barriers to communication

What are barriers to communication…?

Barriers of communication consist of anything that hider’s communications or makes communication between people difficult. A barrier of communication will prevent you being able to communicate effectively

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1.    General Communication Skills

Terminology –

People may be slang words that the other person may not have heard before which will cause them to become confused and will make communication difficult.  If one person is using technical terms or jargon that the other person is not familiar with it will cause communication to become difficult.   There are some terms used by people in one country but not in others and if there are used in a conversation it can lead to confusing and cause a barrier to communication.

Cultural differences-

If there are any cultural differences between the speakers and there audiences it may make communication difficult as some words may not mean the same to the speaker and the audience. They can cause problems particularly if some words are offensive to one person and not to the others. There are some words and gestures which can be harmless in one culture but offensive or rude in another and these can lead the speaker to restrict to what they can say or do which causes a barrier.

Disabilities-

Someone may suffer from a hearing or sight disability which will make it hard to communicate to them effectively.  On the other hand someone may suffer from a speech problem which makes it difficult for them to communicate to others.  If someone can’t hear or see the speaker clearly it will become very hard to understand what they are trying to say and it will be hard to know how they are saying it.

1.    Interpersonal Skills

Background Noise-

If there is too much background noise it can make communication very difficult. It can make it very hard to hear the person who is speaking; this leads to misunderstandings which can make the whole conversation useless or even counterproductive.  If there is too much background noise you may not be able to hear the tone of the speaker making it hard to understand how they are talking making things like sarcasm difficult to detect.

Body Language-

Body language if used incorrectly can be a distract the audience which can lead top them losing interest in what is going on and then them not understanding what is being said which can cause a conversation to break down.  Some body language may not be understood by the audience or may be taken the wrong way.

3. Written Communication

Context-

Someone may use words or phrases out of context which will lead to sentences not making sentence and being very hard to understand. This will lead to the reader becoming confused and not understanding. If phrases and certain words are used out of context it can make the sentence mean something else entirely. 

Spelling and Grammar-

Poor spelling can cause the reader to not understand certain important words which have been misspelled which means they will not understand what is being said.   Poor grammar can also lead to the reader not understanding what is being said