When I first thought about Expression and Communication, I felt that they were the same thing. I thought they both were the transmission of thoughts, feelings or ideas. However, when i pondered on the two words a little more profoundly, I began to feel that there is some difference between them. I was eager to figure out the difference, but could not succeed immediately.....
Our discussion was based on a handout titled "Expression vs Communication - The Heart of Songwriting." We first explored an example - of a man whose pet gorilla leaves him and runs away with a group of wild apes. This causes an outburst of emotions in the man, and he begins to cry, and tell his story in a frantic manner to a group of locals that he meets. After his long story, he finds out that the locals are unaffected by it. It took him so long to realize that they didnt speak his language, and so didnt understand a word of what he said!! This gave me a clue to what the difference between expression and communication may be. The man was expressing himself when he bloated out his story. However, he wasn't communicating - as the locals failed to understand him.
The handout provided us with a more concrete and specific difference btwn the two. We learnt that expression is a one-way process whereas communication involves both a transmittor and a receptor. Expression is the outward display of what a person is thinking or feeling, it may not be understood by the other person. Communication, on the other hand, is clearly perceived and understood by the other person. Only if a message is received the way it was intended and the meaning understood has communication occured, else it remains expression.
I then began to reflect on these differences, and tried to think what are the differences in the ways of knowledge used in the two. I realized that emotion does play a major role in expression. Emotions such as sorrow (as in the case of the above example), or joy or love or hate can cause a person to transmit his thoughts and ideas, without using reason and perception to confirm whether the other person is receiving the message or is able to comprehend it. The expressor may use his own subjective reasoning to send a message that is not clearly understood by others, for example, modern poets using symbolism that is rarely understood in a precise manner by another person. Expression is also widely used in other Arts, such as paintings, sculptures, and even music where it is based on emotions being experienced by the expressor and his or her perspective (personal beliefs) regarding an issue. Thus, expression is often done for personal satisfaction.
I figured out that Communication deals mainly with language - not merely words, but also sign language, images or codes that are understood by both parties. Communication is used in our day to day life, and plays an extremely important role in every Area of Language. For communication to occur effectively, there needs to be some similarity in the perception of the transmittor and receptor.
