| Edition |
Second edition |
| Description |
xvii, 350 pages ; 22 cm |
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text txt rdacontent |
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unmediated n rdamedia |
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volume nc rdacarrier |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 331-336) and index. |
| Summary |
Introduces the principles of semantics, explains how language works, and how an understanding of semantics is useful in everyday life situations. |
| Contents |
Book One: The functions of language -- Foreword: Red-Eye and the woman problem: A semantic parable -- 1. Language and survival -- What animals shall we imitate? -- Cooperation -- The pooling of knowledge -- The Niagara of words -- Applications -- 2. Symbols -- The symbolic process -- Language as symbolism -- The pitfalls of drama -- The word is not the thing -- Maps and territories -- Applications -- 3. Reports, inferences, judgments -- Verifiability -- Inferences -- Judgments -- Snarl words and purr words -- How judgments stop thought -- Slanting -- Discovering one's bias -- Applications -- 4. Contexts -- How dictionaries are made -- Verbal and physical contexts -- Extensional and intensional meaning -- The "one word, one meaning" fallacy -- Ignoring contexts -- The interaction of words -- Applications -- 5. The language of social cohesion -- Noises as expression -- Noise for noise's sake -- The value of unoriginal remarks -- maintenance of communication lines -- Presymbolic language in ritual -- Advice to the literal-minded -- Applications -- 6. The double task of language -- Connotations -- Informative connotations -- Affective connotations -- A note on verbal taboo -- Words with built-in judgments -- Everyday uses of language -- Applications -- 7. The language of social control -- Making things happen -- The promises of directive language -- The foundations of society -- Directives with collective sanction -- What are "rights"? -- Directives and disillusionment -- Applications -- 8. The language of affective communication -- Verbal hypnotism -- More affective elements -- Metaphor and simile -- Simile -- Dead metaphor -- Allusion -- Irony, pathos, and humor -- The affectiveness of facts -- Levels of writing -- What literature is for -- Symbolic experience -- Science and literature -- Applications -- 9. Art and tension -- Bearing the unbearable -- Some "symbolic strategies" -- "Equipment for living" -- Art as order -- Applications. |
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Book Two: Language and thought -- Foreword: The story of A-town and B-ville: Second semantic parable -- 10. How we know what we know -- Bessie, the cow -- The process of abstracting -- Why we must abstract -- On definitions -- "Let's define our terms" -- Operational definitions -- Chasing oneself in verbal circles -- The distrust of abstractions -- "Dead-level abstracting" -- Applications -- 11. The little man who wasn't there -- How not to start a car -- Confusion of levels of abstraction -- "Jews" -- John Doe, the "criminal" -- Delusional worlds -- Applications -- 12. Classification -- Giving things names -- The blocked mind -- Cow1 is not cow2 -- "Truth" -- Applications -- 13. The two-valued orientation -- The two-valued orientation in politics -- Man's inhumanity to man -- The Marxist two-valued orientation -- Two-valued logic -- Defeating one's own ends -- Applications -- 14. The multi-valued orientation -- A matter of degree -- The pitfalls of debate -- The open and closed mind -- Applications -- 15. Poetry and advertising -- The poet's function -- Art and life -- The laureate's task -- The problems of the unsponsored poet -- The symbols we live by -- Symbols for our times -- Applications -- 16. The dime in the juke-box -- Intensional orientation -- Oververbalization -- Advertising and intensional orientation -- Higher education, learned jargon, and Babuism -- Applications -- 17. Rats and men -- "Insoluble" problems -- Cultural lag -- The fear of change -- The revision of group habits -- The extensional approach -- The end of the road -- The scientific attitude -- The left-hand door again -- Applications -- 18. Towards order within and without -- Rules for extensional orientation -- Symptoms of disorder -- The lost children -- "Know thyself" -- Reports and judgments -- Institutionalized attitudes -- Reading towards sanity. |
| Subject |
English language -- Semantics.
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English language -- Semantics.
(OCoLC)fst00911631
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Semantics. |
| Added Author |
Hamalian, Leo.
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Wagner, Geoffrey.
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