Adeola Abdulateef Elega

2.3 Interpersonal Communication 
It is imperative to get to the meaning of interpersonal from the conjunction, it is the 
combination of the words “inter” and “person”. The prefix “inter” in front of 
“personal” means between or among. Person grammatically means a human being. 
This makes interpersonal communication the sharing of information between two 
people or among more people. Intrapersonal communication is the transfer of 
information within a person; group communication is the communication among 
members of groups. Mass communication deals with communication with a large, 
scattered and heterogeneous audience but interpersonal communication is the only 
person to person kind of communication. When interpersonal communication takes 
place we don’t only exchange words; we create a shared meaning which we react to 
as a form of feedback (Ramaraju, 2012 p.2). 
Any form of communication either mouthed or gestural communication between two 
or more people is what we call interpersonal communication. Over time interpersonal 

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communication has been likened with medio communication. Here communication is 
not face to face but it is interpersonal, when we talk about medio communication we 
talk about sending of letters, email, and telephone etc. This makes it ultimately 
important to submit that the meaning of interpersonal communication is vast. When 
it is beyond face to face, it is still between two or more people. So many components 
affect interpersonal communication. The people’s beliefs, experiences, history, 
knowledge and a lot of other parameters influence how we send and react to 
messages. For example if you don’t have a good relationship with someone the way 
you send and react to the person’s messages is affected by your experiences with that 
person (Watson & Hill, 2006 p.139). 
Meaning creating best defined interpersonal communication to me because creating 
meaning carries a large part of interpersonal communication. Wood (2007) posits 
that when we send messages to people we are trying to create a meaning because we 
unravel the meaning of the signs, symbols or even words sent. When someone 
stamps your feet in a lecturer’s office, you try to create meaning to what the person is 
saying. It might be that the person is trying to caution you for talking too much or 
something close. Some very close friends or spouses come up with symbols or words 
that they can create meaning to them alone. An example can be if a wife and husband 
decide to come up with a language central to their knowledge alone when visitors are 
around. You see them talk or even communicate with gestures but you might 
possibly not understand. This is because meanings are created between them alone. 
Interpersonal communication creates meanings at two levels; content level and 
relationship level. 

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