In this weeks guest post, clean language and x-ray listening expert, Judy Rees discusses the impact phrasing language can have.

The power of parrot-phrasing

by Judy Rees

I wonder if you were ever taught to paraphrase someone as a way of showing you’d been listening to them? This “active listening” technique has been widely encouraged in teaching, counselling and coaching for many years.

But modern research has revealed that it’s parrot-phrasing, not paraphrasing, that pays.  You should use the person’s own words, not yours, for best effect.

For example Professor Richard Wiseman (in his brilliant book 59 Seconds) quotes a study from the University of Nijmegen in which a waitress increased her tips by 70 per cent simply by repeating the customer’s order back to them, rather than saying “okay” or “coming right up”.

How does this work? As commentator Dr Nicholas Ostler put it on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 recently: “The way people talk is close to their soul.”

Using the other person’s words, parrot-phrasing rather than paraphrasing:

• encourages the person to like you. Matching language sends a strong hint that you are similar, that you belong to the same group. And it’s well established that people tend to like people who they believe are like themselves.

• helps you to build rapport and trust with the person. In repeating their words you acknowledge that you have actually heard them, that you are listening, and that you are inclined to continue the conversation.

• retains subtle distinctions of meaning, and retains the metaphoric structure of the thought. For example, “closing the gap” contains a presupposition that the gap can vanish completely – “narrowing the gap” does not.

• supports the person to continue speaking, expressing themselves more fully and perhaps more clearly.

• encourages the person to think about what they have just said, and perhaps to understand their own ideas more deeply.

• saves you the trouble of thinking of suitable paraphrases.

• prevents the distracting and time-consuming disagreements (“That’s not quite what I meant”) which often arise over slight differences in wording.

• conceals your lack of knowledge or understanding about a subject. It’s quite hard to make a fool of yourself it you only use the other person’s words!

As you may know, the questioning system and coaching methodology Clean Language uses parrot-phrasing (along with people’s metaphors) to get “close to the soul” of clients.

For example, the two most widely used Clean Language questions are:

“What kind of X (is that X)?”

and

“Is there anything else about X?”

where the “X” represents one or more of the person’s words.

Clean Language can be spectacularly successful at getting people “unstuck” quickly, and helping them to make dramatic changes in their lives. And it works partly because of the power of using a person’s own words.

And the same approach can be applied in many other contexts. For example, imagine the power of getting “close to the soul” when you’re keen to influence or persuade someone!

So why not try it out today? For something so powerful, it’s amazingly easy. Just repeat back the last few words someone says with a curious tone to encourage them to say more – or try one of the Clean Language questions and see what happens next.

About the Author/Further Resources

Judy Rees is an expert in Clean Language and the co-author, with Wendy Sullivan, of Clean Language: Revealing Metaphors and Opening Minds. Her company, X-Ray Listening, puts Clean Language to work in a variety of business contexts – and is about to release an audio course, Intelligent Influence with X-Ray Listening. Visit www.xraylistening.com to find out more.

UPDATE 11th November 2010: For a limited period Judy is offering some video’s where she shares more secrets. Have a look now HERE.