Listening stages of remembering

     Today I am going to talk about listening stages of remembering. According to the textbook, “Messages that you receive and understand need to be remembered for at least some period of time. What you remember is not what was actually said but what you think (or recall) was said. Memory for speech is reconstructive, not reproductive” (DeVito 83). In my opinion remembering is when we remember the main idea and when we repeat it, we just need to repeat the main concepts of the information. We do not need to copy the exact information.

     For example, yesterday my friend told me something, she said, “do you know your friend Yingqin had a baby girl yesterday. The baby weighs 8.52lb. The baby is cute.”  I recognize the information and identify central idea. When I went back home, I told my husband, I said “Do you know Yingqin had an 8.52lb girl. The girl is cute.”  With this process, I do not repeat all my friend’s words, I just repeat key concepts. I think in our everyday life, we can find a lot of these kinds of examples. 

High and Low power distance culture

     Now I am going to talk about High and Low power distance culture. In some cultures power is concentrated in the hands of a few, and there’s a great difference between the power held by these people and the power of the ordinary citizen. These are called high power distance cultures; in low power distance cultures, power is more evenly distributed throughout the citizenry. In my own words, I think the high power distance culture is when a student does something he always follows the direction. In low power distance culture, when people talk with somebody they always make their speech sound like talking with a good friend.


     For example, China has a high power distance culture. When people talk with each other they always use polite and totally respectful language. I am a Chinese person. When I took class in China, I always followed my teacher’s direction step by step. I never thought about if the direction was correct or incorrect, and I also never thought about how to make some change or improve the questions. This is an example of high power distance culture. In American, when I take classes, teachers and students always discuss together to improve teachers’ teaching and students’ study ability. This is an example of low power distance.

Cultural differences of individual and collectivist cultures

     Now I am going to talk about cultural differences of individual and collectivist cultures. In an individualist culture you are responsible for yourself and perhaps your immediate family; in a collectivist culture you are responsible for the entire group. In my own words, I think the individual is a hero of the movie or a person. They just work for themselves. The collectivist culture people are responsible for themselves and entire group, they are not one person. They are two or more people work together or do something together.


     For example, when I took English 101 last year, we have five groups to study English together, each group has five students. Using my own words to say and explain this problem, I would say these groups are collectivist cultures, and the whole class is another collectivist. When my partner and I do a project, we always work together and are responsible for each other. For the individual cultures, it gets opposite position with collectivist cultures. For example, when I studied speech 120 last semester, each class I need do a speech. Each speech, I do by myself. After I finish my speech, the teacher always gives me a grade and the same time she also tells me how to improve my next speech. So I think this is an example of individual culture. I work by myself, when I finish my speech, teachers just give me a grade, and she will not give other classmates grade.

interpersonal communication elements of feedback messages

     Today I will talk about the interpersonal communication elements of messages. For interpersonal communication to exist, messages that express your thoughts and feelings must be sent and received. Interpersonal communication may be verbal or nonverbal, but it is usually a combination of both. Messages have three types. Now I just talk about the feedback messages.


     Feedback is a special type of message. When you send a spoken or written message to another person, you get feedback from your own message: you hear what you say, you feel the way you move, and you see what you write. We can get feedback messages from everywhere. For example, you talk with your friends, you send messages to your friends, and at the same time you will get feedback from them. They will send you messages that indicate how they receive and respond to your messages. For example, if your friends understand and agree with you, they may nod and smile. You can use the information to improve your speaking or writing. We can have different feedback, some feedback will come later, and some feedback will come fast. For example, with face-to-face communication you can monitor the feedback of the other person as you are speaking. This kind of feedback will come fast.

Element of interpersonal communication called Source-Receiver

     Today I am going to talk about one element of interpersonal communication called Source-Receiver. It involves at least two people. It includes a source, a receiver, a code, an encoder, and a decoder. In this blog I will explain this process.


     I want make a model to explain the definition. For example, I will talk about the process of calling a friend. When we make a call, we send messages to our friends. The person making the call is the source, and the receiver of the phone call is also the receiver of the message. The source talks into the phone which does the encoding. The code is sent to the receiver’s phone which does the decoding. Then the receiver hears the original message from the source.

     For interpersonal communication to occur, meanings must be both encoded and decoded. The source is the sender of the message, the receiver gets the message, the code is a set of symbols, encoding makes the message into code, and decoding un-codes, understands, and interprets the message.

High and low ambiguity tolerant cultures

     I want talk about high and low ambiguity tolerant cultures. When we look the words, we can understand some of information of the definition. Members of high-ambiguity-tolerant cultures don’t feel threatened by unknown situations; uncertainty is a normal part of life, and people accept it as it comes. Members of low-ambiguity-tolerant cultures do much to avoid uncertainty and have a great deal of anxiety about not knowing what will happen next; they see uncertainty as threatening and as something that must be counteracted.


     With my own words to explain this definition, I would say when members with the high-ambiguity-tolerant cultures, they will not avoid unclear or unknown questions; they will accept and feel comfortable with ambiguity. For example, I have a good friend, she comes from China, her English is not very good, but she is never afraid to use English to talk with American people. She likes to talk with somebody and the same time she can study English. I am totally different from her. I think I am a member of low-ambiguity-tolerant cultures. I always avoid talking with American people because I always worry. Before I need to talk with American people, I always think I may make a mistake. There are a lot of question in my head, I always adjust my words and grammar. Since I speak little English with American people and my English is not improving quickly.