Blog Post #4 Crista Clayton

Before reading this article, I had never thought about listening before through a rhetorical lens. I too had naturalized the skill, and merely considered it a means of receiving a message- not so much a rhetorical strategy. However, I feel that a “code of cross-cultural conduct” is a perfect way to describe how listening may be employed to further our rhetorical understanding of a situation. Ratcliffe brought up an interesting anecdote about her former students and how all it takes is one word or sentence to cause a divide among the audience by either highlighting or erasing commonalities of a group. The way that people hear the message is going to affect their ability to understand and talk about the message, and these students were strongly affected by what Ratcliffe describes as the fourth component of listening- language. Language is what drives the piece forward and communicates the message. The rhetor can make every attempt to persuade or describe or deliver their message, choosing every single word to be powerful and intentional. However, no matter how precisely each word is selected- the rhetor can not determine how the audience will listen, only how they would like them to. Ratcliffe acknowledges that one of the major factors that influence the audience’s reaction is their cultural upbringing, understandings, and biases.One cultural bias Ratcliffe highlighted that really interested me was how she said speaking is considered masculine and valued positively, while listening is considered more feminine and held as a less important practice. I’ve never considered listening to be a gendered skill, or in relation to ethnic boundaries and principles. However, how we listen is often ingrained in us from a young age, and all biological as well as environmental factors play into that. We focus on things that matter to us, and everything else becomes less important or just background information of the argument. I feel like prioritizing information like this is a component of both listening and speaking/writing. The language the rhetor chooses will create the channel that they intend for the audience to go down, but the audience ultimately holds the power for where they take that message. A friend once told me that you can say the same sentence (“I didn’t eat his sandwich”) five times, placing the inflection on a different word each time, and the meaning of the sentence changes. Even with the same five words, collectively you can make the audience receive a different message either time. I feel as though this goes the same way for the listener. Selective listening and choosing what to focus on can change the entire meaning of a piece, and either increase or reduce it’s function as a tool for promoting cross-cultural communication. After reading this piece, I definitely consider listening an underrated/unrecognized rhetorical practice.