Bill,
I might be reading it wrong, but I think the cognitive approach
changes the question--not whether cognition requires language, but
whether language embodies cognition at more or less all levels. If we
have "categories of human understanding" (to go all the way back to
Kant), then language itself will reflect those, including categories
as basic as space and time.
Derrida's position only makes sense if language is considered to be
something of a fundamentally different nature than cognition. If
language is a cognitive enterprise, the distinction stops making sense.
Can painting express what we see? Without sight, we have no painting.
Craig
Carol,
>
>
>
> Both Derrida's statement and that of Bennett and Royle are put in such a
> way that they are automatically true if their terms are taken in
> particular ways - that is, if I define "text" broadly enough, then I can
> easily include the universe as I comprehend it, and "bound up with" is a
> phrase of such delightful flexibility that it can be taken however one
> wants it. I'm not saying this to argue that their positions are wrong;
> rather, I'm arguing that their statements don't constitute arguments or
> evidence in and of themselves. To put it mildly, there's an empirical
> problem with trying to prove - or disprove - the claim that no cognition
> exists without some involvement of language (for one thing, we'd have to
> define "cognition," or even "thought," and, well, throw that one out in
> a roomful of philosophers and watch what happens).
>
>
>
> Derrida and many others were, I think, rightly reacting against a kind
> of default model of language in which it was assumed that thoughts were
> pre-linguistic, and simply encoded in language in order to be
> transmitted (the old "telephone" diagram from Saussure's students'
> notes). That approach leads to the standard "black box" model from
> engineering that underlies the way most linguistics textbooks still
> present the basics of the domain (although most carefully inform
> students that it's an oversimplification and it's only being used as a
> starting point). Saying that no cognition is extralinguistic is a
> classic case of trying to prove a negative - and I don't think we even
> have to try. Saying that much thought is intralinguistic is all that's
> necessary to establish that we should study those relationships.
>
>
>
>
>
> Bill Spruiell
>
> Dept. of English
>
> Central Michigan University
>
>
>
>
>
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Carol Morrison
> Sent: Monday, February 25, 2008 6:32 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Form and function (philosophy of language)
>
>
>
> Jacques Derrida in his book Of Grammatology (1976): "There is nothing
> outside the text" (163).
>
> And commenting on Derrida...
>
> "There is no perception or experience which is not bound up with effects
> of text or language" (Bennett & Royle 30).
> So their is no way to perceive the world or access the world except
> through language.
>
>
>
> Also, Paulo Freire: "There is no theoretical context if it is not in a
> dialectical unity with the concrete context ; language is never separate
> from experience and thus action is deeply a part of theoretical
> supposition" (Politics of Education 33).
>
>
>
> I am trying to think of the theorist who said that there is a gap
> between signifier and signified, so that language is never adequate in
> describing or representing what it intends to.
>
>
>
> Carol
> "Spruiell, William C" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Just to chime in on Johanna's point -- There's a kind of
> "envelope"
> within which the relationship(s) between language and thought
> (or
> language and perception) must lie. If language *determined*
> thought
> (what used to be called the "strong form of the Sapir-Whorf
> hypothesis)
> we'd be unable to come up with concepts our language didn't
> already have
> words for. That's obviously not the case.
>
> On the other hand, if language had no influence on thought, it
> would be
> very, very hard to explain why advertising companies devote so
> much time
> and money to coming up with good product names, or why (to
> non-vegetarians, at least) a "steak" sounds much more appetizing
> than "a
> piece of cooked cow."
>
> The work on color terminology, by the way, hasn't as much
> discredited
> the SWH entirely as it has put sharp limits on it. Our color
> perception
> is determined to a great extent by the biophysics of our
> perceptual
> apparatus (people have three kinds of color sensors, each of
> which
> "peaks" at a particular range of wavelengths) but *within* those
> limits,
> language can have an effect.
>
> Bill Spruiell
> Dept. of English
> Central Michigan University
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Johanna Rubba
> Sent: Monday, February 25, 2008 2:54 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Form and function (philosophy of language)
>
> It's important to remember that Whorf was theorizing about
> _habitual_
> thought that is influenced by language. He thought that some
> languages reflected the physical world better than others. For
> instance, in English, "lightning" is a noun, and we don't even
> have
> an exclusive verb for it, but physically, it's an event or
> process
> much more than a thing. He obviously didn't think that we are
> irrevocably stuck in patterns of thought because of our
> language,
> because his very recommendation was that we use other languages
> for
> physical descriptions of the world, hence he had to believe that
> we
> could modify our thoughts to fit the language we are using.
>
> The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has been out of favor for a long
> time, but
> numerous linguists are exploring it again and looking for some
> empirical support for it. I have seen notices for conferences,
> for
> example. I have not been following the developments, but it
> would be
> interesting to see what is being discovered. I did review a
> paper for
> Language which purported to show some Whorfian effect regarding
> spatial orientation, which was a little more convincing than the
> work
> on color, which has been discredited.
>
> In Lakoff and Johnson's model of metaphorical thought, metaphor
> precedes language -- that is, language reflects metaphorical
> thought;
> it only creates it to the extent that particular metaphors are
> propagated throughout a culture via its language. Some metaphors
> are
> culture-specific, and some are (according to L & J) universal.
> Either
> kind can influence how scientists analyze the world and how they
>
> build models of it. Lakoff has a book (with a co-author) on the
> metaphorical origins of mathematics, but I don't recall the
> title. A
> cruise on his web page is likely to reveal it. L & J propose
> that
> metaphor influences not only language, but behavior. For
> instance,
> reifying time into units impels us to create things like hourly
> wages
> and parking meters.
>
> It's worth noting that L & J propose that we can change our
> thought
> habits by adopting new metaphors, for instance "marriage is a
> collaborative work of art" rather than traditional physical-bond
>
> metaphors. Different metaphors can give a different spin on
> phenomena, creating new linguistic metaphors and new habits of
> thought.
>
> Dr. Johanna Rubba, Ph. D.
> Associate Professor, Linguistics
> Linguistics Minor Advisor
> English Dept.
> Cal Poly State University San Luis Obispo
> San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
> Ofc. tel. : 805-756-2184
> Dept. tel.: 805-756-2596
> Dept. fax: 805-756-6374
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
> URL: cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
>
> To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
> interface at:
> http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
> and select "Join or leave the list"
>
> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>
> To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
> interface at:
> http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
> and select "Join or leave the list"
>
> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo!
> Search.
> <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=51734/*http:/tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearc
> h/category.php?category=shopping> To join or leave this LISTSERV list,
> please visit the list's web interface at:
> http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave
> the list"
>
> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>
>
> To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface
> at:
> http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
> and select "Join or leave the list"
>
> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
|
