Decoding Oral Speech: Content, Process & Strategies
Content Involved in Listening Comprehension
We can distinguish three types of content involved in this ability:
Procedures
- Recognize
- Select
- Interpret
- Infer
- Anticipate
- Retain
Concepts
- Text: adequacy, consistency, cohesion, grammar, style, and presentation.
Attitudes
- Oral Culture
- Receptor Role
- Dialogue and Conversation
- Parliaments (Turn-taking/Discourse Structures)
The procedures are the different communication strategies used to decode spoken messages. The concepts are the same as those of other skills, i.e., the language system, grammatical rules, and textual discourses conveyed. Finally, attitudes encompass underlying values, opinions, and behavioral norms related to the act of listening.
Listening Processing Model & Comprehension Strategies
Understanding the Process of Oral Speech Comprehension
This section explains the process and draws implications for educators.
We follow a listening model, and to explain it, we will use a common example: a conversation on the street. As we walk through the village or town, someone explains the details of their last vacation. The process begins before the speaker starts their speech with an important set of pre-comprehension strategies. Firstly, we have likely encountered this person before and have experience with how they speak, the personal meaning of certain expressions they use, etc. The specific context points are determined: perhaps it has been a while since we last met, they have recently returned from holiday, we both enjoy traveling, etc.
Furthermore, if we see this person approaching us, specific objectives will guide the conversation and our understanding: finding out how they are, how their holiday went, what they have been doing, etc.
We have this information stored in our Cognitive Context Model (CCM) and update it before and during the comprehension process. As this information and experience are shared between the sender and receiver, it constitutes a solid base on which we build comprehension. On the other hand, when we do not know the speaker, we cannot foresee all this data, and communication depends solely on the speech itself. Consider a conversation with people from other cultures with whom we share only a lingua franca: although we understand the words, intercomprehension is harder because we do not share a common understanding of the world.
During the conversation, the receiver employs a range of strategies:
1. Recognition
We identify a number of acoustic sequence elements as familiar: sounds, words, expressions.
2. Selection
Among the different sounds, words, expressions, and ideas recognized, we choose those that seem relevant based on our grammatical knowledge and interests, grouping them into coherent and meaningful units.
3. Interpretation
According to our knowledge of grammar and the world, we attach meaning to the forms we have selected. We impose syntactic structure and communicative value on every word and sentence.
4. Anticipation
During the speech, we also anticipate what the sender might say next, just as we did during pre-comprehension. Based on intonation, speech structure, content, etc., we predict what will follow.