Ah, the metaphors that come to mind!
Geoff
Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:48:14 -0500From: [log in to unmask]: Re: Form and function (philosophy of language)To: [log in to unmask]
Sapir probably put it at its most pithy: All grammars leak.
Herb
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Carol MorrisonSent: 2008-02-25 18:32To: [log in to unmask]: 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 (orlanguage 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 havewords for. That's obviously not the case.On the other hand, if language had no influence on thought, it would bevery, very hard to explain why advertising companies devote so much timeand money to coming up with good product names, or why (tonon-vegetarians, at least) a "steak" sounds much more appetizing than "apiece of cooked cow."The work on color terminology, by the way, hasn't as much discreditedthe SWH entirely as it has put sharp limits on it. Our color perceptionis determined to a great extent by the biophysics of our perceptualapparatus (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 SpruiellDept. of EnglishCentral Michigan University-----Original Message-----From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Johanna RubbaSent: Monday, February 25, 2008 2:54 PMTo: [log in to unmask]: 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, LinguisticsLinguistics Minor AdvisorEnglish Dept.Cal Poly State University San Luis ObispoSan Luis Obispo, CA 93407Ofc. tel. : 805-756-2184Dept. tel.: 805-756-2596Dept. fax: 805-756-6374E-mail: [log in to unmask]: cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubbaTo join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's webinterface at:http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.htmland 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.htmland select "Join or leave the list"Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
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