communication styles

When I talk to people, I often almost entirely attend to the literal semantic meaning of the words being exchanged. Perhaps I make some adjustment for the literal semantic meaning that was intended, in cases where there was some imprecision of speech. This strikes me as a purely intellectual, conversation as mutualistic truth-seeking kind of approach.

I'm realizing that I ought to pay much more attention to the other kinds of information being conveyed by being more attentive to context, tone, and subtle meanings behind the literal meaning of words. This would be more of a real world, communication as negotiation amidst some shared and some conflicting interests kind of approach.

I suspect that most people do a lot of the latter without even realizing it, guided by emotions rather than conscious deliberation. In fact I'd suspect that the level of emotion in the conversation is a reflection of the extent to which the latter kind of process is happening. I often find myself in a conversation where I'm much less emotional than the other party (and what emotion I do feel or express is often related to the intellectual content!) which is often a source of extreme frustration for that other party. They feel like I don't realize what's really going on, yet are unable to counter when I dutifully and accurately recite the actual words as evidence that I do understand, because their understanding that something more than the words is going on isn't fully conscious.

I'll have to consciously force myself to pay more attention to the other stuff until it comes more naturally; in doing so, I fear I'm being cynical and that I'm risking being regarded as such. Of course I already am regarded as cynical so maybe that's not much of a risk.