biography
| name: |
Hayakawa, S(amuel) I(chiye)
|
pronunciation:
[hiyakahwa]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1906–92)
|
| biography:
| Semanticist, educator, and US senator, born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. After his parents returned to Japan (1929), he went to the USA and took his PhD in English literature at the University of Wisconsin (1935). He taught at the Illinois Institute of Technology (1939–47) and the University of Chicago (1950–5) and in 1955 joined the faculty of San Fransisco State College. His book, Language in Action (1941), was the first popular work in general semantics; its discussion of the ways language is manipulated was a new concept to the general public. For a quarter of a century he was devoted to relating his ideas on language and communication to issues of everday life. During the student unrest at San Francisco State College (1968) he was appointed its president, and when he jumped onto the student protesters' sound truck and ripped out the wiring, a widely circulated photograph gained him a national reputation as a resolute conservative. He resigned the presidency in 1973, joined the Republican Party, and was elected to the US Senate (1977–83). In later years he worked to make English the official language of the USA. |
|
|
