10 Definition Of Listening

1. By Richard Nordquist

Updated on January 06, 2019

Listening is the active process of receiving and responding to spoken (and sometimes
unspoken) messages. It is one of the subjects studied in the field of language arts and in the
discipline of conversation analysis.

2. Howatt and Dakin (1974)

Listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying. This involves
understanding a speaker's accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his vocabulary, and
grasping his meaning

3. Purdy and Borisoff (1991)

listening is a 90–90 proposition—that both the speaker and the listener must take
responsibility for effective and accurate communication.

4. Goss (1982)

listening is a process of understanding what is heard and organizing it into

lexical elements to which meaning can be allocated.

5. Morley (1972)

listening involves auditory discrimination, aural grammar,selecting necessary information,

remembering it, and connecting it to the process between sound and form of meaning.

6. Nunan (2003)

Listening is an active, purposeful process of making sense of what we hear.” It means

that, we should interpret the meaning from what we hear, therefore listening is an active skill.
So, we can say that listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying.

7. Brown (2006)

Listening is a procedure of building and analyzing the connotation from both verbal and non-
verbal input. In conclusion, listening could trigger the development of the second language so
that second language learner can build, analyze and maintain social interaction using their
listening ability.
8. Lorena Manaj (2015)

Listening is not merely hearing, it is a state of receptivity that permits an understanding of

what is heard and grants the listener full partnership in the communication process.
9. Rost (2002)
states that listening is mental process of constructing meaning from spoken input.
10. Rivers (1966)

listening is a creative skill. It means we understand the sound falling on our ears, and take the
raw material of words, arrangements of words, and the rise and fall the voice, and from this
material we creative a meaning.

According to
Underwood in Gilakjani (2011) defined as listening is activity of paying attention
to speaker and trying to get meaning from we hear.