Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
No, you're misunderstanding me. It's a passive act, in that I'm not the one doing the reading, just as when I listen to music, I'm not the one playing the instruments. But there does of course have to be active comprehension involved, or else one gets nothing from either activity. For me, if I let music (or words) "wash over me", as you described earlier, then I'm not listening to it, I'm simply hearing something I don't understand.
Both "listening to an audiobook" and "reading a printed book (or ebook)" are activities which result in you gaining knowledge of the book's contents, but the knowledge is gained through different input methods, to which the English language assigns different verbs.
|
Philistine that I am, I thought I could listen to Tchaikovsky without understanding one damn thing about music. I've been playing
Swan Lake and stupidly thinking I was getting great enjoyment from it, but no, because of my appalling lack of musical knowledge, I was getting nothing. Oh well.
Considering that you're being a stickler for exact meanings, aren't you being a little loose with your meanings of "active" and "passive"?
Previously you said, referring to visual reading:
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
It's "active" in the sense that you're in control of the process. When you listen, you are playing a completely passive role; the narrator is the person doing the reading, and you're the audience. [Emphasis added.]
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
The reason I choose not to use it myself is that I see reading as an “active” activity, but listening as a “passive” one. It’s the same difference, to my mind, that exists between playing a musical instrument yourself, and listening to someone else play one. As a listener, you are simply a consumer of someone else’s performance, whether that performance be the musician playing the instrument, or the narrator reading the book. When you read a book or play an instrument, on the other hand, you are creating the performance yourself. I regard these as entirely distinct activities. [Emphasis added.]
|
In addition to redefining "active" and "passive" to suit your argument, now you've decided to insist on a semantic distinction between "hearing" and "listening"--one you have not adhered to previously.
It seems to take considerable verbal gymnastics to deny that listening to an audiobook is equivalent to reading.