The Philosophy of Composition

Written speech serves as a necessary conservative and normative force that counteracts the natural tendency of oral dialects to diverge into mutually unintelligible languages. While oral speech und...

Hirsch argues that language and prose history exhibit a 'progressive' tendency toward greater communicative efficiency, moving toward maximum effect with minimum cognitive effort. By examining the ...

Hirsch defines communicative efficiency as 'relative readability,' arguing that it is not a utilitarian constraint on aesthetics but a principle relative to a writer's specific semantic intentions....

Chapter 4 establishes that the effectiveness of prose is governed by universal psychological principles of language reception, much like tennis strokes are governed by the laws of physics. The auth...

Chapter 5 argues that composition should be taught as an autonomous craft rather than being subsumed under subjects like literature or logic. The author contends that the pedagogical assumptions of...

Writing assessment is identified as the primary obstacle to progress in composition pedagogy and research, presenting a philosophical challenge regarding the nature of good writing. While assessmen...

This introduction defines the 'linguistics of literacy' as a field connecting linguistics, psycholinguistics, and historical philology to the practical goals of composition teaching. The author arg...

Hirsch introduces the book as a transition from his previous work in literary aestheticism to the practical, research-based demands of composition teaching. He argues that the teaching of literacy ...