![]() At the next level, the word cow now lumps Bessie in with other bovine creatures that share similar characteristics. Now we can talk and think about Bessie even when we aren’t directly experiencing her. As we move up a level, we give the experience a name-we are looking at “Bessie.” So now, instead of the direct experience with the “thing” in front of us, we have given the thing a name, which takes us one step away from the direct experience to the use of a more abstract symbol. This is concrete, because it is unmediated, meaning it is actually the moment of experience. We perceive the actual “thing,” which is the “cow” in front of us (either in person or as an image). At this level we are actually in the moment of experiencing the stimuli that is coming in through our senses. At the lowest level, we have something that is very concrete. Hayakawa’s classic example of the abstraction ladder with “Bessie the cow” in Figure 3.2 “Ladder of Abstraction” (Hayakawa & Hayakawa, 1990). (San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace, 1990), 85. ![]() Hayakawa, Language in Thought and Action, 5th ed. You could take a picture of any of those things, but you can’t take a picture of “work.” If I asked you to go and take a picture of “work,” you couldn’t because work is an abstract word that was developed to refer to any number of possibilities from the act of writing a book, to repairing an air conditioner, to fertilizing an organic garden. If I asked you to go take a picture of a book, you could do that. Some words are more directly related to a concept or idea than others. But it requires us to use context and often other words to generate shared meaning. This process of abstracting, of leaving things out, allows us to communicate more effectively because it serves as a shorthand that keeps us from having a completely unmanageable language filled with millions of words-each referring to one specific thing (Hayakawa & Hayakawa, 1990). As we follow a concept up the ladder of abstraction, more and more of the “essence” of the original object is lost or left out, which leaves more room for interpretation, which can lead to misunderstanding. ![]() The ladder of abstraction is a model used to illustrate how language can range from concrete to abstract. ![]()
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