Job Discussion Forums

[gaijinalways]

sashadroogie posted

[Sashadroogie]

I can only assume that this nit-picky reply is due to the lack of a proper counter-argument.

You are right about my not having studied Chinese though, or ancient Egyptian for that matter, but tell, please, do Chinese people have severe difficulty with planning business meetings for the future? Is their history as unknown to them as our future is to us? Do they think of space/time with ease, unlike the rest of us? If your answer is yes, then I can only assume that you would subscribe to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Then we truly are on opposite sides of the fence - a big one. However, as I'm sure you are aware, this hypothesis has lost a lot of credibility in the academic world (even on Dave's!) and so its proponents have diminished, just like those who use the word 'primitive' to describe societies.

[gaijinalways]

No, they don't have difficulties with planning them, but they way they talk about them is different, so I would suspect the way they think about it would be also. In addition, Chinese do have a very different concept of what 'on time or on schedule' means, as they often subscribe to a task completion ideal rather than a fixed schedule. This means that meetings often run long (until completed or as completed as the participants think it will get at that time), which often entails rescheduling or cancelling later appointments. The worst case scenario happens in Hong Kong, where people routinely schedule simultaneous scheduled meetings so as not to lose time if someone else cancels or delays one. So part of it depends on how low on that status pole you are in that person's eyes when it comes to whether your meeting comes close to happening, starting on time, and possibly finishing.

[gaijinalways]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

I guess it would depend on which part of the theory you're subscribing too. I thought it was interesting that they claimed that the test of colors disproved this theory

[Sashadroogie]

So glad that I could help point you in the direction of a counter-argument, but it is a pity that you simply quote-mined a wiki that explicitly states it is in need of a clean-up. Two can play at that game. Voila:

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in linguistics states that the structure of a mother language influences the way adherents to it perceive the world. It has found at best very limited experimental support, at least in its strong form. For instance, a study showing that speakers of languages lacking a subjunctive mood such as Chinese experience difficulty with hypothetical problems has been discredited.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_and_thought

Ah, in any case we need to distinguish between a 'concept of time' and the cultural importance attached, or not, to punctuality (as I said much earlier in the thread), which I think was your main point about Chinese meetings. These are two completely separate issues. I do not know why you seem to want to conflate them. Next you'll be quoting a wiki rehashing the old 'Hopi fundamentally different conception of time' argument. ( Also long since discredited.) Do you really think that any people 'understand' or 'think' of time differently because their tense structure is different?

Perhaps you do. If so, then at least I can applaud your consistency. Because if you truly believe that your students have totally different mental machinery, and this is evidenced by their language, then that goes some way to justifying your assumption that they need your help with critical-thinking skills and other mental operations.

[gaijinalways]

I simply used the wiki page because it seemed to consistently point out holes in your argument.

sashadroogie posted

[Sashadroogie]

Just in case you have forgotten, in your tangential arguments, the original subject of this thread was about whether of not one could 'think' in a foreign language. The view I put forward, though apparently full of holes and internal contradiction, was that nobody thought in any spoken language at all. Thought precedes language. Thought generates language.

The form of a language may vary hugely, but the thoughts that it expresses are fundamentally the same. Human concepts of time and space, two examples among many, do not change from culture to culture or language to language. We all conceive of space in three dimensions and no more. Mathematicians may be able to show us that there are many more multi-dimensional spaces, but can any of us, no matter what language we speak, really imagine what that is like? Similarly, time (and not punctuality!) is a universal. We all think in terms of 'now', 'before now' and 'after now'. We think this no matter what theoretical physicists may say about how meaningless this conception ultimately is. Again, astronomical figures are hard to comprehend because our everyday life has no call for them. Infinity? Can you truly conceive of that? It really doesn't matter which word in which language is used, the idea and its difficulties remain the same.

To say that any of this depends on the language the thinker happens to speak is fallacious. It doesn't depend on language. To believe that would lead one to the assertion that English speakers have a fundamentally different concept of the future because there is no future tense in the English language, whereas many other languages have a specific tense for this. Many of our students do seem to believe this, and that English speakers have some type of Einsteinian view of the past, with all our perfect aspects etc. Not true, as I'd hope you'd agree.

The use of any wiki, no matter how disingenuously, doesn't change the fact that you are referring to culture, not language, to support your arguments. Values, attitudes to suicide, history etc. are shaped by a people's culture, not the language they speak. Yes, yes, language and culture are 'intertwined', but you are substituting one for the other as suits your end. Perhaps to plug the holes in your argument?

[johnslat]

Dear Sashadroogie,

"Thought precedes language. Thought generates language.:

So, animals can't think? My dogs and my cat think you're wrong (but what do they know?)

Regards,
John

[Sashadroogie]

Dear Johnslat

I don't see how my quote would suggest that your dog or cat don't not think. I'm sure they do. Their lack of language does not show us anything about that. They would be correct in criticising me if I had said that the absence of language from them indicates an absence of doggy or catty thought.

S

[spiral78]

I'll go ask my schnauzer what he thinks of the 'language shapes thought' theory.

Be back soon.

[spiral78]

Schnauzer say: Culture and experience influence language. Thought on basics like time and space universal. We all live in essentially the same world in many ways.

HUF.

[johnslat]

Dear spiral78,

Schnauzers are quite bright, but Lhasa Apsos have Tibetan, Dali Lama-like wisdom,
And Tenzing Norgay says: " If you think we all live in essentially the same world in many ways, you clearly have never experienced the universe of smells that I am privy (so to speak) to while you are not."

The nose knows.

Regards,
John

[Sashadroogie]

So, show me a language which goes overboard on olfactory concepts, and I'll show you a doggy language. Maybe a catty one too. Dunno. Not too au fait with smelly thoughts... That might all depend on their Japanese teacher

[johnslat]

Dear Sashadroogie,

"So, show me a language which goes overboard on olfactory concepts, and I'll show you a doggy language/"

That makes scents.

Regards,
Nosy John

[nater]