Linguistics, Style and Writing in the 21st Century with Steven Pinker
The first big takeaway I got from the video is that writing is an act of pretense as well as an act of craftsmanship. Pinker elaborates by saying that writing has always been difficult because the readers are unknown, invisible, and inscrutable, as in the reader exists only in our imaginations and the writer can’t react to the reader or ask for clarification.
The second biggest takeaway I got from the video is that the traditional style of writing consists of an arbitrary list of do’s and don’ts based on the preferences and peeves of the author, it is not based on the principle understanding of how language works. However, in today’s day and age we as the writer can do much better by using modern grammatical theory which is an advance over the old grammars which were ported over from Latin, evidence based dictionaries, cognitive science to help us understand what makes sentences easier or harder to read, and historical and critical studies of usage.
The third biggest takeaway is that writing begins with a model of effective prose communication. A good writing style must begin with a coherent “mental model” of the communication scenario(how the writer imagines the reader and what the writer is trying to accomplish).
Blog assignment #2 3 most important psychological principles of business writing
The 1st principle is Latent Semantic Similarity is a measure that is assessed by using Latent Semantic Analysis, which is an automated statistical method that establishes the contextual meaning of any text by analyzing the relationship among the words that are used. The LSS measure determines how similar 2 groups of words are based on the words that are used and how those words are used in a relation to other words. It determines the amount of shared meaning in a conversation.
The 2nd principle is to reply immediately when you receive messages whether it’s through email, text message, or social media, as it is rude to keep people waiting for a response, and when you respond, be genuine, as people can most likely tell when your being insincere.
The 3rd principle is to always be formal and respectable when writing to others. The internet has made communication much easier through the use of texting, email, and social media but in return, our communication style has gotten sloppy and informal. When completing a writing assignment for a job, it is important to remember that you are not communicating with your employer and not your friends. It is important to be professional, ethical, and appropriate when completing a writing assignment for your boss.
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