Human communication is, first and foremost, the interaction between people within real situations. What this means is that all communication, whether expressed through word or deed, takes place in actual social and cultural frameworks and concerns the manner in which people relate. That is, to say, it’s all relational.
Communications theorist, Paul Watzlawick (1922 – 2007), established innovative, and often controversial, views concerning interactional and interpersonal communication. His relational theories encompassed five axioms, or universally accepted principles. The first of these axioms holds that communication is inevitable, unavoidable, and constant.
Axiom 1 - One Cannot Not Communicate
This first axiom simply states that no matter how one tries not to communicate, there is always some element of communication going on. Even if someone is sitting quietly, seemingly not responding to, nor interacting with, their external environment, they are still participating in an activity of communication.
Watzlawick's theory states that non-verbal communication is, in and of itself, communication. Humans do not express their needs, feelings and intentions through words alone. Physical gestures, posture and even the most subtle of facial expressions communicate thoughts and attitudes to an externalized referent. Being human, therefore, means to always be communicating, even if it is done on a subconscious, unintentional, and non-verbal level. It is unavoidable.
An Example of the First Axiom
Imagine a parent to child communication wherein a teenager is being verbally disciplined by a parent. The teen is sitting completely still and not uttering a single word in reply. What’s more, the arms of the child are crossed, and the eyes are looking upward, or off into space. There is no eye-to-eye contact being made with the parent. One might think that the child is not communicating. But this would be inaccurate.
While the teenager is not saying anything, nor making any overt, physical actions, there is a great deal of communication taking place. Through non-verbal cues, the teen is expressing displeasure, irritation, and perhaps a modicum of hostility. By shifting the glance upwards and away from the parent, and by crossing the arms over the chest, the teenager is sending a message which indicates distance and resistance. This is all being done without a single word having been communicated by the teen.
Watzlawick On Communication
Paul Watzlawick once stated that all behavior is communication, contending that silence is as much a form of communication as a loud, verbal outburst. Watzlawick's theory suggests that since behavior has no opposite, or anti-thesis (how can a person not exhibit a behavior?), all that people do or say, and all that they don’t do and don’t say, is a communication of some kind.
For additional information, review more on the axioms of Paul Watzlawick’s Interactional Views of Communication.
Readers may also wish to learn more about Paul Watzlawick's Second Axiom of Communication.
Source:
- Watzlawick, P., Beavin-Bavelas, J., Jackson, D. 1967. Some Tentative Axioms of Communication. In Pragmatics of Human Communication - A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies and Paradoxes. W. W. Norton, New York.
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