1.1 A Communication Perspective of Listening

To define listening in the field of Communication, I review the following resources. I review journal articles published in the International Journal of Listening ^[1] from its inception in 1987 through 2023, and articles from searches conducted in Communication and Mass Media Complete and Google Scholar.^[2] Of the resources found, three publications represent major attempts to conceptualize listening in the field of Communication. ^[3] First, Glenn’s review of fifty definitions of listening highlights the most important listening themes as attention, perception, interpretive, verbal and nonverbal cues, memory, and a potential response. Second, Witkin and Trochim describe a conceptual map of listening using cluster names such as sensory impressions, context, active testing, empathy, and composite powers. And third, Worthington and Bodie suggest that a single all-encompassing definition of listening is undesirable. Instead, they contend that listening should be defined by research grounded in a particular theory. Theoretical perspectives in listening emphasize different constructs, for example, cognitive, affective, behavioral, and relational. Janusik labels these four listening constructs the Listening Quad.^[4]

I also uncovered two often-quoted definitions for listening from international sources. The International Listening Association’s task force in 1994 created the following definition of listening:

Listening is the active process of receiving, constructing meaning from, and responding to spoken and/or nonverbal messages. It involves the ability to retain information, as well as to react empathically and/or appreciatively to spoken and/or nonverbal messages.^[5]

And the Global Listening Centre defines listening as:

. . . a multimodal process that underlies effective interpersonal and intercultural relations. Listening is part attitude . . . part skill . . . and part physical, driven by a host of physiological, sensory-motor, cognitive, and affective functions . . . these elements shape the perceptual lenses through which humans interpret and strive to understand themselves, colored by each individual’s cultural background.^[6]

In addition to the listening concepts from the review of the literature, these later two definitions add further ideas to the conceptualization of listening as a multimodal process, an attitude, a skill, and a set of individual and cultural perceptual lenses.