The beginning of the “Manuscript Era,” around 3500 BCE, marked the turn from oral to written culture. Poe, A History of Communications: Media and Society from the Evolution of Speech to the Internet (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 36. This eventually led to the development of a “Talking Culture” during the “Talking Era.” During this 150,000 year period of human existence, ranging from 180,000 BCE to 3500 BCE, talking was the only medium of communication, aside from gestures, that humans had.Marshall T.
Poe, A History of Communications: Media and Society from the Evolution of Speech to the Internet(New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 27. Those humans who could talk were able to cooperate, share information, make better tools, impress mates, or warn others of danger, which led them to have more offspring who were also more predisposed to communicate.Marshall T. In any case, this primitive ability to communicate provided an evolutionary advantage. He or she could use gurgle to alert others to the presence of water or swoosh and whack to recount what happened on a hunt. Just think about how a prehistoric human could have communicated a lot using these words and hand gestures. You may remember from your English classes that onomatopoeia refers to words that sound like that to which they refer-words likeboing, drip, gurgle, swoosh,Īnd whack. Some scholars speculate that humans’ first words were onomatopoetic. However, humans haven’t always had the sophisticated communication systems that we do today. It’s true that you can teach a gorilla to sign words like food and baby, but its ability to use symbols doesn’t extend to the same level of abstraction as ours. The ability to think outside our immediate reality is what allows us to create elaborate belief systems, art, philosophy, and academic theories. We can also reflect on the past and imagine our future. Word education, to discuss a concept that encapsulates many aspects of teaching and learning. For example, we have the capacity to use abstract symbols, like the Larson, Speech Communication: Concepts and Behaviors (New York, NY: Holt, Reinhart, and Winston, 1972),Ĥ3. Even though all animals communicate, as human beings we have a special capacity to use symbols to communicate about things outside our immediate temporal and spatial reality.Frank E. While there are rich areas of study in animal communication and interspecies communication, our focus in this book is on human communication. In order to get a context for how communication has been conceptualized and studied, let’s look at a history of the field. Larson,The Functions of Human Communication: A Theoretical Approach (New York, NY: Holt, Reinhart, and Winston, 1976), 23. In fact, since the systematic study of communication began in colleges and universities a little over one hundred years ago, there have been more than 126 published definitions of communication.Frank E. This definition builds on other definitions of communication that have been rephrased and refined over many years. For our purposes in this book, we will definecommunication as the process of generating meaning by sending and receiving verbal and nonverbal symbols and signs that are influenced by multiple contexts. Review the various career options for students who study communication.īefore we dive into the history of communication, it is important that we have a shared understanding of what we mean by the word communication.Distinguish among the five forms of communication.Discuss the history of communication from ancient to modern times.
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