Welcome to class 

1. Welcome to class  Good to have you here today! Dr. Brennan

2. The Importance of Listening • Our motives and/or needs cause us to filter what we listen to and what we don’t listen to in various communication contexts.

3. The process of listening involves listening with our: • Ears • Eyes Physiological • Body • Mind – Psychological • Hearts – Emotion, empathetic • Environment – Social • Soul - Spiritual

4. Dichotic Listening: • Dichotic listening occurs when a person receives two messages simultaneously – • Denotative • Connotative

5. Shadowing: • Shadowing occurs when you repeat a continuous verbal message as you hear it. • In other words, following the verbal message word by word to ensure complete understanding.

6. Receiver Apprehension or Listener Apprehension: • Just as some people are fearful of presenting a speech or speaking up during a meeting, research suggests that some people are fearful of receiving information, thus “receiver apprehension or listener apprehension.”

7. Receiver Apprehension • Receiver apprehension is being fearful of misunderstanding or misinterpreting the messages spoken by others or not being able to adjust psychologically to messages expressed by others.

8. Receiver Apprehension • Some people may just be fearful of receiving new information and being unable to understand it. • Apprehension may also be a characteristic or a pattern in the way some people respond psychologically to information.

9. Receiver Apprehension • Some people may not be able to make sense out of what they heard which causes them to become anxious or fearful of listening to others. • People who are fearful of receiving information remember less of the messages being sent to them.

10. Tips for coping with receiver apprehension: • 1. In some instances (such as a classroom) you might be able to tape record (therefore not having to be concerned about getting each and every point) your professor. • 2.You can also become actively involved in the listening process by: • A. Taking notes • B.  Mentally summarizing and repeating the information to yourself.

11. Appreciative Listening: • What is it and why do we do it?

12. Appreciative Listening: • Wolvin and Coakley (1996) defined appreciative listening as a “process of listening in order to obtain sensory stimulation or enjoyment through the works and experiences of others.”

13. Developing Appreciative Listening: • 1. Identifying specific things that give you listening pleasure. • What do you like to listen to? • 2. Deliberately searching for ways to expand the focus of your appreciative listening. • Don’t get stuck in a rut.

14. Developing Appreciative Listening: • 3. Developing a positive attitude and willingness to spend time listening appreciatively. • Just do it!

15. The Message • Denotative message – dictionary meaning. • Connotative message – emotional meaning. • Relational message - relationship

16. Listening

17. HURIER Model • The letters in HURIER represents six interrelated listening processes: • Hearing • Understanding • Remembering • Interpreting • Evaluating • Responding

18. HURIER Model • Understanding

19. Listening - Understanding • Understanding is composed of several elements: • Selection • Organization • Interpretation

20. Understanding What You Hear • Due to differences in past experiences and associations, each person imposes his/her own internal meaning on what they hear.

21. Welcome to class  Good to have you here today! Dr. Brennan

22. Understanding What You Hear • As we listen, we hear literally thousands of possible images that have been formed over the years of accumulated experience.

23. Understanding What You Hear • When we hear a sequence of sounds, we scan through information in our long-term memory – a virtual warehouse full of past experiences, associations, values, assumptions, and language-related impressions

24. Understanding What You Hear • Words derive their impact from the past associations and expectations they elicit, no word is without what scholars refer to as connotative meaning. • Connotative meaning is associated with emotion from experience. • Song lyrics – often associated with experiences.

25. Understanding What You Hear • In addition to recognizing sound cues, people must also put incoming data into some kind of framework to make it meaningful. • In other words, the individual becomes the author of their own version of the context.

26. Understanding What You Hear • A listener compares incoming information to previous knowledge, forms relationships between new and old ideas, and creates a personalized memory file. • Meaning then is never really literal.

27. Symbols and Meanings • Precise and concrete language facilitates shared meaning – yet, regardless of symbols used to express ideas, our meanings for a particular word are NEVER replicated exactly in someone else’s mind.

28. Symbols and Meanings • Some theorist suggests that only when individuals have shared similar experiences can they ever really understand the meaning of the language used to describe their experience. • Stories about soldiers or war - if you have never experienced either one makes it difficult to fully understand the concepts associated with war.

29. Symbols and Meanings • Understanding is relative a best. • The meanings we assign are approximate, especially when individuals’ perceptual worlds are different.

30. Symbols and Meanings • Language & Thought • Inner Speech

31. Symbols and Meanings • 1. Language and perception of the world are strongly connected. We only understand what we can convey in words. • 2. Understanding is key to meaning and it is a two way process between sender and receiver.

32. Symbols and Meanings • 3. Language is symbolic • 4. Language is rule-governed – The only reason symbol-laden language works is because people agree on how to use it. • The agreements that make communication work is by the rules of language.

33. Language • What is the importance of language? • What makes up language? • Words, words, words.

34. Symbols Arbitrary Context bound Culturally bound Denotative meaning Connotative meaning Concrete meanings Abstract meanings What is your favorite word? Why? Words, Words, Words

35. What are words? • According to Webster’s Dictionary (1995), a word is: a sound or combination of sounds used in expressing and/or representing an idea, thought, concept, object or term.

36. What are words? • According to Webster’s Dictionary (1995), a word is: a sound or combination of sounds used in expressing and/or representing an idea, thought, concept, object or term. • Words are used for labels

37. What are words? • A word is a term we give to an object. It will represent that object only if society agrees to it. • If I say, “chair,” what comes to mind?

38. What are words? • A word is a term we give to an object. It will represent that object only if society agrees to it. • If I say, “chair,” what comes to mind? • Maybe a recliner, wingback chair or dining room chair.

39. Inner Speech • We all carry on a stream of internal conversations with ourselves. • This self-talk is called by scholars as inner speech.

40. Inner Speech • Inner speech serves a variety of functions in the listening process. • 1. Facilitates symbolic thought as you create personal meanings for the words you hear. • In other words, inner speech shapes how you think about things.

41. Inner Speech • Inner speech consists of four characteristics: • 1. Egocentric – turning inward for meaning based upon one’s experiences and associations.

42. Inner Speech • Inner speech consists of four characteristics: • 2. Silent – As soon as you verbalize your thoughts, the activity is no longer inner speech. Inner speech is silent and private.

43. Inner Speech • Inner speech consists of four characteristics: • 3. Compressed Syntax – Inner speech is not constructed the same way as spoken language. • In other words, you are thinking of key words and/or phrases.

44. Inner Speech • Inner speech consists of four characteristics: • 4. Semantic Embeddedness – Your frame of reference is used to make sense of what you hear. • Your understanding of the rules of language. • Associations and experiences.

45. Semantic Reactions: • People have reactions to words that they have difficulty distinguishing between real and fiction in their environment and the mental images elicited by words used to describe objects and events.

46. Semantic Reactions: • This is called semantic reactions: • You respond to the word as if it were the thing described. • Jumping when hearing the word “fire” rather than waiting to witness the smoke and flames.

47. Comprehension - Understanding • People can move closer to a common understanding or a shared definition of the situation in a variety of approaches:

48. Comprehension - Understanding • 1. Sharing and building vocabulary. • Those who have command of a language are often able to bring new insights to others simply through their sensitive use of words.

49. Comprehension - Understanding • Ways to develop our vocabularies: • 1. Keep a dictionary handy. • 2. Write down new words. • 3. Use new words.

50. Comprehension - Understanding • Numerous miscommunications are created by language-related behavior occurs every day. • A man who brought a book on the game of bridge with him on a short flight. A flight attendant glanced over his shoulder and commented; “That must be a fascinating love story you’re reading.” Looking down the man saw the chapter title: “Free response after the original pass.”