[nomadicfollower]

Can any one reccomend some good introductory books to Linguistics? I've recently had an interest in how much words can effect the meaning of something and decided I should read up on it. How we organize and give meaning to our thoughts.
It's all very interesting to me.

[!@#$%!]

for an intro, DEFINITELY steven pinkert's "the language instinct"

forget sapir, whorf, the prague circle, hardcore chomsky, college textbooks, etc. this book is current AND clear AND a lot of fun AND accessible to all.

from there you are ready to explore on your own.

[Glice]

I only very recently realised what a load of gack the Sapir/ Whorff hypothesis was. Otherwise, what !"£$% said.

[Iain]

Originally Posted by Glice

I only very recently realised what a load of gack the Sapir/ Whorff hypothesis was. Otherwise, what !"£$% said.

What exactly is this hypothesis?

Actually, I have been reading a bit about the origins of the various Celtic languages and that is pretty interesting. The Cumbric words for the numbers are great.

[Savage Clone]

Also, watch "Alphaville" by Godard to see how control of language can aid in control of an oppressed population. Amazing.

[atari 2600]

primer:
Language, Saussure and Wittgenstein; How to Play Games with Words (Routledge History of Linguistic Thought) by Roy Harris


a good article on Wittgenstein can be found at Oregon State's site
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl2...tgenstein.html

source material:
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
by Ludwig Wittgenstein

[atari 2600]

Playing (Other) Games with Language

Wittgenstein and Saussure both use the games metaphor to describe language (see Language, Saussure and Wittgenstein, Roy Harris). In particular, they use the chess metaphor to describe language transactions between people. Just as two people come to a chess game with a predetermined and pre-agreed view of how to play the game, so people come to language transactions with a similar predetermined view. However, is this a good metaphor to use? Harris takes the view it is inappropriate, and led to interpretive problems for both Saussure and Wittgenstein.
Chess has two characteristics that make it suitable for pre-agreed rules. First, it is a limited paradigm: there are only 32 pieces and 64 squares. Even if there were no rules about moving pieces within the limits of the board then there would still be a limited number of moves available. Second, Chess is an old game with simple rules. True, the strategies available are complex, but they are based in an unambiguous and regulated structure. Thus, memetically, Chess is a stable form that resists change and which does not allow rules variation "on the fly".
Contrast this with another game, not available in Saussure's time but popular in Wittgenstein's time: Monopoly. This is a newer game, but has the same sorts of limitations as Chess: a board of 40 squares and limited tokens (6 player-counters, 32 houses, 12 hotels, 28 property cards, a fixed number of Chance and Community Chest cards, and a stock of money). However, Monopoly is also a game replete with "house rules". How many can play? Some say no more than six, some say "find a button and you can play"; some say no less than three, some say two is enough. How many houses can you build? Some say no more than 32 houses and 12 hotels can be on the board at any one time, some say "find some buttons". What happens when the money runs out? Some say that when the bank is empty you don't get paid, some issue IOUs as virtual currency. How many hotels can you build on a property? Some say only one, some say "pile those buttons on". And so on. Are the buttons part of the game of Monopoly? Are the variants being played really Monopoly? In Chess, the idea of adding a second row of pawns to each side would evoke the response "Interesting game, but it isn't Chess". In addition, Monopoly can be played with two or more players, but the game with six players is qualitatively different from that with two.
Let us look at another game, apparently closer to Chess in terms of stable form: Bridge. In this game there are clear givens, and to violate them is to not play Bridge: four players in two teams of two; four hands of 13 cards each from a single deck of cards; and a fixed scoring system. However, inherent in the game is a free-form structure: the bidding process. Initially this was used only to claim the right to play the hand - the highest bid won - and to give a target to be achieved. However, over time it became obvious that between first bid and final bid was a lot of room for manoeuvre: bidding could become a signalling process by itself. So there is a somewhat freeform game within the game, wherein partners try to guide each other to their best contract while at the same time attempting not to disclose too much to the opposition. Of course, in competition Bridge there are rules about bidding conventions, but this does not prevent pre-agreed special bids being used at the table.
Finally, let us look at what happens when different "house rules" meet. In the case of Chess, there is no room for "idiolex", so no issue. In the case of Bridge, bidding rules should be declared beforehand (but sometimes are not), and there is no room for idiolex in the actual play of the cards. In Monopoly it is common for players to have differing house rules. Often these are not identified before the game (each person believes their house rules are the proper rules), and sometimes the differing rules are not tested in a particular game - thus, although the players are actually playing different games, they appear to be playing the same game. If the rule difference actually comes up (the Bank runs out of houses, say) then one of two things happen: either the game is abandoned because there is no agreement on the specific rule to be used in the current game; or one side abandons their rule and agrees to play by the other rule for this game only. Interestingly, the players are now playing the same game, but are calling it different things: the people whose rule is being used are playing Monopoly; the people whose rule has been abandoned are playing a Monopoly variant.
If the Language-as-game metaphor is to have any force then it must use a game format that mirrors as best as possible the nature of a language transaction. As we have seen, every game involving a board, pieces, or cards has limits imposed by those items. Does language have similar limits? It could be argued that the components in Universal Grammar (or Simple Grammar) act in this way, imposing limits on the types of rules that can be produced with that set of components. However, Universal Grammar would posit that the components actually impose the rules of language, while Simple Grammar posits that they limit the range of rules available. However, the components of a game are also the "lexis" of the game, so the number and type of components dictate the limits of what is expressible in a game; language, on the other hand, allows lexis to grow without restriction. Of course, the introduction of buttons can be considered to allow the limits to grow in at least one way; but it is precisely this redefinition of a game that both Saussure and Wittgenstein attempt to forbid, by saying that the introduction of extra pieces or a different board creates a game that is not Chess.
Another feature of Language is reuse, or symbolism. A word in English like mutton can be extended by metaphor to mean sheep: the sentence look at the muttons in the field can be seen to refer to sheep without too much mental effort. It can also, by a tortuous route, be seen to mean deaf - rhyming slang for deaf is Mutt and Jeff (from a cartoon strip), which became transformed to mutton jeff, and then to mutton. Most of the components in a game are not subject to reuse, but there are interesting exceptions in the case of Monopoly. Spare play tokens are sometimes pressed into play as hotels, and hotels can sometimes be represented by five houses (or a house on its side).
In language we have an unlimited lexis, although a limitation on the types of word we can use. We also have highly flexible grammars, although there are limits on the components of grammar available, and limits on their combination. In addition we have "house rules" which determine how a particular language works, and possibly "game rules", which dictate the Universal Grammar. Finally there are individual "strategies", which determine which rules a player will encounter - and "cheating methods", which allow them to subvert both house rules and game rules in manners which are acceptable to other players but not legal within the established rules of the game. The description is very close to Monopoly as she is played.
Thus we can see that the games metaphor gives a viable model of language, but the game chosen by Saussure and Wittgenstein is far from a good fit to language. Thus, instead of the metaphor liberating their understanding of language, it has constricted their theories into inappropriate models. As Roy Harris points out, this may well have biased their language models and restricted their thinking.
</B>Martin Edwardes, June though August 2002
http://www.btinternet.com/~martin.ed...s_monopoly.htm

[Glice]

Originally Posted by Iain

What exactly is this hypothesis?

Actually, I have been reading a bit about the origins of the various Celtic languages and that is pretty interesting. The Cumbric words for the numbers are great.

Sapir/ Whorff - better known as absolute linguistic relativity. Or rather, our languages severly restricts/ prohibits our ability to comprehend concepts outside of the ken of our language - One language may have a tense or series of words which express something which is inexpressible in another language. Inuits and snow, for instance.

The theory is a load of gack. It's utterly fascinating, but very very dangerous philosophically (except in those instances where Feyerabend uses it, because he's clever enough to do it).

I'd like to add a nod to Atari.

[Iain]

Thanks....I actually had a read up of it as well. The stuff about Inuits was pretty interesting. The fact that it's a myth that they have loads of words for snow. I had heard that it was a myth previously but I wasn't aware it was this Whorf character who propogated the myth.

[!@#$%!]

oh fuck, saussure, how could i have forgotten!! i had to read his little book of notes (he didn't write it, his students took it down). this just proves what a sucky student i was

actually during gradschool i became more interested in neuroscience of language than traditional linguistics. here is where the hot stuff is happening RIGHT NOW. the humanities are a load of balls in this respect-- they still follow the whorfian hypothesis (upon which sapir kinda built his own stuff) and the false antrhopological idea that people can be shaped into whatever according to their upbringing (the New Man didn't ever exist, remember? he went to macdonalds as soon as the berlin wall fell).

anyway, good solid linguistics complements neuroscience very well. it helps to define the objects of study and to make good experiments. so it's not all a load a bollocks. there is a lot of interesting stuff on the acquisition of phonetic capabilities, syntax, and so on-- semantics still remains kind of obscure but apparently we ARE instinctually determined to have categorical thinking, kind of what kant has speculated (kind of-- let's not get into the gory details). for example it appears that there are certain brain connections that make a distinction between animate and inanimate objects, and so forth. it'a all very complicated and i'm not going to write a paper on this, much less unpaid.

anyway, i once saw chomsky speak on this-- he went on to talk about the waste of time in experiments with such things as "talking monkeys" and pleaded for a return to good philosophy of science to guide -- science. because science without philosophy behind it is a wild goose chase.

anyway there is a lot of material but again i'd recommend most emphatically to begin with pinkert's book. it will give you a whole panoramic perspective and provide a good bibliography as well.

on a side note, one of my favorite classic linguists is jakobson, who wrote such beautiful things about poetry and linguistics. his article about baudelair'es "les chats" (co-written with this anthropologist... whatsisname... hm levi-strauss!!)... this article might not be scientific fact but it's such a delight everyone interested in literature should read it.

ok ive regurgitated enough. have fun.

[Glice]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

actually during gradschool i became more interested in neuroscience of language than traditional linguistics. here is where the hot stuff is happening RIGHT NOW. the humanities are a load of balls in this respect-- they still follow the whorfian hypothesis (upon which sapir kinda built his own stuff) and the false antrhopological idea that people can be shaped into whatever according to their upbringing...

This is that deliberately polemical writing you were doing in that Philosophy thread again, isn't it? Because of course you realise that, besides America, very few places are still interested in Whorff/ anthropological readings. Or perhaps the history of Contemporary French philosophy has passed you by? Lacan, any one?

[noumenal]

 

[nomadicfollower]

Just got back to this thread. Thanks for all the help.

[qprogeny79]

introduction to objectivist epistemology by ayn rand. forget family resemblances and language as a product of democratic fiat.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Glice

This is that deliberately polemical writing you were doing in that Philosophy thread again, isn't it? Because of course you realise that, besides America, very few places are still interested in Whorff/ anthropological readings. Or perhaps the history of Contemporary French philosophy has passed you by? Lacan, any one?

no, not just america, it's all the same paradigm in the humanities that our thoughts are determined by language, or the political structure or whatever the fuck is "out there" & goes "into" our brains (tabula rasa of various sorts) vs. innate faculties reminiscent of kant actually-- (foucault vs chomsky). yes we have innate ways of knowing and yes our behavior is largely determined by millions of years of evolution more than by the books you read. it's the humanities people giving themselves too much credit for what they could do for society. "oh if we just have a revolution my way people would be different!" BULLSHIT I SAY. there are too many innate tendencies to curb without the thought police. see i am cursed by having 2 BAs-- one in biology and another in literature (aka "english"). and then a masters in lit (where i had to read french wankers & their various disciples). but i was in science first and wanker disquisitions can never convince me when science finds good experiments and solid proof.

i could never bring myself to read lacan btw -- not without getting paid for it, hah hah-- fuck his unconscious. have you ever met a patient of a lacanian shrink btw? i met a woman once who went for 16 years & never heard a word back. what a joke! she finally quit (it strikes me that it took her so long). but medical incompetence aside, he's saying, fundamentally, that language governs behavior-- when you strip the bullshit, you end up with a similar paradigm as whorf. language governs nothing, or very little, and an enormous part of our behavior is innate. the newspeak of 1984 is impossible, as is creating a "new man" by teaching revolution. but cultural theory types lose themselves in superficial minutiae and ignore the forest for the trees. i regard sociobiology with much more respect than the verbal masturbations of french acidheads.

etc etc blah blah oompa loompa

[Glice]

Ok, yes. I wrote a long response on Lacan, but essentially, there's no point me hair-splitting over it. I agree with most of what you've said. I would say that, if you can be bothered, then give Lacan another go. But, I really wouldn't recommend it - he's very good, incredibly clever, widely misinterpreted, impossible to practise, exceptionally obscure to read and numerous other things, but he does not, prima facie, say that language governs reality.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Glice

Ok, yes. I wrote a long response on Lacan, but essentially, there's no point me hair-splitting over it. I agree with most of what you've said. I would say that, if you can be bothered, then give Lacan another go. But, I really wouldn't recommend it - he's very good, incredibly clever, widely misinterpreted, impossible to practise, exceptionally obscure to read and numerous other things, but he does not, prima facie, say that language governs reality.

oh no i didnt say that it "governs reality" -- i said that language determines our thoughts-- but i'm probably wrong. i mean he talked about "the real" which was beyond language (and beyond the reach of the "subject" supposedly)-- but as far as the "subject" goes isn't language what constructs it? (pardon my imprecisions but i've been drinking)

my problem i suppose has to do with his bad followers (most) that end up saying in so many asinine ways that there is nothing but language. fuck those idiots.

if lacan complained that freud had been misunderstood, what can we say about every other fucking "lacanian" critic? i know... fucking wankers!!!

i would give him a try but first i have to get through freud. i'm a sucker for chronologies.

[Glice]

I had problems with Freud for ages. The problem is that we're so saturated with what we think we undestand by Freud, when he doesn't comply with our expectations we get confused.

But yeah, stupid debate on my part - I just get tetchy when people assert the dominion of sciences over humanities when they operate on and in different things/ ways. But yes, you're right...

Back to talking about cocks again, methinks.

Hehe. Cocks.

[summer]

Bump this topic so I will remember to look at it later today >_>