Motivation

Motivation was a topic from chapter 7 that I found interesting. I agree that motivation plays a big part of successful listening. I believe that if you are motivated then active listening is facilitated and therefore interpretation of context/ message is easier. I believe that these phases and terms of listening are all related but I found motivation to be the most interesting because this is, in my opinion, where it all begins. If one is motivated/ interested then they pay more attention. When someone is distracted or busy, then motivation is lower due to the fact that their focus is elsewhere. Caring is an important part of listening. We have to want to listen and want to understand the message being sent by the other person. Like the book stated, good listening enhances our lives by allowing relationships to blossom, avoid conflict and many other things. Effective listening begins with motivation.

Interpreting the message

Listening is a big part of my life due to the fact that I work as a translator. I have to carefully and actively listen in order to not only translate the words being said but the context. English and Spanish are very different in grammar, structure, and word use. Translating therefore becomes a problem when you have to add meaning; for this reason, interpreting the message is the most difficult part of listening that occurs in my situation at work.

Recently, I was listening to a tape of a conversation in Spanish and I had to translate it for my superiors. The conversation the two parties were having was regarding a problem that was occurring between three or four people. Both parties knew who or what each other was talking about, and had background knowledge that I obviously did not have. Listening was very difficult because I had to figure out the message they were trying to send. The conversation used a lot of pronouns so the context had to be carefully analyzed and the sequentially followed to see who they referred to as “he” and who was mad at who. Finding out the point of the conversation was time consuming and tedious. I tried to overcome this by putting myself in the shoes of the person who was talking and trying to be part of the conversation by putting myself there which actually helped a little. Overall though, listening for the message is relative and a lot of confusion or misunderstandings can arise easily if one is not careful.

Regulation

A concept that I found very interesting in Chapter 6 was regulation. This concept was interesting to me because it is something that I often use at work and didn’t realize that there was a clear defined term for it. At work this has become very useful because there is a person who works on our team who is very odd. This person comes to us and tries to hold very long, boring, unnecessary, uncomfortable conversations. Considering that we have a lot of work to do, it is difficult to sit there and listen to him, but at the same time it is rude to tell him to be quiet since he is somehow considered to be a superior. Luckily, we have found ways around this issue. Non-verbal cues are not always too helpful with this person because he seems to not get it, but there is one that works very well. My job consists of listening with ear phone on so once he begins and we can not get him to stop, we tend to smile nicely like if it was funny or interesting and proceed to put our earphones on. This usually woks and he goes away.
Some people, for a reason unbeknownst to me, do not understand nonverbal signals. This particular person does not get it when we avoid contact, interrupt, avoid responses, and put our headphones on. It makes it seem as if though these cues are not universal and understood by all cultures, all people or etc.

Proxemics and Chronemics

Prexemics could be easily explained as the personal boundary space between people when they speak and how it differs depending on relationship with person and other issues. Chronemics on the other hand is in regards to time and how different cultures interpretation of time. I believe that these two concepts do not have universal rules among cultures but rather vary very differently between cultures. Like anything in life, there are overlaps and similarities within cultures but, in general, there are differences and understanding these differences allows people from different communities to understand each other better.

A personal experience I have is with proxemics. I have an issue with people invading my personal space, speaking while standing too close to me, or etc. I realized this because there is a male of a different culture who woks at our office. This person is criticized often at work among everyone because of his close proximity while talking to you, looking over your shoulder while you are working, and in general just invading peoples personal space. While speaking to another co-worker who is of the same culture as that male, she told me that a lot of people think that he is like that because of his culture. Her comment in regards to that was that culture should not be blamed because she is of the same culture, background, and circle of family friends, and she is not like that. She said that it was not culture but rather that he was extremely weird and anti social. I found this to be extremely interesting. Possibly it is not all about cultural but rather individual genetics or other factors that should be looked into.