3. Characteristics of Listening Activities
1) When an interpreter is listening. he/she hears a smooth stream of sounds coming in continuity and rapidly instead of in isolation. And there is no definite borderline between individual sounds, as sounds are acoustically on a continum. In actual speech, each sound varies considerably depending on what sound comes before or after it. For instance, the t in TOP differs from the t in STOP or the t in BOTTLE.
2) When an interpreter is listening, he/she has little or no control over the speed of the input of the spoken material. He/She can occasionally ask the speaker to slow down, and in most circumstances he/she has to try to keep pace with the speed at which the message is delivered.
3) The interpreter can hear the speech only once. There are exceptions, but in most cases, he/she cannot go back and re-hear the same material in the same way, and he/she cannot keep going back (as in reading) and checking that he/she has heard correctly while new messages keep coming in.
4) The speech is likely to be distorted by various types of noises.
5) The sounds the interpreter hears may vary from speaker to speaker, from time to time, to a surprising extent.
Indeed, listening comprehension proceeds in the face of a number of uncertainties and difficulties. However, oral communication still works because it is so constructed that it involves redundancy and pause at a variety of levels, to assist in overcoming these uncertainties and difficulties.
4. Listening with the Eye
There are some listening situations where we must not only use our ears but all of our faculties, especially our eyes for obtaining information. In actual oral translation practice, it is not infrequent that the speaker's precise meaning is not communicated exactly. Meanings are in people not in words. Therefore, sole reliance on the ear for listening increases the possibility of not actually understanding the speaker's meaning. In situations where we are able to have visual observation, we usually listen with the eye, that is, listen to the speaker while carefully watching his/her physical movements (facial expressions, body movements). Through visual observation, we can pick up both verbal and non-verbal cues; and by looking
for consistency and inconsistency between the verbal and non-verbal cues, we can understand both the open and hidden meanings the speaker attaches to the information being conveyed.
Listening with the eye means that listening is not a passive activity, it requires the interpreter's active involvement in obtaining information.
In conclusion, listening is a highly cognitive activity requiring three levels of skills: receiving aural data, thinking of them and remembering them. It demands the listener's (interpreter's) active participation.
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