Notes for Travel Writers on the Ladder of Abstraction
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FULL DISCLOSURE: This post is in response to the request from reader G.B.S.N.P. Varma, who longed for me to write upon the Ladder of Abstraction in the context of how it pertains to as well as can be used by transport writers.
NOTES:
1. The Ladder of Abstraction is the judgment creatively popularized by S.I. Hayakawa half the century ago in the right away classic text : Language in Thought as well as Action.
2. An interesting note: Hayakawa combined the preface to the 1949 edition of the book which contained the following warning:
The strange version of this book, Language in Action, published in 1941, was in most respects the response to the dangers of propaganda, generally as exemplified in Adolf Hitlers success in persuading millions to share his unsound as well as mortal views. It was the writers self-assurance then, as it remains now, which everyone needs to have the mostly vicious perspective towards denunciation his own as well as which of others both for the consequence of his personal contentment as well as for his competent functioning as the citizen.
3. The ladder of condensation is the hierarchy for denunciation formed upon the concreteness or specificity.
In the e.g. during right, as we pierce up the ladder it goes from specific, concrete, to some-more general, abstract.
Notice how the most specific element, the M16A2 Rifle may or may not be identifiable depending upon ones background, whereas the second most specific rifle would be almost universally recognizable.
Contrast this with how the most epitome! concept s such as Instrument of War as well as Material would be universally tangible as concepts, as well as nonetheless but any identifiable traits / properties, they remain open to ones understand as distant as meaning.
4. Whereas less-skilled writers tend to pierce up as well as down the ladder of condensation in large shifts (often starting during the bottom the specific incident / anecdote afterwards staying nearby the core for most of the story prior to changeable to the little large condensation / generalization / moral during the end), the most skilled writers invariably pierce up as well as down the ladder throughout the storyshifting in every divide as well as even sentence.
The following is taken from one of my the one preferred travels stories of all time, David Foster Wallaces Shipping Out, an account of being the passenger aboard the mega cruise boat Nadir, creatively published in 1996 during Harpers:
Mornings in port have been the special time for the semi-agoraphobe, since only about everyone else gets off the boat as well as goes ashore for Organized Shore Excursions or for unstructured peripatetic tourist stuff, as well as the m.v. Nadirs top decks have the eerily delicious deserted quality of your folks residence when youre home ill as the child as well as everyone else is gone. Were docked off Cozumel, Mexico. Im upon Deck 12. A integrate guys in software-company T-shirts jog fragrantly by every integrate of minutes, but alternative than which the only me as well as the zinc oxide as well as shawl as well as about the thousand empty as well as identically folded deck chairs.
5 (a).Note how DFW moves up as well as down the ladder of abstractions, regulating some-more ubiquitous terms (such as deserted quality of your folks house) to communicate the incident (being aboard the luxury cruise) which may be unrecognizable to most people.
(b) He also juxtaposes as well as plays with different layers of the ladder (Were docked off Cozumel, Mexico. vs. Im upon Deck! 12.) to express the assorted layers of being as well as his dislocation, isolation, as well as insulation from them.
(c) Bonus assignment identify 5 places DFW shifts up as well as down the ladder of condensation in this paragraph.
6. In multiform pieces here during Matador including:
*Notes upon Codification as well as Commodification in Travel Writing
*How to Discern Fallacious Arguments
*3 Writing Styles which Kill Authenticity [note: this sees similar to the really suck-ass title, in retrospect]
I have tried to recognize / analyze usual patterns in transport writing, quite the pervasiveness of generalizations, cliches, abstractions (the top of the ladder), as well as rhetorical constructions as well as alternative ways in which transport essay is codified. In ubiquitous we have encouraged petrify languageusing precise words as well as names for thingsas the starting indicate for clarity in ones narration style.
7(a). A some-more in effect analysis however, competence proceed with bargain not only petrify denunciation but the overall place upon the ladder of abstraction. For example, the very usual characteristic of most transport stories is beginning with settings which, in their attempt to start off with the bang, finish up being so concrete, so specific, which they finish up ironically sounding similar to abstractions or cliches, as well as may divide the reader. These have been the stories which proceed like:
Sharwa Nuktpa gave me the third crater of yak-milk as the tuk tuk bounced along the windswept road to Dhulikhel.
(b) Returning to the story which led to G.B.S.N.P.Varmas comment / request for me to write upon this subject, we began pretty most during the core of the ladder:
Ive never seen him in town.
(c) we slowly got some-more petrify in my descriptions:
He always has something in his hands or over his shoulder: the load of kale, the dumpcart installed with carrots, the hose, the water pump, the shovel, the hurl of bailing wir! e, the m achete, the smoke-stack of fenceboards.
(d) Its worth noting which all of these things, while concrete, have been still generally recognizable.
(e) we dont essentially get to the super petrify explanations until the second section:
Since weve moved here eight months ago the fields have been divided up for future neighborhoods.
El Bolsn, Patagonia, Argentina
(f) we finish the story in the same place upon the ladder as we began it.
(g) we didnt essentially consider about the ladder of condensation as we wrote this story, but only wrote it as closely to the approach we perceived the actual events during ground turn as possible.
8. One final note is which while nouns (person place thing) of course fit upon the ladder, consider verbs / verbal phrases as well: danced salsa>>danced>>>stepped.
In conclusion, we dont consider about the ladder of condensation in any terms of right or wrong, but some-more in the context of the application, of bargain how petrify vs. epitome denunciation affects the reader.
Community Connection
Thanks G.B.S.N.P.Varma for requesting we write upon this.
Heres an additional resource for guidance about Ladder of Abstraction: http://gangrey.com/12
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