"Unlocking the Power of Listening: Exploring the Three Key Purposes"

Question: Purpose of listening There are many reasons why we may want to listen to spoken language. It could be to gain information, to make certain distinctions between sounds, or to engage critically with a spoken text. In the following section we discuss the purposes of listening. Discriminative listening – this involves differentiating between different speech sounds. For example, being able to tell whether the language being spoken is English or your mother tongue. If what you hear sounds unfamiliar, it means you cannot understand what is being said. For example, if a Chinese-speaker walked along the streets of Durban, in South Africa, where people mainly speak isiZulu, s/he would instantly be able to tell that the language being spoken was certainly not their mother tongue. 108 Comprehension listening – comprehending or understanding meaning requires us to know the vocabulary and rules of a language. We cannot comprehend spoken language if we do not know how the system of that language is arranged, and what its words mean. This is related to the feature of language that we discussed in Unit 1, namely structure dependence, i.e., all languages being arranged in a systematic way. In the same unit, we looked at visual communication. In this regard, it is important to state that someone may find it difficult to comprehend what is being said if s/he cannot read body language. The structure of English was explored further in Unit 2, when we delved into aspects such as clauses, phrases and sentences. Our comprehension of spoken language requires an understanding of the rules of that language, including how sentences are built or structured. Let us turn our attention to the stages of listening. • Stages of listening According to Nunan (2001) there are three stages of listening: pre-, while- and post-listening. Let us discuss each stage in detail. Pre-listening stage – this is what you do before you listen to spoken language. You might, for example, prepare yourself by activating your background knowledge of a text by conducting research on the topic you are going to listen to. For example, let us say you are going to listen to music being performed by a musician. It would be wise to find out information about the musician, such as when s/he was born, where s/he comes from and what kind of music s/he makes. In preparing to listen to a presentation on a weight-loss product, the weather forecast, the budget speech in parliament, a play or a sermon, you might do background reading on the topic(s) beforehand. Any budget speech will certainly involve big figures and financial vocabulary, compared to a presentation on a weight-loss product, which is likely to use vocabulary that will appeal to your emotions. Activity Look at the example of the following poem by Sipho Sepamla, Da same, da same in Horne and Heinemann (2003:37). Da same, da same I doesn’t care of you black I doesn’t care of you white I doesn’t care of you India I doesn’t care of you clearlink if sometimes you Saus Afrika you gotta big terrible, terrible somewhere in yourselves ENG1514/501/0/2024 109 I mean for sure now all da peoples is make like God an’ da God I knows for sure He make avarybudy wi’ one heart for sure now dis heart go-go da same dats for meaning to say one man no diflent to anadar so now you seea big terrible terrible stand here how one man make anader man feel da pain he doesn’t feel hisself for surenow dats da whole point sometime you wanna know how I meaning for is simple when da nail of say da t’orn tree scratch little bit of da skin I doesn’t care of say black I doesn’t care of say white I doesn’t care of say India I doesn’t care of say clearlink I mean for sure da skin only one t’ing come for sure an’ da one t’ing for sure is red blood dats for sure da same, da same for avarybudy so for sure now you doesn’t look anadar man in de eye 110 Imagine you were going to listen to the poem being recited, or, if possible, listen to it being read on YouTube. Do a pre-listening exercise using the following questions to guide you: 1. What do you know about the genre of the text? How does a poem differ from other verbal texts, such as presentations and sermons? 2. What language would you expect the poem to be written in, and why? 3. Do you know of any other poems that were written by the same poet? 4. Is there anything you need to know about the poet? Feedback on Activity 1. This is a poem. A poem differs from other verbal/spoken texts in the way it is structured. It is written in stanzas, instead of paragraphs. The ideas of the poet are expressed in lines that may or may not be sentences. 2. In an English lesson, the poem being studied will most likely have been written in English. Furthermore, given the history of South Africa, there is a possibility that the poet wrote the poem in English to make a point about writing it in poor English. 3. The Will, The Soweto I love, To Whom it May Concern, and the collection in Hurry Up to It. 4. His place of birth, where the poet grew up, and his role in the history of South Africa and the struggle for equality. You can find other suggested answers and commentaries to these questions in the feedback guide to the activities – it can be accessed through your e-tutors and face-to-face tutors. While-listening stage – this is what you do when listening to a text. The aim is to listen for meaning – that is, to elicit a message from the spoken word. At this stage you would not worry too much about being able to answer any questions that follow, but you might concentrate on comprehension, on whether you understand the essential information you are hearing. That means you will focus on listening, instead of worrying about catching every word and how it is pronounced. When listening, it is also possible to see the ‘bigger picture’, but with one crucial difference: information comes in an arranged way. In that arrangement of information, there are content words (nouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs) that can help you create a mental image of what is being talked about. This is what we call the ‘gist’. For example, the words snacks, family, bonding, picnic and summer have their own meanings, but when you hear the words appearing together, they help to formulate the context of a picnic in your mind. During the while-listening stage, it is important to aim to establish the ‘bigger picture’, that is, to understand the gist of the text. While you may glean some details from listening to the text the first time, the intention is to focus on the broader meaning first, so that you can obtain more/finer details when you listen to the text several times. Holistic listening means listening to the ‘whole’ text, while segmental listening involves listening to segments or chunks of an utterance. Before you listen to specific segments, it is important to ENG1514/501/0/2024 111 listen holistically. The aim of holistic listening is to help you develop strategies to use in processing and understanding texts. In language, certain words help us to follow what we are listening to. These words, which bring cohesion to ideas, make it possible for us, as listeners, to follow what the speaker is saying or to determine the intention behind the speaker’s utterance. For example, if a university lecturer says: I am going to focus on three causes of global warming, it is an indication that you will hear three factors being listed. Other words and phrases can function similarly, for example, to make something clear (‘let me put it this way’, ‘to elaborate’); to give examples (‘to illustrate’, ‘for instance’) and can direct your attention to a point that is being elaborated on. Activity Look at the poem by Sipho Sepamla, Da same, da same again. Imagine you were going to listen to this text or, if possible, listen to it being read on YouTube. Do a while-listening exercise using the following questions to guide you: 1. What is the gist of the poem? 2. What can you say about the voice of the poet? 3. What can you say about the language the poet used? In your view, why did the poet choose to use this kind of language? 4. How does the poet maintain the attention of his listeners? Is there any use of body language and facial expression? Feedback on Activity 1. The essence of the poem is: even though we may come from different races and cultures, we share many similarities. We are all capable of doing good or evil. We can all get hurt, emotionally and physically, in the same way. 2. The poem is written in the active voice. If you listen to the poem on YouTube, for example, you will discover that the voice of the poet varies, to get a certain message across. 3. The language used in the poem is not formal language. It sounds like the language used on social media networks, and it is not always grammatically correct. In a way the poet is trying to indicate to the listeners that he is not a first-language speaker of English. 4. The use of body language and eye contact might be involved because the poet wants to engage the audience and emphasise certain points. We imagine that the poet is very passionate about his writing and will use his voice appropriately to draw the audience’s attention. 112 You can find commentaries in the feedback guide to the activities – it can be accessed through your e-tutors and face-to-face tutors. Post-listening – this is what you do after listening to a text. Some of the things you can do may add to what you were doing during the pre- and while-listening stages. Post-listening allows you to reflect on the text you have listened to; on speech sounds, how the language is structured, and the words that were used. After listening, you can analyse, debate, or write down your opinions. These activities might include writing a summary of the text you have just listened to; answering factual questions about the text; or critically evaluating the context, purpose, audience, and register. Question 1 1.1. Read the text above and metion 3 purposes for listening