Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
(German and French, European) and its associated language (French,
German or English with possible interferences from German or
French) to consider. On the next level, there are social institutions, like
organizations (European Parliament) and above all social activities.
In this case, the activity is “negotiation”. All of the mentioned factors
enable us to have certain expectations and make predictions about the
behavior of the two politicians.
Social activities, like negotiations, are one of the most profound
types of influence on communication (Allwood, 2000). We communicate
in very different ways, depending on whether we are talking to
colleagues in a project meeting, participate in a lecture, are trying to
sell something to a customer, are interviewing someone or are trying
to flirt with someone.
All of these activities can be described and analyzed using the
following activity parameters:
(i) Purpose, e.g. formal meeting
(ii) Roles of participants, e.g. chairman, secretary, participant
(iii) Procedures, media and other instruments
(iv) Environment (organizational and physical)
However, besides the roles that communicators have in such
activities, their communication will also, as already mentioned, be
influenced by participant characteristics, such as organizational
position, gender and educational background.
But over and above, the mentioned factors, the interaction itself,
in many ways, is decisive; as it goes through particular sub-activities
or phases, using exchange units as exposed through the particular
contributions of the negotiating politicians. In the end, as we have
seen above, it is these individual contributions with their more or less
aware features in terms of evocative and reactive/responsive functions
that drive dialog forward, employing several levels of intentionality
and awareness.
Let us now turn to two of the factors that, besides social activity,
have an influence on communication, namely personality and national-
ethnic culture.
9.2 Personality
One of the factors, often thought to influence communication, is
personality (identity or character) which can be described as a
characteristic set of holistic biographical, psychological and social
features regarded as long term and typical of a particular person.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search