- The parties involved in decoding and translating messages
- Not only are the messages sent verbally or in writing translated and / or decoded
- Not only human beings do we translate and decode messages
- Some conclusions
- References
The translation and decoding of messages is the way in which the receiver of the message itself, that is, whoever receives it from another subject, interprets it correctly. To be clearer, let's say that a message decoded by the receiver is equivalent to the one that had been encoded by the sender. It is a concept of the Theory of Communication.
In every message there is always: a sender, a means of sending it and a receiver. Therefore, the receiver who does not correctly decode a message can misinterpret it. But what is a message "coded" by the sender?
The parties involved in decoding and translating messages
A message is encoded when the sender who wants to transmit an idea converts it into encoded signs.
To produce it, the sender must know how potential recipients can decode it or, what is the same, understand or translate it to understand it.
Not only are the messages sent verbally or in writing translated and / or decoded
There are also body messages. Thus, for example, a teacher who makes the gesture of placing his index finger on his lips looking at one of the students, is sending a coded message.
He codes it that way, because he knows that the receiver (the student) will understand that they are sending him a message of “silence”.
Likewise, it is possible to decode the messages sent by the artists. Such is the case of a painting by Salvador Dalí (sender of the visual message).
When observed and analyzed by someone, it is decoded or, if you prefer, understood and translated by the observer-analyst or receiver.
Not only human beings do we translate and decode messages
A device, such as a SmarTV or a regular television, decodes a broadcast signal. This is the same as saying that it changes it so that it can be displayed on the screen.
That is why it is said, for example, that “subscribers have special adapters to receive and decode the signals”.
The same happens in computing, in which characters encoded by a binary system are converted to letters, images or audios that can be understood by receivers or users of computers and even smartphones.
However, in these cases, the person who ultimately decodes the message is the human being who is using the electronic device.
Some conclusions
The translation and decoding of messages is a process in which the actual or potential recipients of these, interpret and translate (not from the point of view of translation between languages or languages) the information or messages that have been sent by a sender that he knew, in advance, that he was emitting signs that were possible to understand.
At the beginning, we said that it is a concept of the Theory of Communication, so it is very important to bear in mind that the translation and decoding of messages is essential for all forms of communication to be effective. Only in this way is it possible to live in society.
References
- Watanabe, Taro and Sumita, Eiichiro (2003). Example-based Decoding for Statistical Machine Translation. Keihanna Science City, Japan. Spoken Language Translation Research Laboratories. Recovered from semanticscholar.org.
- Rhoads, Geoffrey (2004). Decoding steganographic messages embedded in media signals. Beaverton, United States. Diimarc Corporation. Recovered from researchgate.net.
- Wikipedia (2017). Encoding / decoding model of communication. Internet. Recovered from wikipedia.org.
- The free dictionary (2009). Decoded Message. Farlex, Inc. Recovered from thefredictionary.com.
- Collins (2017). Definition of "Decode". Internet. Recovered from collinsdictionary.com.