Abstraction in LANGUAGE

What makes a text clear, informative, and easy to understand? And why can the same explanation work perfectly for one person but be confusing or unhelpful to another?

Good writing advice often includes recommendations such as “be clear”, “use examples”, and “avoid vague language”. In a famous essay published in 1946, George Orwell identified two common problems in poor writing: staleness of imagery and lack of precision.

These problems can be related to two important properties of words: concreteness, which concerns how closely words are connected to sensory experiences, and specificity, which concerns how general or detailed their meanings are. Concrete words can help us imagine what a text is describing, while specific words can help us identify exactly what is being discussed.

But does using concrete and specific words always make communication better?

Consider how we might explain the SARS-CoV-2 virus to three different audiences:

  • Children: SARS-CoV-2 is a very little bug that can get into people’s nose and mouth, and make them sick. 

  • Adults, non-experts: SARS-CoV-2 is a virus that can cause severe and potentially lethal respiratory problems. 

  • Adults, specialists: SARS-CoV-2 is a positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus that enters human cells by binding to the angiotensin converting enzyme 2. 

All three explanations describe the same virus, but they differ considerably in the words they use. The first relies on familiar, relatively concrete language. The second introduces more technical and abstract terms, while remaining relatively general. The third provides highly specific information that may be useful to specialists but difficult to understand for readers without the necessary background knowledge.

This illustrates an important principle: effective communication is not simply about using the clearest or most precise words possible, but about choosing the right level of concreteness and specificity for the audience and the situation.

Through the ABSTRACTION project, we have investigated how these two dimensions influence language, from children's reading experiences to everyday conversations and public discourse.

One of our discoveries is that concreteness and specificity contribute differently to how readers evaluate texts.

In an experiment involving children aged 9 to 12, we asked participants to read short texts and judge how clear and informative they were. We found that texts containing more concrete words were generally perceived as clearer, regardless of the children's age. Specificity, on the other hand, was more closely associated with how informative the texts seemed, particularly among older children.

In other words, concreteness helps readers feel that they understand what a text is saying, while specificity helps them feel that they are learning something from it.

For example, compare “The animal moved through the garden” with “The hedgehog walked through the garden”. Both sentences describe something we can easily imagine, but the second provides more precise information. Now compare “The creature exhibited locomotor activity” with “The animal moved”. The first may sound technical, but the second is likely to be more immediately understandable. These examples illustrate why clarity and informativeness are not necessarily the same thing.

Our research has also shown that specificity influences the linguistic contexts in which words are typically used. By analysing large collections of Italian and English texts, we discovered that more specific words tend to appear in relatively similar contexts, while general words occur across a wider variety of situations.

For instance, the word animal can appear in discussions about pets, farming, wildlife, biology, or food production. A more specific word such as hedgehog is likely to occur in a narrower range of contexts. This pattern is not simply explained by whether a word is concrete or abstract: specificity makes its own contribution to the way words are distributed across language.

But communication is not only about writing texts. It is also about building a shared understanding with other people.

Imagine two friends discussing a bicycle. They can easily check whether they are talking about the same object by pointing to it or describing its visible features. Now imagine them discussing justice, freedom, or fairness. How can they be sure that they understand these ideas in the same way?

Our experiments suggest that abstract conversations place greater demands on communication. When people discuss abstract rather than concrete concepts, they engage more strongly in monitoring their own understanding and navigating the social aspects of the exchange. Reaching a shared interpretation can require greater effort, because abstract meanings are often less directly anchored to observable objects and experiences.

Another important aspect of communication is how we move from particular examples to general statements. Consider the difference between “This dog barks at strangers”, “Some dogs bark at strangers”, and “Dogs bark at strangers”. These sentences differ in how broadly they apply to members of a category. Our research has developed new ways to study such generalizations, showing that expressions can vary gradually in how inclusive and abstract they are, rather than simply being classified as generic or non-generic.

We have also investigated how concreteness and specificity are used in political communication. By analysing the language of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris during the 2024 US presidential debate, we found that, despite differences in other linguistic choices, their responses did not differ significantly in specificity and showed similar levels of abstractness. This finding challenges the assumption that contrasting communication styles necessarily reflect different levels of abstraction, and highlights the importance of measuring linguistic properties rather than relying on impressions.

What do all these findings tell us about effective communication?

They suggest that concreteness and specificity serve complementary purposes. Concreteness can make language more accessible by connecting words to experiences that people can imagine or recognize. Specificity allows us to select how much detail to communicate, from broad categories to precise descriptions.

Crucially, neither dimension operates in isolation. A message that is perfectly clear to one person may be insufficiently informative to another, while a highly detailed explanation may become difficult to understand when the reader lacks the relevant background knowledge.

Successful communication therefore involves finding a balance between concreteness and specificity, and continually adjusting this balance to the knowledge, expectations, and needs of our interlocutors. While concreteness helps connect language to shared perceptual experiences, specificity allows speakers to negotiate the appropriate level of detail, aligning their conceptual representations as they build a common understanding.

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