Misunderstanding and Misinterpretation Doc

Running head: COMMUNICATION 1
Communication
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COMMUNICATION 2
Communication Problem: Misunderstanding and Misinterpretation
Based on circumstances surrounding global integration, communication plays a
significant role in human life, especially in the business platform. Every interaction in business is
conducted through information transfer, and the concept of communication is therefore entirely
relevant. According to Fisher (2011), every individual has different communication capabilities
and competencies, which bring out the issue of dynamism presented in the way individuals,
interpret and understand messages. The understanding and interpretation ability of the
communicating parties plays a significant role in the communication process (Bowe et al. 2014).
Therefore, lack of proper understanding and message interpretation leads to communication
failure.
According to Greenberg & Baron (2013), the authors point out that lack of proper
interpretation is caused by the lack of attention in the process, and can also be dictated by
education levels among participants. I believe that message misinterpretation is a communication
problem, which leads to distortion of meanings, and the overall distortion of the intended
message. For example, one party may be focused on highlighting essential concepts in a
functional unit in an organization, while the intended recipient may end up interpreting the same
as an authoritative gesture, rather than information which is passed for subsequent action to be
undertaken (Kraut et al. 2010). The attitudes of individuals also determine the way individuals
interpret messages.
A negative attitude towards the speaker is bound to interfere with the process and its
effectiveness. All forms of communication are open to interpretation and understanding. In most
cases, individuals are keen to make assumptions about the message they receive, through reading

COMMUNICATION 3
or hearing, which compromises the prior intention (Kraut et al. 2010). The use of nonverbal cues,
for example, is profoundly affected by generated assumptions, which in turn leads to
misunderstanding and misinterpretation of messages. For example, from an organization context,
employees who avoid eye contact may make other Course mates assume that he or she is
continually hiding some information from them, while he or she might merely be shy, or suffer
from an inferiority complex that has not yet been understood (Kraut et al. 2010).
The pragmatic concept of addressing the problem
The concept of pragmatic competence helps solve most issues in the field of communication. In
communication, two significant issues are distinct, including utterance interpretation and the
speaker meaning. Recipients have not only to understand words uttered, but also hear what is
communicated. Communicative competence is therefore emphasized in pragmatics, and the need
to further understand the use of language and how to interpret meanings (Thomas, 2013). There
is a need to balance available languages, to discover meanings, rather than rush into conclusions
in the long term. Every language has different styles of communication, and socially familiar
gestures should, therefore, be applied to enhance understanding. Different strategies can also be
applied to enhance understanding and proper interpretation of messages in the communication
process. Face to face communication is considered the most efficient, considering the immediate
feedback which is essential. Below is an example of dialogue, between me and my coursemate,
which presents the problem of misunderstanding and misinterpretation in communication.
Course mate: I heard you asked to talk to me.
Me: Yes, I meant to ask you about the status of the assignment you did last week, which seems
to have a significant problem due to the vague nature of the explanations provided.