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    Hayakawa Abstraction Ladder

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    Meredith Briden
    The document discusses S.I. Hayakawa's Ladder of Abstractions, which outlines four levels of abstraction when writing or speaking. [1] Level One includes specific, identifiable nouns. [2] Level Two includes more definite noun categories. [3] Level Three includes broad noun classes with little specification. [4] Level Four includes highly abstract terms like love, faith, and happiness. The document provides examples for each level and notes that successful writing draws heavily on more concrete Level One terms to clearly convey meaning to readers.

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    Hayakawa Abstraction Ladder

    Uploaded by

    Meredith Briden
    357 views2 pages
    The document discusses S.I. Hayakawa's Ladder of Abstractions, which outlines four levels of abstraction when writing or speaking. [1] Level One includes specific, identifiable nouns. [2] Level Two includes more definite noun categories. [3] Level Three includes broad noun classes with little specification. [4] Level Four includes highly abstract terms like love, faith, and happiness. The document provides examples for each level and notes that successful writing draws heavily on more concrete Level One terms to clearly convey meaning to readers.

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    The Ladder of Abstraction

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    The document discusses S.I. Hayakawa's Ladder of Abstractions, which outlines four levels of abstraction when writing or speaking. [1] Level One includes specific, identifiable nouns. [2] Level Two includes more definite noun categories. [3] Level Three includes broad noun classes with little specification. [4] Level Four includes highly abstract terms like love, faith, and happiness. The document provides examples for each level and notes that successful writing draws heavily on more concrete Level One terms to clearly convey meaning to readers.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    357 views2 pages

    Hayakawa Abstraction Ladder

    Uploaded by

    Meredith Briden
    The document discusses S.I. Hayakawa's Ladder of Abstractions, which outlines four levels of abstraction when writing or speaking. [1] Level One includes specific, identifiable nouns. [2] Level Two includes more definite noun categories. [3] Level Three includes broad noun classes with little specification. [4] Level Four includes highly abstract terms like love, faith, and happiness. The document provides examples for each level and notes that successful writing draws heavily on more concrete Level One terms to clearly convey meaning to readers.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 2

    HAYAKAWAS LADDER OF ABSTRACTIONS

    David N Chung, Language Arts, VHS, PYLUSD email: [email protected]


    DEFINITION:
    S.I. HAYAKAWA
    ABSTRACTION LADDER:

    ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS:
    LEVELS:

    APPLICATIONS:
    READING COMPREHENSION:
    WRITING:
    CRITICAL THINKING:

    LEVELS OF ABSTRACTIONS
    LEVEL FOUR: ABSTRACTIONS
    EXAMPLES: life, beauty, love, time, success, power, happiness, faith, hope, charity, evil, good.

    LEVEL THREE: NOUN CLASSES: BROAD GROUP NAMES WITH LITTLE SPECIFICATION.
    EXAMPLES: People, men, women, young people, everybody, nobody, industry, we, goals, things, television.

    LEVEL TWO: NOUN CATEGORIES: MORE DEFINITE GROUPS.
    EXAMPLES: teen-agers, middle-class, clothing industry, parents, college campus, newborn child, TV comedies, house plants.

    LEVEL ONE: SPECIFIC, IDENTIFIABLE NOUNS.
    EXAMPLES: Levi 501 jeans, my blue, three bedroom house on Hollis Street, In Living Color, Bud commercials, African violets,
    Tina's newborn sister, Mina.



    Most writing contains a range of abstraction levels, but successful professional writers draw heavily on Level One abstractions. Sophistication
    of thought deals in the realm of abstraction, but sophistication of writing is achieved through supporting those abstractions with concrete
    detailsIn the simplest terms then, if Level One abstraction is used in writing, the audience will understand what ideas and concepts are
    being discussedIf a writer is trying to describe a person, and she mentions that the protagonist wore Birkenstock's and a jeans skirt, an
    image is evoked in the reader's mind; whereas, if the writer says the protagonist was dressed in casual attire, the reader's impression of the
    character is not as strong, and the audience will be free to interpret the writer's meaning in ways. Wearing a green and pink housecoat with
    flip-flops would mean casual to many people, so using the levels of abstractions carefully will help convey meaning to the audience.
    Jan Streever [ http://ol.scc.spokane.edu/jstrever/comp/Summer201/hw3.htm ]

    HAYAKAWAS LADDER OF ABSTRACTIONS

    David N Chung, Language Arts, VHS, PYLUSD email: [email protected]

    SAMPLE ABSTRACTION LADDERS

    LEVEL 4 society human endeavors economy
    LEVEL 3 most people industries farm assets
    LEVEL 2 spoiled child cosmetic company cattle
    LEVEL 1 my sister, Tracy Max Factor, Inc. Bessie, the cow
    (*based on the work of Hayakawa's ladder of abstractions)


    RESOURCES:
    Book: Language in Thought and Action. S.I. Hayakawa. 5
    th
    Ed. Harcourt, 1991.
    Hayakawa Overview: http://homepages.ulb.ac.be/~jpvannop/HAYA.html
    Summary: http://homepages.ulb.ac.be/~jpvannop/HAYA.html
    Origins: http://ol.scc.spokane.edu/jstrever/comp/Summer201/hw3.htm
    Critical Thinking & Ladder [limited access via JSTOR]: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0013-
    8274(199102)80%3A2%3C44%3ACTVTAL%3E2.0.CO%3B2-X

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