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Listeners may be indifferent to a message or distracted by other concerns. Worries over money or an upcoming test, or dreams about the weekend ahead, can further block communication. Stereotypes about race, gender, nationality, etc., that clutter our heads with prejudice may multiply interference and dramatically raise the barriers between speakers and listeners.
As these formidable barriers develop, the speaker may lose control over what the listeners hear. As most of us have learned from experience, what speakers intend and what listeners hear can be miles apart, and messages may have unintended, unexpected, and unfortunate meanings. When one masters the art of public speaking, one learns how to minimize interference so that listeners understand the intended message.
At the beginning of a public speaking course, the barriers of fear, suspicion, indifference, distraction, and prejudice may seem quite formidable. The frustration that speakers and listeners may feel as they first confront this “Interference Mountain.” that climbing this mountain can be the first challenge students confront in the public speaking class. Be on top, both as speaker and as listener. You will discover that as you grow more confident and knowledgeable about public speaking, your topic area, and your listeners, Interference Mountain will become smaller. In most cases your anxiety will become controllable, trust will replace suspicion, involvement will overcome indifference, and mutual respect will reduce prejudice. By the end of the course, you will have reduced Interference Mountain to a quite manageable hill.
Audience expectations are another important part of the communication environment. If your listeners are anticipating an interesting self-introductory speech and instead hear a tirade against tax reform, the communication environment may become a bit chilly. At another time or in another place, your speech might perhaps work—but not in that particular Circumstance.
The negative or challenging factors in the communication environment that can disrupt effectiveness are called interference. Interference, can range from physical noise that impedes the hearing of a speech, such as a plane flying over the building, to psychological “noise” within speakers and listeners that prevents them from connecting.
While conversationalists are often close acquaintances who feel comfortable with each other, public speakers and their audiences can seem like strangers to each other, especially during first encounters. At such times, they may raise psychological barriers to protect themselves from the risks of genuine communication. Speakers troubled by communication anxiety may see listeners as distant, unfriendly, or threatening. Even before they begin to speak, they raise a barrier between themselves and their audience. Listeners may fear hidden agendas. They may be suspicious of a speaker’s motives, cautious about accepting messages, or concerned that what a speaker asks of them may be costly or risky. They too may fear the change—even the growth—that can result from genuine communication. 18 Such suspicions and fears may raise the barrier even higher.
A public speaking class is an ideal place to savor this rich broth of many cultures. As we hear others speak, we often discover the many flavors of the American experience. If you examine your own identity, you may discover that you yourself are “multicultural.”
One of your authors describes herself as “part Swedish, part Welsh, part German, and all hillbilly.” The other is Scots, Irish, and English with a dollop of Creek Indian. Just imagine the complex cultural heritage of our children! Communication scholar Dolores V. Tanno describes her cultural background as an “unfolding ethnic identity” that includes, in order of her own realization, “I am Spanish,”“I am Mexican American,”“I am Latina,” and “I am Chicana,” and expresses her joy in discovering these various identities.
As we strive to understand our own and others’ unfolding identities, we must guard against the subtle intrusion of stereotypes into our thinking. Casey Man Kong Lum has pointed out that the main problem confronted by Chinese immigrants in New York City may not be relating to the American culture, but relating to other Chinese. As he notes, there are seven major Chinese dialect groups, each with its own subgroups.’° To the extent that different languages imply different cultures, any conclusion that “The Chinese feel . . .“ or “The Chinese perspective on this problem is . . .“ must surely be a distortion, if not an outright fiction. We quickly discovered a similar problem when we taught in New Mexico. We could not simply lump together the Native American students in our classes. Were they Navajos, Apaches, or Pueblos? And if Pueblos, to which one of the more than twenty northern New Mexico Pueblos representing five different language groups did they belong?
Several generations ago, if you listened to the radio (in those days before television) or read magazines, you would find one striking assumption: America was the best of all possible worlds. This attitude typified ethnocentrism, the tendency of any nation, race, or religion to believe that its way of seeing and doing things is right and proper, and that other perspectives and behaviors are incorrect. Ethnocentrism can touch everything from the clothes we wear and the food we eat to the values we affirm and the God we worship.
Clearly, ethnocentrism is a human, not an American. But we Americans certainly have our share of it. Forty years ago, Richard M. Weaver, a noted conservative critic of communication, suggested:
The Western World has long stood as a symbol for the future; and accordingly there has been a very wide tendency in this country, and also I believe among many people in Europe, to identify that which is American with that which is destined to be… . [To them] America is the goal toward which all creation moves. . . . [They] judge a country’s civilization by its resemblance to the American model.
In the first half of this century, the “melting pot” was a popular metaphor that expressed this attitude about American culture. This theory suggested that as various ethnic and national groups came to this country, they would be blended and melted down in some vast cultural cauldron into a superior alloy called “the American Character.” The idea assumed that all who came to our shores would be forged into a powerful new unity. In addition, the “melting pot” metaphor reinforced ethnocentrism and cultural arrogance—to be American was to be better.
