Communication is very much important or can be say a part of our daily life as we communicate in a daily basis. Therefore, effective communication is very important to ensure that our message has been delivered with clear understanding to the listener. No matter how brilliant or invaluable your idea, it is worthless unless the listener would be able to understand it. Hence, effective communication is important at every level of an organization as it is use to deliver message or to complete a task given. Moreover, communication is vital in marketing or business industry where presentation has to be done daily. Hence, effective communication is very important for the message to be delivered clearly without any form of communication barriers.

Communication barriers are some kind of interference in communication and are divided into four categories. The categories are physical, physiological, psychological and semantic, each with different kind of communication interference. For example, physical interference may be interpreted as noise disturbance as it is obvious that it will affects both speaker and listener. Physiological on the other hand, may be translated as barriers of communication in the way of speaker or receiver. For example the speaker or receiver might be hearing impaired or have speech articulation problems, or suffer from short term memory loss.

In addition, there is also psychological interference in the form of communication barriers. This type of interference is in the form of mental makeup of the receiver or the sender. It includes biases, prejudices, narrow-mindedness, and extreme emotional behaviour. Besides that, there is also semantic form of interference in communication barriers. These barriers include language, dialectal and cultural differences. When these interference occur, speaker or listener might not be all to fully understand the message to be deliver. As can be seen, all these interference has to be removed or minimize in order for the message to be deliver clearly. Hence in this assignment, I would highlight effect of communication barriers and ways overcoming it.

2.0 Communication Barriers

2.1 Physical interference (Noise)

Physical interference may be defined as a kind of interference which is external and outside the control of both speaker and listener. It will affects the physical transmission of the message. Hence it affects both speaker and listener due to the physical interference that happens. As the name implies, physical interference comes in the form of physically kind of interference. In this physical interference, I would like to mention noise or a form of distraction in communication barriers.

Noise is a form physical interference that would interfere with both speaker and listener. For example, noise disturbances from cell phones, loud music, sound of traffic from busy road and many more other examples. Any of the examples if occured will definitely posed as a kind of communication barriers to the speaker and his audiences. This is because that the message couldnt be clearly heard by the listener due to the noise from a busy traffic. Besides that, form of physical interference may come from the listener itself and can be due to a ringing cellphone which could interrupt the whole crowd. If any of these happens, the speaker may have to pause the presentation or conversation which could bring disruption in his flow of presentation. Hence this kind of physical interference has to be avoided in order to eliminate communication barriers causing both speaker and listener to unable to understand the message about to bring clearly.

2.2 Physiological Interference ( Hearing Impairment)

Physiological interference as mentioned before is a form of communication barriers in interfering a communication between listener and speaking. This form of communication barriers challenges both part of the speaker and receiver. For example, hearing impairment is a form of physiological barrier to communication. Hearing disorders may be a result from hereditary, genetic issues, developmental abnormalities or medical, or other environmental factors.

While hearing loss will not cause any problem mentally nor development problem but for areas such as communication, language, social development might be affected by the problem. In communication, it will be a barrier for both speaker and listener if one side of the party has hearing impairment causing the message to unable to reach another side. For example if the speaker has this problem, he might not know the volume of his voice and intonation and it may cause problem to the listener. If its to soft listener might not be able to heard it or too loud will cause listener to feel discomfort or acted as a noise.

On the other hand, if the audience has hearing impairment, it will be tough for the speaker to overcome this barrier eventhough he deliver his speech loud and clear. This is because the audience is having trouble listening to it. It might be too soft for them to listen clearly. Hence this posed as a communication barrier to the speaker and need to be overcome in order to benefit both party.

2.3 Psychological Interference ( Emotion)

Psychological interference comes as a communication barriers that which affect the mindset of a person, be it the speaker or the listener. This type of interference includes biases, prejudices, narrow-mindedness, and extreme emotional behavior. Emotions could be a barrier to communication if your emotions have been troubling you be it when you are angry, happy or excited as you may be too preoccupied with the emotions and hard for people to convey the message to you in communication. Hence it became a psychological interference in communication barriers.

For example, a receiver who is emotionally upset tends to ignore what the sender is saying or can be say not paying attention to it. So it forms a communication barrier where as the receiver couldn’t understand what the sender is trying to say in its message. On the other hand, a speaker who is emotionally upset may not be able to present his ideas or overall feelings of a presentation effectively. Hence the audience would not understand or get those ideas in his presentation. All in all this kind of situation form a communication barrier in the form of psychological interference as it disrupts the mindset either one or both party.

2.4 Psychological Interference ( Information overload)

Another example I would touch on psychological interference is information overload as it is very common today with our revolving advance technologies which could allow us to fetch information nearly from anywhere. It can mean a constant 24 hours a day 7 days a week, flow of information. However, this flow of information is important as they keep us updated to everything that happens around the globe. We all spend time watching and listening, interacting in personal computer and many more. All of these inputs can affect on our ability to take in more information and evaluate what we take in through normal communication means.

Too much of input of information is what we called information overload where our ablility to be effective listeners degrade with all those sufficient information around us. Trying to do two things at one time certainly affect our capability to listen and concentrate on a lecture or communication. The listener or the speaker might get confused with too much of information available at one time. Hence it creates a communication barrier where it reduce the effectiveness of our listening capability and information from speaker could not reach to its listener.

2.5 Semantic Interference( Linguistic)

Last but not least, another type of communication barrier is a semantic interference where there is difficulty in expressing one’s self to another which applied to those who are speaking in a different language than the speaker. This often occurs in international level communication where different nation has their own official language for example Japan has their Japanese language and Korea has their Korean language. Both of the nations might understand just simple English but not their counterpart’s language.

In another words, it could means that the speaker could speak good English and can be understand well by people who speaks English as well but with a semantic barrier, person who has been speaking Spanish for example could not understand English so well. Though they could still understand English but there are some words whereby they just could not understand well. Hence a semantic barrier is form between the Spanish listener and English speaker. This requires a different approach so the conversation could be understand by both party.

3.0 Ways of overcoming these barriers.

3.1 Physical interference (Noise)

To solve the communication barriers of physical interference could be done with just a few simple step as most of the problem comes from poor planning. For example before starting a presentation, the presenter could ask the audience to silent their in order to prevent disruption during the speech. By this simple step the problem could be solve and the audience will not interrupt the speech.

When there is noise interuption from the busy street or construction site, the problem could be solve with a little future planning. One could actually visit the meeting or the venue before hand in order to ensure that there is no physical interference. In this case, the venue could be change or just simply install speaker and increase the volume in order to counter the noise.

With just a little future planning and management work to be implemented physical interference would not be a communication barrier in an event. As can be seen, with these ways of solution, physical interference will not interrupt or become a barrier to the speaker and listener. Hence the speaker could deliver the message clearly to the listener.

3.2 Physiological Interference ( Hearing Impairment)

In order to solve the problem, we must first understand the problem. In this case physiological could be a real challenge as both the listener and speaker has to be free from physiological interference. In the example, hearing impairment has been highlighted as the communication barrier that prevent the speaker and listener to communicate freely with understanding to both sides.

In this problem it could be solve with a little help from the technology that has been so advance in the medical field. Hearing aid could be worn by those with hearing impairment and this could solve the communication barrier between speaker and listerner. With the help of hearing aid both party could benefit from it as the speaker would not have to speak louder and the listener will have clear understanding of the message that will be delivered.

3.3 Psychological Interference (Emotion)

In the psychological interference, emotion has been considered as one of the communication barrier that interrupt between a conversation or communication. As a human being, its no suprise that everyone of us would have emotions. However its about the control over the emotion, how one could handle his stress, sadness, happiness from showing out. Its about the profesionalism of the speaker in handling his speech in a presentation. The speaker will need to control his emotion, set aside every problem in order to deliver his message to the listener. Experience is what needed the most in order to solve this problem as with experience one would get used to it and become numb towards this emotion.

In the listener point of view it is pretty much the same deal to speaker, whereby they will have to cast aside their emotion for a moment and concentrate on the listening skills. The speaker could also include some sense of humour in his speech in order to eliminate this communication barrier as jokes would bring out happiness in listener and caught their attention for the entire duration of speech. Hence the problem could be solve with a little tweak on the mindset and with the help of sense of humour will cancel out this psychological interference in communication barrier.

3.4 Psychological Interference ( Information overload)

In another point I have made earlier in this writing, which is another form of psychological interference in the form of information overload which will certainly become a communication barrier between the listener and speaker. This communication barrier exist is purely due to the ease of getting information, where a person with a simple internet connection will be having tons of information disregard what it is and where the person is at.

In a presentation point of view, this could be eliminated by making every point brief and as summarised as possible. For example, a long sentence or paragraph could be summarise in point form and information included should be those that its important. In this case, it would not bored the audience and the information will be receive well by the listener. It would also solve the problem for communication barrier as the speaker and listener both understand and receive, deliver all the information well.

3.5 Semantic Interference( Linguistic).

The last of the communication barriers which is semantic interference where in before language is a problem. This is due to different part of people from the world meets, where they have their own language and not much language of the others. Hence it creates a semantic interference between both party.

In order to solve this problem, the conversation the both has to be in the same language. For example english which is an international language where I believe everyone could have understand it. So both party have to converse in english to allow the communication to work. Besides that, they should only use simple english in order for both of them to understand the message and information. As conclusion with simple english and using a language that both side could understand will eliminate this communication barrier of semantic interference

4.0 Conclusion

All things considered, communication barriers is definitely a disadvantages in communication, where communication is so important in sending the information or message to another party. Hence, with existence of interference discussed before such as semantic, psychological, physiological and physical. All of the mentioned above have to be avoided in order for a communication link between speaker and listener to be connected. With all the ways of overcoming these barrier has been mentioned before I believe that all the barriers could be minimise or eliminated.

As can be seen, when all of the barriers were eliminated, speaker and listener will have a clear understanding of what about to deliver or receive by both party and such a great means of communication has been achieved. It will bring benefit to both of the party, so it is important that these barriers can be overcome for the good of both listener and speaker.