Ch 1 - Introduction to Human Communication

Interpersonal Communication

Acting with Awareness

Being fully present with someone: tracking your purpose for the interaction, your words and tone, your body language, and the other person’s verbal and nonverbal cues—then choosing your response deliberately

Appropriate Communication

Communication that fits the situation, relationship, and culture while respecting others’ rights and boundaries and using a suitable channel and tone.

Attention

The mental process of focusing limited cognitive resources on selected information while inhibiting distractions.

Attitude

A learned, relatively stable evaluation of a person, idea, or object that predisposes how you think, feel, and tend to act toward it.

Cognitive Complexity

Your ability to perceive and hold multiple, nuanced interpretations of people and situations, integrate those perspectives, and adapt your message accordingly.

Communication

The transactional process of using words, tone, and nonverbal cues (symbols) to create and share meaning with others in a specific context.

Communication Competence

The ability to achieve your goals effectively and appropriately in a specific context—so you get results while fitting the situation, respecting norms, and maintaining the relationship.

Connotative Definitions

The personal, cultural, and emotional associations a word carries beyond its dictionary meaning.

Denotative Definitions

The explicit, literal, dictionary meaning of a word—the objective, commonly agreed-upon reference, independent of personal feelings or context.

Describing

Stating what you directly observed or heard—concrete, specific, and neutral—without adding judgments, labels, or guesses about motives.

Effective Communication

Creating shared understanding that moves the interaction toward its goal—your message is understood as intended, and the way you deliver it helps achieve the outcome.

Group

Three or more people who interact over time, are interdependent, share a goal or purpose, and develop roles, norms, and a sense of identity together.

Intention

The deliberate outcome you want to create for the other person, the relationship, and the task, which then guides your attention, word choice, tone, and nonverbal cues.

Interpersonal Communication

The transactional process in which two people use verbal, nonverbal, and vocal cues to create shared meaning and manage their relationship in a specific context.

Intrapersonal Communication

The internal process of communicating with yourself—your self-talk, reflections, feelings, imagery, and evaluations—that helps you make meaning, regulate emotions, decide, and plan your behavior.

Mediated Communication

Interaction between people that is carried through a medium rather than face-to-face—for example, phone calls, text messaging, emails, social media, and video conferencing.

Mindful Awareness

Deliberate, nonjudgmental attention to the present moment—your thoughts, feelings, body cues, and the other person’s words and nonverbals—so you can choose your response instead of running on autopilot.

Mindful Communication

Interacting with deliberate, nonjudgemental, present-moment awareness—attending to your intentions, your partner’s words and nonverbals, and your own thoughts and feelings—so you can choose responses that are clear, respectful, and suited to the context instead of reacting on autopilot.

Mindful Practice

The intentional, repeated training of present-moment awareness—before, during, and after interactions—so you notice what’s happening without judgment and choose responses that fit your goals and relationships.

Nonjudging of Inner Experience

Noticing your thoughts, feelings, and body sensations without labeling them as good/bad, right/wrong, or as “me” vs. “not me.” You observe what’s happening inside and let it be, rather than criticizing or trying to fix it immediately.

Nonreactivity to Inner Experience

The capacity to notice thoughts, feelings, and body sensations as they arise and pass without immediately suppressing them, believing them, or acting on them.

Observing

Attending to the other person’s words, tone, facial expression, posture, and context, while also noticing your own thoughts, emotions, and body cues.

Public Communication

One-to-many communication in which a speaker addresses a large, mostly unknown audience to inform, persuade, or entertain—often in a structured setting and sometimes via media that amplify reach.

Self-Monitoring

Your ability to notice how your words, tone, and nonverbal cues are landing in the moment and to adjust your behavior to fit the situation, audience, and norms so you can better achieve your goal.

Symbol

Anything that people agree will stand for something else.

Relationship Dimension

The part of a message that shows how the sender sees the relationship with the receiver—levels of respect, liking, power, familiarity, and involvement—beyond the literal content.

Content Dimension

The literal information in a message—the facts, ideas, or request you’re trying to convey, separate from how you feel about the person or the relationship.