Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public Speaking, 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
Lecture Notes
Chapter 6: Listening
Learning Objectives
1. Indicate why listening is important enough for an entire chapter.
6. Identify obstacles that people must overcome to listen well and be able to overcome
them.
Annotated Chapter Outline
I. Introduction
A. Listening is half of communication.
B. Listening well or effective listening entails active hearing.
i. This involves being attentive, analytical and engaged with what the speaker is
saying.
C. This chapter broadly discusses the following:
i. The objectives of listening
ii. Improving listening skills
II. Why Is Listening Important?
A. Studies show that listening is the most engaged activity in communication, so much
Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public Speaking, 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
C. Listening and Education
i. Listening is often the primary means of imparting education.
D. Listening and Healthcare
i. Listening well is fundamental to effective healthcare.
E. Listening and Relationships
i. Listening is fundamental to the development of relationships.
ii. It is also fundamental to maintenance of personal relationships.
F. Listening Objectives
i. A single exchange of communication can have multiple goals.
III. Active Listening
A. The terms hearing and listening are often used interchangeably.
B. Hearing: The passive physiological act of receiving sound that takes place when
C. Listening: The active process of receiving, attending to, interpreting, and responding
to symbolic activity.
D. There are various stages in the process of listening.
i. Receiving: The initial step in the listening process in which hearing and listening
connect.
ii. Attending: The second step in the listening process when stimuli are perceived
and focused on.
Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public Speaking, 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
iv. Responding: Final step in the listening process that entails reacting to the
IV. Engaged and Relational Listening
A. Active participation in a communication process involves more than mere listening.
B. Engaged listening: Making a personal relational connection with the source of a
message that results from the source and the receiver actively working together to
create shared meaning and understanding.
C. Task-oriented listening is a form of engaged listening.
i. It involves focusing on what needs to be done.
D. Disengaged Listening
i. Disengaged listening is the opposite of its engaged counterpart.
ii. Examples include your standard responses from technical support executives at
banks or hotels.
E. Engaged Listening for a Transactional World
i. Engaged listening is designed to enable you to grasp the unspoken meanings in
messages.
ii. This goes beyond the prosaic art of active listening.
F. Relational Listening
i. Relational listening: Recognizing, understanding, and addressing the
interconnection of relationships and communication during the listening process.
ii. In relational listening, two features of communication are addressed.
iii. Relationships influence what is communicated and how.
iv. Person Centered Listening
Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public Speaking, 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
a. Psychotherapist Carl Rogers theorized a special type of relational listening
known as person-centeredness.
b. The key elements of this approach are:
1. Respect acknowledges the other person as they are.
2. Empathy means to get in touch with the other person’s world.
V. Critical Listening
A. Critical listening: The process of analyzing and evaluating the accuracy, legitimacy,
and value of messages.
B. Critical listening can result in either a positive or a negative evaluation of a message.
C. Critical listening and evaluation are omnipresent and all-pervasive in our daily life.
D. Elements of Critical Listening
i. Evaluation of Plausibility
a. When you try to determine the legitimacy of messages.
ii. Evaluation of Source
a. When you try to check the veracity of messages depending on where or who it
is coming from (the speaker).
iii. Evaluation of Arguments
a. Messages can lack substantive logic or may be misleading.
iv. Evaluation of Consistency
a. The determination of the fact that messages lack internal contradictions or are
in tune with facts you already know to be true.
v. Evaluation of Evidence
a. Evidence in support of the messages may be considered following certain
Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public Speaking, 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
e. Quality of evidence is determined by the basis of criteria such as lack of bias,
sufficient expertise, and so on.
vi. Plausibility: The extent to which a message seems legitimate.
vii. Fallacious argument: An argument that appears legitimate but is actually based
VI. Recognizing and Overcoming Listening Obstacles
A. Environmental distraction: Obstacle to listening that results from the physical
location where listening takes place (loud environment) and competing sources
(several people speaking at once).These stem from the physical location in which
B. Medium distractions: Obstacle to listening that results from limitations or problems
inherent in certain media and technology, such as mobile phones or Internet
connections.
C. Source distractions: Obstacle to listening that results from auditory and visual
characteristics of the message source.
i. Recognition of the problem causing the distraction is the most effective way to
overcome it.
D. Factual diversion: Obstacle to listening that occurs when so much emphasis is
placed on attending to every detail of a message that the main point becomes lost.
SAGE Publishing, 2021
E. Semantic diversion: Obstacle to listening that occurs when people are distracted by
words or phrases used in a message through negative response or unfamiliarity.
i. Unfamiliar words or phrases also elicit similar diversions.
G. Selective listening: Obstacle to listening when people focus on the points of a
message that correspond with their views and interests and pay less attention to those
that do not.
i. Openness helps to overcome this diversion.
H. Egocentric listening: Obstacle to listening when people focus more on their message
and self-presentation than on the message of the other person involved in an
interaction.
I. Wandering thoughts: Obstacle to listening involving daydreams or thoughts about
things other than the message being presented.
i. Your wandering thoughts do not necessarily imply a lack of interest in the
message being presented, rather the rate of speech and the corresponding ability
J. Experiential superiority: Obstacle to listening when people fail to listen to someone
else fully because they believe that they possess more or superior knowledge and
experience than the other person.
K. Message complexity: Obstacle to listening when a person finds a message so
complex or confusing that you stop listening.
Instructor Resource
Duck, Communication in Everyday Life: The Basic Course Edition With Public Speaking, 3e
SAGE Publishing, 2021
L. Past experience with the source: Obstacle to listening when previous encounters
with a person lead people to dismiss or fail to critically examine a message because
VII. Listening Skills
A. Listening is as important in communication as the creation of messages.
B. Being a good communicator involves critical listening and not just speaking and