ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a broad overview of the role of language, thinking, and metaphor in strategic communication. Planning scholarship in this area has been less focused on the more immediate links between language, thinking, and learning. As a public sector professional, then, we might use these ideas about language, thinking, and learning to work more effectively. Many special interest groups, seeking to sway decision makers and the broader public, use strategic dialogue—both within and outside formal engagement processes. Planners and policy analysts should thus know how it works. The chapter considers some other tools working across rationality and intuition. These include framing, and a brief review of narrative construction. Some more recent works have considered the relationship between language and planning, through the lens of framing and narrative. Framing can also foster rapid understanding in policy, through thinking shortcuts. Strategic dialogue, includes metaphor, framing, and narrative construction—tools which can help illuminate reality in non-rational ways.
