Review

Communication is Difficult

Each of the 7 methods for using language reflects a positive initiative of a communicator. However, the audience or recipient may re-interpret the communication in terms of their own habitual method. For example, a conceptual thinker may hear terms and give them meanings according to definitions that the speaker is not using. An associative speaker may hear conceptual terms and give them associations that are wildly inappropriate.

Using language effectively is a natural concern and responsibility of each person: even if few reflect on that fact. However, it is also a natural concern of your immediate contacts and wider society.

Miscommunication or inappropriate communications can cause distress and social turmoil. Appropriate communications foster group goals and enable broader social needs to be met.

The TET analysis is essential to understand language in its daily use.

Properties of Methods for Using Language

The tables below provide a reminder of the properties used to plot the TET.

  Name Effect Correspondence Generation of Meaning Example
L'7 Mythic
Enabling transcendence. Openness-L7 Submit to a potent image of a situation even if fully outside present understanding. Greek myths.
L'6 Logical
Determining fundamentals. Meaning-L6 Systematize unique identifiers for unique things so meaning is universally unequivocal. Mathematical foundations.
L'5 Gestalt Revealing the human condition. Term-L5 Express the truth of experience via imaginative use of unrelated terms. Shakespeare's plays.
L'4 Universal
Weaving societal commonality. Symbol-L4 Make verbal and non-verbal choices in accord with popular conventions on usage. Daily newspapers.
L'3 Conceptual Developing a field of inquiry. Sign-L3 Get agreement on definitions of necessary concepts that signify a field. Exchanges in academic disciplines.
L'2 Associative  Enjoying familiarity. Signal-L2 Enable a subjective flow of mental links (verbal and non-verbal) that are immediately understood in the group. Everyday conversation amongst familiars.
L'1 Concrete Specifying procedures. Stimulus-L1 Point to or illustrate things directly corresponding to elements of the message. Instructions for assembling flat-pack furniture.

 

    Practical Function Group Aspect Personal Aspect Reality Aspect
L'7 Mythic To provide stories about what is unknowable including good and evil. Galvanizes a group to form a united front. Activates spiritual energies and magical thinking. Fosters transcendence of mundane reality.
L'6 Logical To identify and link useful assumptions. Overcomes irrelevancy and emotionality in debates. Enables proper handling of situations. Specifies fundamentals as essences or principles.
L'5 Gestalt To reveal the multi-faceted significance of a topic in human terms. Elevates group consciousness. Evokes understanding of human experiences by a variety of means. Represents complex personal or social issues as a whole.
L'4 Universal To allow for the wide dissemination and influence of ideas. Ensures commonality by sharing values and emotions. Enables engagement with everyone in a specific society. Affirms received reality and opposes alien ideas.
L'3 Conceptual To investigate in depth so as to explain the unknown. Enables an informal community of disciplined thinkers. Allows dispassionate perspicuity in thought and exposition. Develops and establishes knowledge in a bounded field.
L'2 Associative To make immediate personal observations. Uses familiarity and sustains social contact. Asserts self in terms of actions and relations. Reveals operative or expedient subjective associations to things.
L'1 Concrete To specify procedures in the finest practically relevant detail. Provides for uniform or synchronized actions. Provides routine, ritual and self-discipline. Covers obvious features for actions on and with things.

Pairing Methods is Common

Group survival is what communication is about. The stability and growth of any enduring group or society depends on a flow of communications and the use of language.

Sustaining the shared psychosocial reality within the group depends on (a) consensus around key ideas, values and issues related to survival and progress, and (b) conviction as to the validity and relevance of those ideas and values.

In the TET analysis, it was evident that consensus within a group is developed by approaches on the diagonal running from lower right to upper left. Convictions are individual and are developed by approaches on the diagonal running from lower left to upper right

The world is overwhelmingly complex and certainty is impossible in psychosocial matters. So convictions, right or wrong, complement the current consensus or foresee a desired one.

Everyone can both use and understand every approach to some degree. However, under social pressures of various sorts, individuals tend to adhere to a particular quadrant, diagonal or bi-arrowed line as required by the nature of their endeavours and their reference group.

In the diagram, the lines reveal a concern for a similar level of care in expression (horizontal links) or a similar effort to make sense (vertical links). View the allocations of societal roles as tentative and suggestive.

Further Applications

Because communication is so fundamental to social life and because the way language is used has such powerful effects, it is possible to identify some applications.

Originally posted: 15-Oct-2014. Last updated: 28-May-2026.