Communication Books - Page 3

Psychology of Literacy

Sylvia Scribner, Michael Cole

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Editorial Review:

What are the intrinsic differences between the literate and the illiterate mind? The Vai, a small West African group, developed their own system of writing that flourishes today, althought no body of written literature exists and about half of those literate in Vai have never had formal schooling. Given this situation, Scribner and Cole were able to test mor than 1,000 subjects over a four-year period to measure the mental advantage of literates over nonliterates.

"An ambitious and important book—ambitious in scope and its continual reevaluation of aims and methods . . . and important for putting heretofore unexamined presumptions regarding the gognitive effects of literacy to empirical test."—Language and Society

The Flirt Coach's Guide to Finding the Love You Want

Peta Heskell

Amazon Price: $13.16 List Price: $13.16 In stock soon. Order now to get in line. First come, first served. By: Element Books Ltd. Amazon Marketplace: 17 new & used starting at $0.51

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Editorial Review:

The philosophy in this book is simple: Most of us have learned to hide behind masks and rules. So we attract people to what we are not. We can only find the love we want when we start being who we truly are.

Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind

David Livingstone Smith

List Price: $24.95 By: St. Martin's Press Amazon Marketplace: 30 new & used starting at $3.43

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Deceit, lying, and falsehoods lie at the very heart of our cultural heritage. Even the founding myth of the Judeo-Christian tradition, the story of Adam and Eve, revolves around a lie. We have been talking, writing and singing about deception ever since Eve told God, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." Our seemingly insatiable appetite for stories of deception spans the extremes of culture from King Lear to Little Red Riding Hood, retaining a grip on our imaginations despite endless repetition. These tales of deception are so enthralling because they speak to something fundamental in the human condition. The ever-present possibility of deceit is a crucial dimension of all human relationships, even the most central: our relationships with our very own selves.

Now, for the first time, philosopher and evolutionary psychologist David Livingstone Smith elucidates the essential role that deception and self-deception have played in human--and animal--evolution and shows that the very structure of our minds has been shaped from our earliest beginnings by the need to deceive. Smith shows us that by examining the stories we tell, the falsehoods we weave, and the unconscious signals we send out, we can learn much about ourselves and how our minds work.

Readers of Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker will find much to intrigue them in this fascinating book, which declares that our extraordinary ability to deceive others--and even our own selves--"lies" at the heart of our humanity.

Between the Lines: Unconscious Meaning in Everyday Conversation

Robert E. Haskell

List Price: $27.95 By: Insight Books Amazon Marketplace: 22 new & used starting at $1.77

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How to Speak Your Spouse's Language: Ten Easy Steps to Great Communication from One of America's Foremost Counselors

H. Norman Wright

List Price: $19.99 By: Center Street Amazon Marketplace: 14 new & used starting at $7.07

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Working on Communication Help 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Subtitle: Ten Easy Steps to Great Communication from One of American's Foremost Counselors.

This book is easy to read and understand, with each chapter broken down into several small segments like: Understanding Each Other, Details: Too Many or Too Few?, Learn the Other Person's Rules of Communication and other subheads. Each chapter ends with a series of thought-provoking questions called Energy Builders, which help you identify what you could have misunderstood from your spouse, how you could have spoken differently, or, what you can do now with the information you learned in this chapter.

Wright states that the two most critical times for communication between a husband and wife are the first four minutes in the day and the last four minutes when you're reunited at the end of day. His primary methods are getting to learn his clients' language, just as he encourages us to understand our spouse's language in his book.

Wright also quotes numerous reputable sources, including some very famous books on communicating. He uses Deborah Tannen, PhD's You Just Don't Understand Me, John Gray's, What Your Mother Couldn't Tell You and Your Father Didn't Know, and Michele Weiner-Davis', Divorce Busting. With Wright's understandable, down-to-earth style, and the other professionals he quotes, this book is a great read whether you're dating, engaged, married five years, or forty. He addresses all aspects of communication, from the beginnings of being in love to the comfort of a long-term marriage.

Armchair Interviews says: An excellent communication book. Wright's style and candidness should have you and your spouse working on your communication problems in no time!

Editorial Review:

In his "lifetime message," marriage expert and award-winning author Norman H. Wright offers couples essential guidance in understanding and enhancing their communication styles.

Couples marry believing they're compatible and then get confused when they can't communicate. The key to connecting, according to Dr. Wright, is discovering a partner's unique communication style and learning to match it. Couples everywhere have benefited from his simple, sensible approach as outlined in this book and are finding communication far more satisfying. Dr. Wright provides sample dialogues and illustrations of learning, gender, and personality differences, as well as exercises that couples can practice in 15 minutes or less. By following Dr. Wright's principles, couples will be amazed at the results and just might find that they can speak their spouse's language after all!

Instant Rapport

Michael Brooks

List Price: $18.95 By: Warner Books Amazon Marketplace: 44 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 30 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Not practical and overgeneralizations throughout 2 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Mr. Brooks talks about achieving instant rapport with someone. Although this book talks about the very basics of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) since it has been written in 1989 when NLP was fairly new, there are couple of basic stradegies I found useful:

1. Talking in forms of the other's representation types (Visual, Kinesthetic, Auditory)
We are either one of the three types, and we tend to talk more in types of those languages. (ex. I "see" what you mean vs. I "hear" what you mean)
Simply recongnize them in a conversation and talk in that context of language.

2. Mirroring
In order to establish rapport, subtly mirror their physical behaviors (ex. hand gestures, crossing legs)

3. Anchoring
When someone is in high emotional state, anchor that feeling by planting a signal on his/her body (squeezeing elbows, wrist)


Other methods Brooks talks about did not seem very practical to me (such as using specific questions such as "Can you remember a time when you have been totally attracted to someone?" leading to "What was the first thing you noticed, looks, sound, or feeling?" to "What was the second thing you noticed..." to "What was the third?" to supposedly tap into someone's minds. Seems kind of impractical to use in a conversational context because nobody talks like this and the subject is likely to feel strange.

Overall, gives you a gist of the world of NLP, which can be a very powerful tool if studied carefully. However, there are other more modern books out on NLP now since studies have advanced. If interested, check out Tony Robbins' Unlimited Power if you want to learn how to control your mind and feelings as well as rapport with others in greater detail.

Editorial Review:

The national bestseller that shows how anyone can master the proven scientific techniques of neurolinguistic programming (NLP) and forge instant relationships, instant chemistry, instant intimacy at will--now with a special chapter on sexual rapport! Trains the reader to control others' perceptions, dissolve communication barriers, create more intimate relationships, negotiate more effectively, and more.

Persuasion: Theory and Research (Current Communication)

Daniel J. O'Keefe

List Price: $64.95 By: Sage Publications, Inc Amazon Marketplace: 16 new & used starting at $3.91

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Academics searching for a comprehensive text in persuasion or researchers looking for a quick brushup in theory and research can find no better resource than Persuasion. Written in an accessible style that presumes no special technical background in research methods, this timely volume offers a comprehensive and critical treatment of theory and research in persuasion. O'Keefe provides a clear, straightforward introduction on this subject, leaving instructors free to handpick non-text materials to satisfy ancillary aims. He includes a discussion of research concerning the production of persuasive messages, as well as more traditional research on the study of message effects. Also included is an excellent summary of relevant research literature in persuasion (including secondary and tertiary sources), suggestions on how to avoid premature generalizations from limited research evidence, and detailed discussions on important theoretical and methodological questions. An excellent resource for scholars, practitioners, and students, this thought-provoking volume is ideal for anyone working in the fields of communication, sociology, marketing, advertising, and social psychology. "This the second in a series of Advanced Text Series on Communication provides a clear, straight-forward introduction to the field which also covers current research into the production of persuasive massages and message effects as well as a critical overview of relevant research literature. . . . Essential reading for anyone in the behavioral sciences or fields concerned with the induction of behavior or attitude change." --Journal of the Institute of Health Education "For the most part, the O'Keefe chapters tend to be brief, providing the students with a quick summary of a given research area or theory. . . . the reader is given an adequate theoretical foundation to understand key persuasion research findings. An advantage of the O'Keefe volume is its critical treatment of attitude theories. . . . Each theory is presented in its simplest form with supporting evidence. As such, it is easy for the reader to see the strengths and weaknesses of a given theory. Beginning with the preface, O'Keefe often provides his critical analysis of a given issue. Such a critical analysis is useful for starting classroom discussion. In summary, the instructor who is looking for a text that presents a concise, but critical, summary of attitude theories and findings should consult O'Keefe's Persuasion: Theory and Research." --Contemporary Psychology

Of Memory, Reminiscence, and Writing: On the Verge (Studies in Continental Thought)

David Farrell Krell

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Social Interaction and Language Development in Blind Children (Essays in Developmental Psychology)

Perez-Pereira

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Editorial Review:

This book provides an up-to-date account of blind children's developing communicative abilities with particular emphasis on social cognition and language acquisition from infancy to early school age. It purports to foster dialogue between those interested in the study of typically developing children and those interested in the development of children who are blind and to provide insights and new explanations of why the development of blind children may differ from that of sighted children. The book also aims to identify and examine current theoretical issues which are likely to be at the center of developments in the fields of child language and developmental psychology.

Language Development and Social Interaction in Blind Children is also a timely book. The study of blind children's development constitutes a unique opportunity to study the effect of vision on development, and more specifically on the development of language and certain aspects of social cognition. Current interest in the development of "theory of mind" and perspective taking in language learning, make the case of blind children crucial to our understanding of certain aspects of psychological functioning. The book explores these issues, challenges some widely-held beliefs about the development of communication in blind children, and provides a cohesive picture of our knowledge to date.

Infant Figures: The Death of the Infans and Other Scenes of Origin

Christopher Fynsk

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Editorial Review:

This volume juxtaposes philosophical and psychoanalytic speculation with literary and artistic commentary in order to approach a set of questions concerning the human relation to language, a relation that cannot be taken as an “object” of critical or philosophical reflection in the traditional manner. Exploring the exigencies of figuring this relation at the limits of language, the multifold writing of this volume takes the form of a “triptych” (following the model of works by Francis Bacon) rather than that of a thesis.

The central (and organizing) section of the volume contains an extended dialogue on two textual passages portraying versions of what the author describes as “the death of the infans.” With the strange resonance of the “primal” or the “originary,” these two scenes from works by Maurice Blanchot and Jacques Lacan invite a reflection on the mortal exposure that marks the human share in the advent of language, an exposure whose figuration is necessary to any speech or conscious life. The dialogue explores the ethical and philosophical issues that surface in a practice of writing (a “pragmatics”) that engages this necessary figuration, and thus the limits of language. The latter issues are also explored in a brief essay on Antigone that concludes the dialogical fiction.

The first and third parts of the volume’s triptych address artistic projects that realize in their respective ways a pragmatics like that of the central section. The first part focuses on the work of Francis Bacon, taking the motif of crucifixion as a path toward understanding his violent realism. This essay is prefaced by a consideration of the notion of cruelty to which Nietzsche appeals in The Genealogy of Morals. The third part, which juxtaposes a dialogue with a critical essay, concerns the work of Salvatore Puglia. Through Bacon and Puglia, the author seeks another approach to a figural imperative at the limits of language.