THE RESPONSIBILITY IN THE SURMOUNTING OF BARRIERS IN THE WAY OF COMMUNICATION

DUMITRU BORŢUN, PHD.

„... we must assume a maximum responsibility

for our facts and discourses.”Boris Yulyevich Kagarlitsky,

Director of the Institute of Globalization in Moscow

1. Communicational responsibility– a new form of responsibility

In today’s world, in which all realchallenges underwent a modernization process,we are growingly urged by the need of a newform of responsibility: the communicationalresponsibility. This need is felt at alllevels of human life – from day-to-day lifeto international life; from interpersonalrelations, to interstate relations; fromcommunication between generations tocommunication between different cultures andopposable ideologies.

Not until recently responsibilityreferred, as a moral value, only to ouractions from which the acts of communicationwere excluded. People’s indifference towardthe consequences of their acts of

communication stems from the ancestral creedthat speaking is different from doing. Moreor less conscious, this creed represents thetacit axiom of a cultural paradigm in whichthe spoken word is perceived in threehypotheses: i) as a result (consequence) of adeed (“We shall do this! or “Do you know who I used tobe?); ii) as a preparation (anticipation) ofthe deed (“I am going to get married” or “FromMonday I’ll get down to business!”); iii) as means ofevading from the deed (“See you soon!” or“Whatever God decides!”). The linguistic phraseof this attitude towards the spoken word(and, implicitly, towards “talkers”) is “Let’sstop talking and let’s get down to business!” It conveysthe belief that “speaking is different fromdoing”, that speaking is something else.

In traditional societies – in KarlPopper’s terminology, “closed societies”i –,as the peasant societies from the South-Eastern Europe have been until recently, therepulsion towards abstraction systematicallyled to a cult of the Concrete (“let’s getdown to business!”, “theory like theory, butpractice is killing us”, “he spoke well, buton too general terms”); any attempt of usingabstraction is labeled as “theory”, the termbeing used in an improper sense, which, inthis semantic context, has a pejorativeconnotation. In postmodern societies or inthose which haven’t yet completed theattempts of modernization, the cult of the

concrete is interwoven with the traditionallack of confidence in the talkers, in theones that use words effortlessly (“many wordswill not fill a bushel”). In 1991, many of thesubjects of a survey performed on the streetsof Moscow by the French TV channel Antenne-2affirmed that they never trusted Gorbatchevsince he was talking too much. Similarly,Nicolae Ceausescu feared that his party wouldbecome a “club of discussions” eludingcompletely the nature of the politicallanguage and, implicitly, the psycho-socialimpact of the official discourseii.

However, after Roman Jakobson talked ofthe “acts of communications” (Essais delinguistique generale, 1960), after John LangshawAustin elaborated the ‘speech act theory” (How toDo Things with Words, 1962), theory developed by

i Karl Popper, Open Society and Its Enemies, vol. I, Humanitas, 1993, pp. 194-227ii The Romanian dictator’s conception on thenature of language came to light on October 28th

1977 when he passed Law no. 29/1977 whichestablished the norms to be observed by thecitizens of the Socialist Republic of Romania whenaddressing to each other. Article 1 anathematizedthe words “mister” and “madam”, which belonged tothe Bourgeois mentality, deciding that in the workrelations the names of “tovarisch” [comrade] or“citizen” shall be used instead (however, the lawdid not provide any sanction for the breach ofthis article!).

John Rogers  Searle (Speech Acts: An Essay in thePhilosophy of Language, 1969)  and by otherphilosophers of language, it became obviousfor specialists in communication sciencesthat “communication” means “action”, that theeffects of the communication acts – verbal ornon-verbal – are as important for man’s lifeas the effects of other human acts. Today weknow: the consequences of communication areas natural as those of any other act –briefly, “communication” means “doing”. Inother words, a word said to the wrong person,in the wrong moment and in the wrong place orin the wrong manner can destroy a friendshipor a love relationship, a political allianceor an international treaty, the peace in acountry or the world peaceiii; the same isvalid for an inappropriate gesture or look…

2. Other barriers in the way of interpersonalcommunication

Interpersonal communication is also impairedby numerous barriers which are easilysurmountable but whose surmounting requires,as in the case of the above-discussedobstacles, the presence of responsibility.They can be physical (verbal and acousticiii As regards the defiance toward world peace, the“Danish cartoons” (2005) is well-known; it almostled to the inflammation of the conflict with theOccident and Islam.

deficiencies, location, light, temperature,hour etc.) or semantic (vocabulary, grammar,syntax, emotional connotations of certainwords, etc.).

The communication barriers can bedetermined by internal, psychological factorsas well: positive involvement: “I like mycolleague, therefore I listen to him”,negative involvement: “He talked behind my backthree years ago, so I know that everything hesays is against me”; fear “I am so preoccupiedby what I will say that I can't even hearMihai”; threat of the statute: “If he shut up, Iwould say something more important, thatwould boost my prestige”; subjective speculations:“You look just as a former colleague of minethat I can't stand. Every time you talk, Ifeel like I hearing him”; hidden agenda: “Canwe talk about this topic in the next meeting?(“Once the meeting is over, I go to thefootball game”)iv.

2.1. Differences of languages. Obviously,in order to obtain a problem-freecommunication, first and foremost we need acommon language. But language does not onlystand for “vocabulary”; it requires a certainmeaning assigned to words, certain semantics.There are situations in which the semanticsis common and the vocabularies are different

iv Viorica Ana Chişu, Specialist’s Textbook in HumanResources, IRECSON, Bucharest, 2002

(for instance, the mathematical languageexpressed in two natural languages) as thereare antipodal situations: common vocabularyand different semantics. In the firstcategory, the problems of communication arerelatively easy to settle, by using thedictionary. If two mathematicians (let’s saya Romanian and a British one) do not speakthe same natural languages (do not use thesame vocabulary), the problems that mightoccur are relatively easy to deal with: theyshall use a translator and eventually, adictionary. The situations that fall underthe second category are the most unfortunateas they present two major inconveniences thatfeed each other: a) due to the differentsemantics, the real communication isimpossible; b) due to the common vocabulary,the illusion of real communication can beupheld – sometimes for a long time.

The situations in the second category, themeaning assigned to the words of the samevocabulary differ from one interlocutor toanother (from a culture to another).Different languages entail the followingpossible effects: i) from a semanticperspective, we have a “dialogue of the deaf”(which means that each interlocutor decodesthe other’s message through its own language,meaning that he “hears” only his own thoughtsand not what his dialogue partner thinks);(ii) from a psychological perspective, we

have a source of psychical discomfort, ofsurfeit, and sometimes even exasperation(which accounts for the tendency to avoidcontacts with the other); iii) from apragmatic perspective we have a dissensualcooperation and, almost always, an occasionof conflict. It follows that the absence of acommon language generates effects opposableto communication, tolerance and cooperation.In fact, the history of humanity teaches us afundamental thing for the human condition:“There is as much violence as there is lackof communication!”.

The differences of language may appear asa result of the differences between culturesand subcultures (including professionalsubcultures), as a result of the excessivelabor division, of tasks specialization, aswell as of the differences of socio-culturalstatute. The communicator’s incapacity tothink out of the “box” of his own languageleads to the undue formulation of the message– which results, in its turn, in the increaseof the “fog index”v: sophisticated or tootechnical terms, complex phrases, too longphrases, ambiguity. This is exactly whatGrice’s maxim of manner preaches; it refersto the way in which interventions are to beformulated within a verbal exchange and whichrequires clarity (manifested through theavoidance of obscurity, ambiguity andprolixity) as well as the logical structuring

of the phrasesvi. In such cases, it is hardto distinguish the weight of incapacity andthe weight of irresponsibility; often, theuse of a language that is inaccessible by theOther is caused by the professional pride ofthe emitter or his desire to confirm hisprestige, corroborated with the absence ofthe interest in the success of thecommunication act and in the consequences offailure – therefore, the lack ofcommunicational responsibility.

2.2. Disturbing factors. Communication inexcess shall trigger effects contrary to thedesired ones. Individuals bombed with toomany messages shall protect themselves fromthe “informational stress”: they will ignoresome of the messages or they will basicallyget bored and will not pay due attention tothem. In such cases, the responsibilityregarding the communicational output – or inother words the quality of information isessential. The volume of information suppliedby the participants to a verbal exchange isregulated by the maxim of quantity – thefirst of the four Grice’s maxims: thequantity of information supplied by eachparticipant must fall into the limitsenforced by the targets of the respectiveexchange (it shall be neither insufficient,not excessive). The maxim of quantity can bedefined as follows: “one should be as

informative as one possibly can, and give asmuch information as is needed, and nomore”vii. Once again, we come across theambivalent character of the compliance/non-compliance with this rule. On the one hand,we are dealing with a pragmatic competenceand every so often with emotionalintelligence (with which an individual ismore or less endowed, independently of hiswill). When someone breaches the rules of themaxim of quantity, he leaves a badimpression: he is either labeled as “rambler”(i.e. Chronophage – time-consuming) or he isperceived as a mentally deficient person“with issues” who fails to perceive theoverall communication situation or who isunable to seize the person he is talking to(the wide-spread case of the one who sayssomething that the interlocutor knows better– as in wanting to sell ice to theeskimos)viii. On the other hand, we may bedealing not with stupidity but rather withcommunicational responsibility of the personwho participates to the verbal exchange: ishe interested to communicate or all that hewants is to communicate? Does he want tocontribute to the settlement of the issuesunder discussion or does he want only tostrengthen his statute of prestige? Does hesubordinate his intervention to the purposeagreed upon by the participants or does heuses it to serve his own image? The typical

case is that of a subject who tries to passfor an informed person – expert in a matteror erudite (expert in any matter).

In large groups, messages go throughvarious socio-cultural levels which filterthe information through its own system of

v The fog index is a methodological instrumentdesigned to show how easy or difficult a text isto read. It must not be confused with thecontextualization index which refers to the signsthat allow the participants to interact verballyand to identify correctly the context thereof, todetermine exactly whom they are speaking with, inwhat type of discourse they are engaged, what rolethey have to play, etc. (see Dumitru Borţun andSilvia Săvulescu, op.cit.., p. 44).vi In H. P. Grice’s view, the basic conditions oft\an efficient use of language are determined by acooperative principle that can be defined asfollows: Make your contribution such as it isrequired, at the stage at which it occurs, by theaccepted purpose or direction of the talk exchangein which you are engaged” (apud Dumitru Borţun andSilvia Săvulescu, op.cit.., p. 47, 90). He sees inthis principle a sort of methaprinciple thatcoordinates the verbal exchanges and divides it isfour conversational maxims that he deems a priorito any verbal communication. Known in thespecialized literature as “Grice’s maxims”, theyare: the maxim of quality (be true), the maxim ofrelation (be relevant), the maxim of quantity (beas informative as required) and the maxim ofmanner (be perspicuous) – cf Dumitru Borţun and

thought or interests, re-interpret it, whichcan lead to a considerable modification ofthe initial meaning. I believe that thisphenomenon is best described in the classicaltheoretical model of Gerbner, which, after 57years from its elaboration, is still broadlyvalid todayix. Even in small groups, such aswork group or family, it often happens thatinformation losses its way or reaches itsaddressee with a certain delay. Here, anotherform of communicational responsibility isessential: the responsibility toward thefunctioning of the communication channels.

2.3. Cultural barriers. They can affectthe interpersonal communication not onlywithin international contacts, such as thework relations within multinationalcompanies, as it is commonly believed.Indeed, studies show that in multinationalcompanies the expatriates and theautochthones have different perceptions onthe organizational rituals, clothing style,gestures and values promoted by organizationsand communication accidents happen. In fact,the human resources departments of suchSilvia Săvulescu, op.cit.., p. 47-48 and 90). Themaxims that derive from the cooperative principledescribe rational means that ensure the efficientof the conversation. But their observance in thepractice of verbal interactions is not a matter ofrationality but of morality; it indeed presupposesa responsible communicational attitude.

companies are more and more focused on thecultural barriersx. The researches initiatedby Geert Hofstede lead to the idea that inthe multinational companies the humanresources management can no longer disregardthe national cultures which tacitly found theorganizational culturexi. However, culturalbarriers are increasingly more present at thelevel of our day-to-day life, in that “worldof life” which has nothing to do with theorganizations.

The gradual, spectacular or insidiousglobalization, faster or slower, bringscloser more and more people belonging todifferent cultures – people who are neitherambassadors, nor negotiators, nor countrymanagers of a multinational company, norinternational officers and not even world-class sportsmen (these categories of peoplealready have an intercultural experience,handed down from generation to generation,and I believe that we can say that theyreached what I call “cross-culturalcompetence”xii). I refer here to the ethicallyand/or racially mixed families, growinglynumerous and more wide-spread than ever, tothe international students who became sonumerous that they already form a new“country-less people”, to the millions ofeconomic immigrants as well as to thehundreds of men and women that encounter

cultural otherness without leaving theircountry, the natal city or the work place.

And if we shall assign the name of cultureto any subcultures – rural or urban, agrarianor industrial professional, regional ordistrict – as well as to the sub-culturesthat they ceaselessly generate, we shall havea fairly realist landscape of the scene onwhich the drama of interculturalcommunication is playing - with all itsbarriers and tragedies, with its fascinatingevolution that leads, day by day, to the

vii Dumitru Borţun and Silvia Săvulescu, op.cit. p. 47.viii The main ways in which the maxim of quantitycan be breached are: the lack of usefulinformation (verbal clichés, redundancy);repetition of concepts with identical referentialspheres of application (the speaker is self-paraphrasing himself); enumeration of all membersof a totality and, at the same time, the naming ofthe whole (“I will come with my wife, the elderboy, the middle boy, the smallest boy, with mygirl and my mother-in-law – with my entirefamily”); the excessive use of some key-wordsbelonging to a certain ideology (no matter howrational a discourse may be, the repeated andabundant use of terms such as “labor force”,“plus-value”, “exploitation” or “alienated work”shall give the interlocutors the impression thatyou are the prisoner of a Marxist doctrine and youwill be treated accordingly: as an :indoctrinated”person).

birth of a new level of human competence: thecross-cultural competence. In default of sucha competence, I don't believe we couldseriously talk of communicationalresponsibility, reason for which we witnessevery day so many acts of irresponsibility interms of intercultural communicationxiii.

2.4. Selective perception andsubjectivity. Language is an abstract form ofcommunication, the expression of lifeexperience or of professional experience, ofthe emotional, motivational state or of thepersonal relationship with the interlocutor.For this reason, both the adaption to thetraining and knowledge level of theinterlocutor and the avoidance of ambiguitiesof speech or of assessment of theinterlocutor and of the things the lattervalorizes in a positive manner are of a greatimportance.

As a matter of fact, almost no discourseis completely homogenous; the dailydiscourses mingle various types of sequences,convey under numerous forms the emitter’ssubjectivity. Subjectivity can be betterunderstood by introducing the distinction

ix G. Gerbner, “Toward a general model ofcommunication”, in “Audio Vizual Communication Review”,IV.3, 1956, pp. 171-199, apud John Fiske,Introduction in the Sciences of Communication, PoliromPress, Iaşi, 2003, pp. 43-46.

between a comprehensive and a narrow meaning.Generally speaking, subjectivity refers tothe presence of the interlocutor in thephrase, marked through special linguisticindicators called by E. Benveniste“subjectivity indicators”xiv.

In its narrow meaning, subjectivity refersonly to those indicators that introduce inthe enunciation the talking subject’sfeelings and attitude regarding the contentof the enunciation. In this acceptation,there are two types of subjectivity:affectivity, as a manifestation in theenunciation of the interlocutor’s feelings;modality, as a manifestation in theenunciation of the attitude, evaluation andsubjective appreciation performed by theinterlocutor.

The issue of communicationalresponsibility is correlated to thisaffectivity and modality. To what extent arewe able to communicate our feelings withoutconsidering the long-term consequences on theinterlocutor, on others and even onourselves? As responsible persons, when,where, how and in front of whom can weexpress evaluations and attitudes towardscertain things? And towards which things inparticular? It is common knowledge that indifferent cultures and epochs there aredifferent taboos regarding what cannot besaid or questionedxv.

As such, in the North-American society ofthe ‘60s, if you asked someone how much moneyhe earned, you were socially disqualified:you were breaching a taboo! Such taboos alsoreferred to the appreciations concerning theethnical affiliation, political options orreligious belief. In their long democraticexperience, Americans had learned that nobodygains anything from bringing up this sort of

x See Viorica Ana Chişu, op. cit., Carl R. Rogers andRichard E. Farson, op. cit., John V. Thill andCourtland L. Bovee, , op. cit.xi See Geert Hofstede, Management of MulticulturalStructures. The Software of Thinking, Economic Press,Bucharest, 1996. Here, Hofstede proposed for thefirst time his famous comparative analysis chartof cultures: distance towards power, individualismversus collectivism, masculinity versusfemininity, reference to risk and incertitudesituations and, finally, the temporal orientation.However, it must be said that the Management ofMulticultural Structures is just the peak of ahuge iceberg that is the research programcoordinated by Hofstede and his team, unfolded fora period of over 10 years (in which 15.000managers from 28 countries have been interviewed).The merit of this paper is that it proved one andfor all that cultural differences act in the day-to-day lives of multinational organizations,starting a new research direction; thus, Hofstedehas transferred the cultural studies from the skyof international relations to the germinal groundof work relations.

topics – on the contrary, everybody losses.Following the fight for civil rights of theblack population, culminated with the Marchon Washington, the racial affiliation wasadded to the taboos list. Toward the end ofthe century, all these taboos have been codedin the formula of political correctness whichcomprises not only a set of positivediscriminations, as people often thought, butalso a set of discursive interdictions, ofcommunicational taboos.

Today, political correctness is criticizedfrom several directions and for diversereasons – some well-grounded (among the mostimportant ones being the cultural relativismand the equivalence of all values that itpromotes or the exaggerations made on its

xii See Dumitru Borţun, „Intercultural Educationand Cross-cultural Education”, in Euromentor Journal,Volume IV, No. 2/June 2013.xiii For an analysis of some high-levelcommunication irresponsibility proofs, see DumitruBorţun, „Communicational Responsibility. Two CaseStudies”, in Cogito. Multidisciplinary Research Journal, Vol.V, No. 2/June, 2013. xiv The shifters are among the most importantindicators of subjectivity. The term shifter hasbeen introduced by Roman Jakobson and is synonymof other terms: deictic elements, referentialexpressions, indicial elements and symbols ofindexation (see D. Maingueneau, Les termes de l’analysedu discours, ed. cit., p. 33).

behalf which often verges on grotesque). Butin my vision, this political paradigm remainsa sample of communicational responsibilityfor which we must, if we are honest, givecredit to an intelligent and responsiblepolitical class – the American politicalclass from the end of the 20th century.

2.5. Incapacity to listen: “we see andhear what we want”. Listening is a sine qua noncondition of an efficient communication.Listening is the most necessary capacity ofcommunication but which is learnt the leastof all. This can be noticed everywhere.Specialists reached the conclusion that aperson spends 80% of its time communicatingand that it allots to listening only 45% ofthe time dedicated to communication. In spiteof this, listening is the least taught, ascompared to speaking (a little), reading (alot) and writing (the most)xvi.

xv We can find a history of communicational taboosin Michel Foucault, The Order of the Discourse. A Discourseabout discourse, EUROSONG & BOOK, Bucharest, 1998.Pentru societatea contemporană, a se vedeacapitolele IV-V, „Marele tabu” şi „Funcţiatabuului”, ale cărţii Cunoaşterea inutilă (Revel 2007,39-81).xvi Carl R. Rogers and Richard E. Farson, „ActiveListening”, in Organizational Psychology: Readings onHuman Behaviour in Organizations, Englewood Cliffs, NJPrentice-Hall 1984, pp, 255-267

Listening covers more aspects: strugglingto hear; being attentive to what it is said;attaching importance to what somebody says(taking it into account). If one of thesecomponents is missing, listening losses itssignificance. Reduced to a physiologicalprocess (hearing), the received informationis not processed nor valorized by theaddressee; if the addressee fails tointeriorize it, it does not become a message.

There a numerous causes of defectivelistening and we shall not approach all ofthem in this paper. But two of them deservespecial attention: the desiderative thinkingxvii and the closed mind. The former has beencaptured in the title of the paragraph when Iwrote “we see and hear what we want”. Formany people, the cognitive function ofthinking is weaker than the balancingfunction of the physic system; in otherwords, the psychic dominates the cognitive,psychology beats gnoseology! These peoplereason not because they want to reach trueconclusions, but because they want to reachthe desired conclusions. Why? Because theirpsychical balance suggests both the decreaseof the incertitude as well as the reductionof the cognitive dissonancexviii, and thedesiderative thinking satisfies both of theseneeds. Don’t they need truth? In his book Fora transformation of the Soviet System, George Sorosidentifies a “way of thinking” corresponding

to postmodern societies that he calls the“traditional way of thinking”: there is not aworld of ideas and a world of facts; thedominating ideas are accepted as beingreality itself, and the use of languageexpresses this confusion. Consequently, theissue of the truth does not exist becausethere are no criteria from telling true ideasapart from the false ones. Affirmations areadmitted and rejected not depending on theirconformity to reality, but on theirappropriateness to tradition. Traditionalconcepts must be accepted automatically; theanswerless questions are dodged (there is notsuch thing!) as they would destroy the unitybetween ideas and realityxix.

Therefore, in the history of humankindthere have been societies in which peoplewere not preoccupied with the truth;according to Soros, they could not even raisethe issue of the truth because they lackedthe distinction between true – false ideas.Is this indifference towards the truth theattribute of traditional societies or does itrepresent a constancy of history? The Frenchphilosopher Jean-Francois Revel, in The UselessKnowledge, chapter IX, „The need of ideology”answers this question as follows: heconsiders that ideology is not only a systemof illusions but also a symbolic good withoutwhich people could not live. Furthermore,they do not love the truth: this is the last

thing they resort to when they want to settlea problem: „Forţa ideologiei se sprijină şipe lipsa de curiozitate a oamenilor faţă defapte. (...) Nevoia de linişte şi desiguranţă mentală este foarte puternică.Ideile care ne interesează cel mai mult nusunt ideile noi, ci ideile cu care ne-amobişnuit. (...) Pentru a se naşte şi a sedezvolta, ştiinţa a avut şi are mult deluptat cu această tendinţă primordială:indiferenţa faţă de cunoaştere”xx.

As regards the second cause of defectivelistening, the closed mind, we shall justpresent the portrait of a fanatic performedby the Israeli author Amos Oz in How to cure afanatic: “He is a great altruist. More oftenthan not, (…) he is more interested in youthan in himself, open for sacrifices for yourown good. He falls on your neck because hetruly loves you. He doesn't lie telling youthis and does his utmost to prove it to you.But when he thinks you are unredeemable, thatyou cannot be saved, liberated from sin,converted, reclaimed, he is at your throat.The attachment and love embraced beforedevelop into hostility and disdain”xxi. Such aman will never truly listen to you; all hewants is to be listened to. When he listens,he listens to himself. Fanatics do notcommunicate, they communicate themselves. Cumse naşte un astfel de om? „Conformismul şiuniformitatea, nevoia de a-şi avea locul în

societate şi dorinţa de a-i face pe toţiceilalţi să aibă acelaşi loc s-ar putea săfie cele mai răspândite – dacă nu şi cele maipericuloase – forme de fanatism”xxii.Concluizia este deprimantă: the attempt todiscuss with a closed mind is doomed tofailure; therefore and in such cases, thecommunicational responsibility meansavoiding, postponing or interrupting thecommunication.

2.6. Absence of feedback. This barrier maylead to the false impression that the messagehasn’t been understood when in fact it hasbeen understood and the other way around: tothe impression that the message has beenunderstood when in fact it hasn't. Thisobstacle may give rise to seriousmalfunctions in the collaboration relations(in the household or at the work place) andmay be a source of conflict betweeninterlocutors (between members of a couple ormarital partners, between parents andchildren, between friends or between workcolleagues).

Some people have difficulties in fullyunderstanding what has been communicated tothem but they lack the strength or thecourage of admitting this. This is whyfeedback is much recommended. Prior to theFirst World War, the Romanian army was mainlymade up of peasants, many of whom wereilliterate. In order to make sure that their

message has been understood, the commanderscompelled the soldiers to repeat: “I order you toescalade quota 1.100 tomorrow morning at five o’clock! – Weunderstood! We will escalade quota 1.00 tomorrow morningat five o’clock”. This procedure has proven to beso efficient that during the following war ithas been spread to all superior- subordinaterelations.

Experience shows that the feedback isefficient when it has the followingcharacteristics: it is descriptive as opposedto evaluative or accusing; it is ratherspecific than general; it takes into accountthe needs of the ones giving it and of theones receiving it; it is oriented towards abehavior of the addressee, upon which it isexpected to act; it is rather required thanenforced; it is well-timed; includesverifications so as to ensure its clarity andunderstanding; is verified with others (therequest of other opinions, helping theaddressee to receive other reactions from theother members of the groups in order tocompare them)xxiii.

The communicational responsibility findshere a wide ground of action. Although thefeedback can be a way of self-knowledge, itis often rejected out of various reasons. Oneof these reasons would be that it is hard fora person to acknowledge the fact that he/shehas difficulties. Admitting such difficultiesin front of others is even harder. More often

than not, the trust in that person is not asure thing. As a rule, people expect to hearonly negative opinions about them, themajority harboring the conviction that otherstend to ignore their qualities.

On the other hand, offering positivefeedbacks is not always easy. Most of us liketo give pieces of advice because in this waywe legitimate our competence and importance.We easily lend ourselves to the role of“advisors” failing to check whether thatadvice suits the issue under discussion orthe abilities or qualities of the person wewould like to help. If that person bears out,we could try to disagree or force him/her toaccept that he/she needs help. Theaddressee’s defense and/or denial are clearindications that the method being used iswrong. We may not be well-synchronized but atany rate a responsible attitude demands theability to stop until we are able toreevaluate the situation. If we fail toreact, the addressee’s resistance willincrease.

A useful feedback requires mutual trust:it must be received as a common experience,of careful listening, especially from thepart of the emitter, and the emitter’sbehavior must be directed towards helping theaddressee to speak.

A responsible feedback takes into accountboth the addressee’s needs and the ones of

the emitter. Generally speaking, the positivefeedback is well-received by the addresseeonly when it is a true feedback. If thefeedback occurs in a learning situation,observing the conditions described herein, itmay become one of the main meanings of

xx Revel Jean-Francois, The Useless Knowledge,Humanitas, Bucharest, 2007, pp. 247-248.xvii From désir (fr.) – to desire, desire.xviii The concept was introduced by Fastinger, whodefines it as disconfort psihic produs de apariţiasimultană a două sau mai multe elemente cognitive,elemente ce se neagă sau se contrazic reciproc (ATheory of Cognitive Dissonance, Standford UniversityPress, Standford, 1957). Mai particularizat,Festinger vede în disonanţa cognitivă lipsaconsensului între opiniile, atitudinile,cunoştinţele şi valorile unei persoane (Cândprofeţia dă greş - When Prophecy Fails, 1957, p. 260, apudChelcea 2002). Conform psihologilor P. D. Swveeneyşi L. L. Gruber, după ce face o alegere, individulîncearcă să reducă disonanţa prin expunerea selectivă lainformaţii: „luarea în considerare a informaţiilorcare sprijină alegerea făcută şi evitarea celorcontradictorii” (Chelcea 2003, 117-118).Mecanismul expunerii selective este susţinut şi depsiho-sociologul Septimiu Chelcea: individulîncearcă să reducă disonanţa „fie prin reducereaimportanţei elementului disonant faţă de credinţaproprie, fie prin căutarea unor informaţii înconcordanţă cu credinţa iniţială” (idem).Tendinţaindividului de a-şi reduce disonanţa cognitivă îldetermină să selecteze atât sursele de informare,

learning about oneselfxxiv. No massage is moreefficient and at the same time more moralthan the instructive message.

Finally, in order to be a responsible actand to actually prevent failures incommunication, feedback must be subject tothe principle of cooperation, it must beconstructive, it must provide relevantinformation about the way in which themessage has been interpreted and it mustoffer the emitter as much information asneeded to rephrase the message in a versionmore intelligible and accessible to theaddressee.

In all the situations described above,communicational responsibility is an ethicaland at the same time efficient solution of

cât şi mesajele în conformitate cu propriileconvingeri. De aici, şi tendinţa majorităţiiindivizilor de a căuta să interacţioneze cu oamenicare au aceeaşi viziune asupra unui domeniu saualtul, aceleaşi puncte de vedere şi aceleşiconvingeri. xix George Soros, For a Transformation of the Soviet System,Bucharest, Humanitas, 1991, p. 46xxi Amos Oz, How to cure fanatic, Humanitas, Bucharest,2007, p. 25xxii Ibidem, p. 24.xxiii Thomas H. Patten, Jr., Organizational DevelopmentThrough Teambuilding, New York, John Wiley and Sons,1981

achieving a harmonious and non-destructivecommunication that does not leave behind theravages of irresponsible communication.Whether we are dealing with the overcoming ofobstacles and barriers or with their wiseavoidance or patient stopping in front ofthem, the responsible attitude renders usmore efficient and constructive. After all,it conveys a higher and nobler meaning to ourlives. I believe this is a sufficiently well-grounded reason for us to become thepromoters of the communicationalresponsibility, to encourage its training asone of the educational targets of oursociety. xxv

References

1. Borţun, Dumitru, Epistemological bases ofCommunication, Ars Docendi, Bucharest, 2002

xxiv James Vander Zanden, Human Development, McGraw-Hill, 1993

Ce e cu rosu trebuie tradusin engleza!xxv

2. Chelcea, Septimiu, Un secol de cercetăripsihosociologice, Editura Polirom, Iaşi, 20023. Chelcea, Septimiu şi Iluţ, Petru (coord.),Enciclopedie de psihosociologie, Editura Economică,Bucureşti, 20034. Chişu, Viorica Ana, Specialists’ Textbook inHuman Resources, IRECSON Publishing House,Bucharest, 20025. Foucault, Michel, The Order of the Discourse. Adiscourse about a discourse, EUROSONG & BOOK,Bucharest, 1998.6. Maingueneau, Domnique, Les termes de l’analyse dudiscours, Seuil, Paris, 19967. Mainguneau, Dominique, Literary Discourse,European Institute, Iaşi, 20078. Oz, Amos, How to cure a fanatic, Humanitas,Bucharest, 20119. Revel Jean-Francois, The Useless Knowledge,Humanitas, Bucharest, 200710. Rogers, Carl R. and Farson, Richard E.,„Active Listening”, in Organizational Psychology:Readings on Human Behaviour in Organizations,Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall 1984 11. Rogers, Carl R. and Farson, Richard E.,Active Listening. Organizational Psychology. Readings onHuman Behavior in Organizations, Fourth Edition,Prentice Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J,198412. Soros, George, For a Transformation of theSoviet System, Bucharest, Humanitas, 199113. Van Cuilenburg, J.J. & Scholten, O. &Noomen, G.W., Science of Communication, Humanitas,

199814. Zanden, James Vander, Human Development,McGraw-Hill, 1993