Living with Change: The Semantics of Coping

By Wendell Johnson and Dorothy Moeller

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060433485
• ISBN13: 9780060433482
• Release Date: January 1972
• Publisher: Harper & Row
• Length: 214 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Communication is more than just waiting for our turn to talk

Before I read "Living With Change: The Semantics of Coping" by Wendell Johnson, I read his earlier book "People in Quandaries--The Semantics of Personal Adjustment" (Harper & Row, 1947) around 1976. I was amazed by the clarity of his expression, the compassion of his writing, and the subject matter itself: General Semantics. I have re-read it several times and routinely open it at random and read for enjoymentJohnson didn't create General Semantics. The pioneer of General Semantics, Alfred Korzybski, a Polish engineer, published his book, "Science and Sanity," in 1933. As I understand it, the book grew out of Korzybski's WWI experiences. The story goes that the war made Korzybski wonder if scientific principles could be incorporated into language, better verbal "tools" for "evaluat[ng" and "reacting" to communication with others in a more sane, less tense and anxious manner. His development of the scientific use of language has been criticized by some and highly commended by others. I highly commend it --and recommend to anyone interested in why human communication at times seemingly fails so easily and un expectantly to look at "Science and Sanity."While "Science and Sanity" is the bedrock for General Semantics, I prefer the later intellectual strata deposits of Johnson's "Quandaries," in my opinion the best G.S.popularization, followed by the works of S.I. Hayakawa and Irving Lee and Neil Postman.Johnson's book, "Living with Change: The Semantics of Coping," is a 1972 collection of essays based on some transcriptions of Johnson's public lectures, including his University of Iowa classroom, in the decade before his untimely death in 1965.In the preface of the book, Johnson is quoted as saying, "On the basis of everything I know from all kinds of sources, I think that this is the best assumption that I can make. We talk to ourselves. That is what we do largely when we think. It is largely what we do when we feel, when we say we are emotional...The point is that what we tell ourselves is what we react to. When we tell ourselves something, we act accordingly."And later, "We create our world linguistically. How else? We can make a world of constant combat with the shadows. We do this with language. Or we can create a world of peace and harmony and efficiency of progress. We do this with language. We eliminate almost all the human frictions with people who know what they are talking about, whether they are talking about themselves and their feelings and the world they make for themselves inside their skins or whether they are talking about the world outside. They know which are their feelings and which are their facts and they know the difference. It seems to me that an understanding of how we make and use words and other symbols is the most important approach to an understanding of the human being that anybody has ever tried to use. We haven't learned to use it very well yet."In his bo