The uses of language

by Neil Postman

The second of six books in The New English series. The series is based on these The proper study of English involves more than learning a collection of isolated language skills - it involves communication itself; the main purpose of the English course is to make the student a more sensitive observer of language than he was before; Students do not become good observers through precept and advice. What the student finds oft for himself will improve his future competence; the investigative procedures developed by linguists, not just the new facts turned up by them, constitute the most important contribution of linguistics to Endlish education; discovery porcudures should not be confined to the structure of language alone but should apply to all aspects of communication; language experiments work best when the materials they deal with are highly relevant to the real world of the student.

275 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1967

About the author

Neil Postman, an important American educator, media theorist and cultural critic was probably best known for his popular 1985 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death. For more than four decades he was associated with New York University, where he created and led the Media Ecology program.

He is the author of more than thirty significant books on education, media criticism, and cultural change including Teaching as a Subversive Activity, The Disappearance of Childhood, Technopoly, and Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century.

Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), a historical narrative which warns of a decline in the ability of our mass communications media to share serious ideas. Since television images replace the written word, Postman argues that television confounds serious issues by demeaning and undermining political discourse and by turning real, complex issues into superficial images, less about ideas and thoughts and more about entertainment. He also argues that television is not an effective way of providing education, as it provides only top-down information transfer, rather than the interaction that he believes is necessary to maximize learning. He refers to the relationship between information and human response as the Information-action ratio.