I want to begin this course and a relationship with you by challenging you. I challenge you to create your definition of your chosen field, your major at the doctoral level of studies. You can expect to see me lean over the table during your qualifying examination orals and ask you, eyeball-to-eyeball, "what is communication." Many of your faculty used the defining exercise as a culminating step in preparing to defend their years of study in the field. There are probably 125-130 plus published definitions of communication collected in the literature of our field. Not an entirely useless exercise. But given the complexity of the concept and the importance of the process, we should not wonder at the multiplicity of definitions.

As is my custom, I want to give you my definition of communication. This is one that I presented to my committee for the oral portion of my qualifying examination. As you study the conceptual elements I choose to focus on, you can better understand me as a communication scholar, but also as a person and what I consider important in interpersonal communication relationships.

My definition is: communication is a process in which a person, through the use of signs (natural, universal)/symbols (by human convention), verbally and/or non verbally, consciously or not consciously but intentionally, conveys meaning to another in order to affect change.

Now you know where I am coming from. My definition is definitely sender oriented. I place much value on intentionality- -that true communication occurs only when the received/created meaning is that intended by the sender. I reserve the right for the sender to say "that is not what I mean" and no other meaning can be allowed. If my meaning was not conveyed, I question if communication has occurred. Language may be engaged in; words have transpired. But not an act of communication. My definition excludes intrapersonal communication equally as true communication. "Intrapersonal communication" is the study and development of self. Notice also that I make a stand excluding animal communication as in any way comparable (than anthropomorphically speaking) to true communication.

I particularly enjoy beginning the task of defining by looking at the etymology of the word "communication." I suggest that the ancients, labeling what we know as the process of human communication "communicatio" (in its Latin form) that they, in a more authentic way, embodied in their choice of label/symbol a closer link to the real referent of the word. Hence to look at the etymology of the word may give us starting cues to the word's meaning. The word "communication" contains two root words: com (for the Latin "cum" translating "with" or "together with") and unio (the Latin for "union" from which our English word directly comes). Hence, communication refers to union with or union together with. Not unexpected. Two other words come from the same base words and have a direct meaning on us in particular: community and communion. Got the idea? The ancients believed that engaging in communication in some mysterious way a commonality or true union was achieved. Great!

I like to go a step further. I make the case that, yes, given the authenticity of the ancient predication of the word "communication" for the process of uniting persons equally touches or reflects an even greater mystery. In our human and therefore limited way, they and we have tapped into the mystery of the Trinity. The "Community of Persons," who is the Trinity in both the Word of God and the history of the Apostolic church (principally in the early councils who struggled with articulating that mystery,) may explain the fulness of the process we wish to understand as communication. John's Gospel (1:1) surely describes in human terms the generation of the Son of God, Jesus, as Word, both equal to God and separate from God, but clearly in a communication relationship. To put it in other words, a facet of the life of the very Trinity Itself is communication. A confirmation of this in a theological way would be to find in our participation in the power of human communication (and it is indeed a power) a way, one among others, in which we are indeed in and share in "the image and likeness of God." Do a word study of "dabar," the Hebrew word for "word," for a look at the fulness of meaning of the power of communication. If you don't think communication is a power (and a gift), try to take a word back once it has been spoken; notice sometime the almost universal cause of physical fights...words, etc.

As you study communication, begin building your conceptual understanding of the process with an eye to creating your own definition. Some things to think about.