I made a review on YouTube

https://youtu.be/ClNhM6lZjWU ( )

"Language in Thought and Action" di S.I. Hayakawa è un libro del 1949 sulla Semantica Generale, basato sul suo lavoro precedente "Language in Action" del 1939. Il libro esplora il ruolo del linguaggio nella vita umana e offre una prospettiva approfondita su come utilizziamo il linguaggio come strumento di comunicazione e di pensiero. Ecco alcune informazioni chiave sul libro:
Autore: S.I. Hayakawa
Lingua: Inglese
Pubblicazione: Il libro è stato pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1949 e la quinta edizione nel 1991. Contenuto: "Language in Thought and Action" esplora il modo in cui il linguaggio influenza il nostro pensiero, le nostre azioni e le nostre interazioni sociali. Il libro affronta anche il concetto di Semantica Generale, che riguarda lo studio del significato nel linguaggio e nella comunicazione .Popolarità: Il libro ha venduto oltre un milione di copie ed è stato tradotto in otto lingue. Critiche: Il libro ha ricevuto alcune critiche, come ad esempio una critica pubblicata su JSTOR che offre una valutazione critica del lavoro di Hayakawa. "Language in Thought and Action" è considerato un testo importante per coloro che sono interessati allo studio del linguaggio, della semantica e della comunicazione umana. Offre una prospettiva approfondita su come il linguaggio influisce sul nostro modo di pensare e interagire con il mondo che ci circonda. ( )

It had been nigh on 50 years since I last read this book in a college linguistics class. That's way too long. I had forgotten how important this book really is.This is a seminal work that explains so much about humanity that it's difficult to describe. Read this book. I can't say much else. If I could give it ten stars here I would. Certainly the best non-fiction book in my library, and I've got a lot of non-fiction. Try to find this edition if you can - comments on Amazon indicated that later editions had been edited for political correctness, which tells me that the editors that did that didn't read the book. ( )

Although a linguist friend didn't think much of Hayakawa's book, I found it very thought provoking, and therefore meaningful.

My favorite quote from this book wasn’t even by Hayakawa:

"A classic is a work which gives pleasure to the minority which is intensely and permanently interested in literature. It lives on because the minority, eager to renew the sensation of pleasure, is eternally curious and is therefore engaged in an internal process of rediscovery. A classic does not survive because of any ethical reason it does not survive because it conforms to certain cannons, or because neglect would kill it. It survived because it is a source of pleasure and because the passionate few can no more neglect it then a bee can neglect a flower. The passionate few do not read "the right things" because they are right. That is to put the cart before the horse "the right things" are the right things solely because the passionate few like reading them …"

"Nobody at all is quite in a position to choose with certainty among modern Works. To sift the wheat from the chaff is a process that takes an exceedingly long time. Modern Works have to pass before the bar of the taste of successive Generations semicolon whereas, with Classics, which have been through the ordeal, almost the reverse is the case. Your taste has to pass before the bar of the classics. That is the point. If you differ with a classic, it is you who are wrong, and not the book. If you differ with a modern work, you may be wrong or you may be right, but no judge is authoritative to decide your taste is unformed. It needs guidance and it needs a thority of guidance."
Arnold Bennett, Literary Taste: How to Form It, as quoted by S. I. Hayakawa in Language in Thought & Action, 4th Ed, p 139-140
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A classic. I try to read this at least once a year since I first read it in 1998. ( )