User:Dalia SeifAllah/Listening

One of the examples of divided logos was Aristotle’s theory. Despite its concern with teaching students the oral discourse that mandates listening to produce and analyze enthymemes, listening was displaced and diminished.[6] The attention given to speaking without listening “perpetuates a homogenized mode of speech based on competition rather than dialogue.” (251) [23] Ratcliffe attributed the listening neglect to the Western cultural biases that are represented as: 1) speaking is gendered as masculine while listening as feminine; 2) Listening is subjugated to ethnicity: white people speak while people of color listen; in other words, in cross-cultural relationships, there is one superior member in the conversation who does not need to listen as closely; 3) Western culture prefers to depend on sight, not auditory, as their primary interpretative trope.[6]

Rhetorical Listening

Ratcliffe invited language scholars to consider listening as a new tactic to make meaning and hear the discursive discourses of gender and race and, most importantly, facilitate cross-culture dialogue. Ratcliffe defined rhetorical listening “as a trope for interpretive invention, one that emerges from a space within the logos where listeners may employ their agency.” (p. 204)  In other words, listening can be used as a tool to understand the experiences and voices of other people. Therefore, listening is a means of interpretating, reflecting on, and making new meanings. To this end, Ratcliffe expanded that rhetorical listening provides a “stance of openness that a person may choose to assume in relation to any person, text, or culture.” (p. 17)  As an outcome of this openness, Ratcliffe (2005) claimed that rhetorical listening cultivates individuals’ conscious and willingness in a way that promote the communication, especially the cross-cultural one.

Pedersen (2013) states that communication suffers when interlocutors harbor stereotypes and prejudices, a practice that causes disidentification. Rhetorical listening, in contrast, promotes identification and allows students and teachers to disrupt reciprocal resistance.

Rhetorical listening requires the attendance of individuals’ intentions of seeking understanding. This understanding cannot exist with mere listening. Stenberg cautioned against any expected limitations of interpretation might be caused by these intentions.  Therefore, within rhetorical listening the word understanding inverts to be "standing under." This means standing under all the perspectives so that one can (re) conceptualize his/ her ideas and ethics. Hence, individuals do not listen to accumulate others’ ideas, instead they cultivate these ideas through which they can enhance their language and change their visions that open a new avenue for other responses.

Practicing rhetorical listening in the classroom

Based on Krista Ratcliffe’s work on rhetorical listening, Meagan Rodgers developed the intent/effect tactic as one way for students to practice rhetorical listening in the English composition classroom. The purpose of applying this tool lies in disrupting racially discriminatory stereotypes and utterances. Rodgers found in her classroom-based research that even if a person does not perceive to be racist, racism or racial stereotypes are subconsciously perpetuated when a majority/dominant group agrees with or laughs at racial differences of a minority group member. Rather than confronting students and jeopardizing their willingness to participate in classroom discussions, the intent/effect strategy invites students to (1) consider numerous perspectives of a statement, and (2) understand that well-meant comments (intent) can be perceived as deleterious (effect) by others.

Another strategy for teachers to practice rhetorical listening and improve cultural sensitivity in the classroom is by applying practices from Deaf Studies. This kind of listening pedagogy requires students (1) to be attentive and reduce distracting noises; (2) share their story, including their cultural background, so that classmates can be familiar with their perspective; (3) engage in “critical dialogue” in order to understand others; and (4) pay attention to their classmates’ body language and the message it sends.

Rhetorical listening in the classroom can also be used to shed more light onto why students are silent. Janice Cools discusses several reasons for silence in the ESL/ELL composition classroom, such as students holding back their wisdom on purpose to avoid being harassed by peers and instructors for giving a wrong answer. The fear and doubt that can result from this type of response might lead to feelings of incompetence and discomfort in an individual and cause them to continue in silence in the classroom. A further reason why students choose silence is because they were taught to be silent, especially at the secondary school level in some cultures, e.g. Puerto Rico. Cools suggests to ask students in writing why they are (not) silent in their classes, "how [they] interpret other students' silences [...] and what a professor should infer from [students'] silence." Students answered that silence can be beneficial as it shows their focus on the material, gives them an opportunity to get to know a different perspective while listening to their peers, and allows them to reflect and process questions. Moreover, discussions can be perceived as interruption because classmates do not have expert knowledge. Cools concludes that silence in the classroom should be appreciated and respected.

@Matthewvetter: Hey Dr. V- come check out my planned edits! Pfützensturm (talk) 21:39, 26 March 2022 (UTC) Thank you, Claudia.

@Pfützensturm: Hey Claudia, This looks great! I mostly did little edits to get it a little more in line with Wiki conventions. This is ready to be moved to mainspace. just make sure you make small edits one at a time and leave good edit summaries! DarthVetter (talk) 19:59, 7 April 2022 (UTC) Dr. Vetter

Feedback from Vetter

Since you both are working with the concept and practice of rhetorical listening, I would suggest that Dalia's paragraph be formatted as a "Heading" and Claudia's as "Sub-heading 1" within Dalia's heading.

Use first and last names of scholars/practitioners when mentioning them the first time in a section. You can just use last name in any subsequent mention in the same section. E.g Krista Ratcliffe vs. Ratclffe. In-line citations belong at the end of the sentence typically rather than immediately after an author's name (which is more of an APA convention). Footnotes should also be immediately after the end punctuation.

Use the "re-use" citation tool to avoid creating new references in the ref list. I've fixed the Cool and the Bannister.

Changes from Vetter

Moved Meagan Rodgers citation to end of first paragraph.

Added first names to Rodgers and Ratcliffe in first paragraph

Updated references and eliminated reference duplicates

@Matthewvetter: Hey Dr. Vetter - Thank you for your feedback. It was very helpful!