Mind, Language and World: The General Semantic Roots of Rhetorical and Communication Theory in the Postwar Period

• In Event: 'Ad Bellum Purficandum’: The Therapeutic Turn in Midcentury Rhetoric and Communication Theory

Abstract

One of the central erasures of the General Semantics movement in terms of communication
theory is the consideration of audience. General Semantics replaced classical rhetorical
concerns with audience for a model centered on Mind, Language and World. This model
presumed that a mind that properly understood the relationship between language and the
world would be both internally balanced and effective in communication. The resulting
model of communication traded "negotiation" for classical rhetorical "persuasion" and led
to an impoverished conception of human communication, one which dominated language arts
instruction and had strong influences on communication instruction in the postwar period.

Author

• David Beard, University of Minnesota, Duluth