Final answer:
The technique where listeners restate a speaker's words to confirm understanding is known as active listening. It involves methods like restating, paraphrasing, and summarizing to ensure clear communication, which is essential for building rapport and effective conflict resolution.
Step-by-step explanation:
The technique that involves the listener restating what the speaker has said in order to confirm understanding is known as active listening. This communicative technique includes various methods such as paraphrasing, summarizing, and sometimes even repeating the speaker's words verbatim to indicate attentiveness and comprehension. The restatement allows both the speaker to verify that their message has been accurately received and the listener to confirm their understanding or to seek clarification if necessary.
Active listening is often contrasted with passive hearing, where no such effort to engage with or process the speaker's message is made. It is particularly useful in bridge-building conversations, where it serves not only to ensure accurate communication but also to build rapport and demonstrate empathy. It is a critical skill in conflict resolution and in various professional and personal interactions where clear communication is key.
Repetition and paraphrasing are not only important in active listening but are also used rhetorically in writing and speaking for emphasis and to unify a text. Writers and speakers often employ these strategies alongside anecdotes, examples, statistics, and facts to support their claims and ideas effectively.