice-cream which tastes good and
may spoil my appetite for dinner (intrinsic)
2. Mother does not love me (symbolic)
 What factors are involved if
the manager and subordinates
are to successfully implement
the communication process?
ACHIEVING
EFFECTIVENESS IN
HUMAN
COMMUNICATION

The focus here is on Face-to-

face Channel, which has a high
information potential
 • The quality of any channel can be
evaluated by two criteria:
1. Technical capacity
2. The Ability to Convey Meaning

THE When we asses the quality, the notion of

richness is used. To score high on
CONCEPT richness, a communication system
must have both technical capacity and

OF the ability to convey meaning

RICHNESS
 Essentially is
conveying the signal
accurately

TECHNICAL If a channel can carry

the message in a
CAPACITY shorter period; or

Additional messages,
then we say that the
channel has greater
technical capacity
ABILITY TO CONVEY
MEANING
Signal transmission in and of itself is no assurance that the desired
meaning has been conveyed

In Human Communication, we want the receiver-decoder to “take into

account” the message – that is, the ability to elicit the intended meaning
in the Receiver

In the absence of the ability to convey meaning, mere technical capacity

has limited usefulness.