Michel Choon: The Three Listening Modes By Michel Chion

Listening is a very popular topic and extensively discussed in today’s society. Listening is used to understand information, interpret messages and learn more about objects and other people. Michel Chion, author of “The Three Listening Modes”, discussed three main types of listening; these include causal, semantic and reduced listening. Along with these, there are also various other forms of listening that display different ways people hear and choose to interpret what they hear. The three modes of listening characterize how people listen and what they do with the information they gather and learn. The first mode of listening Chion mentions is causal listening. He defines this as “listening to a sound in order to gather information about its cause” (49). This can be explained by listening in order to learn where a sound is coming from or to understand more about what the sound is. When the source of the sound cannot be seen, causal listening is used to understand. An example of this is listening to a loud noise from the room above and trying to discern what might be going on up there. This is causal listening because one could not know what is happening upstairs without going up there to investigate. They must simply think about it and try to understand using the sounds they hear. Apart from causal listening, there is also semantic listening.

Chion states, however, that there are “at least” three modes of listening (48). This implies that there are many ways to interpret hearing and listening. Some of which are more general types of listening, such as metaphorical, reciprocal and various others. Although Chion does not discuss these directly, he uses examples that could also fit under these other forms of listening. Chion does a great job of talking about the three modes, but what he does not do is talk more in depth about the other forms of listening previously stated. Specifically, metaphorical