A Critical Analysis Of Relational Communication In Interpersonal Communication Literature Essay Example

Interpersonal communication is a process of exchanging views and information. It is a process of exchanging information between two or more people. This helps to improve the skills and helps the communicator to learn from the exchange of information. Interpersonal communication takes place between two or more people in which one person is the sender of information while the others are receivers. Interpersonal communication takes place in two different methods. One is direct communication and the other in indirect (Kalbfleisch). In direct communication the sender and receiver interact directly without the help of any medium. While in indirect communication, the exchange of information takes place with the help of a mediator. The communication is successful only when the receiver understands the message of the sender.
Here in this report the theories of relational communication’s patterns are discussed and a critical analysis is made of the theory to understand the success of the relational communication in interpersonal communication. This has attracted several researchers to study how the interpersonal communication helps to solve the problems in the organizations with a goal set from politeness, conflict management and relationship accomplishment. Since last decade several changes have been noticed in thinking about interpersonal communication. Relational communication is a vague theory that makes it difficult to establish in real life. To understand relational communication people need to understand the MEG hierarchy that is specially based on metatalk and goal oriented communication. As per goal oriented communication, relational communication is the composition of messages in nonverbal, verbal and sequence form. This helps to send relational information to the receiver. This type of communication can be unspoken, unnamed and implicit in nature. It is actually a feeling of communication (Conville and Rogers). On other hand, if relational metatalk is considered, it is a type of explicit communication that is used to talk about the relational meaning.
Malcolm R. Parks (1977) in his study presents the origin of relational communication in his article named Relational Communication: Theory and research. The objective of the study was present the real theory of relational communication in place of the apparent theory. Parks in his paper says that relational communication is a type of message that defines or redefines relationships. As per Parks, the definition of relational communication is “Aspects of messages which define and redefine relationships. Complementarily and symmetry have been suggested as the central constructs of a theory of relational communication (PARKS).” But most of the people appraise the work of Bateson that helps to establish a better theory than that of Parks. As per Parks, it has been known that relational communication is not considered as a part of speech communication before the early 1970’s. This is because people use to consider relational communication as a vague communication because of its silent nature which is most of the time was a non verbal communication.
As relational communication is considered as a nonverbal communication it is use to take place through eye contacts or gesture of the communicators. It becomes hard for the people who do not understand the information transferred through eye contact or gesture. That made the theory a failure. As it is known that communicating through eye contact or gesture is a part of relational communication and it was hard to understand for the receivers, the theory became vague and there came an opportunity to develop better theory for relational communication. It became important for the communicators to create close boning for interpersonal communication through relation communication, which was unsuccessful in most of the time during the official communication. There came up the certainty and uncertainty of understanding the communication and this led to creation of problems in relational communication.
Though this theories have solid points to be real in the actual worlds, but if the working environment is considered. The theory of relational communication is vague and can be corrected through other communication theories. The expectations, patterns of interactions, symmetrical relationships and the other theories bounding the relational communication failed when tested in actual real world. Different analyses by the researcher have been used in this study to compare the relational communication theory with other theories to understand the effects of those theories in the prospect of relational communication. The theory of relational communication does not offer the explanation of how people can make use of interpersonal communication in building relationships. In place of that Park only described the complementarity and symmetric nature of relational communication by studying the simple history of the previous research.
Edna Rogers made major contribution in the field of relational communication to view the communications for a system perspective. The Individual system members are viewed as active members in the field of communication. The above technique helps in providing animpute and improvised meaning that influences and constrains the other parts of action. Rogers even argued those social relationships that are not reducible to the other individual characteristics or personal messages that are complex in action. The entire background of Rogers’s system identifies the basic concepts of relational communication from system theory and other principles of cybernetics and identifies the set of ideas that provide specific patterns over the objects that are interrelated in reference to relational communication (Arnold and Lawson). The main objective behind Rogers work is to provide with the present procedure for analyzing the relational control aspects of communication by using the process oriented and transactional approach. These perspectives have a combined rule that govern the system message for exchange process and just not for individual characteristics. The goal of the coding system is to achieve a methodology technique for describing the patterns that are used for the process of communication throughout (Rogers).
The most significant issues that are found in non verbal communication are proposed by Judee Burgoonn and with all the associates in respect to nonverbal behavior in consent to the social community. During the last couple of years the main objective of Bur goon’s research in respect to relational communication to test the effects of nonverbal behaviors against the two contradictory models which are the social perspective model and the expectancy violation model. The social model holds all the nonverbal behaviors in respect to language community (Burgoon et al.). The statement states that when a verbal and a non verbal cue are merged with one another the other meaning can be easily determined without negotiating or restoring the entire process. The other alternative prospect that is the expectancy violation model that holds the meaning for the non verbal cues that is quite medicated and ambiguous (Burgoon and Hale). The entire mediation process is non verbal and might make other changes like the conversational distance during the interactions that needs adjustments on the eye contact that depends on the other behaviors that are considered either to be negative and positive.
The discussion and the evaluation of the two literatures that are stated above are defined in this context. Firstly we consider the concept of communication for a system perspective as stated by Edna Rogers. The theory provides us with the concept of relational communication to understand the system and the allocation of the active members in the communication field. The theory also raised the concept of social networking that are not just limited to individuals or some personal messages that are used as action for communication. Rogers even proposed the concept of relational control communication that used the approach of orientation and transactional. The author also explained the theories considering the coding system to understand the entire exchange process and other individual characteristics. Hence we can easily state this theory to be quite effective and beneficial for communication prospective that enables the users to gain knowledge on communication. The next theory is based on relational communication for non verbal perspective as stated by Judee Burgoon. The above context helps us in understanding the non verbal technique that is associated with the mean of social networking. The main motive of the theory is to examine the non verbal behavior in respect to the other models that are often used for social perspective. It also holds the language community actions that are used by people for the process of communication. It holds the aspects of non verbal cue that are the most effective coefficient for analyzing the human behavior in terms of communication. The author also stated the violation model and the mediation process that evaluates the other possible and important factors that are involved in the process. The evaluation process is also quite significant as it determines the worth of relational communication along with the prospect of non verbal techniques.
In this paper the theory of the relational communication has been discussed to know how the theory fails to make the readers understand the actual perspective of interpersonal relationship. As being a part of interpersonal communication, the theory described by several researchers and literatures does not meet the criteria to explain the interpersonal communication. It shows that relational communication is merely of nonverbal, verbal or sequence nature that carries messages regarding relational information. It defines and redefines relations. But it does not help in developing the skills of interpersonal communication that is the biggest disadvantage of the theory that makes the theory vague in nature. A review related to relational communication has been made in the study to understand the actual prospect of the theory. From the analysis of the literature it is understood that relational communication theory developed by early researchers are vague and need to be developed to meet the actual need of explaining interpersonal communication. Carrying on communication through relational communication becomes difficult in the organization because of the difference in the psychology of the communicators. Hence this theory is real world is unsuccessful in developing interpersonal communication among the communicators.

Works Cited

Arnold, Stuart, and Harold W. Lawson. 'Viewing Systems From A Business Management Perspective: The ISO/IEC 15288 Standard'. Syst. Engin. 7.3 (2004): 229-242. Web.
Burgoon, Judee K. et al. 'Relational Communication, Satisfaction, Compliance‐Gaining Strategies, And Compliance In Communication Between Physicians And Patients'. Communication Monographs54.3 (1987): 307-324. Web.
Burgoon, Judee K., and Jerold L. Hale. 'Validation And Measurement Of The Fundamental Themes Of Relational Communication'. Communication Monographs 54.1 (1987): 19-41. Web.
Conville, Richard L, and Lilian Edna Rogers. The Meaning Of "Relationship" In Interpersonal Communication. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1998. Print.
Kalbfleisch, Pamela J. Interpersonal Communication. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1993. Print.
PARKS, MALCOLM R. 'RELATIONAL COMMUNICATION: THEORY AND RESEARCH'.Human Communication Research 3.4 (1977): 372-381. Web.
Rogers, L. Edna. 'The Development Of Relational Communication: A Personal Narrative'. Journal of Family Communication 4.3-4 (2004): 157-165. Web.