 einbar says: Words, and classifications of words in different languages, do matter "Boroditsky suggests that the grammar we learn from our parents, whether we realize it or not, affects our sensual experience of the world. Spaniards and Germans can see the same things, wear the same cloths, eat the same foods and use the same machines. But deep down, they are having very different feelings about the world about them". Linguistic thought (discourse) is 'thinking' as meant her. Have a look at Vygotsky or Wiitgenstein to see the starts of the 'debate'. What I think this particular clip suggests is more interseting - that feelings too are linguistacally shaped. Texting has created a new dialect in every language. This is a reflection of needs and shows the way the texters think ( I nearly wrote textas  ), if only regarding the mechanics of it. This is the reverse of the process advocated, but would become a societal thing with the next generation (younger bros and sistrs?)Good clip. Language, like all sciences, is interesting. Must add though that, if language reflects the way we think, politicians should wear blinkers. This sounds like an attempt to revive the Whorf-Sapir Hypothesis of the first half of the last century; it was eventually put to rest, as this new attempt will be, I'm sure. Sapir-Whorf has retained some limited utility, and is only invoked now in restricted structuralist situations and usually not in a cross-cultural context. S-W was, after all, partly to blame for the silly notion (still going around) about the hundreds of Eskimo words for "snow". If Boroditsky had been more careful, she might have discovered whether native speakers are, in fact, influenced in the ways she claims by grammatical gender. Note that she's only giving examples from IndoEuropean languages that are heavily inflected. How about investigating a language with no grammatical gender (English has no grammatical gender except for pronouns), a language with more than three (Polish has fi... Not controlling for cultural differences which this is more about than language. Spaniards in Spain would have an entirely different view of a large structure than in Mexico where I might point out the Wall is being built. Yes, in. http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/brenda-norrell/2008/02/nogales-residents-say-us-building-border-wall-mexicos-land Count your blessings. I have 1587 characters remaining. It's not what language you speak but what vocabulary within that language you use and what culture it relates to. Ask any teenager anywhere in any language. They form a much more cohesive cultural group and can communicate without language better than any language group. Just put a bunch of them in a room. The common language speakers will not even bother with one another. The teens will be communicating just fine, language or no language. But surely language is reflective of cultural experience, and cultural experience is not the same the world around. Worldviews vary but culture and era, and language evolves to express what is needed. Indeed, in the West, we still talk with the religious jargon of the Reformation, and are waiting for better ways of expressing our spiritual experience. Worldviews. Even a thought experiment can give insight. Our worldviews occupy Idea Space, an imaginary multidimensional metric space which is dual to our physical space. Ideas compete with one another for whatever ideas have. Worldviews have adherents. This is not us talking but our worldviews and ideaviews; we are just the agents. Perhaps they are real and we are imaginary. Language is just one way our worldviews and ideaviews communicate. Warfare is another. The Dialectic, an ancient concept, involves forming a duality between two worldviews. This can be done by defining a topology on Mind Space such that two worldviews are either isomorphic ("dual,") or mutually irrelevant. "Continuous" w... a rose may smell the same .... but now it is proved that a bridge, may be either big or elegant ..  I am reading Wittgenstein now --- I decided to make this the summer of Language and Love I am italian ("il ponte" is a "male" word) and 5 of my words were the same of the spanish group. Cool. — Comment removed by clipper — ...a halo effect of the language on our perceptions...mmm |
View the Top Clips from May 30, 2009
Embed This Clip In Your Site...
|
|
|
|
|
New from the makers of Clipmarks: Amplify.com - Don't just share the news...Amplify it!
|
|
