ABSTRACT
Abraham Kaplan has suggested the typology of language styles that we have used to characterize the linear continuum one finds connecting ordinary and reconstructed language. Kaplan identifies the language style of literature, clinical accounts and general history as essentially literary. The development of an academic style is at least in part the consequence of stipulative standardization of semantic meaning and the development of a technical vocabulary. The transition from literary to formal language styles is initially characterized by systematic efforts to establish semantic invariance. Symbolic language style is characterized by the use of reconstructed language, artificial language systems, special notational devices calculated to reduce semantic and syntactical variance of ordinary language. In ordinary language the expression “understanding” is, at times, simply used as a synonym for “knowing,” as in the case of “Nixon understands how to politically manage various interest groups,” or alternately, “Nixon knows how to politically manage various interest groups.”
