Hey, it's Sarah.
I was perusing TIME today, and I came across a very interesting article. "Words Don't Mean What They Mean," the article, is actually an excerpt from a new book The Stuff of Thought. The article (and the book I'm guessing) describes how "words might alter a certain degree of familiarity" (TIME, 9/17/07, p.53). Each conversation is subtle in meaning and calculated, so the relationships we have are not disturbed.
"Words let us say the things we want to say and also things we could be better off not having said. They let us know the things we need to know, and also things we wish we didn't. Language is a window into human nature, but it is also a fistula, an open wound through which we're exposed to an infectious world. It's not surprising that we sheath our words in politeness and innuendo and other forms of doublespeak" (TIME, 9/17/07, p.53).
It definitely touches upon some of the topics discussed in Language in Thought and Action. I recommend that you guys read it, too. If you have a subscription to TIME, look in the September 27th issue. If you don't, try the website or just ask me to bring the magazine to class.
5 comments:
Actually, could you bring the article to class? For some reason we stopped getting TIME a or so ago.
Yea, I will bring it to class. By the way, there's a typo in my entry. The issue was the September 17th issue, not the 27th.
Yea there's a type in mine too...I mean to say "...a YEAR or so ago." This seems to happen way too much when I type.
I also read the artice and the interesting thing is how indirect speech, considered a bad thing that politicians do, is actually an integral part of the network of connections that humans have to maintain. To me, it sort of seems that this indirectness is an even more higher form of symbolism on top of language where these roundabout ways of saying things represent simpler language. By the way, the article can also be found online at
http://www.time.com/time/
magazine/article/
0,9171,1659772,00.html
Hey, it's Erin.
That's so interesting that you found that article. Have you ever noticed that when you're focusing on something, it seems to pop up everywhere? But maybe that's because you've just awakened to it...
I'm really beginning to understand how important the idea that the word is not the thing is. The word is independent of the thing; change the word but what it stands for is the same. Obviously that's true when you are translating in any of myriad languages. But it's true within a language too. I remember hearing that the people who sell prunes changed the name to dried plumes because of the connotation, in order to sell the product. But did the thing itself change? No.
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