Communication is: exchanging and sharing information, knowledge, experiences and emotions. The starting point is that people want to share with each other their observations, experiences and their perception of the world. By breaking down the entire process of communicating into smaller areas we will understand it better. This is necessary for anyone who wants to improve their conversation techniques. This article discusses four different aspects of communication.
The substantive aspect
First of all, each message contains business information, a description of facts. We call this the business or substantive aspect. All conversations are about something, and it can be anything: the weather, an event, the behavior of someone else, a weekend away, a test result, and so on. You can find the topic of a conversation by asking yourself what the key words of the conversation are.
The substantive aspect seems to be the simplest of the four. After all, it seems crystal clear what the topic of a conversation is. Yet people can disagree outright with each other about what the content is or should be, and talk past each other. Just think of the statement: But that’s not what I’m talking about at all! or I don’t mean that at all! The cause of disagreement about the content of the conversation is usually caused by ambiguity about one of the other aspects.
The expressive aspect
A message does not only consist of information about the matter at hand. The sender of the message, or the person speaking, also reveals something of himself, he reveals something about his personality. The expressive aspect has a lot to do with how we want to come across to the other person.
You can think of the way someone presents themselves, for example through clothing style, body language, talking with or without an accent, etc. The same person will present themselves differently in different situations. For example, he will dress differently when he goes for a job interview than when he goes out. But he will probably also want to emphasize a different part of his personality when he meets his parents-in-law than when he plays sports.
The expressive aspect is therefore about the desire to bring out the inner self.
The relational aspect
Communication also has a relational aspect. This aspect is also called a relationship aspect. It is an implicit message about how you see the other person. Through attitude and word choice you let us know how you assess the relationship with the other person. A friend who cries on you shows that he feels safe with you and that he trusts you. When you tell a teacher to close the window, you show that you consider yourself in a position to give the teacher an assignment. If the teacher responds with ‘who do you think you are?’, you immediately know that the teacher does not accept your description of the relationship. With regard to the relational aspect of communication, it is striking that the battle over content may not be about content at all, but rather concerns the question: ‘Who determines the content, who is in charge here?
The appealing aspect
When we communicate, we unconsciously make suggestions to each other about how to respond to each other. We call this the appealing aspect. You are, as it were, appealing to the other person, you are trying to influence the other person. We see this most clearly in a question like, ,Can you tell me what time it is?, If the answer is ‘yes’, then we are probably not satisfied. This question contains a number of orders or assignments: We believe that we have the right to ask the other person something, we assume that the other person agrees with us, we assume that the other person is willing to answer and that he does so. The appealing aspect has to do with power. It is intended to achieve something for another person, by verbally and non-verbally maneuvering the other person into a certain position. A comment such as ‘it’s cold here’ can be a neutral statement, but can simultaneously imply different commands, for example: ‘Close the window’, ‘Turn up the heating’, ‘Go to a warmer place!’ It is striking that the relational aspect and the appealing aspect are not clearly distinguishable, they partially overlap and are strongly intertwined.
Example
An example: A woman stops at a red traffic light. Then her husband, who is sitting next to her, says, ,It’s green., The couple gets into a heated argument. The cause of that argument probably does not lie in the content of the message. The light is green, there is no discussion about that. Regarding the expressive aspect, the man shows that he pays attention, that he is not color blind and that he speaks Dutch, but he also expresses that he thinks that his wife does not pay attention, or worse, is not capable of being a good speaker herself. to make an estimate. On the relational level, the man expresses that he sees himself as the leader in the situation, and on the appeal level, he instructs his wife to respond more quickly. And now it’s just three words…
The four aspects of the message always play a role at the same time, and they influence each other. Therefore, the communicative person must master all four. If he controls only one aspect, communication breakdowns are inevitable.