Complex ideas are not universal, as .. we can see by the difficulties of translating from one language to another.
Rhetoric is already complicated enough, and I was only viewing it through an English lens up until this point. Thinking about how rhetoric influences other linguistic interpretations of a thought/feeling/idea/opinion, and how other linguistic practices that incorporate cultural differences in turn influenced the development of rhetoric makes my brain hurt.
who have scarce any standing rule to regulate themselves and their notions by, in such arbitrary ideas.
There is a strong moral component here in Locke's thinking about language.
philosophy is to improve languag
From what I've read so far, it seems that for Locke improvement in language means that language would more accurately convey knowledge. But I also wonder about how language changes over time. Language has certainly changed over time; for example, there are many new terms because of computer technology and social media. Language changes because of cultural/technological context, but it seems that no amount of change in language can remove language's distance from reality (language represents ideas which represent the essence of things).
Now, since sounds have no natural connection with our ideas, but have all their signification from the arbitrary imposition \ l .;.s.~l' of men,
I always thought the most helpful evidence (that was once pointed out to me) that sound-symbols are arbitrary is proof that even onomatopoeia varies from language to language. So even the sounds that we claim represent most directly are not necessarily similar from language to language. Here are some good examples:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/51996/12-onomatopoeias-around-world
(This video is also interesting in that the more complex the animal's sound, the more dramatically onomatopoetic words vary from language to language. A cat's "meow" sounds almost the same in any language, whereas there are many different ways of representing a dog's bark, or a rooster's crow. I guess "meow" is the closest humanity can get to non-arbitrary language. Meow = Truth???)
Paleo
It seems really provocative to study rhetoric before ancient Greece; it's certainly something I had never heard of, not that that is saying much. Also, I've only encountered materiality and rhetoric in regards to modern technology, so it's really interesting to trace this back waaaay before computers and even books. It's also interesting that this is a time when there wasn't a written, standard language. Other articles for this week discussed delivery and body language, but uses of some sort of standard language was always a focus, so going all the way back to the Paleolithic really stretches the boundaries of rhetoric in an exciting way.
Spanish he/she has a wide range of options in job opportunities after the completion of graduation. Spanish major is really very helpful for the students as it provides them with a greatly enriched view of the entire world around them. It is helpful to them because it also provides them with the best Spanish language skills which are really important in many professional occupations.
Today English is the most commonly used, i.e. spoken, written and listened language, making it extremely popular all around the world. In many countries, it has become the second official language, as they have understood the importance of it in the modern context. http://blog.selectmytutor.co.uk/top-10-books-on-english-language/
Quando fiam uti chelidon
Translates to: “When shall I be as the swallow?” This is referring to Philomela (daughter of Pandion, King of Athens). In the story, she was transformed into a nightingale or something like that.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Datta: give/giving
Dayadhvam: compassion/be compassionate
Damyata: control/self-control
DA
"Da" in German is similar to the English word "there." It is also used to mean "being present," not just as a location pointer. It was originally "there" as in "not here" but as all words' meanings morph over time, it can now also mean "then." So "Da" as a word occupies a space and a time.
Shantih shantih shantih
There is peace in the rubbish. (Spelling?)
This means that teachers spend a lot of time adapting and creating their own materials
they teach their 2nd lang
Often the teachers in these programs are second-language learners themselves
even adults teaching english isn't 1st lang. so they are learning as they teach
bring languages into our schools—our Native languages and many more; it spreads our language around
its true they need to preserve the languages so more ppl learn it and so it won't die
allowing it to offer dual-language instruction
offering more instruction=more children to learn
There are also a variety of magazines available in El Salvador, in both Spanish and English.
This is pretty good for salvadorians who want to practice their english, if they are choosing to learn it. It is also nice for the visiting americans, to read the news if they can't read/speak spanish.
95 percent of Salvadorans.
thats a pretty large poplation...
Spanish is the official language of El Salvador. Among the more educated, English is the most common second language.
If u were to visit El Salvador, this would be very useful seeming English is the most common second language. It would be a good idea to learn some Spanish survival sayings first though.
Spanish
language spoken
language or customs.
these are examples of explicit culture. Something in a culture that you can't actually touch or feel but helps you learn about the culture for example language and traditions.
“international pariah” in personal email exchanges that were leaked online
blah blah
There's also the political. I was always bothered by the fact that the first person singular pronoun is capitalized in english - i always thought it was quite self-righteous. Or, as Douglas Adams noted, "Capital letters were always the best way of dealing with things you didn't have a good answer to." Ever since i was a kid, i was told that the world does not revolve around me, yet our written culture is telling me something entirely different. Why not capitalize 'we' or 'they'? (Yes, i love the work of bell hooks.)
There are technical, scientific, and cultural factors that are instructive in exploring why humans, and Earth as currently constructed, aren’t well-suited to having a universal language.
Translation apps continue to leave much to be desired.
Cue Roman Jakobson. In a way, by giving the illusion of mutual understanding, these apps exacerbate the problem. Also, because they do the worst job with rich language work (nuance, subtlety, wordplay, polysemy, subtext…) they encourage a very “sterile” language which might have pleased Orwell like it pleases transhumanists, but which waters down what makes language worth speaking.
what is the English-speaking world missing out on by not reading the content written in other languages
Though he’s been associated with a very strange idea he never had, Edward Sapir was quite explicit about this loss over a hundred years ago. Thinking specifically about a later passage warning people about the glossocide English language. But it’s been clear in his work from long before that excerpt that we’re missing out when we focus on a single language.
the voice of the rest of the world
a handful in a few major world languages
One might think that those other languages are well-represented. People connected with the Open Knowledge Foundation are currently tackling this very issue. Here, Open Education isn’t just about content.
Ostati ili otići iz ugla programera
I should write this in English
De ce point de vue, il n'est pas nécessaire d'argumenter longuement sur ces dispositions car le convergence des structures de productivité peut produire des miracles et agrémenter le soutien du jeu des stratégies des forces en présence.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
And because it’s built to take full advantage of iPad, it’s a first-of-its-kind learning experience.
Sure, we’ve heard that before. But there’s reason to be cautiously optimistic about this one.
Prescriptivists dislike the use of “impact” as a verb
Glad Anglophone prescriptivists aren’t having their way. If they did, chances are that the language would have a similar fate to German as a colonial language. Chances are that a predilection for normative language has greatly impacted language insecurity among Francophones.
seemeth
This is an archaic use of the -eth suffix for third-person indicative. This faded from usage during the Middle and Early Modern English periods.
“participation architectures.”
I much prefer this nomenclature especially since it allows me to add Christopher Alexander to the mix. He argued that there are machine systems and growing systems. Or perhaps we can think of the distinction as between engineered and rhizomatic? Or using James Scott's terms: legible v illegible.
Linguistic intelligence is how well you’re able to use language. It’s a kind of skill that poets have, other kinds of writers; journalists tend to have linguistic intelligence, orators.
I guess I do have a prejudice for this one. Don't all people use language to learn, reason, argue, and communicate, no matter their discipline or field?
Here’s what the Finns, who don’t begin formal reading instruction until around age 7, have to say about preparing preschoolers to read: “The basis for the beginnings of literacy is that children have heard and listened … They have spoken and been spoken to, people have discussed [things] with them … They have asked questions and received answers.”
The Book of Human Emotions, Tiffany Watt Smith
Emotions are not just biological, but cultural. Different societies have unique concepts for combinations of feelings in particular circumstances.
If you know a word for an emotion, you can more easily recognize it, control it -- and perhaps feel it more intensely.
Emotions and how they are valued also varies across time as well as space. Sadness was valued in Renaissance Europe: they felt it made you closer to God. Today we value happiness, and we may value it too much. Emodiversity is the idea that feeling a wide range of emotions is good for you mentally and physically.
This could be the first time we can talk with empirical evidence about language requiring innate components or not.
may not transfer well across borders because of language and context
Can we embrace diversity?
I don't totally agree with the fact that writers the creation of language is the target of a writer, I think language is just a means, the "algorithm" that "plays" with words/semanthincs, as any machine can do
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capacity of words to activate the senses
This makes me think of David Abram's The Spell of the Sensuous, an exploration of the sensuous foundations of language.
Other attachments matter for rhetoric
I wonder about the relationship between "attachment" and sensation. Could one become attached without sensing the attachment? And is attachment rhetorical: is it like a language, even if it is not (only) epistemic?
There are good reasons for writing.
Here I start to wonder about "translating" sensory perceptions into (written) language; namely, are we ever not doing that.
self-radicalized
What is the "self-" qualifier doing here? Is this useful for some reason? No one exists in a bubble.
Here's one article about the term: http://aclj.org/jihad/self-radicalized-islamic-terrorist
his grammar feud
Yeah, grammar marmism is rampant in our worlds. Some people mistake language for a machine when it is really a joshua tree or a redwood or some kind of fungus. The only disease that would kill language would be the evolution of telepathy and I don't think that would do it. To adapt Johnny Paycheck: take your rules Mr. Heller and shove 'em.
Correction, the link location for Unspeakableness has changed to http://peiyinglin.net/unspeakableness.html
More details accessible here: http://unspeakableness.net/
This deck contains all must-have basic Esperanto rootwords as suggested by the editorial team of the magazine Kontakto.
That sounds good. I aim to get fluent this semester!
Hdt. 2.2. The Nature vs. Nurture enigma is presented here. It is advocated here that language is biologically programmed here and thus language is a nature phenomenon. However, the nature v. nurture debate has become bane in the field of psychology. Do the lengths or widths make a rectangle?
What intrigued me when I first walked into Neil’s living room was the concept of a collaboration- driven ethos , although at the time I had no idea what those words mean
collaboration-driven ethos
The intended readers (all twelve of them) can de- co de the formal presentation, detect the new idea hidden in lemma 4, ignore the routine and uninteresting calculations of lemmas 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and see what the author is doing and why he do es it. But for the noninitiate, this is a cipher that will never yield its secret.
We have seen how it is originally language which works on the construction of concepts, a labor taken over in later ages by science.
We take a turn here to see how deceptive language can be. It's power to persuade by verbiage, not just by what is being said.
Just as it is certain that one leaf is never totally the same as another, so it is certain that the concept "leaf" is formed by arbitrarily discarding these individual differences and by forgetting the distinguishing aspects.
A 'snowflake' sort of ideal applied to other words... but a valid point. Our language is imperfect, inaccurate, and vague- every time I read through Nietzche I come around to his thought process a little more.
In the same way that the sound appears as a sand figure, so the mysterious X of the thing in itself first appears as a nerve stimulus, then as an image, and finally as a sound. Thus the genesis of language does not proceed logically in any case, and all the material within and with which the man of truth, the scientist, and the philosopher later work and build, if not derived from never-never land, is a least not derived from the essence of things.
It's fascinating to consider how if our language had been constructed differently... based on, somehow, a logical reasoning of stimuli... mankind would think entirely differently.
This creator only designates the relations of things to men, and for expressing these relations he lays hold of the boldest metaphors
It would be hard to imagine human language without a humanocentric bent, but a completely fair point nonetheless.
we believe that we know something about the things themselves when we speak of trees, colors, snow, and flowers; and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for things--metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities
And this is exactly what linguists are talking about when they say that words are simply symbols for the things that they represent
This creator only designates the relations of things to men, and for expressing these relations he lays hold of the boldest metaphors
I can understand his reasoning in this statement. Our language describes the world and things around us in relation to mankind. Kind of ego-centrical if you think about it
Is language the adequate expression of all realities
Great question, and I think the answer is 'no'. Each language has it's own restrictions in expressing certain ideas, emotions, or situations. I definitely think that there are boundaries that can confine our expression in any language
In the same way that the sound appears as a sand figure, so the mysterious X of the thing in itself first appears as a nerve stimulus, then as an image, and finally as a sound. Thus the genesis of language does not proceed logically in any case, and all the material within and with which the man of truth, the scientist, and the philosopher later work and build, if not derived from never-never land, is a least not derived from the essence of things.
I'm not sure exactly what he is trying to say here. Is he saying that while language is not pulled from out of know where, words and language are built upon connections to other words instead of the intrinsic nature of a thing?
The "thing in itself" (which is precisely what the pure truth, apart from any of its consequences, would be) is likewise something quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for. This creator only designates the relations of things to men, and for expressing these relations he lays hold of the boldest metaphors.
Language vs. Truth
dissolve an image into a concept.
Do we lose something in this dissolution?
but we do know of countless individualized and consequently unequal actions which we equate by omitting the aspects in which they are unequal and which we now designate as "honest" actions.
Well, how else are people supposed to function in a real world? Nothing's constant, so all we can do is make assumptions and generalizations in an attempt to make sense of our surroundings
and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for things--metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities
definition of language
copy
Implies that the sound is, somehow, directly related to the perception of something?
And besides, what about these linguistic conventions themselves? Are they perhaps products of knowledge, that is, of the sense of truth? Are designations congruent with things? I
I wanted to highlight "Is language the adequate expression of all realities?"
Without language, what exists?
If deception is only deception because of a negative result, is deception without a negative result still deception?
The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth, never a question of adequate expression; otherwise, there would not be so many languages
We are only continually approximating out thoughts, not fully communicating
There are two universal, general gifts be-stowed by nature upon man, Reason and Speech; dialectic is the theory of the former, grammar and rhetoric of the latte
Language is probably the greatest tool human kind has. Reasoning exists in many animals, but extensive communication networks and language is ours! Also, poor use of the word "Universal" here. If it was a universal gift, it would be for everyone and not just man.
as infants cannot learn to speak except by learning words and phrases from those who do speak
Read some Chompsky. Language is an internal process. The Language Instinct from Pinker is good, too.
the rules which are laid down in the art of oratory could not have been observed, and noted, and reduced to system, if they had not first had their birth in the genius of orators
Early study of a language needed.
Language is based on reason, antiquity, authority, custom. It is analogy, and sometimes etymology, that affords the chief support to reason. A certain majesty, and, if I may so express myself, religion, graces the antique.
beautiful
Foreign words, like men, and like many of our institutions, have come to us, I might almost say, from all nations.
Language is formed on complex interactions and has many histories, especially English. It cannot be classified as our language and other language because these so often overlap
uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences
"in oratory the very cardinal sin is to depart from the language of everyday life, and the usage approved by the sense of the community." - Cicero, De Oratore
The foundation of good style is correctness of language, which falls under five heads. (1) First, the proper use of connecting words, and the arrangement of them in the natural sequence which some of them require. For instance, the connective "men" (e.g. ego men) requires the correlative "de" (e.g. o de). The answering word must be brought in before the first has been forgotten, and not be widely separated from it; nor, except in the few cases where this is appropriate, is another connective to be introduced before the one required. Consider the sentence, "But as soon as he told me (for Cleon had come begging and praying), took them along and set out." In this sentence many connecting words are inserted in front of the one required to complete the sense; and if there is a long interval before "set out," the result is obscurity. One merit, then, of good style lies in the right use of connecting words. (2) The second lies in calling things by their own special names and not by vague general ones. (3) The third is to avoid ambiguities; unless, indeed, you definitely desire to be ambiguous, as those do who have nothing to say but are pretending to mean something.
Use of language in good style.
People do not feel towards strangers as they do towards their own countrymen, and the same thing is true of their feeling for language. It is therefore well to give to everyday speech an unfamiliar air: people like what strikes them, and are struck by what is out of the way.
Style. Use language people recognize and understand.
The power of discourse stands in the same relation to the soul's organization as the pharmacopoeia does to the physiology of bodies.
This is an important sentiment, one that we might see repeating in other readings. In what ways is language a drug? In what ways does language intoxicate or heal?