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Language May Help Create Not Just Convey Thoughts & Feel
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gaijinalways

Joined: 29 Nov 2005
Posts: 2279

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 11:23 am Post subject:

I think I am ready to be molded!

From Johnslat's post:

Quote:
"Can we shift something as fundamental as what we like and dislike by changing the language in which our preferences are elicited?" asks co-author Mahzarin R. Banaji, the Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics at Harvard. "If the answer is yes, that gives more support to the idea that language is an important shaper of attitudes."

artemisia posted

Quote:

This quote makes me think of the many Japanese students I had in the past. Not the ones whose hobbies were driving and �learning English� but some of the others who were a bit more thoughtful. They said that learning such a different language allowed them to take on a different persona which is sometimes why they also wanted to take an English name as well. Some felt they could be more �extrovert� when speaking English and undergo a change of personality. How true this really was I can�t say for sure but they had the desire to be �different�.While this is an explicit understanding of how another language might change you, I can imagine it would manifest itself in implicit ways too, in terms of preferences and likes/ dislikes.

I think the different persona in Japan is often something many Japanese strongly desire as they feel a need to escape the cultural binds that many Japanese feel strangled by. Strangely, I haven't seen large differences in the way most of my students express themselves in English, except when they are extremely slow to even acknowledge a question. Wink

wangdaning posted

Quote:

It is an interesting idea. I think the question is which comes first, the concept or the language to express it?

Let me think about it....... Razz

...some more...

killthebuddha

Joined: 06 Jul 2010
Posts: 144
Location: Assigned to the Imperial Gourd

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 5:09 pm Post subject:

gaijinalways wrote:

I think I am ready to be molded!

wangdaning posted

Quote:

It is an interesting idea. I think the question is which comes first, the concept or the language to express it?

Let me think about it....... Razz

...some more...

Dear gaijinalways,

The great advantage of being molded is that you don't have to "think about it." That's what the "experts" get the big bucks for, how they maintain a residence (tenure) for the fancy letters behind their names. However, if you're really keen to know "which came first," why not start with the chicken and the egg? No doubt you've heard the news about the discovery of ovocleidin 17.

http://www.damego.com/after-all-these-years-it%E2%80%99s-been-the-chicken-all-along

Yes, it was the chicken...

What's that?

"Professor Mark Rodger and Dr David Quigley, from the University of Warwick, who helped develop a recent study with colleagues from Sheffield University, point out that in fact a key chicken protein, ovocleidin-17, which helps in the formation of the egg's hard shell, actually comes both before AND after the egg shell.

"They say that this chemical quirk actually makes the question of which came first even more pointless than before. As Professor Mark Rodger says, 'Does this really prove the chicken came before the egg? Well this actually further underlines that it's a fun but pointless question. This science does however give new insight into an efficient and fast method of crystallisation. It will help in research to devise better synthetic bone and research into how to store/sequester CO2 as limestone.'

"However, this may contradict a previous analysis which came to another conclusion. Professor John Brookfield and Professor David Papineau argue since there was 'first' Chicken, it must have come from an egg which pre-dated that chicken. Biologist PZ Meyers points out a further flaw in this argument, in that other birds make use of different kinds of proteins for producing eggs, and that the evolution of ovocleidin was not coincident with the evolution of eggs; ovocleidin developed from prior proteins, which were used to form eggs since before birds branched away evolutionarily from reptiles."

You mean we're back where we started? That can't be. There MUST be an answer. Give me the inscrutable fact! And after we've solved "the chicken problem," we'll be able to solve for our more "abstract, conceptual" conundrums. (I doubt it, though. How will they determine whether an "implicit preference" or a "stable attitude" is more abstract / conceptual or less "real" than a "first chicken?") Is there something wrong with the question? A flawed premise? I bet someone posited the question as a joke and it fossilized. No doubt someone will detect the echo of lost laughter some day, maybe in the cosmic microwave background radiation.

"The clarity is devastating, but where is the ambiguity? The ambiguity is in the cardboard box under the stairs." (Monty Python)

One thing's certain--an egg is an amazing "mold," but it's gotta be cracked to make a few chickens. My money is on the egg, and a chicken is just the egg's way of making other eggs. I mean, if I'm FORCED to choose...and of course I am, according to all the experts out there.
Rolling Eyes

Or maybe not. It's just so hard to tell. If you read the Newsweek article via the link johnslat provided, and according to the Stanford psychologist they cite who is among the many leading the charge into this groundbreaking "terra incognito," then it would seem there's a breadcrumb trail to a real bird. (This Stanford psychologist is also known for a banana vehicle she made for Burning Man. Now THAT'S impressive.) Yet, if you go to her site and click on the news link, "Our research hillariously [sic] remixed into '8 bazillion awesome ways that language is totally whack!'" you may think otherwise.

http://www.cracked.com/article_18823_5-insane-ways-words-can-control-your-mind.html

Especially telling are the comments posted there in reaction to the "claims" made. Apparently, some people think the psychologists would be better served if they simply learned better English. "Hillarious?" Well, mildly amusing at least. And if we remember to laugh, maybe the "mind control" will feel less oppressive. It's a start.

SCENE I. Venice. A street.

Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SALANIO

ANTONIO

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad:
It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn;
And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.

SALARINO

Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
There, where your argosies with portly sail,
Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood,
Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,
Do overpeer the petty traffickers,
That curtsy to them, do them reverence,
As they fly by them with their woven wings.

SALANIO

Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth,
The better part of my affections would
Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still
Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind,
Peering in maps for ports and piers and roads;
And every object that might make me fear
Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt
Would make me sad...

BASSANIO

Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? say, when?
You grow exceeding strange: must it be so?...

GRATIANO

You look not well, Signior Antonio;
You have too much respect upon the world:
They lose it that do buy it with much care:
Believe me, you are marvellously changed...

GRATIANO

Let me play the fool:
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come,
And let my liver rather heat with wine
Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
Sleep when he wakes and creep into the jaundice
By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio--
I love thee, and it is my love that speaks--
There are a sort of men whose visages
Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,
And do a wilful stillness entertain,
With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit,
As who should say 'I am Sir Oracle,
And when I ope my lips let no dog bark!'
O my Antonio, I do know of these
That therefore only are reputed wise
For saying nothing; when, I am very sure,
If they should speak, would almost damn those ears,
Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.
I'll tell thee more of this another time:
But fish not, with this melancholy bait,
For this fool gudgeon, this opinion.
Come, good Lorenzo. Fare ye well awhile:
I'll end my exhortation after dinner.

--ktb

gaijinalways

Joined: 29 Nov 2005
Posts: 2279

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 3:04 pm Post subject:

A bit wordy...... , but to each his own.

killthebuddha

Joined: 06 Jul 2010
Posts: 144
Location: Assigned to the Imperial Gourd

Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 6:59 pm Post subject:

gaijinalways wrote:

A bit wordy...... Cool

Yes gaijinalways,

Pardon the prolix post (and the alliteration). Was it The Bard? And I'm sure we all agree that 200 words for snow is a little excessive. I was a poor student and never could keep my hand down:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9ihKq34Ozc&feature=related

Is there a particular part to which you object as being superfluous? I hope it isn't the chicken and egg analog(ue), because as luck would have it I have been cited by no less an authority than the Harvard Gazette:

"Which comes first, language or thought?
Babies think first
By William J. Cromie
Harvard News Office

"It's like the chicken and egg question. Do we learn to think before we speak, or does language shape our thoughts?"

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/07.22/21-think.html

What a coincidence. Or is it confirmation? Plagiarism?! Let's just call it serendipity. The Buddha must have rubbed my belly when I wasn't looking.

If you detest prolixity as I do, how ever shall we satisfactorily muddle through the literature "to think about" which came first? By literature I mean articles like these:

The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax (I didn't even know there were "Great Eskimos." What must the "Lesser Eskimos" think?):

http://users.utu.fi/freder/Pullum-Eskimo-VocabHoax.pdf

Further evidence that Whorfian effects are stronger in the right visual field than the left:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1783370/?tool=pmcentrez

Whorfianism of the third kind: Ethnolinguistic diversity as a worldwide societal asset (The Whorfian Hypothesis: Varieties of validation, confirmation, and disconfirmation II):

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=2989996

Support for lateralization of the Whorf effect beyond the realm of color discrimination:

http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~kay/cats-dogs-in-press.pdf

Language and World view, Annual Review of Anthropology 21: 381�406:

http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.an.21.100192.002121

Cognition in Ethnolinguistics:

http://www.jstor.org/pss/409956

Language And Space, Annual Review of Anthropology Vol. 25: 353-382:

http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146%2Fannurev.anthro.25.1.353

Y�l� Dnye and the Theory of Basic Color Terms, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Volume 10, Issue 1:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/jlin.2000.10.1.3/abstract;jsessionid=F311B783E17373FE9C9E264E935C52EA.d03t01

Linguistic Relativity, Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 26: 291-312:

http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146%2Fannurev.anthro.26.1.291

Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Pirah�: Another Look at the Design Features of Human Language:

http://ldc.upenn.edu/myl/llog/EverettPiraha.pdf

What is the Sapir�Whorf Hypothesis?, American Anthropologist, Volume 86, Issue 1:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1984.86.1.02a00050/abstract

The Linguistic Significance of Meanings of Basic Color Terms, Language (Linguistic Society of America) 54 (3): 610�646:

http://www.jstor.org/pss/412789

Best to begin here, for background:

The Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/supplement2.html

The Effects of Language on Thought, Claudia Faccone, Robert Kearns, Ashley Kopp, Elizabeth Watson:

http://www.unc.edu/~jdumas/projects/languagethought.htm

How Does Our Language Shape The Way We Think?, Lera Boroditsky (aka the banana-vehicle lady):

http://edge.org/3rd_culture/boroditsky09/boroditsky09_index.html

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, Rebecca Ash:

http://www.angelfire.com/journal/worldtour99/sapirwhorf.html

gaijinalways wrote:

but to each his own.

My sentiments exactly. For brevity's sake, let's just say "what-E-ver." (I think we both know which side of the fence we're straddling...our thoughts, or the lack thereof, have definitely been formed by language. But if that's the chicken part then I want to change my vote.) But I need some clarification; if you really mean "to each his own," then there isn't any point in complaining that my post was "a bit wordy," is there?
Cool

--ktb

gaijinalways

Joined: 29 Nov 2005
Posts: 2279

Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2010 4:01 am Post subject:

gaijinalways wrote:

Quote:

A bit wordy...... ,

gaijinalways wrote:

Quote:

but to each his own.

killthebuddha posted

Quote:

But I need some clarification; if you really mean "to each his own," then there isn't any point in complaining that my post was "a bit wordy," is there?

I think my point was that this being a discussion board (forum), there should be more of that than just long monologues.

But I am glad to see you gave this issue a lot of thought and shared some links for us to ponder on.

For myself, I'm going back to killing other things, including this list of things to do I have in front of me.

killthebuddha

Joined: 06 Jul 2010
Posts: 144
Location: Assigned to the Imperial Gourd

Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2010 5:34 am Post subject:

gaijinalways, To borrow from Johnson, I've given you an answer, and have even tried to give you an understanding, so the best thing is to just give up. I know when I'm licked. And in all fairness to you, I was being a bit opportunistic in originally singling out your comments for reply. They helped me to make a broader point. Thanks for being a good sport. --ktb

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