Speech

Speech Study Guide

the use of slang , which is informal, nonstandard vocabulary where definitions are assigned by a social group or co-culture. Speakers should strive to avoid slang in speeches because they risk being misunderstood and not sounding professional. It can also impact the speaker’s credibility. 7.5 Listening Types It may seem illogical, at first, for a speaker to understand listening and everything involved with how an audience is going to listen to a speech; however, the most effective speakers understand their audience. Communication is the process of shared meaning. One of the first things to understand is that hearing and listening is not the same thing. Hearing is a physiological process of receiving and processing sound. Listening is the process of receiving, attending to, constructing meaning from, and responding to spoken or nonverbal messages. It is important because of the time spent communicating. Even when listening carefully, most people remember about fifty percent of what they hear. Effective listening is critical for successful communication. Audiences may listen for various reasons depending on the situation: • Appreciative listening occurs when listening to music for enjoyment and to speakers because the audience likes their style. • Discriminative listening occurs when an audience listens to infer what more a speaker might mean beyond the words they are saying. For example, when a doctor is giving test results the patient tries to infer if the results are positive or negative. • Comprehensive listening occurs when the listener’s goal is to understand, remember, and recall information. • Empathic listening occurs when the listener wants to provide emotional support. • Critical listening occurs when an audience wants to understand and critically evaluate the worth of a message and requires more psychological processing than other forms of listening. 7.6 Listening Challenges To be effective listeners in any situation, there are a few challenges to listening that are rooted in listening apprehension, listening styles, approaches to listening, passivity syndrome, automatic rejection, short attention span, and stereotyping. Listening apprehension is the anxiety felt about listening, and may increase when the listener is worried about misinterpreting the message or when the listener is concerned about how the message may affect the listener psychologically. Anxiety and apprehension may increase if the listener is feeling ill, tired, or stressed about something else going on in life. This challenge makes it difficult to focus on the message.

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