BARRIERS AND GATEWAYS

(7CS) TO COMMUNICATION
Dr. Jindagi Kumari
MSIT, New Delhi
 Barriers to communication arise from a variety of
sources such as complex organizational structure, use of
ambiguous words, perceptual differences of sender and
receiver, status difference etc.
 Theo Haimann has classified the main barriers to
communication into four major groups. These are:
 Barriers caused by organizational structure.

 Barriers caused by status or positions.

 Barriers caused by language.

 Barriers resulting from the general inclination to resist

change.
 McFarland has classified communication barriers into
the following four groups:
 Unsound objectives

 Organizational blocks

 Semantic/language blocks

 Human relations problems

 Ricky W. Griffin has classified the 
communication barriers into two broad groups such as
 Individual barriers and

 Organizational barriers.

 (https://thebusinesscommunication.com/types-of-commu
nication-barriers/
)
 situations, objects and causes that slow communication
down are barriers

 Matthukutty M.Monipally in his

Business Communication Stategies Seven Major
Roadblocks:
1.Differences in perspective, 2. Difference in Knowledge
level, 3. Lack of common knowledge
4. tendency to stereotype and jump to conclusions, 5.
Strong emotion, 6.self-centeredness, 7. Plain Laziness
DIFFERENCES IN PERCEPTION

 Bronislaw Malinowski’s encounter with an old cannibal

(WWII Europe)
 Inquisitive cannibal: “what kind of barbarians are you, to
kill people without any real object?”
FACTORS INFLUENCING PERSPECTIVE: PERCEPTUAL
BARRIERS

 Socio-cultural milieu
 Interpersonal experiences

 Temperament

 Personality

 Values

 Position in life

 Religious and political beliefs and others

DIFFERENCES IN PERCEPTION
 Perception of time
 Working women housewives

 Bosses and subordinates see profit

 Men and women

 Parents and children : difficulty understanding one

another
 Scientists tendency to stick to their own paradigms and
reluctance to accept the newer one(Thomas Kuhn)the
structure of scientific revolution
LACK OF COMMON
LANGUAGE/SEMANTIC BARRIERS
 Foreign language
 Varying implications of words: Dicky, trunk

Chit/cheat (the terminal), Sit/shit (homophones)

 Norwegian cocktail lounge: (ladies are requested not to
have children in the bar)
 Written and oral: illiteracy

 Same language different varieties

 Officialease, jargon; words meant for the member of a

particular group(or any obscure expression)
AN AMERICAN PLUMBER
 Wrote Bureau of standard: hydrochloric acid is good for
clearing up the clogged drains

Reply of bureau in pseudo-scientific jargon:

“The efficacy of hydrochloric acid is indisputable but the

corrosive residue is incompatible with metallic
permanence.”
 Plumber: glad that the board agrees with him
 “don’t use hydrochloric acid. it eats the hell out of
pipes”
 Acronym and short forms:
 Burn/ copy

 Management speak:

 That’s very interesting: I disagree

 I don’t disagree: you may be right but I don’t care

 You have to show me flexibility: you have to do it

whether you want it or not
DIFFERENCE IN KNOWLEDGE LEVEL

 Knowledge; Ever-growing and formless

 All of us possess little or more

 Astrologer, astronomer: influence of stars

 Homeopathy allopathic

 Expert or amateur economist: inflation/stagflation

 Vertical communication: upward and downward;

messages may get distorted due to varying level of
knowledge
TENDENCY TO STEREOTYPE
 Individuals are unique
 Result of conditions of birth, growth

 To be fully fair to them we ought to treat them as

individuals

 Nationality
 Religion

 Work

 Education

 Class

 Caste etc.
STRONG EMOTIONS
 “love is blind”
 Too much of any emotion makes a person blind

 Emotion makes us attach grossly inappropriate value to

symbols displayed to us
 We might also see symbols not displayed
SELF-CENTEREDNESS
 Ego centricism, self love does not allow empathy,
listening, affects participation of others, others lose
interest, don’t see anything for them since the speakers
sees only what is there for him
LAZINESS
 “to be a communicator is a hard work”
 To be a very good communicator is a very hard work”

 Delayed replies to messages

 Not taking notes, not switching off phone or TV

 Letting go of revision, review

 Reaching late, missing on important inputs

 Sloppy presentation /Assignments/Job interviews