Week 2 Question 3

The concept that I find very interesting in chapter 2 is nonverbal interaction. In the textbook, nonverbal interaction defined as “the unspoken, often unintentional behavior that accompanies verbal communication and helps us fully interpret its meaning” (p.23). I grew up in the Eastern culture; verbal communication is fully expressed, therefore, it’s very important for me to know how to read nonverbal cues. Very often I can tell a person’s message by the expression on her/his face or in their eyes. Most people focus on verbal communication and tend to forget to read nonverbal cues, however, for me, I think most of the important messages doesn’t express verbally and rather nonverbally. Because it is the unintentional behavior that is the most truthful and reliable source to interpret the meaning of a message. By saying that, verbal message is also important as well, one must use verbal cues and accompany by nonverbal cues to achieve effective communication.

Week 2 Question 2

1. For pragmatic perspective scholar, communication is more like playing a game (p.32). As it describe in the text, “According to pragmatic view, communication consists of a system of interlocking, interdependent behavior that become patterned over time” (p.32). In this perspective, communication is a game that involves players and moves and how the players interact with each other become a sequence of patterns. For example, when player A said something to player B, player B would give some feedback to A, in another word; they are interacting with each other. Overtime, the interaction between players would become interdependent because they are dependent on each other’s actions to keep playing the game. Communication is like a game because the ball in the air is always throwing back and fourth, therefore, is like the sender and receiver in communication. However, this communication game doesn’t require a winner or a loser but games sometimes do.

Week 2 Question 1

1. Social constructionist perspective defined communication in a much broader way. “Communication is not something that goes on between individuals; instead, communication is something that surrounds people and hold their world together”(29). Communication is a process; a process that create meanings of the world we lived in; our language, our beliefs, our values and how we act according to our roles. Through this communication process, we create our world, defined our worlds and we get to experience it, “This perspective points out that most of what we know and believe about the world comes to us through communication rather than through direct experience” (30). Basically, we communicate as individuals and through that process we create a sense of our world. In the Western culture, we value individualism. We encourage individual achievement and we educate our children to be unique and special. The idea of individualism directly affects us as people of this nation; US is one of the leading countries in the world.

Week 1 Question 3

1. Psychological/epistemological approach-

The concept I am interested in chapter 1 is psychological approach of communication, “…the relationship of communication and thought, trying to understand in a “scientific” way how people could influence one another through speech”(p.10). I always believe communication involves many aspects of psychology. There could be several of reasons for us to communicate with each other, to deliver message, sharing thoughts and even persuade. I like how the textbook explain that psychological approach is focus on human communication, “…how human action could be influenced by speech, and they wanted to describe the thought processes of receivers listening to persuasive messages” (p.10). We often use communication to persuade people and to do that; we have to understand the basic of psychology. Learn how to deliver a message is more effective, and how message can influence one another are some of the examples I can think of psychological approach in communication. If we can combine the theories of communication and the theories of psychology then we probably can reach a better level of effective communication.

Week 1 Question 2

1. I agree that to be an orator the person has to be morally good. I think an orator has social responsibilities and with responsibility to society, an orator has to be morally good. When an orator speaks in public, he/she is influencing the audience with his/her speech, if he/she is morally evil, whatever the message they trying to deliver would pollute the public. A lot of orators are politician or lawyer and both of these professions needs to have ethic, goodness and moral because they are representing not only themselves, but also other people or even a country. For example, lawyers represent people who can’t speak for themselves. Lawyers need to have justice in mind and able to distinguish right and wrong. Therefore, an ideal lawyer needs to have a strong will, speaks the truth, and morally good because whatever they say in public is going to have impact on people.

Week 1 Question 1

1. The speaker whom I really admire is Ellen Degeneres. She exudes a persona that is confident in your own skin. I think everybody can learn to be more comfortable with themselves. Ellen uses ethos when speaking to the audience in her daily talk shows. Her ability to persuade comes from her likability as a person, that’s why it is ethos. However, for any public speaker to be great in persuading, I believe that he/she must have all three ethos, pathos and logos. If we were to listen closely to a great, public speaker, we would find that they possess a little bit of each. Ellen, is more ethos than pathos and logos because her cheerful personality and charisma are what attracts her fans to watch and listen to her shows. As for myself, I think my ability to persuade lies in my ability to gain trust and inspire others. This would fall more into the pathos category. I am able to speak on topics that I am passionate about and lead others to eventually think in the direction as I.