Language as a Tool of Conflict Resolution
Language as a Tool of Conflict Resolution Selected Bibliography*
1. Mulholland, Joan. The Language of Negotiation. London & New York. Routledge. 1991. (Probably the best book available on the subject. May be ordered through Barnes & Noble. Expensive at about $90.00.) 2. Hayakawa, S.I. & Alan R. Hayakawa. Language in Thought and Action. 1940. Reprint. San Diego. Harcourt, Inc. 1990. (Excellent, entertaining classic on spoken communication. Readily available in paperback at most bookstores.) 3. Lakhoff, George and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago. The University of Chicago Press. 1980. (One of the best and most readable books on the pervasive use and influence of metaphors in our daily life. May have to special order.) 4. Tannen, Deborah. The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to Dialogue. New York. Random House. 1998. (Offers intriguing insight into how in our culture we approach almost everything as if it were a fight. A good, contemporary look at the two-sided orientation and its effect on us.) 5. Mills, Harry. Artful Persuasion: How to Command Attention, Change Minds, and Influence People. New York. Amacom. 2000. (This book is aimed at persons who make a living persuading others, e.g., corporate executives, sales persons and advertisers. Nevertheless, it offers many techniques that are pertinent to conflict resolution.) 6. Elgin, Susan Haden. The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense. New York. Barnes & Noble. 1980. (The book offers concrete ideas for parrying attacks of verbal violence. It is good for its discussions of the dangers of underlying suppositions and how to respond to them.) 7. Folger, Joseph P. and Tricia S. Jones, eds. New Directions in Mediation: Communication Research and Perspectives. Thousand Oaks. Sage Publications. 1994. (A compilation of essays dealing with a variety of communication topics in mediation. Fairly technical. May have to be ordered through the out-of-print services of Barnes & Noble or some other dealer.) 8. Maggio, Rosalie. How to Say It: Choice Words, Phrases, Sentences & Paragraphs for Every Situation. New York. Prentice Hall. 2001. (Aimed primarily at providing vocabulary for written business communications, it contains some chapters with useful, alternative language in many settings of conflict resolution.)
9. Gee, James Paul. An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory & Method. London & New York. Routledge. 1999. (As its title suggests, this is a fairly technical look at the science of discourse analysis. For those who become seriously interested in this discipline.) 10. Balistrere, Maggie. The Evasion English Dictionary. New Jersey. Melville House Publishing. 2003. (A short, 87-page look at word and phrase substitutions that serve to evade truth or responsibility. Entertaining for those who like word play.) 11. Thompson, George J. and Jerry B. Jenkins. Verbal Judo: The Gentle Art of Persuasion. New York. William Morrow. 1993. (Written by former police officer, this book is filled with anecdotal illustrations of how to defuse volatile situations. It doesn’t deal directly with conflict resolution in the formal sense, but it does provide insight into communication in adversarial situations. It contains a great definition-by-analogy of a mediator. It is worth quoting here in full: In 1972 an interesting experiment was done by a school of communication in the east. They took a toddler, barely verbal, to a safe spot near a busy intersection and told him to watch the cars. He was fascinated by the motion of the traffic, and for as long as it held his attention, they let him watch. Then he was asked, “What do you see?” The little boy said, naively but accurately, “Sometimes cars go this way and sometimes they go that way. They stop here; they go there.” The little boy was told, “That’s good. Now look up there.” Without hearing any more explanation, the boy noticed the traffic light and began to see it change colors. Within twenty minutes he was able to recognize order out of what had appeared disorder and make sense of what had appeared nonsense. He said, “Red, stop. Green, go. Yellow, I don’t know.” The point of the story for my purposes is that the person who pointed out the traffic light was a mediator. The great service of the mediator, whether it’s a psychologist helping you and your spouse live in harmony or a police officer working with somebody who refuses to get out of a car, is to help people see something new. Mediators do this by fulfilling one of the definitions of the Latin word medius, “one who goes between.” Effective mediators go between or across your experience, enabling you to see something in a new way. In short, they educate, making sense out of things by putting them in perspective. (Pages 121 & 122.) 12. Cartoons other than the Dilbert cartoon are from: Mankoff, Bob.,ed. The New Yorker Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Cartoon Collection. New York. Pocket Books. 1999. *The books in this bibliography are listed in an order that reflects my view of their relative merit to the subject of “Language as a Tool of Conflict Resolution.”
1. Mulholland, Joan. The Language of Negotiation. London & New York. Routledge. 1991. (Probably the best book available on the subject. May be ordered through Barnes & Noble. Expensive at about $90.00.) 2. Hayakawa, S.I. & Alan R. Hayakawa. Language in Thought and Action. 1940. Reprint. San Diego. Harcourt, Inc. 1990. (Excellent, entertaining classic on spoken communication. Readily available in paperback at most bookstores.) 3. Lakhoff, George and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago. The University of Chicago Press. 1980. (One of the best and most readable books on the pervasive use and influence of metaphors in our daily life. May have to special order.) 4. Tannen, Deborah. The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to Dialogue. New York. Random House. 1998. (Offers intriguing insight into how in our culture we approach almost everything as if it were a fight. A good, contemporary look at the two-sided orientation and its effect on us.) 5. Mills, Harry. Artful Persuasion: How to Command Attention, Change Minds, and Influence People. New York. Amacom. 2000. (This book is aimed at persons who make a living persuading others, e.g., corporate executives, sales persons and advertisers. Nevertheless, it offers many techniques that are pertinent to conflict resolution.) 6. Elgin, Susan Haden. The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense. New York. Barnes & Noble. 1980. (The book offers concrete ideas for parrying attacks of verbal violence. It is good for its discussions of the dangers of underlying suppositions and how to respond to them.) 7. Folger, Joseph P. and Tricia S. Jones, eds. New Directions in Mediation: Communication Research and Perspectives. Thousand Oaks. Sage Publications. 1994. (A compilation of essays dealing with a variety of communication topics in mediation. Fairly technical. May have to be ordered through the out-of-print services of Barnes & Noble or some other dealer.) 8. Maggio, Rosalie. How to Say It: Choice Words, Phrases, Sentences & Paragraphs for Every Situation. New York. Prentice Hall. 2001. (Aimed primarily at providing vocabulary for written business communications, it contains some chapters with useful, alternative language in many settings of conflict resolution.)
9. Gee, James Paul. An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory & Method. London & New York. Routledge. 1999. (As its title suggests, this is a fairly technical look at the science of discourse analysis. For those who become seriously interested in this discipline.) 10. Balistrere, Maggie. The Evasion English Dictionary. New Jersey. Melville House Publishing. 2003. (A short, 87-page look at word and phrase substitutions that serve to evade truth or responsibility. Entertaining for those who like word play.) 11. Thompson, George J. and Jerry B. Jenkins. Verbal Judo: The Gentle Art of Persuasion. New York. William Morrow. 1993. (Written by former police officer, this book is filled with anecdotal illustrations of how to defuse volatile situations. It doesn’t deal directly with conflict resolution in the formal sense, but it does provide insight into communication in adversarial situations. It contains a great definition-by-analogy of a mediator. It is worth quoting here in full: In 1972 an interesting experiment was done by a school of communication in the east. They took a toddler, barely verbal, to a safe spot near a busy intersection and told him to watch the cars. He was fascinated by the motion of the traffic, and for as long as it held his attention, they let him watch. Then he was asked, “What do you see?” The little boy said, naively but accurately, “Sometimes cars go this way and sometimes they go that way. They stop here; they go there.” The little boy was told, “That’s good. Now look up there.” Without hearing any more explanation, the boy noticed the traffic light and began to see it change colors. Within twenty minutes he was able to recognize order out of what had appeared disorder and make sense of what had appeared nonsense. He said, “Red, stop. Green, go. Yellow, I don’t know.” The point of the story for my purposes is that the person who pointed out the traffic light was a mediator. The great service of the mediator, whether it’s a psychologist helping you and your spouse live in harmony or a police officer working with somebody who refuses to get out of a car, is to help people see something new. Mediators do this by fulfilling one of the definitions of the Latin word medius, “one who goes between.” Effective mediators go between or across your experience, enabling you to see something in a new way. In short, they educate, making sense out of things by putting them in perspective. (Pages 121 & 122.) 12. Cartoons other than the Dilbert cartoon are from: Mankoff, Bob.,ed. The New Yorker Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Cartoon Collection. New York. Pocket Books. 1999. *The books in this bibliography are listed in an order that reflects my view of their relative merit to the subject of “Language as a Tool of Conflict Resolution.”
