Chapter 2: McCroskey and the Types of Communication

Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

  • Distinguish between the three types of communication discussed by McCroskey: accidental, expressive, and rhetorical.
  • Reflect on how the three types of communication have occurred in your own personal experience.
  • Analyze how the three types of communication impact the message in a student e-mail.

Key Terms and Concepts

  • accidental communication
  • expressive communication
  • rhetorical communication
  • non-verbal communication
  • tone
  • audience

What is Communication?

Humans, like many other animals, are social creatures: we like to live in groups and work together. Because of this, humans are almost always communicating, sometimes without even knowing it.

In the previous chapter, we provided a general definition of communication, but let’s take a step back and look at some others.

In The Nature of Rhetorical Communication, McCroskey (2016) divides communication into three categories:

Communication is “a substitute for the word message
Communications are “the process of transferring messages from one place to another”
Communication is “the process of one person stimulating meaning in the mind of another by means of a message”

(McCroskey, 2016, p. 20)

In RCM 200 we are concerned with the third definition. As you will see, the material in this course focuses on the meaning of messages and not on the media efforts/tools of communications. Specifically, our goal is to help you develop your communicative judgement as you create various messages to be used in technical communication.

With that in mind, let’s break down that third definition even more. McCroskey (2016) identifies three types of communication that can fall under the third definition:

  • accidental,
  • expressive,
  • and rhetorical communication.

How do these three types of communication impact our messages? How have they occurred in your own life? The followings sections will answer these two questions.

Accidental Communication

Has your communication ever gotten you in trouble by mistake? Do you sometimes feel like your communication is misunderstood (or misinterpreted) by your audience? Your communication may have some traits of what McCroskey identifies as accidental communication.  Accidental communication occurs “when one person stimulates meaning in the mind of another without having any intention of doing so and without necessarily knowing that he or she has done so” (McCroskey, 2016, p. 21).

“People communicate their interests, their needs, their backgrounds, and sometimes their weaknesses without having the slightest desire to do so, and often in spite of a definite desire not to communicate these things” (McCroskey, 2016, p. 21)Two words to associate with accidental communication are: unaware and unintended. Whenever a speaker uses this type of communication, they often do not realize the impact of the messages they are sending to their audience.

Think about the times when your words were taken to be more negative than you intended—perhaps there was a non-verbal element in your message’s tone that caused your audience to perceive you differently than what you intended.

Non-verbal communication can play a large role in accidental communication. For example, McCroskey (2016) discusses the impact of how some North Americans inadvertently expressed unfriendliness in a Latin American context, due to the cultural differences of what constitutes as personal space.

Characteristics of Accidental Communication:

  • the speaker is unaware of the message being sent
  • the speaker may be unintentionally sending messages for the audience to interpret
  • can be a result of a cultural “blindspot”

 

Reflection Questions: Accidental Communication

Reflect on the following questions regarding your own personal experience with accidental communication. Identify at least two examples of each.

  1. What ways have you accidentally communicated in your personal life?
  2. What ways have you accidentally communicated in the classroom?
  3. What ways have you accidentally communicated at work?

As you can see, our aim as professional communicators is to identify and avoid any accidental communication in our lives. It’s important you understand what this kind of unintentional communication looks like so that you can avoid it in your own professional life.

Expressive Communication

Expressive communication “arises from the emotional, or motivational, state of the individual” (McCroskey, 2016, p. 21). This definition tells us that this form of communication is primarily speaker-focused. As discussed in Chapter 1, there is a transactional element involved whenever we communicate, with the audience playing a key role in the communicative process. In expressive communication, the emphasis is more on the speaker, and less on the audience and how they receive the message.

Characteristics of Expressive Communication:

  • Focuses on primarily on addressing the speaker’s needs, not the audiences’
  • Appears as emotional venting in some cases
  • Relies upon speaker’s impulse rather than their rational choice
  • Little concern for meeting the audience’s specific needs/values/expectations
  • Can be selfish and impulsive
  • Often damaging to the speaker’s credibility and the audience relationship

Reflection Questions: Expressive Communication

Reflect on the following questions regarding your own personal experience with expressive communication. Identify at least two examples of each.

  1. What ways have you used expressive communication in your personal life?
  2. What ways have you used expressive communication in the classroom?
  3. What ways have you used expressive communication at work?

As with accidental communication, we will want to avoid using expressive communication in our professional lives. Technical communication has both purpose and a connection to audience–both of which are missing in expressive communication.

Rhetorical Communication

“Rhetorical communication is the primary tool with which we influence and control the thoughts and actions of other people, as well as the environment in which we live” (McCroskey, 2016, p. 19).Rhetorical communication will be the primary focus of RCM 200. McCroskey (2016) defines rhetorical communication as “the process of a source stimulating a source-selected meaning in the mind of a receiver by means of verbal and non-verbal messages” (p. 21). The “source” is another term for the speaker; the “source-selected meaning” implies that the source has the intention to create a specific meaning in the mind of the audience. McCroskey’s (2016) definition of rhetorical communication emphasizes the need for meaning to be created in the mind of the audience. He writes that this type of communication is “goal-directed” (McCroskey, 2016, p. 22, emphasis in original) and that it’s always purposefully directed to an audience.

Characteristics of Rhetorical Communication:

  • Intentional communication with a purpose
  • Success depends on the speaker adapting the message for the audience
  • Creates understanding and connection
  • Always ethical
  • Speaker is aware and purposive in their communication
  • Includes deliberate and conscientious choices when addressing an audience
  • Relies on the speaker’s respect for the audience, their belief in the message’s purpose, and their own sincerity

Reflection Questions: Rhetorical Communication

Reflect on the following questions regarding your own personal experience with rhetorical communication. Identify at least two examples of each.

  1. What ways have you used rhetorical communication in your personal life?
  2. What ways have you used rhetorical communication in the classroom?
  3. What ways have you used rhetorical communication at work?

By the time you finish this course, you will see how rhetorical communication can help you in your career, as well know how to apply these principles in day-to-day job duties such as writing reports and giving presentations.

Exercise #1: Reading Quiz

Answer the questions below to check your understanding of this chapter. The questions are mixture of multiple choice and true/false.

Exercise #2: Case Study Application

Read the following email and think about the type (or types) of communication it uses. Also, pay attention to your first impressions as you read. 

Before reading McCroskey (2016), you would have probably identified this email as a poorly-written one, but would not necessarily be able to articulate why. Now that you know some rhetorical theory, you can provide a more detailed answer as to why this email fails in its purpose.

Use the questions below to guide you analysis.

Key Takeaways

  • McCroskey’s (2016) defines communication as “the process of one person stimulating meaning in the mind of another by means of a message” (p. 20-21). He further explains that this definition covers three types of communication: accidental, expressive, and rhetorical.
  • Accidental communication can occur when the speaker is unaware that they are sending a message at all. Even if they don’t mean for their message to be interpreted a certain way, things like their body language or tone can impact how their message is interpreted.
  • Expressive communication occurs primarily from the speaker themselves. This type of communication has little regard for the needs and interests of the audience. As a result, this kind of impulsive communication can break audience connection.
  • Rhetorical communication is the focus of this course. It uses strategies to intentionally craft a message so that it appeals to the audience and helps the speaking create a connection with them.

References

McCroskey, J. C. (2016). An introduction to rhetorical communication: A western rhetorical perspective. Pearson Education.

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Effective Professional Communication: A Rhetorical Approach Copyright © 2021 by Rebekah Bennetch; Corey Owen; and Zachary Keesey is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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