Listening

=Definition =

To trace the origins of listening, one may begin with the verb “listen.” According to the OED (“listen,” 2015), the earliest form can be traced to Old Northumbrian “lysna” in c950, which roughly translated “to hear attentively; to give ear to; to pay attention to (a person speaking or what is said).” This transitive use of the verb is now archaic and poetic. It corresponded with the Middle High German “lüsenen,” which meant “to listen.” This can be traced to the Germanic root *hlus which refers to "list." List as a noun here refers to the sense of hearing, “to have or give a list,” or the “ear” itself.

From the 13th century on, we start to see listen as a verb constructed with "to,” which refers to the first sense: “to give ear to.” At this point, the sense is extended to include “allowing oneself to be persuaded by.” From this broader sense, we have additional ways of listening: of, on, after, for, in. In the U.S., this was linked in the early 1900s with a sense of how something sounds or strikes one. As an adjective then, listening means "that listens or hears attentively, or that listens to a broadcast, recording” (“listen,” 2015). Important cognates include hear, heed, attention, mind.

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Listening and Communication Research
From some of the earliest scholarship in communication (Adams, 1938), listening is discussed as an important skill, a critical aspect of various forms of social life: education (e.g., learning English), conversation, and engaging with technology (e.g., listening to a radio broadcast) (Dolman, 1934; Fraunhar, 1938). Much like scholars of today (Janusik, 2002; Keith, 2011), Adams (1938) calls for the increased emphasis on teaching listening in an English/Speech curriculum, citing Paul Rankin’s 1930 study that shows “listening ability is by far the most frequently used ability in communication in actual every day life situations…yet receives the least emphasis” (p. 209). In terms of conceptions of the “listener,” Dolman (1938) suggests that the radio has taught listeners to expect different kinds of speech. In doing so, he makes an argument for how the radio has impacted listeners’ ideas, assumptions, and attitudes about different kinds of speakers. He writes, "We listeners have become less provincial" (p. 204). Now, listeners have different sentiments towards how one sounds, which impacts expectations for different kinds of listening.

Important to the development of listening studies in communication research is Ralph Nichols' 1948 project on listening theory published in psychological, educational, and communication journals (Lewis & Reinsch, 1988). Listening was conceived of as an important skill (i.e., that one either had or lacked) to be studied in different contexts, particularly organizational and business (Lewis & Reinsch, 1988; Johnston, Reed, & Lawrence, 2011; Bromwell, 2013), and later, healthcare (Davis, Thompson, Foley, Bond, & DeWitt, 2008). Wolvin (2010) explains that the study of listening can be characterized from psychological, sociological, and communication perspectives, and argues that a “theoretical foundation for understanding the message receiver, //the listener//, is critical to an integrated theory of communication” (p. 7). Despite an abundance of work on listening behavior, Wolvin (2010) contends that //listening theory// lacks attention; this is drawn from a review of the //International Journal of Listening//. To work from a more unified perspective then, researchers connected with the //International Listening Association// reviewed the listening competency model to develop this definition: “Listening is the process of receiving, constructing meaning from, and responding to spoken and/ or nonverbal messages” (Wolvin, 2010, p. 9). Subsequently, the //Imhof-Janusik Listening Concepts Inventory// was developed as “an instrument to map and measure listening concepts” (Imhof & Janusik, 2006, p. 92), suggesting that “the concept of listening that a person holds is critical for the listening behavior a person would be willing to put into practice” (p. 94). This in turn informs work on the relationship between cultures and listening habits, and advances the study of the construct of listening generally.

The theoretical framework of communication fidelity is another line of scholarship that takes listening as a skill and understands it as an essential component of human communication within a goal-oriented view of the communication process. Listening behaviors are examined as a “function of total sensory reception, perception, and interpretation of another’s sensory output, resulting in newly formed cognitions in the mind of the recipient” (Powers & Witt, 2004, p. 248) within this framework. This definition builds upon earlier scholarship that examined the relationship between communicative speaking and //communicative listening// (Lieb-Brilhart, 1965), where communicative listening was derived from Stevens’ concept of communication as “the discriminatory response of an organism to a stimulus” (as cited in Lieb-Brilhart, 1965, p. 36).

In another vein, Arnett and Nakagawa (1983), in tracing the history of listening theory in communication argue that "comprehensive" listening and "critical" listening predominate emphasis in speech communication literature. The latter focuses on listening to persuasive messages while the former is about listening for central themes and ideas. They argue that with the introduction of interpersonal communication theory and study, the focus has shifted to emphatic listening in a dyadic context. In doing so, they maintain that the influence of cognitive psychology on the concept is pretty substantial in that it locates listening as something inside the self, rather than something that’s active and produced in interaction. Finally, another effect of setting out a definition in the abstract (in this case “emphatic listening”) is that it becomes a technique that is bound and less nuanced. Effective listening can be “taught” in this case as a technique. The authors contend that listening theory in general could be informed by an understanding of emphatic listening as a “dialogical or hermeneutical transaction ‘between’ persons, and the importance of contextual demands on our listening” (p. 375).

In terms of theories of listening in rhetoric and composition, Krista Ratcliffe (1999) defines “rhetorical listening” as a “trope of interpretive invention” (p. 196) that can be imagined on “equal footing with the tropes of reading and writing and speaking” (p. 196). Ratcliffe (1999) develops this understanding of listening from Fiumara’s (1995) proposed philosophy of listening, which calls for an undivided concept of logos (one that speaks and listens) in order to embrace the space listening maps out, particularly in relationship to discourse. The aim, according to Fiumara (1995), is to become “apprentices of listening rather than masters of discourse” (p. 57). With this in mind, Ratcliffe (1999) writes that “rhetorical listening turns hearing (a reception process) into invention (a production process), thus complicating the reception/production opposition…and turns the realm of hearing into a larger space, one encompassing all discursive forms, not just oral ones” (p. 220). As Ratcliffe critiques a Western bias against listening (Haroutunian-Gordon and Laverty (2011) outline the philosophical traditions of listening for a more detailed history), she grounds her theory of listening in metaphors of music. Scholarship on listening and musicology and metaphors of music can be found in such texts as: //Listening// by Jean-Luc Nancy (2007) and //Listen// by Peter Szendy (2008). Moreover, rhetorical listening has been expanded and linked to scholarship on silence (Glenn & Ratcliffe, 2011). An emphasis on rhetorical listening as an action and a “code for cross cultural conduct” (p. 218) persists, for “rhetoric’s historical devaluation and naturalization of listening in favor of speaking has meant that rhetoric’s concepts of listening, especially listening across difference, are still nascent” (Glenn & Ratcliffe, 2011, p. 218).

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 * References**

Adams, H. M. (1938). Listening. //Quarterly Journal of Speech//, //24//(2), 209–211. Brilhart, B. L. (1965). The Relationship between Some Aspects of Communicative Speaking and Communicative Listening. //Journal Of Communication//, //15//35-46. Brownell, J. (2013). Robert Bostrom’s Contribution to Listening in Organizational Contexts. //International Journal of Listening//, //27//(2), 101–103. Caffrey, J. (1949). An Introduction to the Auding Concept. //Education//, //70//(4), 234–239. Davis, J., Thompson, C. R., Foley, A., Bond, C. D., & DeWitt, J. (2008). An Examination of Listening Concepts in the Healthcare Context: Differences Among Nurses, Physicians, and Administrators. //International Journal of Listening//, //22//(2), 152–167. Dolman, J. (1934). From the listener’s point of view. //Quarterly Journal of Speech//, //20//(2), 203–206. Fiumara, G. C. (1995). //The Other Side of Language: A Philosophy of Listening// (1st ed.). New York: Taylor & Francis. Fraunhar, G. (1938). Annoyances in Radio Programs. //Public Opinion Quarterly//, 2(4), 627–635. Glenn, C., & Ratcliffe, K. (Eds.). (2011). //Silence and listening as rhetorical arts// (1st ed.). United States: Southern Illinois University Press. Haroutunian-Gordon, S., & Laverty, M. J. (2011). Listening: an exploration of philosophical traditions. //Educational Theory//, //61//(2), 117-124. Imhof, M., & Janusik, L. A. (2006). Development and Validation of the Imhof-Janusik Listening Concepts Inventory to Measure Listening Conceptualization Differences between Cultures. //Journal of Intercultural Communication Research//, //35//(2), 79–98. Janusik, L. (2002). Teaching Listening: What Do We Do? What Should We Do? //International Journal of Listening//, //16//(1), 5. Johnston, M. K., Reed, K., & Lawrence, K. (2011). Team Listening Environment (TLE) Scale. //Journal of Business Communication//, //48//(1), 3–26. Keith, W. M. (2011). We are the Speech Teachers. //Review of Communication//, //11//(2), 83–92. http://doi.org/10.1080/15358593.2010.547589 Lewis, M. H., & Reinsch Jr., N. L. (1988). Listening in Organizational Environments. //Journal of Business Communication//, //25//(3), 49–67. listen, v. (2015, June). //OED Online//. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from[] Nancy, J.-L. (2007). //Listening// (1st ed.). United States: Fordham University Press. Ratcliffe, K. (1999). Rhetorical listening: A trope for interpretive invention and a ‘code of cross-cultural conduct’. //College Composition and Communication//, //51//(2), pp. 195–224. http://doi.org/10.2307/359039 Wolvin, A. D. (2010). Listening engagement: Intersecting theoretical perspectives. //Listening and human communication in the 21st century//, 7-30.