ABSTRACT

Whatever they do, the effect on the speaker is to make him or her feel irritated, frustrated or even humiliated at the thought that they might be considered too boring to listen to.

Probing questions can result in more information or clarify a particular point, but you can learn even more by listening to the feelings behind the words. Is the speaker embarrassed, nervous, proud, angry or whatever? What does their tone of voice tell you? The same words can mean something quite different depending on the tone of voice. Body language also gives you extra clues about what a person actually means (we looked at body language on page 6).