Towards a Hermeneutical Understanding of the Listening Process

This dissertation offers an alternative to the behaviorist understanding of the listening process inherent in the models developed by scholars such as Brownell, Wolvin and Coakley. Using mostly close-text analysis to examine the trends of the literature to date, this dissertation introduces the ideas of Gadamer on philosophical hermeneutics and Fuimara on the connections between listening and hermeneutics to the current discussion. This dissertation argues that the process actually starts when one makes the choice to listen. It distinguishes the choice to listen from the behaviorist concepts of willingness and attention and connects it to Gadamer's understanding of tradition and bias. This work presents a hermeneutical model of the listening process that highlights the choice to listen; it compares this model to behaviorist models which suggest the processes starts when one hears or perceives a message. This dissertation presents the hermeneutical model as yet another way to explain the complexities of listening.

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Immediate Access

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Communication and Rhetorical Studies

Year dc:date.available

2008

Author dc:creator

• Stoltz, Molly Mae

Contributors dc:contributor

• Ronald C. Arnett
• Calvin L. Troup
• Janie Harden Fritz

• hermeneutics
• listening
• listening process

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/1240

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dsc.duq.edu:etd-2256