Komunikologia – zarys teoretyczny i problemy praktyczne w świetle kształcenia kompetencji komunikacyjnych

Communicology – theoretical overview and practical problems, in the light of teaching of communication skills The article discusses communicology, a research discipline that has been gaining increasing popularity lately, both among scholars specializing in the problems of human communication (psychologists, philosophers, linguists), and among rhetoric and auto presentation coaches and trainers. The first part of the paper presents problems related to the definition of the term communicology, and gives a wider description of two models of communication: the code and the orchestral model. This part also introduces the axioms of communication proposed by the scholars of the Palo Alto school (Paul Watzlawick, Janet Beavin, and Don Jackson), as they are the foundation of the modern, pragmatic approach to communication as a feedback process in which the role of the receiver is no less important than that of the sender. The second part of the paper focuses on selected problems related to teaching of practical communication skills. It discusses the questions of communicative competence (as understood by Dell Hymes), non-verbal communication, development of assertiveness and empathy, and also the problem of communicative effectiveness and of the purpose of perfecting communicative skills (interpreted from the point of view of the ritual communication model of James Carey and Eric Rothenbuhler).