Essay on Evolution of Communication : We communicate our ideas, feelings and needs to others using words. In the same way, we come to know of others, ideas, feelings and needs by the medium of words. The capacity to communicate distinguishes human beings from other animals. Progress and development achieved by man is the result of his capacity to communicate. Man is gifted with a brilliant organ—the brain. He has a developed brain. He is not as strong as other wild animals physically. However, he makes use of the brain to his advantage that he is able to prove his superiority over all other beings. Man is able to control the muscles of tongue, chest, larynx and jaws to produce a variety of sounds. These sounds form the basis of speech. He has given certain meanings to these sounds. The people of a certain region understand these common sounds having common meanings. Thus, these sounds take the form of a spoken language.
Essay on Evolution of Communication
When you get up in the morning, you are greeted with words, “Good morning, get up now.” It is followed by endless trail of words in the school bus, in the school, with friends, in the game, with brothers, and sisters, and so on. We confront words in the books, comics, newspapers, television serials, songs, conversation, debates, and so on. Words are inseparable part of our life. They make up communication.
We communicate our ideas, feelings and needs to others using words. In the same way, we come to know of others, ideas, feelings and needs by the medium of words. The capacity to communicate distinguishes human beings from other animals. Progress and development achieved by man is the result of his capacity to communicate.
Man is gifted with a brilliant organ—the brain. He has a developed brain. He is not as strong as other wild animals physically. However, he makes use of the brain to his advantage that he is able to prove his superiority over all other beings.
Man is able to control the muscles of tongue, chest, larynx and jaws to produce a variety of sounds. These sounds form the basis of speech. He has given certain meanings to these sounds. The people of a certain region understand these common sounds having common meanings. Thus, these sounds take the form of a spoken language.
Man lives in the society. He interacts with the members of his family, community, society and nation. The human beings depend on one another. They interact and communicate with one another. A child learns the basic language in his family, followed by school, community and nation. He gradually masters and grammar of the language and is able to communicate what he wants to.
In the same way, man started to give expression to his feelings, emotions and needs in a written form, though this journey has never been smooth. During the prehistoric times, Early Man was not able to communicate is feelings and needs property, Moreover, his needs were limited to food, cloth and shelter. As the sphere of his needs expanded, so did his ability to communicate.
Early man started to give expression to his feelings and aesthetic sense by marks. When he wanted to say a ‘horse’, he actually drew one. That is, the earliest writing was pictorial in nature.
Over a long period of time, he simplified these signs into letters of alphabet. But this process has taken a long time to occur. We can find the pictures drawn by Early Man in the caves from which the earliest signs of written communication evolved. Today, these letters of alphabet stand for specific sounds and their groups form the words which give out a certain meaning.
With the passage of time, man learnt how to grow food. Earlier, he was a hunter and food gatherer. So he did not need to wander now from one place to another in search of food and shelter. This progress was the result of communication, as he communicated the new developments with other people coming into his contact.
Communication has become so complicated that the children have to spend the formative years of their lives learning how to read and write. Then they use these abilities in acquiring knowledge in various fields.
Human communication is the process of creating a similar meaning in the minds of the listener or reader. The two methods of communication are speech and writing. We are not discussing the signal method, as a traffic policeman uses. It is important that the listener or reader is able to receive the communication as accurately as possible. It should be clear and without any ambiguity.
Spoken communication forms the sound waves which travel by the medium of air. The sound waves travel at a speed of about 340 metres per second. The quality of communication depends on the distance between the speaker and listener. Beyond a certain distance, the communication becomes incomprehensible. Other factors also influence communication, such as background noise. You must have seen the use of a public address system. It consists of a microphone, an amplifier and a loudspeaker. They help radiate the speech sounds by amplifying it considerably.
Written communication was not in existence from the earliest times when Early Man started to write. He made his first signs or marks in the rocks and caves. He also learnt how to make clay tablets. He made tablets of clay and made marks on them using pointed sticks. Then he dried them up or baked in fire. These clay tablets reveal how Early Man must have started to communicate in writing. The tree barks and leaves wee also used for writing later.
With time, paper was invented. Earlier, boos were written by hand. So they took considerable time in producing them. With the invention of printing machine, this task became easier. Now, we can produce books by the millions in no time.
Today, written communication has diminished to a great extent. Its place has been taken up by the communication on telephone. We find to easier and more convenient to dial the telephone and talk to a person direct, rather than waiting for his reply in the written form.
The use of modern technologies has transformed the world communication greatly. It has literally shrunk the size of the world. Now we can call the world a global village.
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