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Words and Culture and

Ethnographies

Whorfian hypothesis

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“We cannot talk at all except by subscribing tothe organization and classification of datawhich the agreement decrees”

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Language determines/constrains thought

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Wrong! Children, feral children, deaf peoplewho never learned language. They can allthink!

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Pinker, (The Language Instinct 1994, 59-61) ripsWhorf a new one.

abstraction in speech & thought

actions under self-control

distinguished from those not under

control

aesthetics

affection expressed and felt

age gradesage statusesage terms

ambivalence

anthropomorphization

anticipation

antonymsattachmentbaby talk

belief in supernatural/religion

languagelanguage employed to manipulate otherslanguage employed to misinform or misleadlanguage is translatablelanguage not a simple reflection of realitylanguage, prestige from proficient use of

MAN

WILD BOY

ORANG OUTANG

APE

HOMINID

MAN

Monboddo (1773)

Nineteenth and twentieth-centurybiology

What family terms do you use? Father, dad, mother,mom? Do you use these terms or do you knowanyone who uses these terms to refer to people otherthan their natural parents? What else might Dad orMother be used to mean? Papa in Old Irish, forexample, referred to the foster-father rather than tothe father. If you meet a randy old British man at arestaurant and he introduces you to his niece, anattractive young woman who is dining with him,what might you assume their actual relationship is?

Taxonomies, colors, race, and racism. Is racism wrong because it is immoral or because it is a categorical mistake?

Both? What is the connection? Are racists poorly informed or evil?Are taxonomies and colors relative?

What about societies that think of neighboring tribes as non-

human because of their language, color, dress, etc?

Color and ethnicity and language?

Taboo and Euphemism

• Definitions and etymologies• Savants, peace-keepers, sanitation worker,

administrative assistant

• Political correctness?• Sex, death, etc…• Watch for uses of Bloody in MFL – what

does bloody mean?

After break

Vanishing Voices

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What is language death?

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Why is it a tragedy? Why is it not a tragedy?

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What is the strongest argument in the book fortrying to maintain linguistic diversity?

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Why do languages die? Suicide? Murder?

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Is it more like moving house, getting a newcomputer? What about computer languages?

Endangered languages

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Like the miner’s canary: where languages are indanger, it is a sign of enviromental stress. (Is therea necessary connection here or an incidental one?)

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Language is what made everything possible for us.

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Each language has its own window on the world?P. 14. Whorfian?

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Every people has the right to its language. And theright to give it up?

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Passive construction at end of p. 15. Who or whatis destroying rain forests and languages?Capitalism? Natural selection?