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Semantics and common sense
J. Communication Dis. 1 (1967) 329-334 © North-Holland Publ. Co., Amsterdam
THE WAYS AND MEANS OF COMMUNICATION: THREE VIEWS OF THE ROUTE JAMES W. CAMPBELL and HAL W. HEPLER: Dimensions in communication. Belmont, Calif., Wadsworth Publishing Company, Inc., 1965, l-x, 230 pages (paperbound). Louis B. SALOMON: Semantics and common sence. New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1966, l-Vll, 180 pages (paperbound). JOHN C. CONDON: Semantics and communication. New York, "fhe Macmillan Company, 1966, I-iX, 115 pages (paperbound). By Herbert Russell Gillis, C. W. Post College, Greenvale, N.Y. Dimensions in communication is a book of readings taking as its premise that
the underlying purpose of all communication is persuasive. In its construction the book is divided into four major sections, namely: Conceptual frames, Persuasion, Language, and Writing. Each of these sections consists of a collection of essays and commentaries. The first section, 'Conceptual frames', has as its topic the use of the model and the need for building models or frames as an aid in conceiving the general problems of the communicative process. It is made fundamental here that only by discovering all the complex interworkings of communication can one hope to improve his own abilities. Section two, 'Persuasion', takes up the burden of the book, that the communicative process is always one in which persuasion takes place. Man in his environment must adjust to others to survive, and he must seek means to get others to adjust to him for the same reason. He does this through the context of communication. The definitive aspects of the term persuasion must necessarily be broad here, and persuasion is not limited to the specific and the immediate, as one may surmise. The selection of essays here depicts a series of studies in human behavior in persuasive situations, thus shifting the focus from the milieu to that of the individual. The third section deals with the most obvious means of communicationlanguage. Taking as the purpose of communication the altering of response probabilities of the receivers of messages we send (a persuasive undertaking), it is elementary that the means we use to achieve this most of the time is 329
THE WAYS AND MEANS OF COMMUNICATION: THREE VIEWS OF THE ROUTE JAMES W. CAMPBELL and HAL W. HEPLER: Dimensions in communication. Belmont, Calif., Wadsworth Publishing Company, Inc., 1965, l-x, 230 pages (paperbound). Louis B. SALOMON: Semantics and common sence. New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1966, l-Vll, 180 pages (paperbound). JOHN C. CONDON: Semantics and communication. New York, "fhe Macmillan Company, 1966, I-iX, 115 pages (paperbound). By Herbert Russell Gillis, C. W. Post College, Greenvale, N.Y. Dimensions in communication is a book of readings taking as its premise that
the underlying purpose of all communication is persuasive. In its construction the book is divided into four major sections, namely: Conceptual frames, Persuasion, Language, and Writing. Each of these sections consists of a collection of essays and commentaries. The first section, 'Conceptual frames', has as its topic the use of the model and the need for building models or frames as an aid in conceiving the general problems of the communicative process. It is made fundamental here that only by discovering all the complex interworkings of communication can one hope to improve his own abilities. Section two, 'Persuasion', takes up the burden of the book, that the communicative process is always one in which persuasion takes place. Man in his environment must adjust to others to survive, and he must seek means to get others to adjust to him for the same reason. He does this through the context of communication. The definitive aspects of the term persuasion must necessarily be broad here, and persuasion is not limited to the specific and the immediate, as one may surmise. The selection of essays here depicts a series of studies in human behavior in persuasive situations, thus shifting the focus from the milieu to that of the individual. The third section deals with the most obvious means of communicationlanguage. Taking as the purpose of communication the altering of response probabilities of the receivers of messages we send (a persuasive undertaking), it is elementary that the means we use to achieve this most of the time is 329