Judging

I absolutely think it is not possible to perceive others without judging or categorizing them. I believe that we've gotten so use to judging people as well as being judged we tend to do it unintentionally, unconsciously and sometimes even on purpose. Like Chapter 3 in the book stated, we are poor listeners in America. When we listen we either pay attention to the person or look like we're listening and pay attention elsewhere. The book also states that we do three things when listening, "stimuli structure", "stability", and "meaning". We tend to focus on past knowledge and categories to define people, when listening to them. Right away we realize that we are either talking to a female, male, or a transgender person those are all three categories. We often notice age, color and clothing style, which again are all categories. I think it is impossible to not categorize someone because we do it whether we know it or not.
Judging might have some hope in the fairness area, maybe put yourself in their shoes first. We can make fair judgments by basing them on fact and not on opinion. There are listening strategies that chapter 3 touched on. They included improving attention, interpretation, evaluation, responding as well as storage and retrieval. I believe that those five listening techniques can help being fair in the area of judging and categorizing people. I believe if you have a positive attitude in the beginning and are open to hearing someone else's point of view your on to a good start.

An Interesting Concept- Intentionality

The concept I chose is intentionality, which focuses on if communication can be unintentional or if it's just intentional. Either way my opinion is that communication can be unintentional or intentional because either way you are sending out a message even if you realized it or not. People can tell a great deal about expressions, which says a lot about your mood at that moment. People say actions speak louder than words. An example the book gives about Brennan seeing Brianne and she not realizing he is there, Brianne frowns or looked annoyed because she did something revealing, which then Brennan makes an assumption about her mood at the moment. Even though Brianne didn't realize Brennan was watching she made that facial reaction. She communicated her mood at that given moment, whether she realized it or not. This concept made me think, how many times have I made a facial reaction not realizing it and/or people were watching me? What kind of message did I send to whoever saw me? Either way I "sent" a message and someone "received" it, regardless if I meant to or not.

Pragmatic Perspective

In a way it makes sense to think of communication as a patterned interaction. In relationships we tend to build patterns when communicating. The way I talk to my mother when she yells at me, is the same way every time. The way my mother yells at me when she is mad is the same every time. By us making these acts between each other we are interacting. Communication is like a game because their are two or more players involved when communicating. Like the book states there are "partners" and these "partners" make moves like in a game, which in communicating it is known as an act. These acts result in playoffs which result in the partners becoming interdependent. There is no "I" in team. Therefore the team depends on everyone, just like in communicating you are communicating with another person, you can't just depend on yourself. In soccer I can't win a game without the help of my other teammates and the goalie. When I communicate I can't make a point without the other sides opinion/argument. Otherwise I'd be arguing with myself. However, communication isn't always like a game. Sometimes there's serious issues and it's not all fun in games. When communicating people take in their surroundings and who their partner is. It a game, players aren't interested in where there playing, there main focus is on the game and where their partner is, not who they are.

social constructionist perspective

The social constructionist perspective basically states that we build worlds by using four cultural tools. These tools help us communicate and create different worlds around us. These four tools consist of languages, customs, traditions and rules and with each of those four components a cultural world is built. Each culture has their own language, custom, traditions and rules. For example the way I speak with my family is different by generation. I won't talk to my cousin the way I talk to my grandparents. However, if my grandparents are in the same room I won't talk to my cousin how I'd really talk to her if she's not there. The languages and rules are different yet our traditions and most of our customs are the same. Now I can't talk to my friends the way I talk to my family. All four of the components are completely different. With my family we talk proper, have certain religious beliefs, traditions such as a prayer before we eat and have rules to adhere by. With my friends we talk with slang, don't really discuss our customs or beliefs, have traditions such as playing soccer every Monday and rules such as not being able to date the same guy. I think that these concepts contribute to success in our culture by giving us a path to follow, but at the same time allow us to go on different paths and try new things. With any concept there is always room to explore and do new things.

The Greeks/Orator/Goodness-Truth-Public Communication

Even though I am Greek [ =) ], I don't agree with an individual having to be morally good to be an orator. I think there are perks on both sides. For instance, if a person is morally good, they will probably grab the attention of that audience as well as their trust. I also believe if someone is morally bad the audience would still want to listen because of political views and things of that nature. I think that if someone is morally good or bad it doesn't determined what type of speaker they are. Most people do break morals and standards, I am sure that everyone has at one point or another. So, I do disagree with the Greeks in that sense. However, I do believe there is a connection between goodness, truth, and public communication. In most cases in order to persuade an audience or at least get them on ones side, being a good kindhearted person as well as truthful wins almost every time. Also, when public speaking if one has this good quality about themselves a listener can most of the time hear that soft soothing tone in ones voice, and tends to listen more. Tone is extremely important when communicating. I also believe that being truthful helps justify what one is speaking about.

Mia Hamm

I started to think about someone who I look up to. With that in mind I thought about Mia Hamm, one of the greatest female soccer players. A light bulb wen toff in my head and I realized that she too is a great speaker. No only is she passionate about soccer, but about the points she tries to get across to her listeners. The one of her voice tells a story in itself. When she starts off speaker her "attention getter" is almost always something funny. Which to me will always get an audiences attention. She does a great job in giving us an overall idea of what she will be discussing and she gives stories to back up what she is saying. usually the stories are personal experiences, which to be is one of the most affect ways to get an audience to listen. Her speaking abilities as many others that I have come across derive from ethos, pathos and logos. I already look up to Mia Hamm and respect her so for me she is already credible (ethos). Her passion for what she is saying and tone of voice gives her an emotional control over the audience (pathos). She always, always gives logic to what she is saying by examples and own life experiences (logos).
I, like Mia Hamm when speaking take it very seriously. My abilities to be persuasive comes from the passion of wanting to make an effect on whoever is listening. I believe that's a personal quality I have. I want to be able to touch someone when I speak. I don't want them to walk away thinking, "That's 10 minutes of my life I am never getting back". I want them to walk away with, "Wow, I never really thought about that before". For that to happen I believe that you have to convince the audience you are passionate and trustworthy. That they can respect you and that you do have emotion too. Putting your own life experiences in what you are saying makes you human too. Overall I believe that Aristotle's classification scheme works for her (Mia Hamm) as well as myself.