Reflective Essay: The Art Of Communication

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The art of communication has been around since the dawn of time, and continues to evolve as humanity evolves. Despite this fact, many still find it arduous to communicate effectively with others. This is because most people do not understand that communication is much more than just moving air through our vocal folds. In order to maximize our ability to communicate, we must first fully understand communication and all its components at their most rudimentary level; chief among them being nonverbal messages. Nonverbal messages of communication are the components that do not require speaking, like: emblems, regulators, illustrators, adaptors and affect displays. An ideal example to use would be my recent experience at a high school football scrimmage. …show more content…

Feeling the pressure of his team being down by a touchdown, Jack just sat there peering at the players, nervously biting his fingernails in an attempt to find comfort in the troubling situation. This gesture is known as an adaptor (biting fingernails). As the home team prepared for kick off, a hush fell over the stadium. The kicker finally punted the ball off to the opposing team’s kick returner. The runner made a hard left, then a right, broke two tackles, and made it to the forty-eight-yard line before being forced out of bounds by a tackler. Jack held his head up a bit and cracked a smile that was just big enough to notice. Judging from Jack’s affect display (smile), I could assume he was pleased with what his team had just done. Halfway into the first quarter, Jack spotted one of his school friends in the bleachers and walked over to go greet him. The two embraced each other with a handshake and a pat on the back, then began to converse. After about two minutes of speaking to each other, Jack’s friend took a glance at his watch and continued smiling and nodded as Jack spoke. The friend used a regulator

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