Rethinking Conceptual Approaches to the Study of “Listening”

Abstract

Theory about listening has been strongly affected by methodological orientations and institutional pressures. It would help if researchers spent more time on the objects of study rather than method. Traditional listening research has confused listening with general cognitive abilities, such as IQ. Studying listening as memory is a tempting alternative, but carries with it its own problems. Listening should be considered as a broad field rather than a single ability or skill. Some alternatives might include listening and schemas, the relationship between listening and reading, and behaviors associated with listening.

Notes

¹This is so prevalent in philosophical writing that we have become accustomed to it. For example, Ayer (1956) finds it troubling that the word “knowledge” may at one time refer to the ability to perform an appropriate response and at another time to the “possession” of particular sentences describing states of affairs (p. 12). It is puzzling why Ayer did not consider that the term “knowing” is used in two different ways in his two different examples and, therefore, must have at least two different referents. The struggle to give it one general usage is not helpful.

²For example, recently Dougherty, Kramer, Klatzke, and Rogers (2009) explored a phenomenon they termed “meaning divergence.” Essentially their divergence was based on a situation where a particular utterance could be classified as either “flirting” or “sexual harassment.” While they used the term “meaning” to describe different uses of a particular utterance, “intentionality,” might have served them better, at least in that context. The uses of the term “meaning” range from the referential to the philosophical.

³For an excellent review of the range of contemporary listening study, see Bodie and Fitch-Hauser (2010).

⁴Traditional university curricula required courses in writing, but after World War II some daring institutions (e.g., Iowa, Michigan State) instituted courses in “communication skills” to include reading, writing, speaking, and listening in a comprehensive experience. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of such instruction, measurement of some kind was necessary. Most early research was conducted in university settings, and the universal assumption was that college students learned by reading textbooks and listening to lectures (Becker & Dallinger, 1960).

⁵Also known as the National Teacher Examination.