---
title: "Empathic listening as a resource for enriching life - Center for Nonviolent Communication"
description: ""
url: "https://www.cnvc.org/learn/research/empathic-listening-as-a-resource-for-enriching-life"
date: "2026-09-19T13:27:41+00:00"
language: "en-US"
---

#  Empathic listening as a resource for enriching life

#  A systemic functional perspective

Conference Paper by **Dreyfus, Shooshi** in English (2024)

 49th International Systemic Functional Congress (Sydney, July 1 - 5, 2024)

We are living in an era of increasing conflict, polarisation and talk of war with adversarial kinds of discourse present in political and public debate, and media on a daily basis. As linguists we have spent time analysing how we got here through, for example, the description of the language of terrorism (Etaywe 2022), political discourse (Li, Lui & Fung 2020) and journalism (Thomson & White 2008). We know how these discourses work to construct meanings of alienation and ‘othering’. But how do we get out of here? How do we offer “a complementary perspective on language and semiosis which functions to make the world a better place” (Martin 2004:179)?

Towards this end, I am using positive discourse analysis (PDA) to identify, describe and disseminate positive discourse as a means of positive social
action, “concerned with progress toward a better world” (Hughes 2018). I want to support a transformation of public discourse from alienating to enriching mutuality; to speak and listen with an intention to connect using language which enables interpersonal connection and understanding. The more we humanise each other, the more likely we are to act with compassion to relieve rather than create suffering (Bandura 2016:38). The process of humanising includes empathy. An effective empathic listener can shift a speaker out of pain and into a state of self-regulation and of needs identification. Once needs are identified, it becomes possible to strategise to meet those needs.

As linguists, we can use our analytical skills to describe the language of harmony, compassion and empowerment. By way of example, this paper will
introduce a kind of listening which serves to offer empathy based on the premise that people typically need empathy before they are able to learn,
contribute or consider another opinion. This kind of empathic listening is a cornerstone of the communication framework, Nonviolent Communication (Rosenberg 2015:94). This cornerstone will be described using Hasan’s Generic Structure Potential (Hasan 1996), noting semantic variation and the obligatory and optional semantic and lexicogrammatical features. In so doing, this paper will illustrate four strategies deployed by an empathizer to support a person in pain. Using Appraisal theory (Martin and White 2005), I will illustrate how a translation by an empathizer from incongruent, institutionalised negative attitudes of judgements and appreciations to congruent feelings of affect (Martin and White 2005:45) contributes to being heard and seen. This translation shifts the speaker from being ‘lost in the story of judgement’ to the identification of feelings and ultimately, needs. When needs are unmet this causes emotional arousal, dysregulation and pain. The empathic listener plays a vital role in the transmutation of a speaker’s pain into action. This transmutation is partly realised through choices in thematic progression (Daneš 1974) and arrangements of Given and New information (Halliday 1994:308). The paper will show how language choices can recast alienating meanings into
meanings of connection, compassion and understanding.

If we know which choices achieve this kind of shift, then we can teach it, model it, share it and contribute meaningfully to making the world a safer and more harmonious and compassionate place. What a privileged position we, as linguists, have at this moment in history.

 [ Read Article ](http://www.isfla.org/Systemics/Conferences/ISFC2024Schedule.pdf)