Differences in Advertising

Drive Yourself Sane by Susan and Bruce Kodish has essentially the exact same principles that were mentioned by Hayakawa in Language in Thought and Action. The set up was the same, the way of presenting the principles was the same, and even some of the drawings were the same. However, there was one major difference: the way the book was portrayed (or advertised) to the public, potential readers.

Drive Yourself Sane was portrayed as a self-help book (which I was not aware of when I chose the book for the project). It is much more "user friendly" than Language in Thought and Action. The authors' intention was to change the way the readers speak, write, think, and live. The heading on the back cover says, "Are You Making the Most of the Life You Have?" and goes on to tell the reader what they will learn in the book, for example, how to "enjoy life in the moment, create better relationships, avoid future shock." Not once in the book itself does it mention any of these specifically, but implies that it is the reader's responsibility to apply the concepts to achieve these goals. Language in Thought and Action, on the other hand, is portrayed as an "informational" book. It appeals to a supposedly more "knowledgeable" population, while Drive Yourself Sane appeals to the common person.

The titles are great examples of the difference in these essentially alike books. "Drive Yourself Sane" is a catchy title that will make people be drawn to the book. "Language in Thought and Action" tells people better what is in the book, but doesn't necessarily draw their attention.

I believe that the way a book is advertised makes the difference in who reads it, how many people read it, and what type of people read it. These two books are basically the same, but the way they are advertised determines how people view them.

-Audrey

The Distinction Between Knowledge and Wisdom

The distinction between knowledge and wisdom is subtle, but very important to comprehend. John Dewey brilliantly explores the difference between the two in a chapter of How We Think.

Whenever I hear the word "wisdom," I automatically associate it with "sage." A sage is extremely insightful, not just because of all the knowledge he has received in his life, but also--and most importantly--how such knowledge has been applied to his personal life. That is the true distinction between knowledge and wisdom, which Dewey emphasizes.

Dewey discusses the "abuse of linguistic methods" in school. He claims that schools inform students with many facts for each subject-matter, but neglect the most essential part of education: incorporating such facts to one's personal life. He states that if a student cannot implement what he has been informed in school to his life, there is no relevance, and thus the student cannot fully comprehend the information he has received. Dewey further explains how schools don't apply the facts taught to students to personal experiences, but rather tend to use the facts taught in texts as the basis, and expound from that with even more facts. For this reason, students find many school subjects irrelevant to their personal lives.

I have one more thing to add pertaining to knowledge, which Dewey made mention of as well: No matter how much knowledge an individual has acquired throughout his education, it is all fruitless if he has not incorporated it into his life somehow. The "educated idiot" oxymoron clearly exemplifies this statement. One may be erudite, but that doesn't make him wise. There is no significance to a piece of information unless someone has experienced (whether it be through first-hand experience, second-hand, etc.) something associated with it.

-Chloe Martianou

Is silence semantic?

Today I was sitting in my kitchen eating something when my parents came in the room in the middle of a conversation. My dad said "Oh I see that you returned the videos, thanks." My mom stayed silent and just kind of nodded. A few minutes later when my dad went into the garage he came back into the kitchen and said "I saw the videos in your car, I thought you returned them," to which my mother replied, "Well I never actually said anything. I'm planning on returning them on the way to Philly tonight." Hearing this conversation, I mentioned that withholding information is still a form of deception, as discussed in the book I read, The Language of Deception, by Dariusz Galasinski. My mom was adamant that she didn't deceive my dad however. She kept saying that since she didn't actually reply to my dad the first time, she couldn't have made him believe anything. I pointed out that her silence was an assumed acceptance of the condition that my dad set up.

Although my argument may get me extra chores in the next week, it also got me thinking about the nature of silence. Is it as effective as words? I think a lot of times, silence causes people to assume the worst, and other times it causes people to assume agreement, like the case with my parents. But how much semantic weight can we give silence? It's not technically included in the study of words, but the study of communication, well that's another story. What does everyone else think?

-Alexa

Book Smart vs. Street Smart

In the book I selected, How We Think, by John Dewey, I noted a really interesting topic Dewey conveys about the different levels of education.

He begins with the disciplinary level, referring to education received at school. Dewey explains that school provides the students with logical information for each subject-matter. The students give heed to each subject-matter taught, acquire information, and take pains with memorizing and understanding each lesson.

The freedom of thought was the next form of education Dewey expatiates on. He stresses that, although a school provides the students with a sense of discipline and prepares them for more arduous work in the future, it is also capable of restricting each students' thoughts on any matters. A student's free thoughts allow him to form his own beliefs and opinions on daily matters without referring to a book or any other informative source.

Dewey believes that a student should have a balance between disciplinary education and freedom of thought. In the case of disciplinary education, a student acquires information in a mechanical, routine manner, without forming his own thoughts on the subject; he is expected to regard the information taught to him as correct, even though other views of the subject being taught could be correct as well. With freedom of thought, a student has endless boundaries to believing in what he wants to believe. Dewey warns that, though freedom of thought should be exercised daily by each individual, some thoughts formed are nonsense if they don't have a sufficient amount of information to support them.

After reading that chapter, I automatically thought of the common terms "book smart" and "street smart" that are used today to describe a person's intellect. "Book smart" and "street smart" are the currently used terms that have replaced Dewey's disciplinary and freedom of thought terms, respectively.

I completely agree with Dewey's perceptions on education. Students who are able to regurgitate everything they read out of a school book are indeed deemed the "book smart" students, but such students may also lag in the freedom of thought department. (i.e. "street smart") Those who form their own personal views, and do not adhere to what books or any other informative sources state, are very free in forming thoughts of their own on matters, ("street smart") but may also be vulnerable to sticking to erroneous beliefs or opinions.

-Chloe Martianou

Letting Your Bias Show

According to the back of it, the book I'm reading is about how we reason to make political decisions and how we should be reasoning. However, only some of my book talks about this. During these parts, the author seems very intelligent and I agree with him. The rest of the book is horribly tainted by bias. The author attmepts to explain conservative and progressive ideals, yet I hardly trust what he says because he is so obviously biased toward the extreme left. One of the arguments he makes, is that the left to right scale is a bad metaphor because it makes people on the far side look like extremests. Upon reading this, I immediantly thought, "well, of course, you think that way, you are an exteremest." He may have been right, but the bias made me doubt it. However, if you strongly believe that your opinions are not bias, but correct, isn't it best to share with everyone what you strongly believe to be the only truly democratic (read progressive ideals) and warn them against those that are a threat to democracy (read conservative)? Surely, it would be wrong to defend the opposing position and let the threat to democracy spread. Yet by doing so, you lose credibility with many people. So, I was wondering, how much and when should bias or personal opinions be put into writing and how much do we need to try to see the other side?

~Becca LaRosa

What Can We Trust?

When I was thinking about the book review that we all have to write soon, one question came up to my mind. Can we trust book reviews?

After watching "The Merchant of Cool" in English class I learned a lot more about business marketing and advertisements. Now every time I watch an advertisement on TV or see an advertisement while reading a megazine, I ask a question to myself. "Is this really true? or are they just saying it?" I am the type of person who decides to buy a product on other people's suggestions. If I see "normal" people like me on the TV talking about how great the product is I think that it must be true because they are just one of the consumers like myself. But I later realize that it isn't true because people get paid to be part of the advertisement.

And then I thought about how I got to pick my reading assignment book. I was on Google searching through books on linguistics and when I found a book relevant to the topic, the first thing I did was looking at the reviews that other readers posted. I narrowed down the list of books untill I reached my final choice. I did not know if the reviews I was reading were true, but automatically believed that they were true. My mind perceived the reviews as facts, not opinions.

After I ordered my book I thought about the possibility of of the falsehood of the reviews. What if the readers who posted positive feedbacks of the book were working for the publisher or the author? What if the reviews were posted by the author himself and by those who support him? In these cases, it is extremely hard to post an unbiased evaluation of the book since the purpose of publication is to make money. Mr. Lazarow mentioned the importance of pathos of the critique when it comes to book reviews; however, unfortunately, I cannot name a single book critique who is known for unbiased evaluation.

If everything we see on TV, internet, megazines, and many other things, can be false and biased, what can we possibly trust when it comes to making decisions such as buying products to selecting colleges? (I recently noticed that colleges do a lot of advertising, too!)

Joanne Park

I was chatting with a friend the other day, who was expressing her opinion about a comment one of her teachers had made in class. She was offended when the teacher reminded her students that "this is an honors class, not a special ed. class," admonishing them to be estudious and not slack off. Most of us would just say it was a somewhat harsh comment.

But my friend has a different perspective. She has a job working with the "special ed." kids, doing therapy for the autistic or mentally impaired. From working with them, she has developed close relationships with the kids and is compassionate towards the disabled. Upon hearing this teacher throw around the words "special ed.", she was angered. "How could she use that term in such a derrogatory manner, when the kids who are special ed. have no other choice than to be who they are?" she pleaded to me.

While discussing this issue, we both agreed that our society now uses these words very commonly to mean stupid, irresponsible, or in a just plain mean way. (How many times have you smacked your head after forgetting something and said "Ugh, I'm so retarded!") It's a shame to see how such words can be twisted to have derrogatory connotations.

Names (again)

For my book, I read Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner, which explores alot of the overlooked aspects of economics in daily life. One of the things the authors discuss is the correlation between names and the socioeconomic trends associated with those names. Levitt and Dubner point out the most common "white" names and the most common "black" names and compare the results of having these names. For example, if a "Jake Williams" (the first name being the "whitest" male name in America according to Levitt and Dubner) and a "DeShawn Williams" (the "blackest" male name according to Levitt and Dubner) each submit identical resumes to an employer, "Jake" is far more likely to get a callback.
Does this situation mean that having a historically "black" name carries an economic toll? Would DeShawn have had a better chance had his parents named him a "whiter" (and perhaps more appealing to employers) name? Or is the name not what makes the difference, but rather more complex social issues pertaining to race? Thoughts?

Advertising and Symbols

I came across something like what we have been talking about over the past few days in my book, Drive Yourself Sane, by Susan and Bruce Kodish.

"Much of advertising seems to focus on getting us to repond to words and images as if they were identical to the particular product being sold... About a men's store which advertised a sale featuring 'A Complete Wardrobe For Men Under $100', they write that the 'complete wardrobe consisted of a blazer, shirt, tie, and belt. But, as the reader who sent us the clipping asked, shouldn't a gentleman's wardrobe include trousers? The belt would look funny without them.'"

Today we were talking about being able to change symbols to mean something other than their common meaning. Most people think that "A Complete Wardrobe" would include pants, but the advertising company apparently thinks otherwise, and can use this "symbol" to make their customers think they are buying a complete wardrobe.

-Audrey

Remember A-town and B-ville?

For the book assignment, I am reading a book called The Political Mind by George Lakoff. In one section he describes the conservative view on morals and the free market. He says conservative beliefs are obedience to authority, personal responsibility, and self-discipline Following this, they see the free-market as a fair authority which will lead all to prosperity if they only put in the effort. He concludes this idea by saying:

"By the logic of this system of thought, if you are not prosperous, you are not disciplined, and therfore cannot be moral, and so deserve your poverty. It follows that peoole are given things they have not earned, they become dependent and lose their discipline and with it their capacity to obey moral laws and legitimate authority. "

This reminded me of the A-town and B-ville parable from Hayakawa. In it, A-town acted much in this conservative view. They did not want to destroy the charter of the jobless and make them dependent. In the end, however, they did just that, turning them into criminals and losing their discipline. B-ville, on the other hand, did not feel like anyone deserved their poverty and praised the jobless. I found it kind of ironic that I was seeing A-town again and was wondering if anyone else had thoughts on this.

~Becca

Hair

I was thinking about our discussion today of what makes certain perceptions of the 'correct' type of hairstyle so persistent. Then I remembered one of my all-time favorite musicals, Hair. At one point in the show the characters (who are sixties era hippies) are asked why they keep their hair long. In the following song they conclude that they don't really know why. Maybe this is the answer. Maybe their are things about ourselves and our culture that we are not able to perceive or understand. Do you think this is possible?

-Melissa C.

Mental Perceptions

In class today, we focused on how everyone's different perceptions make us unique. We targeted the physical aspect of perception--how our five senses differ between man and female, and among people in general.

Another major factor that makes each individual unique is his or her mental perceptions on things, his or her mentality. The way we think, what we dwell on, our interests, how we view a certain situation or idea--all of these are associated with one's mentality of concepts in life.

The popular interpretation of whether the "cup is half full" or the "cup is half empty" is a great example of someone's perception (outlook) of a situation. Depending on how someone views each difficulty--or any situation, for that matter--he may look at the "cup" as being either "half full" (optimism) or "half empty" (pessimism). In other words, our mental perceptions on incidents, ideas, etc. can also shape our individuality.

-Chloe Martianou

Is being unique still unique?

While watching the movie, I was reminded of an idea I had a little while ago. The movie talked about how the Insane Clown Posse was a representation of everything against the mainstream. It then went on to point out that they became more popular as they associated with the media more. I believe that this has a direct connection to many teens' lives. I know many people who say they are against "going with the crowd", but they still say and do everything like "the crowd" does. For example, my sister and her friends say that they are "unique". They reject certain ideas only because they are not "unique". My sister will not wear certain clothes, such as regular jeans, not because they are not her "style", but because she believes too many people wear them. She will only wear bright colored skinny jeans. Yet, these have become more and more popular nowadays. (Colin touched upon this subject in his Urban Outfitter's post.) What my sister considers is only her own style is really most other people's too. So, if everybody is "unique", is it still being unique, in the common sense of the word?

-Audrey Kindsfather

book of report or a book of opinion?

I'm currently reading a book called Your Body Believes Every Words You Say: The Language of the Bodymind written by Barbara Hoberman Levine. The author says that one can heal his illness by thinking positively and also says that if one talks negatively and describes his everyday condition to terms relevant to a certain disease, it is likely that he is going to get the disease. The Levine says that she learned this fact through her own experience, when she had a brain tumor at the age of 32.

Levine writes that she cured cancer through thinking positively and never giving up her hope. After she recovered from illness she spends fifteen years researching about the topic of language of the bodymind, however, I became somewhat skeptical as I was reading the book. I do believe that optimistic thinking is a good thing to do and it is undoubtedly better than thinking pessimistically. However, one question came up to my mind as I as reading, "is this a book about one's personal experience or a report?" Levine did spend fifteen years researching this topic but, to me, it is hard to believe the fact that thinking positively can even cure cancer.

I have to read further on to decide the verifiability of the belief Levine stated but I just thought that it would be hard to scientifically prove someone's personal experience, like Levine's, as a fact.

-Joanne Park

A nugget from the news

For your academic edification and argumentative pleasure, an item from the national news:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090917/ap_on_re_us/us_marine_s_widow_immigration

Have you considered the marriage debate as just another argument over definitions?

See you Monday--

LAZ

Brands

My book is all about brands so far (Branded, Alissa Quart) and it relates pretty tightly to Rushkoff. Brands are a literal mark of coolness. It's iconic to see a logo that everybody is familiar with at the bottom corner of a shirt, or an easily recognized pattern embroidered in the back pockets of jeans. It symbolizes so much -- what social ranking the owner wants to be in, what the owner thinks of the brand name, how much the owner paid. Brands are a physical marker of coolness at given periods of time.

I am aware that I participate in this buying and displaying of brands. My mom sometimes jokes that companies should pay me for advertising their products, rather than paying them. Or when I wear a concert T-shirt, that music group should pay me for promoting their brand for free. Yet even without that incentive, we still buy these products because we think it's cool. Another manifestation of this branding is seen every day in my life. Very established in our daily conversation are compliments. My friends and I will compliment each other on clothes, accessories, whatever. Immediately following an "I like your skirt" or a "Those shoes are awesome" is "Where'd you get it?" We care so much about branding because advertisers and manufacturers have instilled it so deeply in us.

-- tori

Coolness Is an Ebolavirus

The one thing in the natural world that I think most embodies coolness is the ebola virus (http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/Spb/mnpages/dispages/ebola/qa.htm). Both spread from person to person through interaction (although coolness also has the remarkable ability to travel through cables and in radio waves while ebola is bound to waterborn transmission), and both are doomed to one day perish. In the case of the virus, it will either will either fail to find a new host to support its relentless exponential growth, or perish from exhausting its pool of suitable hosts by destroying them too quickly. Coolness is quite the same way. If a cool thing/entity/subculture/movement/etc. ends up being a failure, as thousands inevitably will, it will simply never be known to the masses. However, if it is successful, it will spread like a wildfire and, just like ebola, overexploit its host. In doing so, it will lose the very essence of cool that it once embodied, and will be recognized by the masses as yet another uncool subculture mass marketed by corporate America to rake in cash.

-Bryce Cody

Cool or Uncaring?

One thing I was a little unclear about on the video today was whether the teenage trendsetters of 'cool' were just trying to be cool by being different, or being different because they didn't care if they were cool. I've met both types of people and I think both can be trendsetters. Any ideas about this?

-Melissa C.

The End of TRL

After watching the video today, I couldn't help notice the MTV executives boasting about their program, Total Request Live. As I understood it, this program was allowed to provide free advertisement for artists and products, while raking in high ratings. I don't remember exactly when it was, but sometime during the last year TRL was shut down, due to poor ratings. Comparing the reactions to the program shown in the PBS documentary, and the reactions shown in the last year or so made me question what it was exactly that ended this flagship of "cool." Was it because the program outran its "cool" run? Or was it because the program committed the fatal sin of letting its marketing show? I'd like to believe that it was the latter, and that the public finally wised up to MTV's shameless marketing ploys, but I know that more likely it was just that the program seemed outdated. What does everyone else think?

-Tara

Coolness

I think the technology of today makes the teenage "cool" commercialization possible. Without TV and billboards and signs on passing buses, the word of coolness wouldn't get out to the world. The coolness would remain localized, at whatever level. Fashion styles, music, stars, and of course language would have no chance of making it big without technology. Say somebody used the word "fail" in a particular way in Moorestown. The usage of that word would probably stay localized in Moorestown, or maybe within New Jersey, or even the US, without Facebook and email and other technology.

The advanced marketing is also an important factor. We are able to see family members and friends who live a given distance away because of cars and planes. Then when we Moorestownians (?) happen to let slip a couple "fails," our cousin or whoever will develop a usage of the word and then it will spread that way.

Another example is through the spreading of products. If raw materials weren't able to be transported to other countries, or across a given country, it wouldn't be possible to make some products in some areas because of the lack or resources. The daily transportation of goods and products everywhere in the world allows clothes to reach the US and Apple products to reach Europe. Furthermore, the components of certain products come from everywhere, which wouldn't be possible without advanced transportation.

That documentary was probably made because PBS realized that around 2001, technology and modernalization truly impacted teenagers. Before those advancements, the trends didn't move as quickly. Coolness didn't get killed and get reborn in another form so fast. The documentary accurately marked the new evolution of coolness.

I think that the creator of something cool, a trendsetter, comes before the marketing of that cool thing. Other people may have different opinions, like the chicken came before the egg/no the egg came before the chicken, but in my opinion companies pick up on coolness after the fact. Like in today's documentary, Sprite and MTV were trying to catch up with teens and their ever-changing trends. MTV had to research teens to learn what they think was cool. If MTV were the one that makes up the cool stuff, it wouldn't have to research in the first place. We, the public, have the creative power.

-- tori

P.S. One last thing on coolness, concerning slang. I thought it was interesting how the word "cool" has lasted so long. It's spread across the world. Other words that meant the same thing like "groovy," "gnarly," "neato", were ephemeral. Some commercialization recently tried replacing cool with "hot" but by now that verbiage has simmered down (no pun intended) while "cool" still remains cool.

The Hipster Paradox and the Inevitable Fate of Urban Outfitters

A tragic thing has happened in recent years; the culture commonly known as "indie" has approached a dangerous precipice. Though there are differences between the two stereotypes "indie" and "hipster", the two have taken on a similar meaning. They are both generally applicable to a person who is independent from the mainstream, one who rejects popular culture. However, what does one do when this rejection becomes synonymous with popular culture itself?
As a teenager, I have witnessed as much as any of my peers the trends of our generation. We have worn tighter jeans, picked up guitars, and abandoned our Nikes for Converse. Everyone loves the movie Garden State and dislieks the government. The Merchants of Cool showed me how much the modern market is aware of this. While counterculture has been a powerful force throughout history, I am not aware of a time when it has been such a commodity for teenage consumers. In my mind, there is one place that embodies this concept to the fullest: Urban Outfitters.
Perhaps you have shopped here; perhaps you have not. They just opened on at the Cherry Hill Mall, but I first saw one in Dallas when I was in seventh grade. The cool hunters found their trend and harnessed it; hipster became the new big thing. Teens stormed their nearest mall to prove their nonconformity. I should know this; I am a chief culprit, and I have given Urban Outfitters more money than anyone ever should. There is a problem, though, which I hope I have made apparent already.
How can hipster be mainstream? Is one independent if they depend on his or her independence? How can the counterculture become the culture? When one is spending $50 to look like he or she only spent $10, something must be going wrong. The flaw with this system is already making itself apparent. Bands like The Shins, The Arcade Fire, and Vampire Weekend (all of whom sold albums through Urban Outfitters) have become "too popular" to retain their indie fanbase. This is the hipster paradox: being indie is no longer indie. This is why Urban Outfitters is doomed to fail.
Inevitably, Urban Outfitters will be exposed as the mainstream marketing ploy that it really is. While Rushkoff would probably suggest that this happens to all companies that cater to teens, I would think that Urban Outfitters would suffer more than the standard simply because it is a store that proclaims to be something it is most obviously not. I cannot help but think of today's movie, in which a woman said that the mainstream kills the "coolness" of the underground. This is certainly what is happening here, if it has not already happened. While mall rats will most likely not be able to kill counterculture as a whole, I would certainly expect the flanel shirt to fade from popularity for the forseeable future. RIP, indie.

Merchants of Cool

I thought today's video was extremely eye opening. I hardly even stop to think about advertising, but it really is such a big part of our lives. I was thinking about how marketing today relates to marketing when the video was made in 2001. I think for the most part, it hasn't really changed. Granted, the products, the trends, and the celebrities have changed, but for the most part, I think the focus is still on what the video called the "mook" and the "midriff". These things are still considered to be "cool" in our society.
But what I'm really wondering about is the effect advertisements had on creating the type of society where mooks and midriffs are cool. I think that these "ideals" began when teenagers started leaning toward that end of the spectrum and advertisers noticed. They took that small trend in thought and basically built it up into an entire teenage culture. Maybe "cool" would have headed in that direction anyway, but I think that marketers led us along the path that worked best for them and we just followed. What does everyone else think?

~Elizabeth Campbell

The Media

Advertisements are constantly contrived and displayed on posters, billboards, television, and the like. The media is ubiquitous, and its target is mainly teenagers. Teens are perfect "victims" for the media due to their nonchalance toward financial matters, their desire for freedom, and their yearnings for enjoying themselves with friends. With such a primary focus on having fun, teens can be naive enough to believe everything they read in magazines, hear on the radio, and watch on television. Such mistakes could lead to confusion, and even a void of gratification.

I've noticed one particular method the media has been using for a while to attract teenagers' attention, and it's not the most tactical: sexual appeal. As shown today in English class, such figures as Britney Spears are the epitomes of exploiting their bodies in order to entice people to purchase a product, watch a movie, go to a concert, and much, much more. To begin on a light note, many commercials use "attractive" people to advertise a product because people admire beauty. A person might believe that the advertiser "looks great" or "feels wonderful" because he or she purchased the item. This clearly means those watching should buy the item, too, so that they look and feel just as wondeful, right? Not at all. The media's goal isn't necessarily to satisfy its customers; its goal is to deceive by using nonverbal affective appeals that attract its audience's attention, convince said audience to purchase the product, and take their money.

Of course, using "beautiful" people to advertise isn't a crime...but it most definitely has escalated within the past few years to a new height that is considered--at least by me--to be absolutely preposterous. Now more than ever, commercials and movie trailers are using sexual appeal in order to grab people's attention. An example of someone who uses sexual nonverbal affective appeal to inveigle people into purchasing a product is the "actress" Megan Fox. Although constantly criticized for her terrible acting, Megan Fox sells. She succeeds in captivating audiences--most notably teenagers'--with her brazen sex appeal. To be blunt, she is using her body as a tool to make money for movie studios.

I am disappointed that such brazen sexual appeal has only attracted more people's attention. The more sexual an advertisement is, the more interested people are, and the greater the probability that they'll be duped into buying the product. This cycle will never end until people raise their standards by which they'll part with their money.

-Chloe Martianou

Laughter and Tears

I have had a very sore throat for the past few days, and while coming home from school today my mom said something that made me laugh. I quickly regretted it and asked her not to say anything funny because it hurt when I laughed. I then starting thinking about what we were talking about in class a few days ago. If words have no real meaning (they only mean what we say they mean), how can some words cause a physical reaction from us? Everyone knows what it's like to try to stifle a laugh after hearing a hilarious joke. If what was said was extremely funny, it is often impossible to stop the reaction. The same thing happens when something sad is said. How can simple words cause the uncontrollable physical reaction of tears? If words really mean nothing, aren't we laughing and crying for no reason?

-Alexa Kaczmarski

Continuing with the discussion today..

It was interesting to analyze Obama's speech linguistically and I was amazed by how the speech was written so affectively by using ethos, pathos, and logos evenly.

When I was reading the speech, I got an impression that Obama was rushing the audience to decide on the healthcare matter, emphasizing how urgent the problem was. Especially when he mentioned two examples, a man in Illinois who died because he could not get a treatment and a woman in Texas who had cancer, it arose emotion and it made it feel like we had to take actions NOW because people were dying the minute we were speaking. I also got the same impression when Obama warns the politicians that opposing just to politically attack him is not the right thing to do now.

When Obama said, "That's not my judgment...... it's the judgment of medical professionals across this country," I thought that by bringing up the medical professionals, Obama almost made his proposal seem like a report. People have faith in professionals especially in the medical field and they assume that since the professionals know what they're doing, it must be right to follow their advice. Also, by mentioning them, Obama emphasized on the fact that his proposal is not his personal judgment.

There were many components that helped the audience to remember his speech. During his speech Obama mentioned individuals like the man in Illinois, the woman in Texas, and Ted Kennedy. He also mentioned the effect his proposal can have on small business, employees without coverage, individuals, and at one point, he is directly speaking to the seniors of America. By directly speaking to individuals and certain groups of people, the people in the groups Obama mentioned will definitely remember what he said about the advantages that they will have.

-Joanne Park

Open and Closed Minds

I have been contemplating one of the last questions asked today during English: Did Obama's speech have an effect on the people? I have come to the conclusion that Obama's Back to School speech may have indeed roused different emotions in people, but whether he managed to inspire anybody to work harder or not clearly relies on the people themselves.

Obama's narration of the tragic stories of Andoni, Shantell, and Jazmin served to relate to certain people with similar hardships, and hopefully strike a chord within them. Depending on each individual's views and thoughts, however, Obama's speech may or may not have persuaded them to persevere in school. If, say, a teenager is truly upset about his relationship with his family, and finds it difficult to focus on his schoolwork, it is his choice alone whether or not he listens to Obama's speech and follows it through to the end. That teenager will, in the end, decide whether it is worthwhile to persist in school or not.

That being said, an individual will only be moved by Obama's speech, and strive for success if he or she has an open mind towards it. That is to say, said individual is willing to accept others' ideologies, (in this instance, Obama's ideology) and follow through with it.

For someone who has a closed mind, on the other hand, he will obstinately refuse to believe in anybody else's ideologies except for those of his own. In this case, the individual will not appreciate Obama's speech, and will continue believing in what he wants to believe in. He therefore may or may not work hard to succeed; the choice is his.

Though quite profound and articulate, Obama's speech is not entirely capable of persuading his listeners to have a good work ethic towards school. In the end, it is up to each individual to decide what to believe in, which aspects to accept, and determine how hard he or she will work in order to triumph in school.

-Chloe Martianou

Empathy

After reading President Barack Obama's Back to School Event speech, I imagined how encouraged all his listeners felt.

There are so many troubled kids who are struggling with difficult situations, and school only adds onto that frustration. Many children give up on the challenging work, and regret it years later. With an articulate speech as this particular one, however, students feel motivated to keep trying, not only because it was eloquently spoken, but also because it was very empathetic.

Empathetic words are needed by those who are striving to become successful, but are in a rough situation. Obama's speech wasn't meant to act as a pity party for himself and others; its purpose was to inspire students to work hard no matter what difficulties they may face. He provided students with solid evidence of how others with similar hardships were able to succeed.

By empathizing with the students and motivating them to continue with their schoolwork, Obama may have paved the road for inpsired students to persevere and succeed with their work.

-Chloe Martianou

A Really Lot Of Grammar

I have two friends with very opposing views on grammar and I was wondering what everyone else thought. My one friend is always correcting everyone's grammar. She feels it is important that we speak English the way it was meant to be spoken. Of course English evolves, and we have to allow for that change, but saying things like "a really lot of" is just plain wrong. My other friend says the purpose of language is communication. If you know what I mean, who cares how I say it? On the one hand, I agree with him, that language is a fluid thing, it moves and shifts and it's fine to use it in any way that is understood. On the other, I see the value in having a structured way in which language is used. It certainly gives a better impression, one of intelligence and education, if I speak correctly. What does everyone think?

I also noticed an interesting paradox. Most people, and teachers, won't care if you speak incorrectly, so long as you dont' write it. We have all had teachers explain to us that the problem with our essay is we are writing the way we speak. If it's ok to speak incorrectly, shouldn't it be ok to write that way?

I never understood why we must learn grammar in school. It always seemed to me that we would learn the right way to use language simply by using it. If everyone read and listened enough, they would be so submersed in grammar they would begin to subconciously use it. This is the way babies learn to speak correctly far before they ever know that "bottle" is a noun. What does everyone else think? Is this enough for good grammar? Or do we need to know what a relative pronoun is to use it?

~Becca LaRosa

Word Choice

When you apply to college, as we all know, you have to write an admissions essay. This is the college admissions officers way of trying to find something about you. To an extent, the words we choose to put down tell something about us. We each have our own "voice"; no two people write the same way. We all have different writing influences, teachers, books, newspapers, that have shaped the way we can use words. What we choose to say also says something about our values and who we are. But how much does it say? How much can you really learn about someone from a string of words a page long? For the purpose of college admissions when you can't meet everyone, an essay may work well. But in general, how much do you learn from the words one uses? Even a pen pal, who you may write for years but never see. How well do you know them?

~Becca LaRosa

Names

I'm currently reading the book We by Yevgeny Zamyatin which is about a dystopian society in which the government yields absolute control. In the book, the citizens of the society (which is referred to as the One State) do not have names such as Jennifer or Brian, but rather are assigned a letter followed by a number. For example, the main character is named D-503 and his "girlfriend" (by the One State's permission) is named O-90.

This reminded me of Hayakawa's comments about the primitive belief that one's name has a certain power over that person on pg. 48. Hayakawa feels that a name is simply a symbol, and that this primitive belief is a result of the confusion between word and thing. But as I continued reading We, I couldn't help but feel as if names really do have some special sort of "power". This left me with the question of whether one's name really means anything. Is it a defining part of our lives? Does it make us unique? Or is it simply a word, like all other words? Opinions?

-Bryce Cody

Dictionaries

As many others have said, Hayakawa's principles relate directly to everyday life. Today, I was helping my family clean out my great-grandparents house that is going to be sold. While I was going through a massive pile of books, an old dictionary caught my eye. I wasn't able to find a publishing date in it, so I looked it up on the internet and found out that it was published in 1945. The complete title is The Winston Dictionary: Primary Edition, With Every Word Defined So That Its Use and Meaning Can Be Easily Understood.

When I first saw the dictionary, I immediately thought of how words change over time, and how much different this dictionary must be from the ones we use today. Probably the most obvious word popped into my head: "computer". I looked this up in the dictionary and found that it wasn't there, although "computation" and "compute" were. On the same page, I saw another word: "comptograph- a kind of adding machine which prints the sum arrived at". I looked this word up in my modern dictionary, and found that it also was not included.

I then looked again at the title of the book, and began thinking about what dictionaries really do. According to The Winston Dictionary, they define a word "so that its use and meaning can be easily understood." I dealt with this topic a bit in my scrapbook. Hayakawa states that "We learn the meanings of practically all our words (which are, it will be remembered, merely complicated noises), not from dictionaries, not from definitions, but from hearing these noises as they accompany actual situations in life and learning to associate certain noises with certain situations.” Although dictionaries may strive to make their words "easily understood", a formal definition can only aid in the process of understanding a word. We must experience the word in life to really understand what it means.

The Winston Dictionary also had a section called "The Development of English". I read the first couple paragraphs of this, and I found quote that was almost exactly like Hayakawa's ideas: "The English language is a 'going concern'. Its business is expanding and there is continual need for new words the meet the demands made upon it. In these times of intense living and rapid progress we are daily finding new things, thinking new things, for which we need new words. Anything that affeects a great many people or receives extensive consideration adds its quota of words to vocabulary." It goes on to give examples of things important to the 1945 time period that added words to the English language: the automobile, the motion picture, World War II, the airplane, and radio transmissions.

-Audrey Kindsfather

Gender and Language

One of the elements of words that have a built-in judgment is gender. For example, people "know" that John is a boy's name and that Jennifer is a girl's name. People have gender assumptions not only with names but also with colors. Many boys say "I'm not gonna wear a pink shirt because pink is a girl color."
People tend to categorize colors and names by genders; and this is true worldwidely. Few days ago, I was online searching through web sites, and I found this interesting Korean web site that gave interesting statistics about names. I typed in my Korean name just for fun and I found out that my name was more popular as a boy's name. It also gave me the percentage of how popular my name was, and it concluded the genders of the characters of my name. My Korean name is Ji Hwan and the web site told me that Ji was a feminine character, and that Hwan was an extremely masculine character.
I wasn't surprised by this because I've grown up with people's comments about how I have a boy's name. The worst thing was in 3rd grade, there was a boy who had the same name as me and even the teacher forced me to be partners with him for almost all activities. In elementary school, my friends made fun of my name but looking back, I was surprised by how younger children are more affected by the word with built in judgments. My friends eventually stopped making fun of my name as they got older and they also stopped caring about the "girliness" of colors.
I also thought about what decides the genders of colors and names, and I could only think of one thing. The set standards. Both names and colors have been in existance for a long time and I don't know exactly when, but I could assume that the gender assumption was made a long time ago, too. Because people have been believing the gender assumption for such a long time, they accepted the assumption as a fact. Maybe young children decided the genders of colors by watching Power Rangers since the Pink Ranger and the Yellow Ranger were the females.
Any ideas?

-Joanne Park

Physical and Social Context

On Friday, I babysat for my almost three-year old neighbor. Spending several hours with a child who is just learning how to speak afforded me the perfect opportunity to see many of Hayakawa's principles in action. One of the most interesting observations I made was dealing with the idea of physical and social context. During the time I was babysitting, my neighbor constructed a block tower. As he tried to add on to the tower, he accidentally knocked the entire construction over. As a response, I offered the entirely meaningless word "Whoopsie." The word at first was recieved with quizzical looks from my neighbor, but after that, everytime he knocked over the blocks, he would repeat the word.

This scenario serves as an example of how we learn what words symbolize. Although my neighbor had never heard the word I used to express that a mistake had been made, he was able to interpret what I was saying based on the context of the situation. My neighbor then took the formerly meaningless word and began using it to express that he had made a mistake. After observing my neighbor and his developing speech, my faith in Hayakawa's ideas was reaffirmed.

-Tara Burns

Signal Reactions

Its almost creepy how much Language in Thought and Action applies to daily life. My house is currently under constuction and we don't have a kitchen. We've been eating off of paper plates, and these get thrown in trash cans around the house. My dogs then find these paper plates and rip them to shreds, leaving those shreds all over the carpet for us to clean up. This morning, I found these wonderful shreds in our living room and I wondered why my dogs insisted on eating these plates. They aren't food. But then I thought of Hayakawa and his chapter on signal versus symbol reactions. My dogs are having a signal reaction to the plates. The plates smell like the pepperoni pizza my brother had for lunch yesterday, so why wouldn't they be the pepperoni pizza? Dogs aren't as advanced as humans and therefore don't realize that the symbol is not the thing symbolized. If the plate smells like pepperoni pizza, they think it must taste like pepperoni pizza. This leaves me to clean up whats left of the plate, which will most likely be attacked again unless it is put out of their reach. Its a good thing humans have symbol reactions instead, or we'd being eating plates too.

~Elizabeth Campbell

The Power of Body Language

Human communication is said to be primarily expressed and interpreted through body language. I firmly believe in this. From our tone of voice to mere eye contact, we are capable of conveying our moods, beliefs, interests, etc. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_language)

The same, simple body gestures can indicate different meanings under certain circumstances. For instance, the raised eyebrow can indicate shock, excitement, or even condescension. When someone is astonished by, say, a surprise birthday party, he most likely raises his eyebrows and opens his mouth widely in awe. When, however, a haughty individual patronizes a store, she may superciliously raise her eyebrows when talking to an employee and behave as if she is "above" said employee. (I have discerned this many times at my job, unfortunately.)

Tone of voice can manifest the mood of an individual. If a mother loses her patience to a rambunctious child, she will usually raise her voice peremptorily to denote her intolerance to the child's bad behavior.

Eye contact--or lack thereof--is a powerful form of body language. If somebody is giving a captivating oral presentation in class, the audience will probably remain focused on the speaker. If, however, the speaker's presentation is wanting, the audience may shift their eyes to different objects due to boredom, or even fall asleep.

There are many other forms of body language that reveal people in some manner. We even use body language unconsciously.

-Chloe Martianou

Thoughts and Emotions

Is it just me, or did Language in Thought and Action ignore the first part of its title? I know it's most likely because we only read the first eight chapters, but I was really looking forward to how Hayakawa was going to describe language in thought. I had never even considered what life was like before language, before common words that everyone agreed upon, until reading this book, and I found that I was amazed and confused. How did people even think without words?

We think in words and we feel in words. Society has become so used to putting a label on everything that goes on in life that people are losing the ability to really feel without analyzing or jumping to conclusions. So many couples think what they feel for each other is called "love," so they verbalize that emotion and then feel forced to do everything that other couples in "love" have done. Who knows if what they feel is strong enough to keep them together for life, or if they simply let a word they do not understand change their lives forever? Why must people assign words to such strong emotions? There have only been a few times when I have felt ways that I can't describe with words, and those are the emotions I remember most. When the words do not exist to define it, we are forced to really feel it. I think Language should leave Emotions alone. What does everyone else think?

-Alexa Kaczmarski

Is it necessary to use circumlocution?

My sister worked in the local senator's office over the summer and she told me an interesting story that happened at her work. Her usual duties at work were to answer phone calls and to respond to the letters and emails from the constituents. And she said when the constituents send a letter or an email, many of them use circumlocution instead of concision. I understand that people use jargons when they talk to professionals, but my sister said that some people try too hard to sound "smart" and end up confusing the readers. Why is it that some people try so hard to sound "smart" instead of getting the point across?

She also told me that, when responding to those letters, she needs to use certain phrases and words. She says that it is required to use sophisticated, sometimes confusing, language. I understand that a response from a senator must sound professional and sophisticated, but some phrases that she told me, did not even mean anything. Her favorite sentence that she used the most was "citizens like you who get involved truly turn the wheel of our government." If I were the constituent who received such a response, I would not be satisfied. I would want a resolution to the problem I had, not just the appreciation.

She also told me that the responses are very abstract and only shows the appreciation for the constituent's active involvement. I could relate this fact to Hayakawa's statements about politicians. He says that politicians use words at the peak of the abstraction ladder although sometimes doing so results in disrepute and suspicion. Politicians' use of abstract words functions as directives which people propel to support them. I think that a candidate would not specify his ideas in detail for doing so would create more disputes and disagreements if he were not successful in putting his ideas into actions.

-Joanne Park

After congragulating myself for successfully logging into the blog for the first time, I proceeded to go back through everyone's posts to bring myself up to speed. It seemed to me that most of us would say that language is an extremely powerful force, though I could be wrong in making that assumption. Still, as a question for everyone, how much weight can we put in words?

I must admit that as I started reading Language in Thought and Action, I felt a certain degree of skepticism. Hayakawa obviously believes that humans and most other organisms seek to cooperate. As a fierce supporter of Darwin, I naturally find the idea that life seeks to cooperate rather than compete somewhat hard to swallow. To me, Hayakawa's theories fit more with Mutual Aid rather than On the Origin of Species. When page 12 informed me that all of the book's ideas were based on the assumption that humans naturally seek intraspecific cooperation, I confess that I did not expect to agree with everything Hayakawa put forward. I was pleasantly surprised to find the book interesting, informative, and insightful. Still, I could not help but doubt some of the book's concepts. Hayakawa clearly had a passionate love for Language, one so strong that I don't doubt he would have married her if he could have. I like Language as a friend, but she seems inconsistent sometimes and I question her ability to support me or others; I would be hesitant to take our relationship any further.

I think it was Chloe who brought up the cliche "actions speak louder than words." (If it wasn't, I apologize to whoever did mention it.) Don't they? In AP Euro we were discussing how French "kings" in the 13th and 14th century had all the power on paper, but in reality it was the ranchers with large estates that controlled daily life. Similarly, Sunday morning political pundits frequently question Barack Obama's ability to flesh out his rhetoric into action. One can repeat the word "change" over and over, but to legislate it is another thing entirely.

It seems to me that words are largely dependent on what they symbolize. Hayakawa wrote (I paraphrase) that there is no necessary connection between words and the things they represent. If there is no necessary connection, then what power does the word have? Does it have an inherent power, or does it only have as much power as we give it? I don't know the answer to this question. Help?

--Colin Groundwater

Forms of Language

This post is about language in general. I've been ruminating over the different languages the people of the world use. There's Latin, Korean, French, Mandarin, all the various forms of Mandarin. But isn't there language beyond?

I have heard varying opinions on this question: Is math a language? Math is used as much as English is; we use it in our daily lives to purchase things and to count objects. We use math to express our internal thoughts. Take the statement "There are 2 birds." How would we make that statement without math? Or is math just one of those operational definitions like "weight" and "length" because we can't define math without bringing in the very definition of math?

So is math a language based on that evidence? I've heard that "math is the universal language." Math is understood by people in Taiwan and in Sweden and in Brazil. After all, it's just numbers. So are those numbers and square root symbols and plus and minus signs equivalent to letters and question marks and ampersands?

I thought about languages that don't use words physically. Math substitutes numbers for letters. Sign language substitutes gesticulations and facial expression for words and sentences. So if sign language doesn't physically use words, and math doesn't physically use words, is math a language?

-- tori lee

Truth

In his class introduction today, my physics teacher made the arguement that science is really the only subject that aims to teach its pupils "the truth". He made the case that all other subjects are not based on learning the real, hard facts of life (math is only applied knowledge, history is written by the victors of wars, etc.). His explanation for English was that it only taught the rules of language.

The rules of language? Just grammar?

While I don't completely disagree with Mr. PhysicsTeacher, I'd have to say he's missing the big picture of the study of language. We're a class that is on a mission to understand the semantics of language - the meanings, implications, and effectiveness of words. But semantics is only one branch of English. There's grammar, of course, and literature, poetry, speech, lingustics, and more. So why does this vast intellectual realm exist if it doesn't strive for .... the truth?

Or does it seek "the truth", just not in the physical realm? What is the importance of English? Why bother learning the semantics of language?
Your thoughts?
(emily donahue)

Evolution of Language

I'm always impressed by people who invent things. I find it so amazing that someone can figure how to put a bunch of different things together and make something totally new. Language in Thought and Action brings up the fact that words change and evolve. If you look into the history of a word, you can see where it came from. For the most part, new words come from other related words. But what about the first forms of communication? Was it totally arbitrary what sounds came to stand for what things? Did someone just point to that thing over there and decide to call it, say, a tree? If thats the case, just a slight change in history and our whole language could be different.

-elizabeth campbell

Dead-Level Abstraction

After finishing the section on dead-level abstraction, I felt Hayakawa implied that people who write on higher levels of the ladder of abstraction always think they sound intelligent and are unaware that they are making little to no sense. I disagree with this implication and also with the idea that dead-level abstraction on high levels is as meaningless as it is on lower levels.

When John Lennon received a letter that the students of a high school were studying and analyzing Beatles lyrics, he decided to write a song that made no sense whatsoever. Thus, "I Am the Walrus" was released and became one of the most discussed and analyzed Beatles songs ever. People were determined to find reason and insight behind the lyrics and discovered their own personal meanings for the song.

Since Lennon stayed at very high levels of abstraction, the song could be interpreted in endless different ways. It is sometimes more interesting for the reader to have to think about the meaning of things rather than having it spelled out in writing that switches from high to low levels. While I agree that the examples Hayakawa gave about dead-level abstraction were hindrances to the reader, I'm surprised he didn't discuss when it works to the reader's benefit and entertainment.

-Alexa Kaczmarski

Foundations of Society

A society will remain intact on the condition that the people within it cooperate. As Hayakawa defines on page sixty-eight, society is "a vast network of mutual agreements."

It is interesting to realize how much people accept this systematized network of agreements everyday of their lives. When driving, people must obey street signs and traffic lights. Consumers at supermarkets must pay for the items they want. At school, students are expected to follow the teachers' rules. Even at home, there is a fixed set of rules from the parents for the children to follow. If someone refuses to adhere to a rule or law, he will be punished.

A lawless society is a paradox because no society can exist without a network of mutual agreements. Imagine how chaotic life would be if people didn't have any rules to follow. Murders and other atrocities would be inordinately committed everyday. Businesses wouldn't exist because nobody would pay for their purchases. Children would have the choice of whether to attend school or not.

It's unfathomable how disorganized the world would be without laws and rules to follow.

-Chloe Martianou