Listening is referred to as the action of giving your attention to action or sound. During the listening process, a person hears what other people are saying and there is an attempt to understand the meaning of what is being said. The listening act requires behavioral, cognitive and complex affective processes. The motivation of listening to others is part of the affective process. Cognitive process is inclusive of understanding, interpretation of the content and attending to the message. Behavioral processes are inclusive of the verbal or non-verbal or both response to a message.
Listening is different from obeying. This is brought about by the fact that in case a person receives information and understands it but chooses not to hinder to it, he or she has listened despite the fact that the result was not the speaker’s requirement. During listening, it is a listener that listens to the sound producer. Roland Barthes, a Semiotician described the difference between hearing and listening. He argued that listening refers to a psychological act while hearing refers to a physiological phenomenon. The act of listening is said to be a choice. It is an interpretative action that someone takes for purposes of understanding and making meaning out of something that they have heard.
WAYS IN WHICH ONE CAN LISTEN.
Roland Barthes argued that the understanding of listening is on three levels: understanding, deciphering and alerting. Understanding helps one in knowing the production of sound and the manner in which the listener is affected by the sound.
The first level of listening is alerting. This refers to the environmental sound cues detection. This has the meaning that certain places have specific sounds that are associated with them. Example: an industry produces a certain sound that is associated with that industry therefore making it familiar. An intrusion or production of an unfamiliar sound alerts the operator of a potential danger like a system break-down.
The second level of listening is deciphering. This refers to the detection of patterns during the interpretation of the sounds. Example: a mother’s sound that alerts the child that the mother is home. Certain sound cues like the jingling of keys will alert the child.
Understanding is the final listening level. This refers to knowing the manner in which what one says affects others. This form of listening is very crucial in psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis refers to the unconscious mind study. Barthes argues that psychoanalysts must put aside their judgement while they listen to what their patient have to say for them to be able to communicate with their unconscious patients in a manner that is unbiased. In this very same way, listeners are required to put aside their judgement in order to listen to others.
The three different levels function in the same line and they at times occur at once. The second level and the third level are known to overlap in a lot of cases.
ACTIVE LISTENING.
This refers to listening to what something has to say as well as the process of attempting to understand what the speaker is saying. It is simply described as possessing good skills of listening. This includes the speaker being attentive, non-interrupting and non-judgmental.
