Relationship and context Dimensions

Relationship and context
Blog entry 002, week 1
One of the important principles of communication is that communication involves content and relationship dimensions. According to the textbook, it can “exist on at least two levels ; a single message can refer to something external to both speaker and listener.....as well as the relationship between speaker and listener” (DeVito,2008) To demonstrate refer to the case below.
Situation
An elder sister just came back from meeting long-lost friends says to her younger sister
“ My friends said I looked thin... They said I’m prettier than the last time we met and they really admire me for my beauty and brains...” To analyse, we can see that the content dimension is that the elder sister is slimmer, beautiful and admired by her friends. The relationship dimension is that the elder sister is saying that the younger sister is fat, ugly and stupid compared to the elder sister. However, the relational part of the communication depends on many other aspects of message conveying such as nonverbal behaviour, intonation and choice of words.
To conclude, relational message perceived as personal attack or criticism is just an assumption if relevant aspects of decoding message is not fully utilised.
Posted by, Wan Hani Arifah Binti W Mohd Saleh (B0802457)