L33T Index
Barriers to communication
General Communication Barrier
There are many types of General Communication Barriers, they are often nothing major but are easy to overcome. One of the most common is Cultural differences This is because each culture has different beliefs. What could mean one thing is one places can mean something completely different somewhere else. For examples when a English person greets someone they would shake there hand, where as a Japanese person would bow. The most noticeable time that is happened is with 'the OK' hand sign. In most countries this is classed just as the OK sign, but in Brazil it's classed as a rude gesture. In the 1950's Richard Nixon visited Rio de Janeiro, on arrival he flashed the crowd with the OK sign and the response he got of them was just boo's. With hand signs don't use them unless you know that the country has the same meaning for them as where you're from. Another hand signal that can be miss judged is when you beckon someone with your finger, in USA it means come here. However if you did that in Asia it should only be used to summon dogs. If you get caught doing it to another person in the Philippines there is a chance you could get arrested. So just be careful where you do somethings! To overcome this you would have to try not to use hand gestures in foreign countries. If you don't know what a hand gesture means that you just shouldn't use it. The best way to get over that is to research about the countries culture and beliefs before you visit them. For example if you were going to Brazil you would look at what hand gestures mean in that country as you don't want to offend a nation. If you still have a problem then while you are in the country ask one on the people living there what you have done wrong so next time you are prepared.
Interpersonal Communication Barriers
There are quite a few types of interpersonal communication barriers, they can be quite serious sometimes. A common barrier is emotion, there are many way emotions can cause a barrier. The best way to explain it is, they mind builds a wall that stops them from talking about certain subjects and things. It is difficult for them to express there feelings and they get insecure easily. A way around the emotional barrier is to try and avoid the topics that they may have a problem with. An example of this is someone with anxiety would not be able to talk in front of big crowds, they would struggle because they have no idea how the people will react. They wouldn't want to embarrass themselves as it could make it even harder for them to do it again. The best way to help that situation would be to give them the information they need that would not be too difficult for them to present comfortably. Another way you could overcome that would be to have someone presenting with them so that if they got uncomfortable the other person could take over.
Written Communication Barriers
There are many ways that you could make written mistakes, for example grammar and spelling are the most important. Grammar is important because it could create a positive or negative reaction. This is possible because with a sentence can have two different meanings if the grammar is different. An example is this is with the sentence 'a woman without her man is nothing. The two ways you could put that is; A woman, without a man, is nothing. The alternate is; A woman: without her, man is nothing. As you can see with just a few punctuation changes this whole sentence has a different meaning. Not only grammar so is spelling, one spelling mistakes could cause the whole presentation to go downhill. Spelling mistakes are often made on words that have many spelling and different meanings such as; they're, their and there. These are often put in the wrong context because people don't know to use them correctly.Too avoid a grammar mistake the best way would be too get several people to proof read your work, ideally one of each sex, this is so that the answer isn't sexist and you have the voice of females and males. That way you would have two opinions and it would be easier to change what you have done. One way to overcome spelling is to again ask people to check you're spelling or just use spell check, but if you do both you have more chance of making sure what you have written is correct.