ARHIVELE OLTENIEI - Universitatea din Craiova

166Carmen Popescufalling into the clutches of such transmissive metaphors.” 3 Language is not atransparent and neutral channel. Instead, as Daniel Chandler noted, “Informationand meaning arises only in the process of listeners, readers or viewers activelymaking sense of what they hear or see. Meaning is not 'extracted', butconstructed.” 4 The same semiotician concludes that alternatives to transmissivemodels are usually called constructivist. They reject any attempt to produce aformal model of communication but they stress the importance of context in theprocess of producing meaning. 5One of the axioms of communication theory is “one cannot notcommunicate” 6 . All behavior is communicative, since it occurs in the presence(real or virtual) of another person. At the same time, we tend to be quitedissatisfied with the quality of our interpersonal exchanges. We would like it tobe more authentic, closer to communion. Robert Frost conveys this basic humanneed in a most compelling way in his superb melancholic poem Revelation:“We make ourselves a place apartBehind light words that tease and flout,But oh, the agitated heartTill someone really find us out.'Tis pity if the case require(Or so we say) that in the endWe speak the literal to inspireThe understanding of a friend.But so with all, from babes that playAt hide-and-seek to God afar,So all who hide too well awayMust speak and tell us where they are.” 7Many argue that the very celebrated communication (or dialogue) is justanother myth. The more we talk about communication, the less we reallycommunicate. Perhaps the trouble with all the sophisticated communicationschemes and patterns is that they leave out the transcendental element: God, theperson to whom we should talk the most.It is our conviction that the most authentic communication is achieved inreligion (the place where, paradoxically, silence is so important). In this subtleinterpenetration between cataphatic and apophatic we should be able to gobeyond the day to day, conversational, phatic communication. Let us see whatthis really means. Contrary to factual communication, which transmits3Daniel Chandler, The Transmission Model of Communication,http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/trans.html.4 Ibidem.5 Cf. ibidem.6 Paul Watzlawick interviewed by C. Wilder, in Journal of Communication, 1975, 28 (4).7 R. Frost, Revelation, in A Boy`s Will, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1915, p.21.