Language in Thought and Action (5th Edition): S.I. & Alan Hayakawa

Paperback 196 pages.

4/5

Language in Thought and Action "discusses the role of language in human life, the many functions of language, and how language - sometimes without our knowing - shapes our thinking" (back cover).

I bought this book because I wanted to know more about Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics, but didn't feel I had the time spare to commit to reading Korzybski's Science and Sanity. My expectation was that this was General Semantics in a nutshell, which it is not, although it does draw heavily from Korzybski's work and is an interesting, accessible and useful read in its own right. Very useful in fact; since reading it I have found myself much better able to identify problematic thinking patterns in myself and others, and better still identify workable solutions. I found the following topics of particular interest:

• The discussion of the distinction between thoughts, inferences and judgements (Chapter 3)
• Extensional and Intensional Meanings (Chapter 4)
• The Language of Social Cohesion (Chapter 6)
• Abstracting, dead-level abstracting and confusing levels of abstraction (Chapters 8 and 9)
• Classification (Chapter 10)
• Two-valued and multi-valued orientation (Chapters 11 and 12)

And there is a load more on top. For me, the book drifted off course with the last two chapters, particularly the penultimate chapter The Empty Eye - a soap-box rant about the evils of television. But this is not enough to detract significantly from the books value. I was however rather disappointed to read the following in the preface:

Deleted from the college version of the fifth addition have been the "Applications" (i.e exercises) for student use and the chapters entitled "The Language of Affective Communication," "Art and Tension," and "Towards Order Within and Without." A portion of the chapter entitled "The Dime in the Dukebox" has also been deleted. Much of the forth edition chapter on "The Society behind Our Symbols" has been deleted."

No explanation is given for these deletions, and I was left feeling that I was missing something. I am currently trying to track down the student edition to find out what (I am especially interested in the exercises). This and the loss of direction have lost this book the fifth star.

This aside I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in thinking and communicating better.