What Talking and Writing Have in Common

Abstract

The two words ‘communication’ and ‘communism’ both begin with communi which is a consequence of the fact that they have something in common with respect to their meaning. We must use the word common or shared in both cases when we describe what these words mean. In the case of the word communism, we must talk about common or shared property, and in the case of communication, we must talk about common or shared information. Think of Saint Martin who shared his overcoat with a beggar, and also think of someone who is the only one with certain information and communicates it with others in order to share it with them. There are two fundamental differences between these two types of sharing. After Saint Martin shared his overcoat with the beggar, only half of the overcoat was left for himself, while a person who shares information doesn’t lose a thing by sharing. The second difference has to do with observing the process of sharing. People observed how Saint Martin cut his overcoat into two halves, one of which he gave to the beggar. These people, without any doubt, could be sure that a sharing had occurred. But now assume you were listening to a conversation between two persons who use a language unfamiliar to you. How could you know for sure that they were really sharing information? You could only assume that such a sharing had occurred. The only thing you could know for sure is the fact that these two persons were together and producing strange sounds. Therefore, when we consider communication processes, we always have to consider both the observable process of producing physical signals and the interpretation of these signals by assigning meaning to them.