Communication is a buzzword in modern world. We are already familiar with words like mass communication, communication skills, telecommunication, communication engineering, business communication etc in our day to day life. Even the term communication also refer logistics or modes of transport.
The term, communication, may be bit confusing since it is appear to connote different things. To clarify, the lexical senses can be classified into two broad categories.
Firstly and predominanly, communication refers to the meaningful exchange of “signals” from a source to the recipient. Signal is the keyword to cover rest of senses of “communication” other than the second sense enlisted below.
Secondly and mostly in its plural form, communications, connotes routes for travelling or transportation of goods and people by rail or roads. (This sense is out of the scope of our topic)
In fact, the first sense mentioned above is the crux of our topic and in this sense communication is indeed a broad topic that includes animal communication, human communication, business communication and analog & digital communication technologies. In all these cases, exchange of signals is the key but the signals vary widely in form or types.
Fundamentally, Communication is an integral part of our daily life and it is essential for the existence and survival of not only the humans but the animalkind as a whole. It is a natural instinct of all living things.
“The ability to communicate effectively with other individuals plays a critical role in the lives of all animals”.
https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/an-introduction-to-animal-communication-23648715/
In case of animal communication, the modes of signals are auditory, visual, tactile or chemical. Animals use these modes of signals primarily to attract mates, warn off predators, mark territory, to show affection and so on. While all these signals carry some kind of messages, but different species rely more on one form of communication over another.
“All animal species have some capacity for communication but communication abilities range from very simple to extremely complex, depending upon the species”.
http://sciencenetlinks.com/esheets/animal-communication/
Some species are also bestowed with the capacity to communicate through vocalisations and vocal sounds are the dominant form of communication for frogs, crocodiles & gekos, birds and mammals. Many birds and primates are capable to produce different calls to signal mating, alarming & warning calls for predators, location of food sources, territoriality, aggression, alarm, fright, contentment, hunger or the need for companionship. These signals, indeed, carry messages but, animals lack the power of speech of human vocalisation.
In fact, the power of speech production by human voice facilitated the growth of human languages. The use of languages in human communication is an unique feature of the humans that differentiate it from animal communication as well as from all other animals.
Since the human communication is the central concept of communication, the term “communication” is commonly synonumous to human communication. This sense of communication may be taken as narrower sense while the broader sense of communication include animal communication. Accordingly, the broader sense of communication can be classified into two categories:
- Animal Communication and
- Human Communication.