Angela=Comprehensive Study Guide on Listening and Ethics in Public Speaking

The Foundational Nature of Call and Response

• Universal Communicative Foundation: Listening and speaking are rooted in the concept of "call and response." Whether specifically orchestrated in a musical setting or occurring in everyday conversation, musicians and speakers call out using instruments, voices, lights, and movements, and the audience responds with noise, chorus participation, or attention.
• The Concert Metaphor: Musicians like Beyonce, Jay-Z, or the Pixies explicitly call for audience engagement. A chorus acts as a call, such as Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," which stirs audiences to declare the lyrics in response.
• Challenging the Passive Receiver Myth: For centuries, listening was erroneously viewed as a passive activity where the ear acts as a simple sound receiver. Scenes from daily life dispute this:     * Perking up at confidential news from a roommate.     * Singing along to headphones on the subway.     * Parishioners responding "Amen" to a preacher's shout.
• Dynamic and Interactive Process: Listening is a physical and mental activity that happens in both public and private spaces. It is foundational to all public speaking because speaking cannot exist without the ability of an audience to respond.

Defining Listening, Hearing, and Noise

• The Primacy of Listening: Listening technically precedes speaking. Because humans have an instinctive impulse to respond to a call—such as turning when a voice calls out in the street or looking at a text message immediately—the automatic ability to respond is what makes the "call" possible in the first place.
• Intertwined Character of Speaking and Listening: Communication scholars argue that humans speak and listen simultaneously. While speaking, one observes facial expressions, verbal cues (laughter), and nonverbal cues (smiles, frowns) while also hearing the sound of their own voice.
• Hearing vs. Listening:     * Hearing: A physiological event where sound waves enter the ear, greet the eardrum, and fire neurons in the brain. It is a physical, often involuntary event (e.g., air conditioning thrum, passing cars).     * Listening: The process of actively making meaning of messages. It requires conscious attention and self-consciousness to assign meaning to sound stimuli.     * Formal Scholarly Definition: The leading group of listening scholars in the United States defines listening as the "process of receiving, constructing meaning from, and responding to spoken and or nonverbal messages."
• Non-Auditory Listening: Meaning can be attributed to non-verbal messages, such as a sneeze or a facial expression. Members of the Deaf community listen using eyes and touch without hearing sound waves.
• Noise (Interference):     * Defined as anything that distorts or distracts from a message. The term is derived from the word "nausea."     * External Noise: Environmental distractions such as room temperature, street sounds, microphone failure, feedback, fire alarms, or cell phone rings.     * Internal Noise: Thoughts, feelings, or bodily disturbances (e.g., hunger, excitement, depression). This includes personal beliefs, attitudes, and values that prevent full listening.

Communication and the "Two Messages" Rule

• Definition of Communication: The coordination of behavior through symbols. It is likened to a dance or an interaction rather than a "mind meld."
• The Rule of Two Messages: In every communication encounter, two messages exist simultaneously:     1. What the speaker believes they are saying.     2. What the listener believes they are hearing.
• The Role of Identity: Every message contains information about identity (e.g., Teacher/Student, Speaker/Listener). The internal noise of self-concept often influences how messages are perceived.
• Understanding vs. Misunderstanding:     * Understanding: Occurs when the two messages (sent and perceived) line up or overlap.     * Misunderstanding: The inability of communicators to apprehend meanings, feelings, or identities and coordinate behaviors. This happens frequently because listeners navigate both what is said and what it implies about their relationship with the speaker.
• The Proper Meaning Superstition: Literary critic I.A. Richards argued that rhetoric should study misunderstanding. He critiqued the "proper meaning superstition"—the false belief that words have independent meanings regardless of use.

Selective and Active Listening

• Selective Perception: The way individuals choose to pay attention to things they like or find relevant while ignoring others. This is a developed observational skill necessary to filter overwhelming sensory information.     * Selective Exposure: A psychological theory where people prefer information supporting their existing views. For example, Fox News viewers often identify as conservative, while MSNBC viewers identify as liberal.     * Selective Listening: Attending only to specific auditory information, like a student listening only for exam-related content during a lecture.
• Barriers to Understanding:     * External Noise: Street noise, volume issues.     * Defensive Listening: Anticipating and reacting negatively to messages that challenge one's beliefs or values.     * Cultural Differences: Language barriers or differing worldview values.     * Pretend Listening: Faking attention through nodding while distracted by internal states (e.g., being cold or worried).
• Active Listening: A technique of observing and responding to verbal and nonverbal messages for mutual understanding. This technique originated in therapeutic settings (psychologists/counselors).
• The Four Steps of Active Listening (McCornack):     1. Receiving and Attending: Physically hearing/seeing while trying to make the message meaningful without prejudging.     2. Understanding: Interpreting and assessing the meaning; using Self-monitoring (metacognition) to think about one's own thinking.     3. Responding (Feedback, Paraphrasing, Clarifying): Indicating understanding through cues like nodding, smiling, or asking questions. Paraphrasing uses "I" statements (e.g., "What I hear you saying is…") to own the burden of listening.     4. Recalling and Remembering: Holding onto the meaning. People typically remember repeated main points or relational information (character traits) rather than word-for-word content.

Responsibility and Ethics in Public Speaking

• Responsibility vs. Respons-ability:     * Respons-ability: Defined by philosopher Diane Davis as the fundamental human tendency to respond to the call of others. It is an unavoidable ethical orientation.     * Responsibility: The established cultural or social rules and guidelines for how one should respond, such as the "Golden Rule" (treating others as you wish to be treated).
• The Speech Pact: All speaking implies a listener; therefore, it is a reciprocal deal. A speaker implores the audience to listen, and the listener assumes the speaker is sincere and truthful. Mark Antony's line "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears" from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is an explicit request for this pact.
• Ethics: The study of how we should and should not respond to others; the discernment of right and wrong.
• Aristotle’s Ethos (Speaker Character): An ethical speaker must possess:     1. Practical Wisdom: Prudence in reasoning and common sense; knowing what is helpful to share.     2. Expertise: Knowledge through formal study or experience. Ethical expertise requires citing sources through Direct Quotations or Paraphrasing.     3. Goodwill: Addressing the audience with respect and care for their well-being.
• Plagiarism: Representing someone else’s ideas or words as your own. It is considered "intellectual theft" and a violation of educational integrity. Example: The estate of Tom Petty received royalties because Sam Smith’s "Stay With Me" was too similar to "I Won't Back Down."
• Guidelines for Ethical Speaking:     * Know your stuff: Research the topic.     * Be prepared: Plan and rehearse.     * Demonstrate respect: Treat the audience as humans, avoid stereotyping/polarizing language.     * Do no harm: Avoid intentionally sharing false information or causing offense.
• Ethical Listening Practice: Listen for main points, observe organization, and assign meaning based on nonverbal cues. Aim to understand the speaker on their own terms despite noise.