Chapter 4 discusses various ways we can improve the effectiveness in our verbal communication. I personally enjoyed reading about the section that dealt with respecting what others say about their feelings and thoughts. The book discusses various ways people can make you feel stupid for thinking or feeling something different from them. As an effective communicator, you should not dispute or put down what others say about what they think or feel. If you do not feel the same way as someone else, you can find a way to respect their feelings because they are an expert on their own feelings. Also, the author discusses how disconfirming it is to speak for someone else when they are able to speak for themselves. It is impossible to know completely what another person is thinking or feeling so we should not try to speak for them when they are capable of doing so for themselves. It is also important not to assume to know how someone from another culture feels or thinks because you cannot fully know what they are going through unless you share a common culture. Lastly, the author encourages the reader to respect and learn about perspectives, thoughts and feelings that differ from our own. Wood said, "Inviting others to clarify, extend, or explain their communication enlarges understanding between people."
I am a volunteer in the high school ministry at my church. I love working with Jr. high and high school aged students. They are struggling to find their identities, eager to learn, and full of surprises (some good and some bad). I have my own small group of girls that consists of freshman and sophomore girls. I love hearing what these girls have to say; and believe me, they have a lot to say. This wasn't always the case. When I first volunteered with these girls when they were in 6th grade I wanted to mold them. I wanted to make good little Christian girls that would go off into the world and change it, make it better. At no point to I consider making time for random chit chat about their personal lives or just hanging out with them at the mall. I wanted to speak truth into their lives, have them hear me, and be moved to action. I could not have gone about working with young girls in a worse way. I did not account for the fact that I was working with young women in the making. I did not consider their thoughts or feelings as valid or take them into consideration at all.
My first year of ministry was a struggle because I did not validate or encourage my girls to share their thoughts and feelings. They were able to speak for themselves, yet I tried to speak on their behalf because I thought I knew better. As time went on and I received input from other friends and leaders about how to be more effective with my students. The next year I shifted my focus from development to friendship. I really needed to start being a friend to these girls if I was ever going to gain their trust and respect. We started getting lunch on the weekends, toilet papering at 3am, watching Twilight at the Terra Vista $5 movie theater. After establishing a relationship with these young girls I developed genuine care about who they were and what they thought. I wanted to hear about what Jennie said about Sarah when she found out that Timmy was dating her best friend Jane. I wanted to know how Pam was dealing with her parents divorce and how that made her feel. I wanted to understand what it was like for Jane to go home to an abusive mother and a father who just watched.
Over the years I have come to view these girls as young women who have a voice and aren't afraid to use it. I know I am eager to listen and learn about the internal struggles these girls go through everyday. I love hearing about their victories and triumphs. I love hearing them put their thoughts and feelings into words so not only I can hear them, but so others can start to hear them as well. I know I had the horrible thought that young adults opinions and feelings were not worth listening to or acknowledging. I also know that there are teachers, parents, and many other adults who feel that way now. I would hope that everyone could come to the conclusion that no matter what age are, we are all experts on our own thoughts and feelings and no one should make us doubt that for one second.
In chapter 4 of our textbook the topic of speech communities is addressed. Julia T. Wood states that a speech community "exists when people share norms about how to use talk and what purposes it serves." Researchers have explored the way men and women are socialized into some different understandings of how communication functions, and the way their communication varies in practice. Our book highlights three areas of interest: Socialization into gender speech communities, gendered communication in practice, and misunderstandings between gender speech communities. I'd like to focus on the misunderstandings that take place between male and female speech communities.
Misunderstanding occurs among different gender communities when men and women discuss problems. For example, if a woman tells a man about something that is bothering her, he offers a practical solution in order to try and resolve the problem. However, our book tells us that feminine communities see communication as a way to build connections with others, so they often look for empathy and discussion about their feelings to occur before searching for a solution. This is problematic because women can feel that men's responses to their problems are uncaring. Men may feel frustrated when women offer empathy instead of advice for solving their problems. Different styles of listening are another example of interactions between men and women that may lead to misunderstanding. Women tend to make listening noises such as "mmhmm", "yeah", and "I know what you mean." Masculine communities tend to use less listening noises when listening to others. Feminine communities can interpret this as poor listening or not caring. "Gender is just one example of many speech communities. Communication patterns vary among people from different social groups, even if they live in the same society," according to Wood.
I found this concept particularly interesting because I found this information to very accurate, for the most part. My family consists of my mother and father and my three sisters. That means a lot of females under one roof. Growing up, I had always related to my father and we get along effortlessly. We both can just sit with one another and be comfortable with only a small exchange of words. My mother and sisters on the other hand like to discuss every facet of their day right when they walk in the room. I was never a very good listener in their eyes because I did not use listening noises when they told stories nor did I spend a lot of time empathizing with them. Instead, I would try to come up with a solution to their problem as quickly as possible because I wanted to fix the issue. I definitely practice a more masculine communication style than the rest of the women in my household and even in my relationship with my boyfriend.
My boyfriend Ron and I have been dating for a little over two years now and I truly value our relationship. We are very much in love and in like with one another. I say it that way because I have relationships with people I love and feel an obligation to love because they are family or I am emotionally invested in the relationship. With Ron, I love and like to be around him all the time. It's not that butterfly feeling every time I see him like when we were dating but something so much more. I love his character, his integrity, his passion, and his loyalty. He's my best friend. That being said, we have different communication styles even though we belong to different speech communities. Ron embodies a feminine communication style while I encompass a masculine speech style. For example, I always want to help Ron solve is problems when listening to his concerns. I do not make the right listening noises and instead of empathizing with him I tend to go straight for the practical. I tend to forget that Ron is a very smart man and probably can come to a conclusion or solution to his problem on his own. However, he is choosing to share his problem with me to draw closer to me and build intimacy in our relationship. The way Ron and I are able to work through our different speech styles is by communicating what we need from one another. If Ron wants input and advice about a certain problem he makes that clear and I am more than willing to jump in. Ron has learned to do the same for me and comfort me in the ways I need to be comforted and I feel it has strengthened our relationship.
I thought this clip demonstrated some of the differences in masculine speech communities and feminie speech communities.
In class we were asked to draw our own Johari Window showing which sides of our self were open, hidden, blind, and unknown to our self and others. In chapter 2, our author discusses the guidelines for improving self-concept. One of the terms discussed is self-disclosure which is "revealing information about ourselves that others are unlikely to discover on their own." The Johari Window is an illustration that demonstrates the areas of our life that are known or unknown by ourselves and others. Our book discusses the four types of information that are relevant to the self:
1. Open, or public, information is known both to us and to others. Your name, height, major, and tastes in music probably are open information that you share easily with others. 2. The blind are contains information that others know about us be we don't know about ourselves. For example, others may see that we are insecure even though we think we've hidden that well. Others may also recognize needs or feelings that we haven't acknowledged to ourselves. 3. Hidden information is what we know about ourselves but choose not to reveal to most others. You might not tell many people about your vulnerabilities or about traumas in your past because you consider this private information. 4. The unknown area is made up of information that ourselves that neither we nor others know. This consists of your untapped resources, your untried talents, and your reactions to experiences you've never had. You don't know how you will manage a crisis until you've been in one, and you can't tell what kind of parent you will be unless you've had a child.
My Johari Window consists of a large "open" area and a large "unknown" area. This has not always been the case in my life, however, various relationships and circumstances have shaped the way I choose to self disclose. The "hidden" area of my life used to be rather large compared to the other areas of my life throughout high school and even in the beginning of college. I knew a lot of things about my self that I was not ready to openly admit to my peers and role models. I did not want to let anyone too close to me in fear of ruining the facade I had so carefully built up over the years. I was the confident fun loving girl who had everything together. I knew what I wanted and nothing was going to stop me. I was an over achiever, ambitious, and always knew what to say. I am still very much that girl, but I am also scared, uncertain, insecure, I have low self-esteem, and I have no idea what I want to do with my life. I was willing to show everyone the best of me but never the doubts or insecurities. Therefore, I had a "hidden" area of my life that was well known to me and very exhausting to maintain.
As I grew older, friends came and went, and everything I thought I knew and wanted began to shift, I learned to develop my "blind" area and embrace the "unknown" areas in my life instead of fear them. I started by being more open about the fact that I was a person who makes mistakes about as often as I get things right. I started to share with a small circle of close friends that I am not as strong as I pretend to be. I was able to start hearing what my close friends were saying about me that I didn't believe to be true about myself. Some truths were hard to hear, some were affirming, and others were unmarked territory. I learned a lot about myself from others and it started by being honest. Now that I can honestly say I know a lot more about who I am and who I don't want to be. I don't know what life has in store for me which used to scare me more than I can put into words. But now, those unknown areas of my life are uncharted experiences that I will be ready to face because I have a better understanding of who I am and what is important to me.
