Review: Social Communication

Social Communication edited by Klaus Fiedler

My rating:         Psychology Textbook

This is a solid, readable introduction to concepts in the psychology of language, and in particular, the role of communication in society.

My background is in linguistics, so a lot of this material was very familiar to me, as the book is pitched primarily at psychologists wanting to get some background in the study of language. However, as a linguist more interested in getting an introduction to the psychological concepts, I found the text was almost equally well-suited to that purpose.

Particularly excellent chapters included the language and cognitive role of stereotyping, and a thorough overview of experiments into sexist language. In fact, the chapter on sexism was one of the few which covered languages and cultures other than English/American; overall I was a little disappointed in the Anglo-centric bias (and lack of acknowledgement of the same). But that is a fault found in very many studies, and setting that aside, the book is a very good introduction to a fascinating area.