What is our talk making?

Communication is usually considered to be a process for transmitting information and for influencing people. This may be described as a ‘transmission’ model in which an idea is wrapped in words and sent off to another person, who unwraps the words and discovers the idea. This model is useful, but limited. In all communication, it is the context that determines meaning and each person involved in a communication will contribute to the context of the communication. Understanding is continually being created and recreated: both from the context of the sender, and from the context of the receiver.

From a communication perspective ALL behavior is communication – and ALL communication affects behavior. Communication is the medium in which we live. From this perspective, it is not possible NOT to communicate. What we know always comes in one way or another from experience, and our experience is inextricably social. Our worlds are made in communication.