Communication Books - Page 6

Language Processing (Studies in Cognition)

Simon Garrod

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Editorial Review:

Language has always been seen as a cornerstone of human intelligence yet psycholinguistics only became a recognized branch of psychology 35 years ago. At the outset it was mainly concerned with testing theories developed in linguistics following Chomsky's revolution, but since then it has become a discipline in its own right, forming a central component of cognitive science. This book is concerned with what happens when we process language - what mental operations occur during processing and how they are organized over time. It gives an account of these developments both as they relate to experimental studies of processing and as they relate to computational modeling of the processes. There are chapters covering core topics such as lexical processing, syntactic parsing and the comprehension of discourse, as well as special topics which have recently attracted interest, such as the role of morphology, reference and prosody in processing. Recent advances in the study of dialogue and psychological semantics are also discussed.

The Art of Bargaining

Richard Ned Lebow

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Editorial Review:

Bargaining for what we want or need is a part of our everyday lives. But how often do we stop to consider all the factors that go into the bargaining process? How often do we look at the strategies and tactics available to us? And how often do we hurt our own position by failing to do so?

In The Art of Bargaining, Richard Ned Lebow draws on his years of experience with the United States government, NATO, and numerous European and American businesses to explain the principles of negotiation -- from buying a car to planning business mergers to signing an international treaty. Unlike studies that examine only what is said and done at the negotiation table, The Art of Bargaining looks at the context in which negotiation takes place -- and shows why some of the most critical decisions about bargaining are made even before the parties sit down to talk.

Lebow begins with a discussion of the nature of bargaining and why people choose to bargain. Because bargaining is a strategy, it is imperative to consider the end goal before deciding on the means for achieving it. Lebow explores the relationship between bargaining and its goals and compares the bargaining process with some other strategies -- such as coercion or threats -- that can achieve similar goals.

An in-depth study of the decision to negotiate reveals that there are three distinct approaches to the process: coordination (mutual accommodation of both parties' interests); punishment (the use of threats to influence agreement); and reward (making agreements seem more attractive through incentives). Lebow explains how all three approaches can be used effectively once the context of the negotiation has been properly analyzed.

Using concrete examples of negotiation from everyday life as well as world politics, The Art of Bargaining provides the reader with ways to increase bargaining leverage, analyze the strategies and goals of bargaining opponents, and overcome the obstacles that present themselves at the negotiation table.

Explanation and Power: The Control of Human Behavior

Morse Peckham

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Remarkable book about power by a out of vogue writer. 5 out of 5 stars.
11 of 11 people found this review helpful.

Or "How to Make Friends and Influence People"
This is a book about the nature of power, language, and behavior. Peckham starts with an interesting pragmatist premise: the meaning of a sign is the response to it. This may seem like a tautology but it's not; Peckham states that language is slippery (predicting and predating the post-structuralists and Derrida) and that language, essentially, is about regulating behavior. The book follows these premises through out the social landscape.

His statements about language resemble, to me, late Wittgenstein because he thinks that language has rules that are almost endemic to their structure and these rules are used by us to categorize and divide the quotidian corporeal world (and this leads us to inscribe these structures into the larger world). His social beliefs mirror Bourdieu and Foucault, in a way, by claiming that social roles and states have to keep their populace under control and that this means, in modern times, trying to regulate their desires.

At first it seems like a depressing book with "no way out" but at the end he goes into "social transcendence" which is a fancy way of saying that society sometimes fails and creates people who don't "fit in." Sometimes.... hell, most of the time, this is a bad thing (sociopaths, Jim Jones, Hitler, etc.) but sometimes its a great thing that leads to movements that set the larger culture in slightly new directions (which isn't necessarily good, but that's not the point).

You don't need a philosophy background to understand it and although it is dense, it's one of the most rewarding books I've read in the last two years.

Handbook of Communication and Social Interaction Skills (Lea's Communication Series)

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Editorial Review:

Providing a thorough review and synthesis of work on communication skills and skill enhancement, this Handbook serves as a comprehensive and contemporary survey of theory and research on social interaction skills. Editors John O. Greene and Brant R. Burleson have brought together preeminent researchers and writers to contribute to this volume, establishing a foundation on which future study and research will build.

The handbook chapters are organized into five major units: general theoretical and methodological issues (models of skill acquisition, methods of skill assessment); fundamental interaction skills (both transfunctional and transcontextual); function-focused skills (informing, persuading, supporting); skills used in management of diverse personal relationships (friendships, romances, marriages); and skills used in varied venues of public and professional life (managing leading, teaching).
Distinctive features of this handbook include:
* broad, comprehensive treatment of work on social interaction skills and skill acquisition;
* up-to-date reviews of research in each area; and
* emphasis on empirically supported strategies for developing and enhancing specific skills.

Researchers in communication studies, psychology, family studies, business management, and related areas will find this volume a comprehensive, authoritative source on communications skills and their enhancement, and it will be essential reading for scholars and students across the spectrum of disciplines studying social interaction.

Meta-Emotion: How Families Communicate Emotionally

John Mordechai Gottman, Lynn Fainsilber Katz, Carole Hooven

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Editorial Review:

This book describes research on the emotional communication between parents and children and its effect on the children's emotional development. Inspired by the work, and dedicated to the memory of Dr. Haim Ginott, it presents the results of initial exploratory work with meta-emotion--feelings about feelings. The initial study of meta-emotion generated some theory and made it possible to propose a research agenda. Clearly replication is necessary, and experiments are needed to test the path analytic models which have been developed from the authors' correlational data. The authors hope that other researchers will find these ideas interesting and stimulating, and will inspire investigation in this exciting new area of a family's emotional life.

Reconstructing Communicating: Looking To A Future (Lea's Communication Series)

Robyn Penman

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Editorial Review:

In this innovative and potentially controversial book, Penman examines the future of communication as a discipline. She foresees a time in which communicating is conceived as a social construction process, in the anticipation that this will allow a genuine practical response to contemporary social problems. The book sets out a map toward accomplishing that future--laying the foundations for a different way of conceiving of communication, enabling direct action, rather than just theorizing about it. It begins with a history illustrating how the communication discipline has arrived to where it is today and then goes on to demonstrate Penman's conception of communication.

Reconstructing Communicating is an exploration of what it means to inquire into communicating; to treat communicating as the essential problematic of concern; and to recognize that we construct our reality in our communicating. In undertaking this exploration, the author pursues a central theme of what constitutes good communicating and good communication research.

Arguments throughout this book provide a radical departure from mainstream communication studies and especially from the rationalist's quest for truth and scientific knowledge. A way of acting in good faith is offered, both with the process of communicating and with the participants in it, that generates practical understandings for constructing new futures.

Designed for communication scholars and graduate students primarily in organizational communication, public relations, and communication theory, this book will also interest those in management and business as it deals with practical communication issues.

The Spiritual Art of Dialogue: Mastering Communication for Personal Growth, Relationships, and the Workplace

Robert Apatow

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Editorial Review:

A guide to how Socratic principles of dialogue can be used for improving communication and developing satisfying relationships. * Shows how to develop methods of dialogue for growth in personal and * business relationships. * Includes clear and detailed lessons on how to begin and hold a * dialogue on important issues. * Of great relevance to anyone seeking a highter level of communication.

The Spiritual Art of Dialogue introduces the reader to the lost art of dialogue--an art once used by such master philosophers as Socrates and Plato--as a present-day alternative to the therapist's couch. With straightforward examples and invaluable step-by-step instruction, the author shows how we can take control of our own lives when we understand the strength that resides in our ability to communicate, and how the very forms into which we place our words can improve--and empower--our personal and professional lives.

The frustration we experience in our relationships with lovers, family and friends, and in the workplace often results from our inability to talk productively with one another. The principles of dialogue can help us to identify negativity, unsound reasoning, and misplaced criticism, and to understand how we can use discussion as a form of play and as a means of discovering our true inner voice. The Spiritual Art of Dialogue highlights the importance of being truthful with ourselves, and about ourselves, so that we resist falling into old and destructive patterns of communication, and shows how dialogue has the power to help us achieve personal and spiritual growth by bringing us together--as friends--in a shared search for the truth and genuine understanding.

How the Brain Evolved Language

Donald Loritz

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A deeper understanding of how the brain learns language 5 out of 5 stars.
12 of 12 people found this review helpful.

If you've ever wondered how humans are able to learn, this book is for you. Even thought Don Loritz's book concentrates on language learning, the same cognitive model can be extended to learning in general. From the inner workings of a small set of neurons to the combined computational power of potentially billions (or more) neural connections, he builds on solid brain science and biology. Unlike other authors who approach neural network research from a purely engineering perspective, Loritz approach is grounded in physiology, and his assertions are largely supported by what we know about the brain's structure and how the emergent properties of mind are formed. I would highly recommend it: it's a nice change from the myriad of books which posit how the brain/mind work without even mentioning the word "neuron."

Editorial Review:

How can an infinite number of sentences be generated from one human mind? How did language evolve in apes? In this book Donald Loritz addresses these and other fundamental and vexing questions about language, cognition, and the human brain. He starts by tracing how evolution and natural adaptation selected certain features of the brain to perform communication functions, then shows how those features developed into designs for human language. The result -- what Loritz calls an adaptive grammar -- gives a unified explanation of language in the brain and contradicts directly (and controversially) the theory of innateness proposed by, among others, Chomsky and Pinker.

A Passion To Believe: Autism And The Facilitated Communication Phenomenon (Essays in Developmental Science)

Diane Twachtman-cullen

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Editorial Review:

“While the main purpose of this book is to report on my research, ultimately this book is about more than facilitated communication. It is about what I have come to call the FC culture—that sociopolitical phenomenon in which unanimity of thought and philosophy has created a class of believers whose ‘sacred’ mission is not only to advance the cause of facilitated communication but also to disparage the opposition. It is also about the far-reaching effects that occur when common practice disassociates itself from common sense and when ethics and responsibility fall victim to a passion to believe.”Thus begins A Passion to Believe, Diane Twachtman-Cullen’s critical assessment of facilitated communication. Employed as a technique for drawing out the so-called hidden language of nonverbal or expressively limited (typically autistic) individuals, FC has been highly controversial in the United States since its introduction in 1991. Proponents claim the technique frees even profoundly impaired clients of the constraints of disability and allows them to communicate effectively for the first time with their families and caregivers. Scientific experts disagree, citing contradictions between these claims and scientific evidence of the true nature of autism. Resistant to validation by scientific scrutiny and yet quick to introduce facilitated messages as evidence in courtroom claims of abuse by caregivers, FC advocates have generated a polarized debate in the disability community.In her investigation, Twachtman-Cullen plays by the rules of the FC community, employing meticulously documented qualitative, rather than quantitative, research methods to study facilitators and their clients at work. Through her participant observation and assessment, and using actual case studies and transcripts of FC sessions, she confirms the mounting evidence that results obtained through FC are insupportable. In her detailed portraits, heartbreaking scenarios emerge of fervent facilitators and frustrated clients. Moreover, she demonstrates the harm that FC can inflict when unconscious facilitator influence distorts the intentions of the client, creates false hope in families, and leads to false charges of abuse and neglect by caregivers. Her findings will be of interest to anyone concerned with the care of the disabled as well as those interested in the psychology of belief and the struggle between science and pseudoscience.

Advances in Nonverbal Communication: Sociocultural, Clinical, Esthetic and Literary Perspectives

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