Conflict In The Straw Market

1193 Words5 Pages

Each day, people interact with each other sending messages back and forth. According to According to Wood in Communication Mosaics (2010, pg. 35), this - communication between people – is interpersonal communication. Wood explains that interpersonal communication can be done verbally or non-verbally, and is face-to-face communication. What this means is it is not just about what is actually said (the language used), but how it is said (tone of voice, facial expressions, gestures, body language). During visitations at the Straw Market, a lot of communication problems were seen between vendor to vendor communication. It is important to note that conflicts do not affect relationships between vendors; rather it is how vendors deal with/manage conflicts …show more content…

If they were not, differences would not matter and would not need to be resolved. Vendors can be found arguing because they care about issues that affect them all. But it is impossible to look at conflict in the Straw Market without first acknowledging the four key components of the conflict process. As described by Clyde Feldman and Carl Ridley (2000), the four components are conflicts of interest, conflict orientations, conflict responses, and conflict outcomes. Initially, the first stage is where potential conflicts could develop between vendors because of differences in opinions, interest or goals. Then, the second stage is where each vendor in the conflict choose how to perceive the conflict that arises between the parties. Next, the third stage is the behavioral responses, or the decision that vendors make to take a certain type of action. Lastly, the fourth stage is the resulting outcome – how conflict is managed and how it affected the vendors’ …show more content…

107) describes paralanguage as “Communication that is vocal but not actual words.” This represents/stands for vocal sounds, volume, pitch, rhythm and inflection. These (vocal cues) signal to vendors whether to interpret what other vendors say as a threat, joke, statement question, etcetera. Vendor A’s high volume in voice when shouting at vendor B expressed the emotion (conviction) in what was being said. And the lack of rhythm drew a sense of seriousness. From these indicators, vendor B knew not to smile, laugh or exchange pleasantries simply based on vendor A’s display of paralanguage alone. These illustrate the importance that all vendors should monitor their non-verbal communication as well as carefully interpret each

Open Document