Theory and the Advancement of Listening Research: A Reply to Purdy

Abstract

This essay provides a spirited response to Purdy's essay decrying the necessity for theory-driven listening research. In it, I correct two primary misconceptions about my previous essay and attempt to maintain a place for theorizing listening.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Preparation of this manuscript was partially supported by a Summer Research Grant awarded to Graham Bodie from the College of Arts and Sciences at LSU.

I would like to thank Nathan Crick (LSU) for reading previous versions of this essay. Though the essay would not be the same without his insight, he should receive no blame for the commentary it provides or negative reaction it may provoke.

Notes

¹I have purposely avoided using the terms “quantitative” and “qualitative” here and urge other listening researchers to move away from that dichotomy. Not only is the quantitative/qualitative dichotomy not very useful or insightful (Bavelas, 1995), it appears to have a divisive effect suggesting that people who do one type of research operate very systematically (i.e., try to develop theory) while others are relatively unconcerned with patterns of behavior. I find the veracity of this claim highly suspect in light of research using ethnographic methods (one method that Purdy highlights as “qualitative”) seeking to understand why people of certain cultures operate in certain ways (Carbaugh, 1999). Indeed, some of this research even seeks to generate “general principles” of communication (Pearce & Pearce, 2000). In either case, the research is motivated by a desire to generate theory, that is, systematic explanations for some set of phenomena. Regrettably, I assume responsibility for enhancing the quantitative/qualitative dichotomy (Bodie & Fitch-Hauser, 2010), and restrictions of language make it necessary to talk about quantitative “versus” qualitative research in some settings (e.g., when designing an edited text aimed at advanced undergraduate/beginning graduate student readers). Nevertheless, the “versus” in that phrase should be used carefully and with full awareness of its limitations. Avoiding the “versus” gets us away from statements such as “in the methodological process of doing theory-driven research one reduces the richness and variety of lived experience into ‘numbers’” (Purdy, 2011/this issue, p. 136). Of course, this statement assumes that in order to do theory-driven research one must obtain data amenable to quantification, go about computing measures of central tendency and variability, and employing statistics to infer about the population from the sample. Scholars can do theory-driven research in a manner that does not require numbers, but if numbers are invoked scholars are fully aware of context and the lived experience.

²Purdy (2011/this issue) certainly recognizes the importance of theory as he proposes at least two in his response. First, he suggests that “listening is central to the research (ad)venture” (p. 133), thus, proposing listening as a mechanism underlying the research process. In other words, listening makes research possible similar to how implicit rules or social contracts make understanding others possible (e.g., Grice, 1975). Second, by stating “what is fixed by the culture can be undone by the culture, and what is fixed by the culture can be undone by the aware individual” (Purdy, 2011/this issue, p. 137), Purdy proposes a theoretical question—if things change why is this so? Indeed, both scientific and other philosophical approaches to the study of listening (each with their respective set of limitations) can lend unique insight into this important question and various theories can be proposed to investigate this practical concern.