DESARROLLO PROFESIONAL (PARCIAL)

Metalinguistic Awareness: Ability to reflect on the nature of language.

Language: Function to communicate. Is in our brain and the people around us. Cannot
exist in an isolated environment (Social Activity). Languages are living organisms, they
evolve and die.

Perception and Meaning

-We experience the outside world through our senses. We don’t see reality as it is, it is
how we perceive and is captured by our sensory organs and processed in our brain.

Perception: Process by which people select, organize and interpret information to

form a picture of their world. The factors that determine how you perceive your
environment are: Culture, Context, Bias, Motivations, Emotions and Expectations.

Perception is Inward / Language is outward

Connotation: Cultural or emotional association that a word or phrase carries. Can be

positive or negative. Unique / Weird
Denotation: The literal meaning

Coinage: The invention of a new word or phrase.

Elements of Communication

Communication: Purposefully and actively exchanging information between two or

more people to send or receive a message.

People may not always remember what you said, but they will remember how you
made them feel.

Axioms of Communication

-One cannot NOT communicate

-Every communication has a content
-Communication involves Digital (Literal meaning of words) and Analog (How do we
say things) modalities.
-Communication can be Symmetrical (Equally likely to influence eachother) or
Complementary (People with different communication styles converse).
-One something is said, you cannot take it back (Irreversible)

Sender (Encoding) Message (Channel) -Noise  Filter  Reciever (Decoding) 

Feedback
Types of noises

-Physical Noise: Loud music, Airplanes, Barking dogs…

-Psychological Noise: Worries, Crushing deadlines…
-Physiological Noise: Feeling ill, Headache…
-Semantic Noise: Mispronunciation, Euphamism…

Non-Verbal Communication

Types  Facial expressions, Gestures, Eye contact, Touch, Voice, Posture…

Kinesics: The study of the body’s physical movements

Body language helps to identify emotions in others and also makes you feel more
powerful, attractive and charismatic.

-Open Body Language: People with open personalities are expressive, interactive, and
hands-on. They also are, at times, aggressive and argumentative. They tend to make
extensive use of hands while speaking (Uncrossed legs and arms).

-Closed Body Language: People with closed personalities are the ones with hidden
motives. They tend to cross their arms, cross their legs, keep hands close to their body
while speaking, and a one-tone voice (Crossed legs and arms).

Facial Expressions: Combination of motor and emotional signals. They can be honest
or fake. These two type of facial expressions are controlled by:

-Limbic system (Natural): “Factory of emotions”. Once we experience an emotion, it is

immediately reflected by our facial expressions or body language.

-Motor cortex (Controlled): Volitional control over our facial expressions. We use this
system to force certain expressions to our face.

Postures and Movement

Postures  Dominance / Submission

Mirroring: Behavior in which one person unconsciously imitates the gesture, speech
pattern or attitude of another. It’s the subconscious replication of another person’s
nonverbal signals.

Communicative gestures: Produced intentionally by a person as a way of intensifying

his speech.

Informative gestures: Passive gestures that provide information about the speaker as
a person and not about what he is trying to communicate.
Eye contact (Mutual gaze): Sign of trustwothiness. But don’t overdo it. Some tips are:

-30% rule
-Turn your look to your interlocutor slowly.
-Break your gaze every now and then with a gesture or soft nod
-Slow blinking can be meaningful
-Don’t look away, focus on another sport on their face
-Don’t look down when looking away.

Space

Proxemics: Study of space in interpersonal relations

Personal space: How we use space says a lot about us and it is important for effective
communication (Intimate  Personal  Social).

Room Layout: The way we set up the room is conductive to different types of
communication.

Speaker positioning: Power (In front of the people), Collaboration (In front but closer),
Confrontation (In the center).

Touch

Social functions of touch: Feeling of reward, Reinforces reciprocity, Signals safety.

Effective communication through touch:

-Give praise by patting someone’s back
-Touching an adversary makes them more open to your ideas
-Make that handshake a little longer

Voice

Paralinguistics: Study of non-verbal cues in spoken language.

Important aspects of the voice: Quality, Volume, Pace, Pitch, Cadence…

Silence is an effective tool to convey meaning. Use it to Gather your bearings,

Emphasis and Drama.
Active Listening and Communication Styles

A sender’s message contains both verbal and non verbal content as well as a feeling
component. Be aware of both to comprehend the total meaning of the message.

1. Listen the message content

2. Listen for feelings and try to understand what the person is trying to say
3. Respond to the message and the feelings
4. Note all cues, verbal and nonverbal
5. Rephrase the sender’s message

Communication Styles

People Pleasing: Related with our need to belong. Most people want to experience
that sense of belonging to a group. The causes are fear, low self-esteem, fear of
rejection. The symptoms are Ignore own needs, Easily persuaded, Speak softly.

-Passive Communication: Avoids expressing opinions or feelings. They don’t respond

overtly to hurtful situations. Instead, they allow them and explode.
-Agressive Communication: Express their needs and opinions in a way that violates the
rights of others. They are verbally and physically abusive.
-Passive Agressive: Appear passive on the surface but are really acting out anger. They
express their anger by undermining the object of their resentments.
-Assertive Communication: Individuals state their opinions and feelings and advocate
for their rights and needs without violating the rights of others. They are respectful.

How to communicate assertively?

-Acknowledge what you and others really need

-Be aware of your body language
-3 Cs: Confident, Clear and Controlled
-Identify Problem  Describe It  Express how you feel  Ask for the other person’s
perspective  List the positive outcomes if the situation is changed.

Cultural Differences in Communication

Challenges facing global managers:

-Understand how companies are organized across countries

-Develop effective cross-cultural communication skills
-Know how cultural differences can influence employees and their performances.
-Develop effective negotiating skills to build and sustain global partnerships
-Develop an understanding of leadership across cultures

Culture: Has visible (Gender, race, clothes, food) and invisible elements (Values,beliefs)
-It’s shared by members of a group
-It’s not innate. It is learned through membership in a group/community.
-Influences the attitudes and behaviors of group members
-It’s heterogeneous and dynamic

Cultural Dimensions (4 core cultural dimensions)

Time: One way in which cultures differ is in how people conceive and handle time, and
how their concept of time affects their interactions with each other.
-Monochronic: Do one thing at a time. Finish a task before starting another. Avoid
interruptions. Punctuality. Job centered.  To be late is rute
-Polychronic: Do several things at once. Not essential to finish a task before another.
Interruptions are normal. Improvisation is ok. People centered.  Not rude

Uncertainty and Social Control:

-Universalism (Rules): Rulles are applied equally to everyone (Same treatment).

-Particularism (Exceptions): Depends on the situation. Better treatment for family and
friends.

Social Relations:

-Individualistic: Stands for a society in which the ties between individuals are loose:
everyone is expected to look after himself or herself and his/her immediate family.
Independence, Self Interest, Competition, Informal, Direct communication…

-Collectivistic: Stands for a society in which people from birth are integrated into strong
and cohesive ingroups, which throughout people’s lifetime continue to protect them in
exchange for unquestioning loyalty.
Interdependence, Group Interest, Cooperation, Formal, Indirect communication…

Power Distribution:

-Large: Vertical, Ranks and Titles, Dependent on superiors, Centralised decision-

making, Authority is not questioned, Leaders appointed.

-Small: Horizontal, Participative, Collaborative decision-making, Self-sufficient,

Question authority, Leaders elected.

Feedback: Process of observing and then commenting on people’s behaviors and skills
in order to maintain or improve their performance. Helps employees recognize
weaknesses and strengths to become more effective and improve performance.
Digital and Media Literacy

-Decision-making is based on information. The quality of the information shapes the

quality of our decisions and our experience. (TMI  Too much information).
 Filtering information is important

Media landscape today  Confusing, Ubiquitous, New tech, Unreliable, Relentless.

Codes  Symbolic (colours, objects, animals), Written (buzzwords, catchphrases) and

Technical (angle, framing, lighting).

Fake news

Misinformation: False information spread regardless of intent to mislead.

Disinformation: Knowingly spreading misinformation.

Propaganda: (Dis) Information spread to make someone look good or bad.

Fragmentation of news sources: We can pick and choose the media that suits our
tastes and prejudices.

Algorithms that create news feeds don’t seek objectivity, they want reach.

Filter bubble: When a user only finds information and opinions that reinforce their
own beliefs, caused by algorithms.

Psychological factors at play

Cognitive dissonance: Mental disconfort that results from holding two conflicting
beliefs, values or attitudes.
Example  I should lose weight vs I don’t have time to exercise /healthy food not tasty

How to reduce Cognitive dissonance  Change belief, action or action perception.

Types of bias:

-Explicit bias: Attitudes and beliefs that we consciously hold and express about a group
-Implicit bias: Attitudes and beliefs about other people, ideas… outside of our
conscious awareness that affect our opinions.
-Confirmation bias: Subconscious tendency to seek information that affirms our
existing beliefs.

Cherrypicking: Gathering information selectively or interpreting it in a biased way.

Picking sources that suit you, while ignoring the contradicting ones.
Written Expression

Academic writing: Persuade how much you know. Only audience is the professor.
 Essay, Abstract, Book review, Journal entry, Research report,
Business writing: Focuses on problem solving and targets multiple audiences.
 Email, Letter, Report, Memo, Proposal, Executive summary, Slide presentation

Writing prompts: Explain, Define, Classify, Analyze, Compare, Show cause and effect,
Narrate, Describe, Discuss your experience, Persuade and convince, State your opinion.

Wordiness: When you use more words than you need to write what you mean. (based
on the fact that  Because)
 Trying to sound too formal or academic.
Not knowing more precise vocabulary.
 Using too many unnecesary and vague modifiers.
 Using too many prepositional phrases or possessives.

Draft: An early version of a piece of writing

1. Create an outline for your writing (Intro, Body paragraphs, Conclusion)  Write
your introduction  Craft your paragraphs  Conclusion

How to survive the internet

Credible website  Statistics, graphs, numbers, all these make people believe from
the start that the site is more reliable. But most people rarely ever check the sources.

Question approach  Who is behind the information  Evidence  Other sources

Lateral reading: Vertical navigation means you only see information that the author
wants you to see. You need to leave the website to know more about the content, or
the author. Open up new tabs and scroll to the side, instead of vertically.

Authority: One’s recognised knowledge os expertise on a topic.

Writing business emails

Anatomy  Salutation (Dear …), Message content, Closing (Regards, Sam)

Do’s: -Structure the email carefully

-Spell and grammar check
-Write in the active voice
-Use bullet points instead of long paragraphs
Don’t’s: -Write in caps
-Use emoticons
-Overuse “Urgent” to get a prompt reply to your question