Communication Breakdown

Definition

• There are certain things that disrupt the flow

of communication. In such a situation,
communication suffers a breakdown.
Something that interferes with the flow of
communication or prevents the smooth
passage of a message can be called
communication breakdown or barrier.
 Breakdown at the source
• Following are the barriers to communication:

• Faltering with words

Sometimes inadequate experience in speaking or writing
acts as a hinderance for you in developing effective
messages.
Limited vocabulary

• Indecisive about Content

• The first hindrance in the communication is what to say.
 Faltering with words
• When you send the message, you have to
decide the sequence of the matter and what
information you should include and what you
have to leave out.
Unfamiliarity with the Receiver or Situation

• It is necessary to get know about the audience

‘s educational qualification, background,
biases, age ,status etc. in order to create
messages effectively.
• If you don’t know the audience, your decision
will be vague and while delivering the
information , it may lack clarity.
 Difference in perception
• Since our perceptions are unique , the ideas
we wish to express differs from one another.
• Even when two people experience the same
event, their method of describing the situation
will differ as they will have different images in
their minds.
 Difference in Perception
• The best example of different perception is the story of six blind
men and an elephant. These blind men were asked to describe an
elephant by feeling one. The person positioned near the tail of the
elephant felt it and said it was like a snake. The blind man who had
felt the leg of the elephant said it was like a pole, the third person ,
who had the trunk of the elephant in his hand said that it felt like a
python and the person who touched the body of the elephant said
that it felt like a huge wall, so each one of them had different
perceptions of the elephant. But in a way , all of them were right,
because they had those senses from which their conclusions were
drawn. But in a real sense, none of them was right, because an
elephant doesn’t look like a snake or wall. An elephant is an
elephant.
 Improper sifting
• Sifting through only the information that
seems important to the receiver before
passing it on further leads to distortion of the
message.
• Frame the message as concisely and precisely
as possible.
 Semantic Gap
• Language and vocabulary create their own
hindrances on your message. For example , a
chartered accountant’s vocabulary will differ
from that of an engineer or a scientist and this
difference in their vocabulary will affect their
ability to understand each other and
formulate ideas.
 Semantic Gap
• Barriers also exist because of the number of
meanings associated with some words. For
example , the word ‘run’ has 72 meanings
associated with it as a verb and 18 as a noun.
• Even the denotative meaning of a word varies to a
great deal. For example, if we say ‘fan’ it mean hand
fan, pedestal fan, ceiling fan, table fan or exhaust
fan. Though commonly it is agreed that a fan is a
device that helps in creating current of air but the
images are different.
 Semantic gap
• In order to overcome the semantic gap, use
more concrete and specific words to convey
the exact meaning.
• Avoid unfamiliar and long words as your
audience will face difficulty in understanding
them.
 Poor listening
• Poor listening is one of the most common reasons of
creating barrier in the communication process.
• It is a well-known fact that very few of us have good
listening skills. The root cause of this problem is that a
speaker can speak upto 120-150 words per minute ,
which is much less as compared to the listener’s ability to
listen upto 500-700 words per minute. So , there exists a
gap between speaking and listening which is called as a
brain time. During this time, the receiver’s mind wanders
in different directions and he finds hard to concentrate.
 Different backgrounds
• The barriers can be in the form of age, gender,
economic and social status, health, beauty,
popularity, religion and even the moods to
make understanding difficult. If two
individuals have similar experiences , it will
contribute to better understanding.
 Breakdown in the organization
• Variance in emotional states

• Inundation of Information

• Abstruse Message

• Innumerable Channels

• Disparity in Status
 Barriers to communication

• Lack of Trust

• Too Many Transfer Stations

• Wrong Choice of Medium

 Barriers to communication

• Unethical Communication

• Physical Distractions