Instructor Wrap Up - Trenholm Chapter 3

Decoding Messages:  Listening and Perception

Listening is the forgotten part of communication, yet being able to listen well is one of the most essential communication-related skills.

Chapter 3 is an interesting chapter.  It's all about listening and perception, as the title states.  Listening is an interesting concept because as Comm majors, we've probably learned about listening numerous times.  But let's look at some of the more useful and interesting points in this chapter.

Page 42 starts out by explaining the definition of listening, which is "the process of receiving, constructing meaning from, and responding to spoken and/or nonverbal messages".  

Let's break this down a little:

Listening is "...the process of receiving..."......  we receive both verbal and nonverbal messages on a continual basis.  This can be in the form of a conversation, lecture, phone conference, etc....  There are many ways one can receive a message, wouldn't you agree?  But for the sake of this conversation, let's use a dyadic interaction as our basis.  When we have an interaction with another person, listening is a crucial part of the conversation.  Not just 'listening', but 'active listening'.  It is an active process.

Have you ever had a conversation with a person when you know they aren't listening to you?  Or better yet, they don't understand what you are trying to convey. This can be incredibly frustrating.

The next part of the definition is "...constructing meaning...".  What can we extrapolate based on these two words?  We construct, or build meaning based on what the other person in the conversation is saying.  How do we do that?  Through filters, through our personal life experience, and through our past interactions with the person we are having an active conversation with.  We actually construct, or build meaning!  The meaning that we build may, or may not be what was intended.  

Have you ever had someone misinterpret what you were saying?

And finally we come to the last part of the definition:  "...and responding to spoken and/or nonverbal messages." As we already are aware, communication is not just verbal, rather a combination of verbal and nonverbal messages.  The meaning of a statement can change drastically with tone of voice, facial expression, body language, etc...  So we must take both verbal communication and nonverbal communication into consideration when contemplating the definition of listening.

On page 42, it also talks about the difference between listening and hearing.  The book states that "Hearing is a physiological process that occurs when sound waves are translated into electrical impulses and then processed by the central nervous system.  Listening, on the other hand, is a social cognitive process."

These two are incredibly different. 

I won't reiterate everything the book covers, but there are some great ideas contained within the chapter.

For instance, page 44 starts a conversation about The Listening Process.  It would be incredibly easy to breeze through these pages, but resist the urge to skip through them.  The listening process is easy to grasp, so take some time to really absorb the material that is being given.  

Table 3.1 on page 45 is a great thing to review.  Very useful information.  

The rest of the chapter is fantastic.  It covers ideas like:

Voluntary and Involuntary Attention

Improving Attention

Interpretation

Using Cognitive Schemata

Becoming More Mindful

Improving Interpretation

Evaluation

Just to name a few......

Look out for another post tomorrow.

Until then......

The Blogging Prof.