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To cite this article: Michael T. Motley (1982) A linguistic analysis of glossolalia: Evidence
of unique psycholinguistic processing, Communication Quarterly, 30:1, 18-27, DOI:
10.1080/01463378209369424
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A LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF GLOSSOLALIA:
EVIDENCE OF UNIQUE PSYCHOLINGUISTIC
PROCESSING
MICHAEL T. MOTLEY
The results indicate the glossolalia is, in more ways than not, both language-like and unlike
the speaker's native language. These results are contrary both to earlier studies of glossolalia
and to the predictions of current psycholinguistic theory. The implication is that glossolalia
manifests a unique sort of speech encoding which cannot now be, but must eventually be,
accounted for by psycholinguistic theory.
Glossolalia, sometimes called speaking in tongues, most substantive aspect of its uniqueness, and this
is a rather unique religious phenomenon in which appears to be an obvious approach to an empirical
one's speech resembles that of some language study of the phenomenon.
unknown to the speaker or to listeners. Although Only a few such analyses have been performed.
glossolalia usually occurs in a religious setting, For the most part, the rationale for earlier linguistic
speakers may produce it at will, with or without analyses of glossolalia has been, basically, that via
emotional fervor or overt emotional preparation. such analyses the intuitively supposed linguistical-
The religious groups which recognize glossolalia ity of glossolalia may be confirmed or discontinued.
as a legitimate practice view it as one of several Disconfirmation s the norm, but these studies are
special gifts which may be bestowed upon indi- not especially convincing because their analyses
viduals who are deemed worthy by their Benefac- typically have been relatively superficial. This sup-
tor. Once recognized almost exclusively by Pen- erficiality often seems to be because of reasoning
tecostal groups, glossolalia is now practiced within which allows a single linguistically atypical charac-
virtually every Christian denomination and within teristic to satisfy the criteria requirements for dis-
several other religions as well, and today speakers confirmation of glossolalia's true linguistically. But
of glossolalia number more than 4 million in the for whatever reasons, most earlier studies have
United States alone (Stolee, 1963; Sherrill, 1964; examined very small samples of glossolalia and/or
Samarin, 1972). have employed a very limited range of linguistic
Although there are several fascinating and curi- analyses (Campbell, 1965; Nida 1965; Jaquith,
ous aspects of the glossolalia phenomenon, the 1967; Goodman, 1969; Samarin, 1972).
present study focuses upon the overwhelming ten- The present study is also concerned with the lin-
dency for glossolalia to create an impression that a guisticality of glossolalia, and again this concern is
real language is being spoken. That is, upon en- partially one of confirming or disconfirming its intui-
countering examples of glossolalia, the uninitiated tively language-like impression. The more primary
listener invariably evaluates the speech to be that rationale for this study, however is the notion that
of some true language. Indeed, even to the linguis- glossolalia may eventually provide a source of in-
tically trained listener glossolalia does not usually formation about the psycholinguistic processing of
sound like random babbling or simple gibberish, natural language and speech. To say that glos-
but rather sounds sophisticated and convincingly solalia gives the impression of an unknown lan-
language-like. Presumably, were it not for glos- guage being spoken is to say that glossolalia gives
solalia's ostensible resemblance to true language, the impression of a unique and perplexing kind of
the phenomenon would seem less unique or psycholinguistic processing. The assumption here
miraculous than it does. To focus upon the linguis- is that nonglossolalist speakers are incapable of
tic characteristics of glossolalia is to focus upon the producing such speech, because normally speak-
pseudo-language) have shown the faked glossa to and the other of which was judged to sound re-
be much less language-like and much less foreign motely Russian (henceforth "Variety II").5 Several
than the glossolalia (Sherrill, 1964; Carlson, 1967). recordings, each approximately 15 minutes in
Thus, it appears that glossolalia manifests certain length, were made at intervals of seven to fourteen
unique limits, capabilities, and activities of lan- days, totaling slightly more than two hours of Vari-
guage encoding processes. At least, this is what ety I and one hour of Variety II. Ten percent of
appears upon casual listening. If this is in fact the these totals were extracted for the ensuing
case, then glossolalia is a phenomenon worthy of analyses: Four 3-minute samples of Variety I and
special attention, for it would violate certain as- two 3-minute samples of Variety II were selected
sumptions of encoding theory. But that attention is from the respective corpora, these selections being
premature, of course, until we discover more empir- random except that samples from the same record-
ically whether and how glossolalia encoding is in ing dates were avoided (i.e., no two samples had
fact unique. This discovery is the primary issue to been recorded within less than seven days of one
which the present study is addressed. another). The six glossolalia samples were phonet-
More specifically, two general categories of ically transcribed by the author, and the transcrip-
questions are to be examined here. First, is glos- tions independently validated by an expert phoneti-
solalia in fact language-like?2 If it is not language- cian. These transcriptions, plus phonemic trans-
like (as most earlier studies seem to imply), then it criptions of Spanish and Russian (International
is probably not an especially promising target for Phonetic Association, 1966), plus Denes' phonol-
psycholinguistic research. On the other hand, if it is ogy statistics on two samples of English (Denes,
language-like (is more like natural language than 1964), provided the data for the following analyses.
like random babbling), then glossolalia becomes (See Appendix for examples of glossolalia Variety I
very difficult to account for via contemporary en- and Variety II.)
coding theories, and is especially worthy of further
study. Second, and especially if the first question is Phonology and Morphology: Analysis, Results,
answered affirmatively, does the linguistic structure Discussion
of glossolalia differ significantly from the structure Obviously, the range of allowable linguistic
of the glossolalist's natural language(s)? Again, if analyses is limited in situations where no semantic
not, then the phenomenon becomes less interest- information is available (see note 4). Strictly speak-
ing. But if glossolalia does ignore the parameters ing, the glossolalia situation limits us to phonologi-
and rules of the speaker's natural language, then it cal analysis, and even a more liberal set of criteria
cannot be easily explained within existing theories adds, at the most, only a sort of quasi-morpho-
of speech production processes. In fact, it would logical analysis and a superficial analysis of su-
directly contradict current theories, and thus be- prasegmental features. Nevertheless, enough is
come a potential subject of study toward the known about phonological, morphological, and
necessary revision of those theories. These gen- suprasegmental universals and about inter-
eral questions will be examined via descriptive language trends to allow a fairly thorough examina-
analyses of various phonological and morphologi- tion of the glossolalia samples' linguistically. And
cal characteristics of several glossolalia samples enough is known of the phonology and morphology
by the same glossolalist subject.3 of English to allow reasonable comparisons be-
tween the subject's glossolalia and native lan-
Procedure guage. Six kinds of phonological analysis (sections
The pre-analysis procedure was to phonemically 1-6 below), four kinds of morpheme analysis (sec-
transcribe tape-recorded samples of glossolalia. tions 7-10), and a simple suprasegmental analysis
The glossolalist subject was a 61-year-old male (section 11) were performed.6
(across the 4 samples) 4,677 phone tokens of 35 within twelve minutes of discourse.9 Variety II also
phone types; Variety II contained (across 2 sam- contained several (~11) instances of abnormally
ples) 2,748 phone tokens of 35 phone types. Re- infrequent phones.
levant observations were similar for both glos- (4) An additional feature of these data is that
solalia varieties. they revealed a very complete language-like inven-
(1) For Variety I (collapsed across samples) the tory of phone types. Even if we ignore the relatively
distribution of relative frequencies was not very infrequent phones as being allophonic variations
evenly dispersed among the phones. Rather than (see note 9), glossolalia Variety I and Variety II
being a smooth continuum composed of equally contain as many phone types (-30) as most lan-
graduated differences, as would be expected for guages do phonemes (25-40). This observation is
natural language data, the distribution was charac- interesting not only because it reveals a language-
terized by a few gradual degrees of change inter- like characteristic of glossolalia, but especially be-
rupted by several larger gaps. For example, al- cause it contradicts so many earlier claims that
though the difference separating the relative fre- glossolalia has a noticeably restricted phone inven-
quencies of most of the phones was less than 0.50 tory, and that this is one of its primary
(about normal), the difference between the first- nonlanguage-like characteristics (Carlson, 1967;
and second-ranked phones was 5.15. Looking at Jaquith, 1967; Nida, 1965; Samarin, 1972).
this distribution as a whole, the impression is that 2: Comparative Phonemic Inventories: General
there were those sounds which occurred very fre- Subsequent analyses will address comparisons
quently, and those which occurred very rarely, but of the two glossolalia varieties to one another, of
few in between. For Variety II, the distortions were glossolalia with the speaker's native language, of
less severe, but the distribution was still slightly the glossolalia varieties to the natural languages
less evenly graduated than would be expected for that they intuitively resemble, etc. As a preliminary
natural language.8 step for these later analyses, phonemic inventories
This uneven distribution for phoneme frequen- for English, Spanish, and Russian were prepared.
cies has been noticed in earlier analyses of glos- Although these inventories represented preliminary
solalia. (Campbell, 1965; Nida, 1965; Samarin, data, cursory comparisons of these and of the
1972) The characteristic is almost certainly glossolalia inventories allowed a few relevant ob-
nonlanguage-like in that the phoneme frequency servations: (1) In general, the phone inventories
distributions for samples of natural languages dis- (relative frequencies for individual phones) seem to
play a more evenly graduated phoneme distribution be quite dissimilar. Especially interesting is that the
than was observed here (Nida, 1965). glossolalia/English and Variety I/Variety II compari-
(2) An examination of the inter-sample phone in- sons appear to reveal quite different distributions.
ventories revealed that there were a few inconsis- (2) The degree of difference of relative phone fre-
tencies in the phone frequencies between indi- quencies between English and either variety of
vidual glossolalia samples. That is, there were oc- glossolalia appears to be similar to, if not greater
casional instances in which a particular phone oc- than, the degree of difference between the three
curred with much greater or lesser frequency in natural languages. This is the first hint that glos-
one sample than in the others. For example, in Var- solalia might ignore the influence of the speaker's
iety I the phone / 8 /, had 42 occurrences in sample native language, contrary to implications of earlier
B, 40 in sample C, and 32 in sample D, but did not studies (Jaquith, 1967; Samarin, 1972). (3) For
occur at all in sample A. Similar observations may both varieties of glossolalia, the most frequent
be made for 5 or so other phones within Variety I. phone was / a /. This has been the case with sev-
For Variety II, similar inter-sample inconsistencies eral previously examined glossolalia varieties
were present, but were much less severe. (Campbell, 1965; Jaquith, 1967), and has been in-
nemic inventories can provide insights on both of or Russian (r = .57, r = .49; Variety I, Variety II re-
the general questions addressed by this study. The spectively) than to English. This again differs with
linguistically of glossolalia can be examined via earlier claims that glossolalia is closely related to
inter-sample comparisons of glossolalia varieties, the linguistic features of the speaker's native lan-
and by certain comparisons of glossolalia with the guage (Jaquith, 1967; Samarin, 1972).
natural language samples. The degree to which (3) The range of correlations for comparisons of
glossolalia conforms to the speaker's native lan- natural languages with one another is from .60 for
guage can, of course, be examined by direct com- Spanish and Russian to .38 for English and Rus-
parison. The present section bases these compari- sian. The range for comparisons of glossolalia to
sons on correlation coefficients for relative phone natural languages is from .71 for Variety I and
frequencies of the various speech samples. The Spanish to .32 for Variety II and English. The impli-
following section (4) examines cumulative relative cation here is that the glossolalia phone frequency
frequencies. The rationale behind the various indi- distributions are, on the whole, completely
vidual analyses of these sections is implied within language-like (section 7.1 above notwithstand-
the discussion of their results. ing).10
Analysis. Correlation coefficients were calculated 4: Comparative Cumulative Relative Frequencies
on the relative frequencies for each phone between A characteristic of random babbling or unsophis-
the samples. Pairwise comparisons were for all ticated attempts at pseudo-languages is that the
glossolalia Variety I samples with one another; speech seems phonologically overly repetitious.
both Variety II samples with one another; gross That is, despite the range of phone types, certain
Variety I with gross Variety II; both Variety I and types seem to be responsible for an abnormally
Variety II with English, Spanish, and Russian; En- large share of the phone tokens. The relative
glish, Spanish, and Russian with one another; two phone frequencies of the preceding analyses are
samples of English with one another; and two not particularly helpful in an analysis of phonologi-
samples of Spanish with one another. In all, 19 cor- cal repetitiousness or phonological variety until
relations were analyzed, with n's generally around they are collapsed across phone types.
35. Analysis. Cumulative relative frequencies were
Results and discussion. (1) In natural language, determined for the fifteen most common phones in
one would expect very high correlations between glossolalia Variety I, glossolalia Variety II, English,
the relative phoneme frequencies of two separate Spanish, and Russian. Cumulations were by
samples of the same language. Indeed this was phoneme frequency rank.11
the case here, with the two samples of English and Results and discussion. Both varieties of glos-
the two samples of Spanish both producing very solalia are considerably more restricted or repetiti-
high correlation coefficients (r = .87, r = .84, re- ous in their use of phones than is English. For
spectively). Most noteworthy, then, is the observa- example, to account for 50 percent of the gross
tion that all correlations between the individual phone occurrences, only 5 phones are necessary
samples of a given glossolalia variety were very in Variety I, and only about 6 are required in Vari-
high higher in fact than any other correlation ob- ety II, while 8 phones are necessary in the English
tained. The six pairwise correlations between the samples. To put it another way, the eight most fre-
four samples of Variety I ranged from .90 to .97, quently occurring phones constitute 68 percent of
while the correlation between the two samples of the gross of Variety I, 60 percent of Variety II, and
Variety II was .97. The implication here is that the only 51 percent of the English gross. Ostensibly,
glossolalist subject was very consistent, phonologi- this concurs with earlier investigators' observations
cally, in his production of both varieties of tongue that glossolalia sounds very repetitious, phonologi-
speaking. This is typical of natural language, while cally inflexible, and thus nonlanguage-like
5: Phone Distribution by Place-and-Manner of Ar- tions for all possible phone combinations within
ticulation each glossolalia variety. That is to say, the proba-
A particularly strict examination of both the lin- bility of phone X occurring in the environments XY,
guistically of glossolalia and its reliance upon the YX, XYZ, and YZX were determined. The transi-
speaker's native language is available via an tional probabilities were computed within and
examination of articulatory place-and-manner pat- across syllables of intra-juncture or phrase-like
terns for the various phone inventories, since cer- units.
tain linguistic universals are common to virtually all Results and discussion. (1) Since English has
natural language place-and-manner distributions, virtually total freedom in its allowable VC (vowel-
and since the distribution for English is well known. consonant) or CV combinations, one would not ex-
Analysis. Standard phonemic place-and-manner pect comparative oddities in the VC or CV combi-
of articulation charts for both glossolalia varieties nations of glossolalia, and this was the case for
were composed and examined, with concern for both varieties. That the glossolalia VC or CV com-
both the degree to which the patterns were binations involving nonEnglish phones are
language-like, and the degree to which they core- phonotactically nonEnglish is moot.
sponded to the glossolalist's native English. (2) Although earlier investigators have com-
Results and discussion. (1) Place-and-manner mented on the absence of consonant clusters in
charts of natural languages usually display consid- glossolalia (Goodman, 1969; Nida, 1965), both
erable symmetry. For example, plosives, fricatives, present varieties were rich in this regard. More im-
and affricates tend to occur in voiced/voiceless portantly, in each variety of glossolalia there were a
pairs at their various places of articulation; for any few exceptionally high CC probabilities atypical of
place at which plosives are present, a language will English. In Variety I, for example, the probability
also locate a nasal consonant; affricates exist only that a given / f / will be followed by / w / (/fw /) is
when the language contains the corresponding .50, compared to .001 in English.14 The several
plosive and fricative components as phonemes, the large transitional probabilities of CC combinations
place of the plosive component being immediately in glossolalia imply that glossolalia is phonotacti-
anterior to that oi the fricative component; etc. The cally structured rather than phonotactically random,
place-and-manner schemata for glossolalia Variety and the differences between particular CC prob-
I and Variety II were remarkably language-like in abilities for English and glossolalia imply that the
this regard.12 That both varieties of glossolalia con- phonotactic structure of glossolalia is not governed
form in the large majority of particulars to predic- by the phonotactic tendencies of English.
tions imposed by the phonological symmetry of (3) An examination of consonant clusters within
natural languages is especially impressive and is in syllables comes closer to the concept of phonotac-
contrast to Nida's observation that the phonology tic rules. The related analyses revealed that both
of glossolalia is asymetrical and, thus, varieties of glossolalia contain a few consonant
nonlanguage-like (Nida, 1965). clusters which violate the phonotactic rules of En-
(2) There are a variety of ways in which the ar- glish; that is, both contain ntrasyllable consonant
ticulatory characteristics of the glossolalia differed clusters which simply do not and cannot occur in
from those of English.13 Indeed, the overall impres- English.15 These results are remarkable since the
sion provided by the place-and-manner charts of intra-syllable phonotactic analysis is an especially
both glossolalia varieties is that their features are strong indicator of the extent to which the glos-
obviously nonEnglish, with the degree of substitu- solalia conforms to the phonotactic rules of the na-
tion between Variety I, Variety II, and English being tive language. Although they did not perform
rather reasonable (see note 13, note 8, and Ap- phonotactic analyses, Jaquith (1967) has stated
pendix). This analysis clearly contradicts Jaquith's that glossolalia does conform to the phonological
and suggested a morphological analysis of the range of restrictiveness which might occur in
samples within the present study. natural language discourse. Specifically, a mor-
Obviously, the concept morpheme is being used pheme tabulation of the same glossolalist subject's
loosely here. Since morphemes are typically de- English discourse (a portion of his testimonial
fined as units of meaning (akin to roots, prefixes, speech to a religious group) contained only 423
and suffixes, in simple terms), most morpheme morpheme types within a 2350 morpheme-token
identification procedures depend upon at least a length of discourse (f = 5.5; or to compare with
preliminary knowledge of semantic units within the ^/ariety II, 269 types for the first 1323 tokens,
language being studied. 1 = 4.9), with a type frequency range of about 190
17
Since semantic information is never provided by (f = 190 for the morpheme "and"). This is proba-
glossolalia subjects, however, morpheme identifi- bly a more limited or smaller morpheme type/token
cation could not proceed here in its most common ratio than would be found in more typical English
and reliable fashion. discourse, but given that it occurred within dis-
Analysis. Although morpheme identification with- course which was presumably contextually and
out semantic information is clearly a last-resort ap- semantically analogous to the glossolalia
proach, Harris (1963) discusses criteria which (religiously-oriented discourse by the same
might be employed in such circumstances. The speaker), the morpheme inventory of the glos-
procedure of the present analysis was based upon solalia is at least remotely language-like.
those criteria: 1) All monosyllabic and polysyllabic 8: Morpheme Familiarity
units which occurred more than once within all A more testable question on the morpheme in-
samples of a given glossolalia variety were ex- ventories is that of the extent to which morphemes
tracted. 2) The monosyllabic units were identified are similar across glossolalia and English corpora.
as morphemes. 3) Extracted polysyllabic units By far the majority of morphemes in the Variety I
were divided into monosyllabic subunits, with any and Variety II corpora were not common to one
subunit common to two or more polysyllabic units another, and by far the majority of morphemes
identified as a morpheme. 4) The residual units, from either corpus were not common to English. Of
(the remaining monosyllabic units and the remain- the 282 morpheme types for Variety I and 269 of
ing polysyllabic units whose subparts were not Variety II, only 61 were common to both varieties,
common to other such units) were considered to be most of these being relatively low-frequency mor-
morphemes.16 For the impending analyses, mor- phemes. Of the 282 morpheme types of Variety I,
phemes (or more accurately, morpheme-like units) only 43 were morphemes found in English (/ an /,
thus identified were tabulated according to within- / b e / , / b i / , / d e / , / d o / , /dor/, etc.); and of the
sample frequencies for each of their various pre- 269 morpheme types of Variety II, only 41 were
and post-morpheme environments. common to English (/bait/, / b e / , / d u / , / m / ,
18
Results and discussion. Glossolalia Variety I etc.)
contained 282 morpheme types which together oc- Remembering that we are discussing only the
curred 2355 times in the four samples (f = 8.35). phonological similiarity of morpheme types (imply-
The range of frequencies for individual morpheme ing no semantic similarity), notice that this kind of
types was from f = 123 (morpheme / t a / , as in morpheme overlap is serendipitously common be-
/ porta#/, / palala/, etc.) to f = 1. For glossolalia tween natural languages. (For example, Turkish
Variety II, there were 269 morpheme types with a and English share / sik /,/ tsok /, / bir /, / buz /, etc. ;
cumulative frequency of 1036 (f = 3.85) for the two French and English share / d e / , / l e / , / s i s / ,
samples. The frequency rangs for Variety II mor- / buz /, etc.). In other words, the degree of mor-
pheme types was from f = 44 (/ vis /, as in levis I, pheme overlap observed between glossolalia Vari-
I raw's Im/, etc.) to f = 1. ety I, Variety II, and English would not be unusual
position (7 7), and predictability of stress patterns guage rules or the origination of and adherence to
(72). new rules, much less both. We can hardly assign
Both varieties were language-like although unlike blame for this oversight, of course, since we have
the speaker's native language in terms of their rel- been generally unaware that such behaviors
ative phone frequencies 3.2, 4.2), presence of existed. Nevertheless, it now becomes necessary
certain nonEnglish phones (6.1), absence of cer- to account for such behaviors, and the necessary
tain English phones (6.1), transitional probabilities theoretical revision should prove to be exciting.
of phones (7.2), ntra-syllable consonant clusters In addition to these relatively direct issues raised
(7.3), nonEnglish morphemes and morpheme by the glossolalia analysis, several more remote
combinations (9), and stress patterns (72).22 issues seem at least worthy of consideration. It is
This combination of language-like characteristics possible, for example, that glossolalia might shed
and nonEnglish characteristics makes glossolalia light upon the question of linguistic universals, on
appear to be a unique kind of psycholinguistic the assumption that the rules of various glossas
phenomenon. To put it another way, the several in- might represent some sort of lowest-linguistic-
stances of structure (nonrandomness) in glos- common-denominators of all languages. It might be
solalia, and especially the several instances of worthwhile also to examine glossolalia for insights
rather sophisticated structures which are indepen- into language acquisition. At the very least, for
dent of those in the speaker's natural language, example, glossolalia challenges the classical learn-
are remarkable indeed. Psycholinguistically, this is ing approach to language acquisition (albeit nearly
analogous to the aerodynamics of bumblebee flight defunct), since some speakers' first utterances of
theoretically it should not occur. For example, let new glossolalia varieties appear to have their rules
us ignore for the moment the independence of and structures intact.23 Finally, it is even possible
glossolalia structure from English, and consider that the glossolalia sfafe might be worth pursuing in
only the existence of its structure, per se. Linguistic psycholinguistic investigation. For example, since
structure is generally viewed as an artifact of the glossolalists are able to manipulate linguistic struc-
semantic properties of language. That is to say, tures in ways that non-glossolalists are not able,
without semantic information there is little or no in- we might assume their implementation of some
herent rationale for the structure systems (syntac- unique general cognitive state (a sort of hypnosis,
tic, morphological, phonological, intonational, etc.) perhaps) (Samarin, 1972). It might well be fruitful to
of language or other speech behaviors. Random- determine that state, and then to examine various
ness is acceptable if meaning is not expected, so kinds of psycholinguistic processing by inducing
structure is mandatory only if meaning transfer is that state in non-glossolalist encoders and decod-
expected. Within the glossolalia examined here, ers; e.g. to determine the limits of the encoding and
however, we have seen several examples of rather decoding systems.
sophisticated structure within discourse which is This entire discussion of glossolalia has ignored
presumed to be without semantic information and the glossolalists' own explanation of the phenome-
which at best only resembles language. Although it non; that is, that their linguistic behaviors are Di-
is beyond the scope of the present discussion to vinely directed. Neither the omission of that possi-
resolve this paradox here, the general choices are bility nor its acknowledgement here is intended to
obvious: (1) We can decide that glossolalia must reflect an opinion of religious explanations of glos-
contain semantic information and therefore is effec- solalia. Very simply, neither agreement nor disag-
tively a language, or (2) we can accept the rela- reement with religious explanations is relevant to
tively unheard of notion that linguistic structures our discussion. Whether or not glossolalia is Di-
may be the result of some factor(s) other than vinely miraculous, it is psycholinguistically spec-
semantic information. The former choice, likely to tacular. Regardless of the source of the glos-
appeal only to glossolalists, has been dismissed by solalist's cognitive state, it will be worth our while to
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Universities Press, 1980.
A collection of essays by psychiatrically-oriented authorities dealing with definition of loneliness, its victims, and its
special role In psychology and psychiatry, anthropology, philosophy, and creative arts. This book is a must for resear-
chers into speech competency, shyness, apprehension, and medical uses of communication.
**** Paul Zweig, The Heresy of Self Love. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.
This is a re-issue of a 1960 book, particularly timely in the light of current interest in narcissism and its influence on
American society. Zweig's work was seminal and covered a vast panorama of world literature, mythology, and theory. It
you liked Lasch, you'll love Zweig, who provides the background needed to understand thoroughly the role of narcissism
in contemporary thought.
*** Leonard Michaels and Christopher Ricks, (Eds.) The State of the Language. Berkeley: University ol California Press,
1980.
This is a contemporary collection of current essays on the English language produced by British and American critics
covering popular media, contemporary sociology, intellectual literature, ethnicity, gender role and sex preference,
movies, medicine, and regional peccadillos. It is an important collection for anyone interested in the vast variety of ways
our language can be used.
*** Elijah Anderson, A Place on the Comer. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1978.
This book is a well documented urban ethnic study of the "regulars, winos, and hoodlums" who spent much of their free
time inside and outside of a Chicago barroom-liquor store. The book would have special value to the reader interested
in the "processes that contribute to the construction and affirmation of the social order" in a ghetto setting. The author
includes an extensive bibliography and nine pages of chapter-by-chapter notes for the serious scholar.
*** Marie Jahoda, Freud and the Dilemmas of Psychology. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981.
A distinguished British Freudian scholar reviews Freud's work and makes notations on the issues he dealt with and their relation
to current issues of psychology. A number of language/communication issues are noted. A good, brief commentary, worth the
effort of any communcation scholar.
** Sam B. Girgus, (Ed.). The American Self. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. 1981.
This is a book of literary criticism, but useful to the studeni of contemporary rhetorical theory and practice because of
the range of its chapters. There are particularly good essays on religion, feminism and its place in literature, and crime
and pornography. The book provides an excellent background for those who wish to reconstruct the ferment of Ameri-
can society to aid understanding of rhetorical activity.
** Paul Evans and Fernando Bartolom, Must Success Cost So Much. New York: Basic Books, 1981.
This is an extended report on a survey of organization pressures and stresses and their consequences for individuals.
The book is useful to researchers in organizational communication both in its contents and in the report of the
methodology. The authors, both American trained but based in Europe, bring sophisticated international savvy to their
report.