What Are The Semantic Barriers In Communication?
Semantic BarriersMost of the difficulties in communication arise because the same word or symbol means different things to different individuals. Perhaps you remember what happened to Shiny Abraham at the 1986 Asian Games at Seoul. Despite coming first by a very wide margin in the 800 m. Race, she was disqualified and lost her gold medal for having crossed the track at the place where she should not have gone. According to her she mistook the symbol, i.e., the colour of the flag. Whereas in our country the red flag indicates danger, in South Korea white flag is used for the same purpose. Misinterpreting the white flag which had been put up at that point, she crossed the track at the wrong place and suffered a setback.Words, which are in reality symbols representing a thing, an action or a feeling, can have several meanings. As explained earlier, words which represent concrete things, e.g., car or house, tend to be understood in the same way, while abstract words like merit, effectivene
