Part A: Describing the miscommunication
An example when a miscommunication has happened in my personal life was with my father whom I have major problems with and no relationship with. I was trying to express my feelings on how he treats myself and my mum and how that was affecting our everyday lives. My mother and I were sitting on our couch at my mum's house and he was sitting on a chair opposite us. As I was trying to tell him how I was feeling, he was not looking at me at all and he was staring out the window. As I was trying to talk to him, he was standing up and practicing golf swings (with an imaginary club). He did not make any eye contact unless my mum told him blatantly to pay attention to me and it was incredibly frustrating. He …show more content…
No matter what is being said, in most cases, there is a clear and obvious meaning that is easily identified. However, there is normally always another meaning to those words or feelings. Sometimes the underlying meaning of the literal words is completely different from the underlying meanings (Devito, 2015). In my situation with my father, I was trying to explain how his actions were affecting my life, not just physically but also emotionally and mentally. DeVito (2015) says that "If you respond only to the surface-level communication (the literal meaning), you miss the opportunity to make meaningful contact with the other person's feelings and needs." Because my father was not listening with depth to understand my feelings and was only listening to the literal meaning of what I was saying, he was taking anything I said about him as a criticism and he was missing the underlying feelings and meanings behind my words. Because he was not listening with depth, he did not understand that I was trying to express how his actions made me feel and how they deeply affect me. If the communication between my father and I was to be successful, he would have to focus on my verbal and non-verbal messages, listen to both my content and relational messages, but to also not disregard my literal meaning of the messages I was trying to tell him (Devito, 2015). My father needed to address and acknowledge my consistent and inconsistent groups of messages and made inferences about what I was meaning and how I was feeling (Devito, 2015). Instead of picking random parts of what I was saying and trying to argue with me, he should have asked questions about what I was saying for him to try and get a better understanding of the messages I was trying to send. My father also had to pay attention to my content and relational messages. According to Soloman and Theiss (2012), "Relational messages are verbal and
An example when a miscommunication has happened in my personal life was with my father whom I have major problems with and no relationship with. I was trying to express my feelings on how he treats myself and my mum and how that was affecting our everyday lives. My mother and I were sitting on our couch at my mum's house and he was sitting on a chair opposite us. As I was trying to tell him how I was feeling, he was not looking at me at all and he was staring out the window. As I was trying to talk to him, he was standing up and practicing golf swings (with an imaginary club). He did not make any eye contact unless my mum told him blatantly to pay attention to me and it was incredibly frustrating. He …show more content…
No matter what is being said, in most cases, there is a clear and obvious meaning that is easily identified. However, there is normally always another meaning to those words or feelings. Sometimes the underlying meaning of the literal words is completely different from the underlying meanings (Devito, 2015). In my situation with my father, I was trying to explain how his actions were affecting my life, not just physically but also emotionally and mentally. DeVito (2015) says that "If you respond only to the surface-level communication (the literal meaning), you miss the opportunity to make meaningful contact with the other person's feelings and needs." Because my father was not listening with depth to understand my feelings and was only listening to the literal meaning of what I was saying, he was taking anything I said about him as a criticism and he was missing the underlying feelings and meanings behind my words. Because he was not listening with depth, he did not understand that I was trying to express how his actions made me feel and how they deeply affect me. If the communication between my father and I was to be successful, he would have to focus on my verbal and non-verbal messages, listen to both my content and relational messages, but to also not disregard my literal meaning of the messages I was trying to tell him (Devito, 2015). My father needed to address and acknowledge my consistent and inconsistent groups of messages and made inferences about what I was meaning and how I was feeling (Devito, 2015). Instead of picking random parts of what I was saying and trying to argue with me, he should have asked questions about what I was saying for him to try and get a better understanding of the messages I was trying to send. My father also had to pay attention to my content and relational messages. According to Soloman and Theiss (2012), "Relational messages are verbal and