Communication

When you are communicating to your audience you should understand who will be receiving the message. “To connect with your audience in a meaningful way, you must remember that no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care! How can you show them how much you care? One way is by avoiding common speaking pitfalls that alienate rather than endear listeners” (July 98, Liemberg). Language can have different meanings based on the age of the group. A word to a 15 year old may mean something completely different to someone who is 40 years old. It can cause confusion and misunderstanding. Gender differences can also affect your communication to your audience. Are you speaking to females? Are you speaking to males? Females tend to listen more and be more sympathetic. Males are more direct they ask questions and want to get straight to the point. If your fail to communicate based on the gender of your audience, the female group might think the speaker is being insensitive or cruel. The male audience may think that they are taking too long or not being proactive and taking care of the issues they are discussing. In both cases though, the audience may think that the speaker is being sexes and can create conflict among the group.

When revising our memo we assumed that the executive vice president was an educated, professional, male. in this case the gender of the vice president wasn’t absolutely necessary, the tone of this particular memo was changed because of his title., when writing a letter to a coworker the tone can be friendly and informal; while you should still be friendly with the vice president a letter to him or her needs to be more direct and professional.

Another barrier that needs to be considered is cultural barriers. Different countries have different meaning even though you might be using the same word or phrase. A high-context culture, people rely heavily on nonverbal cues like body language, facial expression, and less words. Official...