Page 86 - Essentials of Human Communication

Listening Differences: Culture and Gender 65

Language and Speech Even when a speaker and a listener speak the same language,
they speak it with different meanings and different accents. Speakers of the same language
will, at the very least, have different meanings for the same terms because they have had dif- Watch the Video
ferent experiences. For example, the word “parents” to someone brought up in a series of fos- “American Spoken Here”
ter homes will be drastically different from someone who grew up in a “traditional” family. at MyCommunicationLab
Speakers and listeners who have different native languages and who may have learned
English as a second language will have even greater differences in meaning. If you learned
your meaning for house in a culture in which everyone lives in his or her own house with lots
of land around it, then communicating with someone whose meaning of house was learned
in a neighborhood of high-rise tenements is going to be difficult. Although each of you will
hear the word house, the meanings you’ll develop will be drastically different. In adjusting
your listening—especially in an intercultural setting—understand that the speaker’s mean-
ings may be very different from yours even though you’re speaking the same language.
In many classrooms throughout the United States, there will be a wide range of accents.
Those whose native language is tonal, such as Chinese (in which differences in pitch signal
important meaning differences), may speak English with variations in pitch that may be puz-
zling to others. Those whose native language is Japanese may have trouble distinguishing l
from r, because Japanese does not include this distinction. The native language acts as a filter
and influences the accent given to the second language.
nonverbal behaviors Speakers from different cultures have different display rules, cul-
tural rules that govern which nonverbal behaviors are appropriate and which are inappropri-
ate in a public setting. As you listen to other people, you also “listen” to their nonverbals. If
nonverbal signals are drastically different from what you would expect on the basis of the
verbal message, you may see them as a kind of noise or interference or even as a contradic-
tory message. If a colleague at work, for example, consistently averts her eyes when talking
with you, you may interpret this as an indication of shyness or dishonesty (which are often
associated with averted eyes), but it may be merely a sign that your colleague’s culture dis-
courages direct eye contact. (Some, often collectivist, cultures consider direct eye contact
overly forward, impolite, or inappropriate [Axtell, 2007]. Other, often individualist, cultures
consider direct eye contact a sign of honesty and forthrightness.) To complicate matters fur-
ther, different cultures often have very different meanings for the same nonverbal gesture.
For example, the thumb and forefinger forming a circle means “OK” in most of the United
States, but it means “money” in Japan, “zero” in some Mediterranean countries, and “I’ll kill
you” in Tunisia.
Feedback Members of some cultures give very direct and very honest feedback. Speakers
from these largely individualist cultures—the United States is a good example—expect feed-
back to be an honest reflection of what their listeners are feeling. In other largely collectivist Explore the Exercise
cultures—Japan and Korea are good examples—it’s more important to be positive (and to “Typical Man, Typical Woman”
respect the other person’s need for positive face) than to be truthful. As a result, people may at MyCommunicationLab
respond with positive feedback (say, in commenting on a business colleague’s proposal) even
if it doesn’t reflect their true opinion. Listen to feedback, as you would to all messages, with a
full recognition that various cultures view feedback very differently.
Communication
Choice point
gendeR And LiStening Support not Solutions
Men and women learn different styles of listening, just as they learn different styles You need to make some
for using verbal and nonverbal messages. Not surprisingly, these different styles can major decisions in your life, and you need
create difficulties in opposite-sex communication. to bounce your ideas off someone, just to
clarify them in your own mind. Your roman-
Rapport and Report talk According to linguistic scholar and popular writer tic partner almost always tries to solve your
Deborah Tannen (1990) in her best-selling You Just Don’t Understand: Women and problems rather than just be a supportive
Men in Conversation, women seek to share feelings, build rapport, and establish listener. What are some of the things you
closer relationships, and they use listening to achieve these ends. Men, on the other might say to help secure support rather than
the offering of solutions?
hand, play up their expertise, emphasize it, and use it to dominate the interaction.