The Nine Axioms of Communication

Communication may seem simple: say what you mean and hope the other person understands. But in reality, communication is full of layers, assumptions, and behaviors that we may not even notice. The Nine Axioms of Communication help uncover the “hidden rules” that shape how messages are sent, received, and interpreted. In this chapter, you’ll learn these axioms, how they appear in everyday interactions, and why they matter in personal and professional settings. You’ll also explore two powerful concepts, footing and face, to understand how your position in a conversation and how you present yourself can either strengthen or complicate communication.

What are the Nine Axioms of Communication?

All of us have received a message, either in text or spoken form, that made us feel something. Maybe it made you excited or annoyed, happy or sad.  But what specifically made you feel that way? Could you specifically articulate why the message made you respond in the way you did? This is where MacLennan’s (2009) Nine Axioms of Communication come in. They can help us understand communication, identify effective communication strategies, and diagnose problems.

Here are all nine Axioms listed out.

Most importantly, these axioms help you design effective messages, enabling you to understand better what to say and how to say it. As importantly, the Axioms tell you what you should not say and avoid when designing and delivering a message. We will now go over each of these axioms in detail. After each one, you can apply your understanding to personal experiences and real-world scenarios.

The Axioms, in general

MacLennan (2009) defines an axiom as “a universal principle or foundational truth that operates across cases or situations” (p. 8). In other words, the axioms of communication are inescapable principles that we must always strive to be conscious of whenever we engage in any form of communication. Bear in mind that while each axiom emphasizes a specific aspect of communication, the axioms are interconnected; therefore, attempting to ignore or downplay the importance of any of them can impair your ability to communicate effectively.

Axiom 1

Every time we communicate, there is a personal dimension and impact. We must always consider who will read our email, letter, or report and who will listen to our presentation. Understanding that communication involves interaction forces us to be conscious of the personal dimension whenever we communicate and to remember that communication is a complex, dynamic process, not a simple transfer of data from one individual to another. To be a good technical communicator, you must always strive to include a personal connection. You do not need to sound like a robot. You can still share elements of your personality and show the person on the other end of your communication that you recognize their shared humanity. When we communicate, it’s not just the facts that matter. What matters most is how we communicate those facts and how the audience perceives them. Regardless of the outcome of that communication (positive or negative), an interaction always occurs.

Axiom 2

When we think about relationships in communication, we are not necessarily considering romance, but rather the role of connection. Ultimately, our connection with an audience should influence how we communicate our ideas.

There are three ways that relation comes into play when we communicate:

1. Establishing a relationship: You are connecting with someone for the first time and introducing yourself because you’ve never met before.
2. Maintaining a relationship: You will make conscious choices about what you say and how you say it to ensure the relationship continues.
3. Harming a relationship has negative repercussions. As technical communicators, we strive to minimize this as much as possible, even when unavoidable.

Here’s an example. The first time you hand in an assignment to a professor, whether it’s this class or any other, you are developing your relationship with your professor. This goes both ways since how your professor responds to your work will establish, maintain, or harm your relationship with them. For example, let’s say you receive your first assignment back from a professor and get a lousy grade. How your professor explains why you got a bad grade will impact your relationship with them. The professor may harm your relationship with them if they only give you negative or no feedback. As a result, you may feel dejected and incapable in the class.

Unfortunately for the professor, it’s their job to provide constructive feedback on student assignments, which is always a risk for them. However, to mitigate potential harm, a good professor will also suggest ways to revise their work to strengthen it. In this way, a professor can manage a potentially harmful interaction without harming their relationship with students. A concept that directly impacts your relationship with someone is your footing, which is the “foundation upon which your credibility rests in a given interaction” (MacLennan, 2009, p. 10). Here’s an example. Who would you prefer to receive feedback on your professional writing: your professor or a friend who is unemployed and plays video games all day? You may value your friend, but the professor has more credibility than they do. Ultimately, footing is about being aware of who you are and your position in any communication situation. It’s also about appropriateness. You will be more successful if you recognize your footing and respond appropriately.

To determine whether the footing we’ve adopted is appropriate, we need to consider:

1. Whether we have the proper credentials
2. Whether our footing corresponds to our role in the situation
3. and whether our audience grants it.

Remember that if you only meet one of the above considerations, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have a foothold in a given situation. For example, we may possess the proper credentials, such as a degree or professional experience, that enable us to speak on a topic, but it may not suit us. Some situations call upon each of us to draw upon our expertise, and there are situations in which it is more appropriate for us to refrain from using our knowledge or to allow someone else with similar expertise to comment. Similarly, if an audience doesn’t recognize our adopted footing as appropriate, we don’t have the footing to make our comments.

One way to check your footing is to ask yourself:

If you feel you possess the authority you think you have, the situation is appropriate, and your audience recognizes it, then you can probably express your thoughts. However, if you lack authority, your approach is not suitable for your role in the situation, or your audience doesn’t recognize your authority, and you proceed with that communication, you risk harming your credibility.

Axiom 3

This axiom reminds us that all communication occurs within a specific context of a particular situation.

Communication is situational. Whenever we wish to understand a message correctly, we need to examine the context in which it was expressed. For instance, we might consider:

• Who the intended audience was
• What was the audience’s relationship with the speaker?
• Where and through what medium was the message transmitted
• Why was the message created?

A message can be misunderstood or even manipulated when taken out of context. Additionally, when designing a message, we must be mindful that there is no single approach to solving all communication situations; the situation itself must impact how we decide to create our response. We must develop our ability to respond to situations appropriately. As a result, this course has been designed to help you better understand how to look at a communication situation—what questions to ask about the problem, what elements of the situation to assess, so that you have the maximum amount of information available to you when you begin to design a message to solve it.

What are some general elements of a communication situation that we should consider? You may recall that Bitzer (2009) tells us that we need to think about the exigence, that is, the problem we’re trying to solve through persuasion, the audience, paying particular attention to what they know, what they value, and how they feel about the topic; and the constraints, including, of course, your footing. In short, this axiom advises us to conduct our research carefully before developing a message.

Axiom 4

Most of you are in school because you want to become a member of a profession, such as an engineer, welder, HVAC Technician, Zoologist, or Communication Specialist, or perhaps you intend to stay in school and become a professor.

Whatever profession you choose, you will gain some credibility simply because you are a member of that profession and have thus completed all the required education to join it. However, your success and your reputation in that profession will be based on what you do with that education. As a professional, you will regularly engage in communication as an action. Since we establish our credibility through our actions, and since communication is the action that underlies all other activities we engage in as professionals, effective professional communication is crucial for establishing our credibility. Since colleagues and clients observe us engaging in communication more than anything else, and since we are being judged on our communication, we must make our communication as effective as possible.

All the knowledge you gain through your education is useless if you cannot communicate it to others. They may not understand that you possess that knowledge, or they may not believe that your knowledge is accurate or applicable. Therefore, you must establish your credibility before effectively applying your knowledge.

Axiom 5

Think of what you want in the world. What do you want beyond your degree? A career? A certain level of income? To get married? Much of what you want to achieve comes through successfully influencing others, and how you communicate plays a key role in this process. You will earn your degree if you convince your professors that you possess the necessary knowledge. Once you have obtained your degree, you may need to persuade an employer to hire you through a job package and interview.  Perhaps you will start your own company and utilize your communication skills to raise funds, recruit the best possible employees, and cultivate loyal clients. These achievements come not only through your hard work but also through your persuasive skills.

You’ll be an educated and engaged citizen, so you must possess excellent communication skills to share your knowledge, perspective, and insights with others.

Axiom 6

Since all communication involves relations, your relationship is at risk whenever you communicate. Furthermore, your credibility, influence, and footing are also at risk whenever you communicate. If you communicate poorly, you risk damaging these crucial elements of effective communication; therefore, it is essential to reflect carefully on how to communicate effectively in every situation.

Face is also at risk. Our face is who we want the world to perceive us as and how we want to present ourselves to the world. If the world affirms that self-image, we can see ourselves as we want to be seen.

In fact, for most of us, the face we project to the world is more competent than we feel. We want to appear that we have everything under control, even though it is perfectly normal not to feel that way internally, at least not all the time. We may not feel self-confident, but we don’t want to show the world our anxiety about our performance; we want the world to see us as confident and competent. Fortunately, the world will affirm our desired self-image. We generally accept people as they present themselves, as this is part of building a community. Nevertheless, we risk our face when we communicate because, when we present ourselves and our ideas, we risk being judged, and there is the possibility that others will not perceive us in the way we wish to be perceived.

As a result, we experience face loss. If you feel nervous about participating in discussions or giving speeches in this course, it is likely due to the fear of public speaking, also known as stage fright or stage fear. However, always remember that your audience is also invested in helping you maintain your projected sense of self—no one wants to see you lose face since such an occurrence would make everyone uncomfortable, as if each person in the audience had also lost face with you.

We must recognize facial risk because we may someday have to issue a facial challenge to someone. For instance, we may need to design a message that corrects someone’s behavior in the workplace. Employees usually prefer a boss to think of their work as excellent, so when a boss criticizes their work, they may experience embarrassment or humiliation. Such feelings often cause people to act defensively—employees may look for reasons to justify themselves instead of accepting the feedback. Because our sense of face is present in all interactions, we must consider face implications when communicating with others.

This axiom helps us better understand how to interpret the messages others send us and design our messages more consciously. It reminds us that communication is complex and that there is often much more at work than its verbal content.

Ambiguous communication can complicate a message in several ways. First, unstated assumptions can create ambiguity. If we intentionally or unintentionally fail to share information necessary to help our audience understand our message, we are responsible for miscommunication. Additionally, nonverbal cues, such as body language and other unintentional forms of communication, can compromise the clarity of a message. Sometimes, such accidental communication can reveal a message’s true purpose, while at different times, the information sent through accidental communication may be completely unrelated to the intended message. Either way, the audience should not be left to decipher the message’s meaning. Thus, we must strive to clearly understand how the audience can interpret our message and be in control of how it may be perceived. Designing our messages with care enables us to be responsible and accountable for any assumptions embedded in our communication.

Communication is full of spaces through which our audience can perceive us one way or another, so it’s up to us to ensure that our audience understands what we want to say and does not misunderstand us. Whenever we communicate, we must make conscious choices to the best of our ability.

Axiom 8

While MacLennan phrases this axiom differently, a rephrasing can help prevent potential confusion. If you want your message to be received and acted upon, you must think carefully about your audience. Recall that a pathos appeal, when used appropriately, can enhance the connection between the speaker and the listener. The more effectively we engage our audience, the more likely our communication will be successful. Understanding our audience means considering how much they already know about your topic, how they might react to your message, and what would best motivate them to accept it. Answering all of these questions is crucial to improving the design of your message, and being audience-centered means having a good understanding of the audience’s expectations. Whenever you do an assignment for class, for example, you’ll need first to consider what your audience expects; that is, what are the standards and requirements your instructor expects you to meet? The more you can adhere to those expectations, the more likely you’ll be successful.

Axiom 9

Notice the word “pervasive”—it is not “persuasive.” Communication is all around us, saturating everything. It is unavoidable. Once we open the door to communication, start engaging someone, and establish a relationship, we cannot choose to turn it off. Everything we do within that dynamic will be read as a message.

Think of the times when you have been upset with someone not communicating—chances are, you were upset because you were interpreting their silence, since silence can also be an act of communication. Think of the times you’ve messaged someone. You could see when someone read the message but didn’t respond. If you were expecting some response, wouldn’t you assume they were saying something by not saying something? What about those times you had interviewed for a job, and you waited anxiously to hear whether you got it? If they didn’t call, were they still sending you a message? We must recognize that once we enter a dynamic where we communicate with someone in any capacity, all our words, actions, and silences will be read as a message. Since there is no possibility of non-communication under such circumstances, we should always strive to control our messages by making choices that lead to the desired impact and influence as professionals.