Notes for Travel Writers on the “Ladder of Abstraction”

Photo: jrandallc

FULL DISCLOSURE: This post is in response to a request from reader G.B.S.N.P. Varma, who wanted me to write on the “Ladder of Abstraction” in the context of how it pertains to and can be used by travel writers.

NOTES:

1. The “Ladder of Abstraction” is a concept originally popularized by S.I. Hayakawa half a century ago in a now classic text : Language in Thought and Action.

2. An interesting note: Hayakawa added a preface to the 1949 edition of the book which contained the following warning:

The original version of this book, Language in Action, published in 1941, was in many respects a response to the dangers of propaganda, especially as exemplified in Adolf Hitler’s success in persuading millions to share his maniacal and destructive views. It was the writer’s conviction then, as it remains now, that everyone needs to have a habitually critical attitude towards language — his own as well as that of others — both for the sake of his personal well-being and for his adequate functioning as a citizen.

3. The ladder of abstraction is a hierarchy for language based on its “concreteness” or specificity.

In the example at right, as you move up the ladder it goes from specific, concrete, to more general, abstract.

Notice how the most specific element, the “M16A2 Rifle” may or may not be identifiable depending on one’s background, whereas the second most specific “rifle” would be almost universally recognizable.

Contrast this with how the most abstract concepts such as “Instrument of War” and “Material” would be universally recognizable as concepts, and yet without any identifiable traits / properties, they remain open to one’s interpretation as far as meaning.

4. Whereas less-skilled writers tend to move up and down the ladder of abstraction in big shifts (often starting at the bottom – a specific incident / anecdote – then staying near the middle for most of the story before shifting to some big abstraction / generalization / moral at the end), the most skilled writers continuously move up and down the ladder throughout the story–shifting in every paragraph and even sentence.

The following is taken from one of my favorite travels stories of all time, David Foster Wallace’s “Shipping Out,” an account of being a passenger aboard the mega cruise ship Nadir, originally published in 1996 at Harper’s:

Mornings in port are a special time for the semi-agoraphobe, because just about everybody else gets off the ship and goes ashore for Organized Shore Excursions or for unstructured peripatetic tourist stuff, and the m.v. Nadir’s upper decks have the eerily delicious deserted quality of your folks’ house when you’re home sick as a kid and everybody else is gone. We’re docked off Cozumel, Mexico. I’m on Deck 12. A couple guys in software-company T-shirts jog fragrantly by every couple of minutes, but other than that it’s just me and the zinc oxide and hat and about a thousand empty and identically folded deck chairs.

Read the full article on MatadorU →