Written

Spoken

It is a very simple model of communication. On the left is the writer (the encoder). He has a message in his mind, which he wants to share with someone. To make it possible he must put it into words: encode it. When encoded the text is available for the mind of another person, who decodes the message it contains. Why a (?)We cannot be sure that he has received the message that was intended. It is important that the reader and the writer should have certain things in common if communication between them is to take place they should write ad understand the same code, that is the same language and a command of that language: for example if the reader has a far smaller vocabulary than the writer, he will find the text difficult to understand. One more requirement is that the writer and the reader should share certain assumptions about the world and the way it works.

Naturally, there is always a mismatchof some kind: no two people have had identical experience of life, so the writer is always likely to leave unsaid something that he takes for granted, but the reader does not.

The reader must understand that to reach the message involves his own efforts as well as those of writer, it is in a way a co-operation task.

The reader assumes:

a) That he and the writer are using the same code (language).

b)That the writer has a message.

c)That the writer wants the reader to understand the message.

From what we have said, you can see that reading according to this view is not just an active process, but an interactive one.