Discusses several philosophies of linguistics and semiotics that debate the importance of words and their relationship to signs, language as the primary modeling system, and the historical primacy of verbal versus visual communication. Describes human communication as both language-based and nonverbal, both aspects inviting arbitrary and abstract…

Historical incidents, photographs of sheet music, cartoons, and advertisements are employed to study language in this textbook. The text, suggestions, and quoted material in the book are to be used not only for the study of language but also as sources for writing. It is recommended that journal entries, more fresh and spontaneous than formal…

This course in semantics investigates verbal and nonverbal symbols and their denotations, emotional values, and levels of abstraction in an attempt to open channels of communication between the students and those with whom they communicate. Concepts, ideas, and skills included in the course are as follows: (1) that words are tools to help with the…