Language


 * Language **

"Language exerts hidden power, like a moon on the tides." Rita Mae Brown

​ **Nature of Language ** What different functions does language perform? Which are most relevant in creating and communicating knowledge? Why do people talk?  What is the role of language in creating and reinforcing social distinctions, such as class, ethnicity and gender? What is the role of language in sustaining relationships of authority? Do people speak the same way to inferiors and superiors in a hierarchy? Does the professional authority speak in the same way as the person seeking opinion or advice? Can control of written language create or reinforce power?  Is it reasonable to argue for the preservation of established forms of language, for example, as concerns grammar, spelling, syntax, meaning or use? Is one language common to the whole world a defensible project ? media type="custom" key="5070887" Jay Walker on the world's English mania [|If you could only speak English from now on would you feel a sense of loss - reflections of students] What did Aldous Huxley (1947) mean when he observed that “Words form the thread on which we string our experiences”? To what extent is it possible to separate our experience of the world from the narratives we construct of them? In what ways does written language differ from spoken language in its relationship to knowledge? [|Wittgenstein and the polysemy of language] How does technological change affect the way language is used and the way communication takes place? How might innovations in language, such as Internet chat or text messaging, be assessed: as contributions to or assaults against how language and communication “should be”?
 * [|Link to wikipedia site about Michael Halliday and his theory about the functions of language]
 * [|Is there an instinct for language?]
 * [|Japan fears polite speech is on the wane]
 * [|Nu Shu a secret language of Chinese women]
 * [|Political correctness and language]
 * [|A secret gay slang used in the 1950's]
 * [|Articles which explain how bias is used in the news]
 * [|George Orwell's Newspeak]
 * [|LIES - Language in Extreme Situations - the use of language as a weapon of mass deception]

[|Podcast about teens, technology and language] [|OMG: IM Slang is invading our language] What may have been meant by the comment “How strangely do we diminish a thing as soon as we try to express it in words” (Maurice Maeterlinck)?


 * Language and Culture **
 * If people speak more than one language, is what they know different in each language? Does each language provide a different framework for reality?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 90%;">How is the meaning of what is said affected by silences and omissions, pace, tone of voice and bodily movement? How might these factors be influenced in turn by the social or cultural context? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 96%;">Rebecca Saxe shares fascinating lab work that uncovers how the brain thinks about other peoples' thoughts -- and judges their actions. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">media type="custom" key="5070909"
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Essay on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis]
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Should we care about language diversity?]
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Language and thought an African perspectiv]
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|What's in a word? Often a whole culture...]
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Why is it important to save dying languages]
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|What happens when you can't count beyond 4?]
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Linguist Alice Gaby talks about the realtionships among language, cognition and perception]
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 80%;">[|Fear is spread by body language - how we communicate with our bodies]

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> H​ow have spoken sounds acquired meaning? What is the connection between the sounds and what they are taken to represent? Given that a word such as “tree” groups together a lot of different individual objects, what is lost in using language to describe the world? What are the advantages? media type="custom" key="6590159" media type="custom" key="5070809" <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">James Geary waxes on a fascinating fixture of human languages, the metaphor. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> media type="custom" key="5070873" <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 96%;">Steven Pinker looks at language and how it expresses what goes on in our minds. Below is a longer video exploring these ideas: media type="custom" key="6546961" [|Orwellian doublespeak - the relationship between language and thought] [|Why the evolution of language and the use of metaphor kick started human creativity, paving the way for cave art and modern civilisation.]
 * Language and Thought**
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|How does language shape the way we think?]
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|How does our brain make sense of language?]
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|The problem of definitions]
 * Is it possible to think without language? How does language facilitate, extend, direct or limit thinking?
 * To what extent does language generalize individual experience, classifying it within the experience of a linguistic group? On the other hand, to what extent do some kinds of personal experience elude expression in language?
 * Can language be compared with other human forms of symbolic representation, such as conventionalized gestures, sign language for the deaf, dance, painting, music or mathematics? What might language share with these other forms in the communication of what we know? In what ways might it be considered distinct?
 * How do “formal languages”, such as computer-programming languages or mathematics, compare with the conventional written and spoken languages of everyday discourse?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|The Politics of Language] [|Podcast link, Chinese Poet Yang Lian and the issues that arise when his work is translated] A boy called Hitler - raises issues about the power of language and issues of free speech media type="custom" key="5160509" [|How to detect bias in the news] [|Podcast link, Lord Martin Rees, professor of astronomy argues that it is possible to present complex science in layman's terms without sacrificing accuracy].
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">Language and knowledge **
 * How does the capacity to communicate personal experiences and thoughts through language affect knowledge? To what extent does knowledge actually depend on language: on the transmission of concepts from one person or generation to another, and on exposure of concepts or claims to public scrutiny?
 * In most of the statements heard, spoken, read or written, facts are blended with values. How can an examination of language distinguish the subjective and ideological biases as well as values that statements may contain? Why might such an examination be desirable?
 * Language and Areas of Knowledge**
 * How do the words we use to describe an idea affect our understanding of the world? For example, is “globalization” a synonym for “westernization”? What is the meaning of the term “anti-globalization”? Does it matter which words we use?
 * How does the language used to describe the past (for example, a massacre, an incident, a revolt) change history? Does something similar occur when different terms are used to describe natural phenomena (greenhouse effect, global warming, sustainable development) or human behaviour (refugee, asylum seeker)?
 * How important are technical terms in different areas of knowledge? Is their correct use a necessary or sufficient indicator of understanding? The following illustrative examples relate to the Diploma Programme subject groups.
 * Group 1: metaphor, alliteration, onomatopoeia, synecdoche, genre, sonnet, haiku
 * Group 2: preposition, active/passive, pluperfect, genitive, creole, dialect
 * Group 3: cost–benefit analysis, price elasticity, evapotranspiration, neo-fascism, push–pull technology, ontology, cognitive dissonance, enculturation
 * Group 4: symbiosis, allotrope, ergonomics, trophic level, entropy
 * Group 5: irrational number, asymptote, dot product, isomorphism, minimum spanning tree
 * Group 6: dynamic content, L cut, sonata, dramaturgy, trompe l’œil
 * To what degree might each area of knowledge be seen as having its own language? Its own culture?