1.2 Purposes and Principles of Communication

1.2.1 Purposes of Communication

Communication is usually modeled as a process involving individuals and organizations from different cultures for different purposes. Individuals are always communicators on behalf of their organizations, thus the purposes to communicate involve goals of both individuals and organizations. However, these communicators send messages mainly to perform certain business functions on behalf of their organizations. So the purposes of communication should, to a large extent, be related to the goals of organizations. These purposes can be classified into task-oriented and relationship-oriented categories. The task-oriented functions include instructing, directing, informing, reporting, eliciting information, opinions and authorization, generating enthusiasm, resolving conflicts, analyzing situations and problems, motivating, negotiating, selling, persuading, agreeing, granting requests, proposing, transmitting other messages （documents）. This task-oriented communication follows the goals of the organization.

In contrast, the purposes to contribute to nurturing relationships include: praising, expressing concern or sympathy, encouraging, coaching and mentoring, thanking, rejoicing with the receiver, warning about possible problems, guiding away from pitfalls, apologizing, expressing hope, congratulating （Beamer & Varner, 2003）. All these purposes involve the personal goals of individuals communicating.

Effective communicators are those who can keep balance between task orientation and relation orientation. The priority of task orientation to relation orientation or vise visa is really cultural dependency. Western communicators practice task oriented communication much more than relation oriented one emphasizing efficiency of doing things while Chinese communicators attach importance to relation oriented communication rather than task oriented one focusing on building up harmonious interpersonal relations when performing tasks.

The purposes are the reasons for business communication. They exist in all business cultures, although goals vary. Agreement across cultures about how the purposes are accomplished is rare. However, it involves the way messages are organized and encoded. Due to the difference in languages and cultures, the potential failure in international communication is far more complex. For instance, what kind of person within an organization is the appropriate person to receive or send a message? The answer to this question is culture specific. This involves with the status of the receiver in the organization. In organizations that value hierarchy, the status of the communicator is important. But in organizations that are horizontal, the role or job function of a person is more important than status i.e. job title （Beamer& Varner, 2003）.Therefore, selection of right communicators should be the result of consideration of both task orientation and relation orientation.

1.2.2 Principles of Communication

First, communication should be a dynamic process properly controlled. Western scholars （Lustig & Koester, 2007; Samovar, Porter & McDaniel, 2009） maintain that communication is a dynamic process, yet they do not define in detail how this dynamic process can work as a general principle of communication. The dynamic process principle means that people, interpersonal relations, behaviors, objects and experience interact in a dynamic process in which they change, transfer, develop and evolve. This principle means that all the identical event, experience in the past and expectation in the future can take on different meaning at different stages of communication, and they can change, transfer and transform at different instant of communication. A sentence and an action, once sent to others, can be replaced by receivers' interpretation about them. In this process, the message senders are constantly affected by receivers' feedbacks and, as a consequence, are always changing. Therefore, both message senders and receivers are experiencing endless variety of physical and psychological changes, some too subtle to notice, others too profound to ignore （Samovar, Porter & McDaniel, 2009）. This principle requires that communicators should control messages strictly sent and make sure receivers acquire exactly the information they mean to share on specific occasions while receivers should make reasonable expectation and interpret the message at the time and on the occasion they arrive considering the specific people and context.

Second, communication is symbolized and a shared system of symbols is the base for effective communication. In the process of communication, the communicators employ symbols both verbal and non-verbal to share their internal states （Samovar, Porter & McDaniel, 2009）. Therefore, it is a process to create new symbols. What is exchanged is a complete set of symbols with shared meaning between people in either homogenous or heterogeneous culture context. The message sent should be encoded into forms of language, behavior and objects and created into a system of symbols which can be interpreted by receivers. However, the relations between symbols and the referents are arbitrary in homogenous culture and vary from culture to culture. Following this principle, communicators should share a same system of symbols at least. Furthermore, they have to define clearly how different language systems define the relationship between symbols and their referents at diction, connotation and imaginary expectation level.

Third, context dependency of communication. Principle of context dependency refers to fact that any communication takes place in a certain physical and cultural context, which determines the nature and meaning of messages. In other words, the environmental setting determines the selection of language to encode the message and the meaning of behaviors of communicators. It also determines the meaning acquisition of the language symbols used by both communicators. Setting and environment help determinate the words and actions the communicators generate and the meanings of symbols produced by other people. Context provides a prescription that indicates what behavior is obligated, preferred or prohibited. Dress, language, topic selection and the like are all adapted to the context （Samovar, Porter & McDaniel, 2009）.Context has three dimensions, i.e., heaven time （Tianshi）, favorable location （Dili） and people （Renhe） in traditional Chinese context. Correct understanding and interpretation of symbols depends on the location and occasion where and when the communication takes place. The heaven time （Tianshi）, favorable location （Dili） and people （Renhe） or the number of the people involved have some implications for the meaning of the message, and language communicated. Preference of people （Renhe） is exactly the same as correct expectation generated by other people upon receiving the messages. In short, the effective communication depends at least time （Tianshhi）, favorable location （Dili）, and peacefully-minded people （Renhe）.

Forth, effective communication requires proper inference about expectation. Going beyond what Lustig & Koester （2007） point out that communication produces a shared meaning and an agreement among communicators, another outcome of communication is the possible inference of these shared meaning and agreement and correct expectation for future action following. There is no direct mind-to-mind contact between communicators who cannot access to the thoughts and feelings of their counterparts but can only infer what are experienced （Samovar, Porter & McDaniel, 2009）.Correct interpretation of the symbols received is not enough. What's more important is that the communicators should make certain inference about the actual outcome of the current communication. They have to infer from a single word, silence, long speeches, simple head nods, and from glances in certain direction or when eyes are averted away from the speakers.

Fifth, compatibility of task and relation orientation in one single communication process. No matter whether the communication involves personal affairs or organizational tasks, the communicators should be very cautionary enough to build up harmonious interpersonal relations between communicators in the meantime to effectively perform business functions on individual base or on organizational base. Therefore, communicators should keep balance between task orientation and relational orientation in the process of communication. In case of communication on behalf of organizations, communicators should achieve organizational task effectively and keep the relation with their counterpart in balance. The best outcome is sure to be the motivational compatibility between organizational goals and individual's objectives.