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Author
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Topic: Enter the Linguist, Redux
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Dave Thomer
Guardian of Peace and Justice in the Galaxy
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posted 09-23-2001 11:02 PM
   
I'm pulling this comment from another thread so as to avoid topic drift. quote:
From Kevin:
The interesting thing about language is that it's one of the few things humans are hardwired for. Spiders are born knowing how to build webs, pachycephalosaurs are born knowing they've got to use their bony crests to do battle for the one they love, and
humans are born knowing how to interpret the world through meaningful-to-them yet completely arbitrary vocal terms.
My question for Kev or anyone else is, what are the rules for this association of sounds with things (tangible and otherwise) in the world? When I say that such-and-such a word connects to such-and-such a thing, how do we determine if I'm right or not? Is it a matter than we can be right or wrong about? I would think that we would have to, at least to some degree, or else words would literally mean whatever someone wanted them to. But there needs to be flexibility as well, right? So how do you navigate that minefield? |
Kevin Ott
True Believer
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posted 09-27-2001 04:55 PM
I think I see what you're asking. And if I do, hoo boy is it a doozy.First off: Language -- or, more specifically, vocabulary -- is arbitrary. There is nothing intrinsic about a pig that makes it a pig, which is a big part of the reason we call it a pig and the French call it a cochon ad the Germans call it a schwein. One of the exceptions is onomonopaiea, but that differs as well, since we all have our own interpretations of the noise a pig makes (and really, when was the last time you actually heard a pig say oink?) Language is also a group effort, so if you wanted to start using the word "pig" to refer to, say, mouthwash, you could go ahead and do that, but aside from being pretty disgusting, you'd be all by yourself. But there are plenty of words that escape that paradigm, which is why no dictionary can ever adequately describe a given lexicon, especially English. Take "feminism." I once knew a woman who was insulted at the notion that anyone would describe her as a feminist, since she felt the word implied a radicalism and militancy that many associate with it. But if you were to ask her if she agreed with feminist doctrine without using the actual word, she would say yes (this, by the way, cheesed me off to no end). While the word had one shade of meaning to me and several other people, it had a completely different connotation -- to the point of almost having a different definition -- to her and several other people. Navigating the minefield pretty much involves reading and trying to be as self-aware as possible in terms of the things we say. Does that answer your question? I dunno. |
Kevin Ott
True Believer
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posted 11-10-2001 10:01 PM
See, I thought this thread was cool since it gave me a chance to sound all smart and stuff. More people should respond, at least until I run out of intelligent-sounding bovine fecal matter. |
Dave Thomer
Guardian of Peace and Justice in the Galaxy
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posted 11-15-2001 02:02 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Kevin Ott:
Does that answer your question? I dunno.
If it doesn't, it certainly makes for a good start. There are people in philosophy of language who argue that a word, in order to have meaning, has to connect to some phenomenon in the 'real world.' If that's the case, we have a ready-made litmus test for whether a word is being used correctly. But then there are other philosophers (there are always other philosophers) who say that there's never -- or rarely -- anything that all the objects that we use a single word to describe have in common, and so, as you say, it's a matter of feeling things out. If we talk to someone and discover that they're using a word with a different meaning than we are, then we have to figure out what words we do use with a common meaning so that we can come to a common ground. [George Herebert Mead has some good stuff on this topic, as does Wittgenstein.] I'm much more in the latter camp, to the point that I probably wouldn't have been as irked as you were in the scenario you describe, Kev. On the other hand, when you use a word, you have to have some kind of idea of how others will interpret it, or you're just making communication more difficult. (Which is why I can still get irked at people who misuse 'your' for 'you're.') |
Kevin Ott
True Believer
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posted 11-15-2001 10:34 PM
Well, I'm going to surprise everyone to death here by saying that I think people have some degree of responsibility to know at least a little of what they're talking about before they start talking, which is why the feminist thing annoyed me. The person in question was pretty intelligent; that she was denying the notion that her interpretation of the word might not be entirely correct, and even that there might be other possible interpretations of the word, was pretty inexcusable for a college student taking classes with names like "Social Problems and Social Welfare." But at this point that's beside the point.The more abstract the word in question, the greater the chance there is of its having numerous interpretations. I think it's permissible -- necessary, even, for the growth of a language -- for different individuals to have different interpretations of words like "feminism," "racism," "classical," or "beautiful." That's how words acquire different meanings, and that's one of the things that makes language -- especially English -- beautiful (and the first one to ask me what I mean by "beautiful" gets the anti-sarcasm stare). But of course there has to be a common frame of reference for understanding these words. The question is, I think: Where are the parameters of that frame of reference? At what point do we say a definition or an interpretation is not as correct as the others? What I'm also interested in is this: quote:
There are people in philosophy of language who argue that a word, in order to have meaning, has to connect to some phenomenon in the 'real world.'
What do you mean by "real world?" And what kinds of words don't connect to real phenomena? |
Dave Thomer
Guardian of Peace and Justice in the Galaxy
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posted 11-15-2001 10:51 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Kevin Ott:What do you mean by "real world?" And what kinds of words don't connect to real phenomena?
I'm using 'real world' as a colloquial shorthand for 'the world that exists independent of us and our thinking about the world.' 'Rock' refers to a set of things that would exist even if there were no human beings, and would possess the characteristic that causes us to use the word 'rock' to refer to that set even if we weren't around to call them rocks. 'Honesty' depends on subjective human customs for its meaning. There is therefore disagreement as to whether 'honesty' refers to anything at all. ('Refers' is a technical term in philosophy of language, for identifying the set of things in the world that can be correctly picked out by a word.) You should see many philosophers of language try and deal with 'Pegasus.' There's no such thing as a flying horse, so the word can't refer to any 'real' thing; at the same time, we ascribe characteristics to Pegasus as though it did refer to a 'real' thing. (Now, I think these types of philosophers get bogged down in technicalities, which is why I go for a more Mead/Dewey approach, but I'm trying to lay out all sides here.) |
Kevin Ott
True Believer
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posted 11-20-2001 01:56 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Thomer:
You should see many philosophers of language try and deal with 'Pegasus.' There's no such thing as a flying horse, so the word can't refer to any 'real' thing; at the same time, we ascribe characteristics to Pegasus as though it did refer to a 'real' thing.
But there are such things as horses, and there are such things as wings. Can't philosophers deal with the concept of human imagination as it applies to the language we use to describe things that stem from it? Do they have as much of a problem with the concept of a Pegasus itself as they do with the word that describes it? There's also the Chomskian notion that humans are hardwired for language in the same way that spiders are hardwired for web-building. What do philosophers make of this? |
Dave Thomer
Guardian of Peace and Justice in the Galaxy
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posted 11-20-2001 03:21 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Kevin Ott:
But there are such things as horses, and there are such things as wings. Can't philosophers deal with the concept of human imagination as it applies to the language we use to describe things that stem from it? Do they have as much of a problem with the concept of a Pegasus itself as they do with the word that describes it?
I think the problem is that we talk about these images in our minds as though they had existence in the real world. At that point, they have to follow whatever rules of reference exist. So if I say 'Pegasus was pink' and you say 'No, Pegasus was white,' we're having a discussion and ascribing characteristics to an object in a way that implies we could check the actual Pegasus and refute or confirm the claim. So where's the actual Pegasus to which the word refers? My mind? Yours? Some communal imaginary land? quote:
There's also the Chomskian notion that humans are hardwired for language in the same way that spiders are hardwired for web-building. What do philosophers make of this?
It's sort of the starting point. "OK, we're hardwired for language. Great. How does language work?" We can analyze the structure of a web and figure out how and why it has the properties it does -- we haven't yet been as successful with language. Now, some folks, many of them pragmatic in nature, would take the 'hard-wired for language' idea and run with it to say that language is just a tool to help us interact, that the test is in how well we manage to make ourselves understood and not in how the language follows any independent, hard-and-fast rules. If I say, "I could really stand to see that quidditch match again," and you say, "Harry Potter's showing at the local theater in an hour," then the fact that quidditch is a made up term that doesn't 'connect' with something in the 'real world' doesn't matter. |
Kevin Ott
True Believer
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posted 11-20-2001 02:50 PM
quote:
We can analyze the structure of a web and figure out how and why it has the properties it does -- we haven't yet been as successful with language.
Only if you're talking from a philosophical standpoint, which I'm guessing you are. There's a huge amount of information about syntax, inflection, grammar and so on that allows linguists to determine how a given language got to where it was, where it's likely to go, and how it works within the cuture it's used. There's a lot left to learn, to be sure, but there's more that we know. quote:
The test is in how well we manage to make ourselves understood and not in how the language follows any independent, hard-and-fast rules.
It sounds like the philosophy of language runs fairly parallel to the science of language. There are still plenty of prescriptive grammarians and linguists out there who go around correcting people's split infinitives in the same way that it seems some non-pragmatists refuse to live in the real world. It's like trying to hold water in a net.
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Dave Thomer
Guardian of Peace and Justice in the Galaxy
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posted 11-20-2001 03:23 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Kevin Ott:
Only if you're talking from a philosophical standpoint, which I'm guessing you are.
Not only was I talking there from a philosophical standpoint, I was talking from a philosophical standpoint I disagree with.  A big part of the issue is that analytic philosophers are looking to language to formulate statements and propositions, like 'Pegasus is white', that can then be tested and determined to be true or false. To do that, you need rules that establish in strict fashion how symbols 'hook up with' the things they symbolize. It's that 'hooking up with' that analytic philosophers would contend is the important mechanism to understand, not culturally contingent factors or imprecisions. Thing is, if analytic philosophers could pull this off, it'd be great. We wouldn't have so many misunderstandings. So I admire the goal and the effort that's put into it. But then we get to your next point. quote:
There are still plenty of prescriptive grammarians and linguists out there who go around correcting people's split infinitives in the same way that it seems some non-pragmatists refuse to live in the real world. It's like trying to hold water in a net.
I agree with you, although in fairness, not all non-pragmatists hold this -- just most of the analytics. The analytic philosophers seem to be figuring out what language should be, while pragmatists and continental philosophers focus on what language is. |
slgorman
One of the Regulars
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posted 11-20-2001 04:12 PM
In all truth, I don't know if this is really all that relevent, but since I don't have anything to add of substance... Have you guys checked out the latest over at Tomato Nation on certain bits of slang and their meanings (or non-meanings depending on your personal stance)? If not, I suggest you try it. |
Kevin Ott
True Believer
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posted 11-21-2001 01:01 AM
First off: This is the best Tomato Nation column I've read in a while. I laughed my little white butt off.Second: I now hate Sarah Bunting for so eloquently saying what I and my years of writing experience and formal linguistic and literary and journalistic training could not have said in a million years. Third: How does the philosophy of language deal with things like this, Dave? How would an analytic philosopher -- or a pragmatist, for that matter -- deal with "dude?" And how does the philosophy of language deal with paralinguistics, or forms of communication that don't use spoken language (like a thumbs-up, or a wave goodbye)? |
slgorman
One of the Regulars
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posted 11-21-2001 01:13 AM
quote:
Second: I now hate Sarah Bunting for so eloquently saying what I and my years of writing experience and formal linguistic and literary and journalistic training could not have said in a million years.
I know the pain, I know the pain. Being a huge fan of the "dude" I'm happy in one sense to see it summed up so nicely, yet miffed that I couldn't do said summing up myself.To add slightly to the conversation, I think in some sense conveying the nuances of language without overtly stating "what you mean" can involve knowing the people you are speaking to. I know that friends I have know for a long time get my "blah blah blah's" better than people I have just met. And when a newcomer gets my colloquialisms I know that I have arrived as their true friend. This was made starkly clear this summer when traveling with two friends I have known for 16+ years and one of said friend's wife (who I'd only know for a year or so). When, at the end of the trip, the wife got what I was saying without my having to say it in so many words, I knew I had arrived. [This message has been edited by slgorman (edited 11-21-2001).] |
Dave Thomer
Guardian of Peace and Justice in the Galaxy
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posted 11-21-2001 12:04 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Kevin Ott:
Third: How does the philosophy of language deal with things like this, Dave? How would an analytic philosopher -- or a pragmatist, for that matter -- deal with "dude?"
Analytic philosophers would probably consider it an interjection, along the lines of 'oh!' (Did I use the right term for that? All of a sudden fourth grade English class is abandoning me.) It's not referring to anything, it's not adding any content to the proposition -- it's not a necessary part of the sentence, even if it conveys some kind of emotional content. Pragmatists would consider it a tool. If saying 'dude' gets me to respond in the way you expect me to respond, then 'dude' essentially means that response. (I'm giving away next month's Philosophy article here. You're killing me here. ) quote:
And how does the philosophy of language deal with paralinguistics, or forms of communication that don't use spoken language (like a thumbs-up, or a wave goodbye)?
Pretty much the same answer, in the case of gestures where a meaning of some kind can be pinned down -- like the wave goodbye. In some cases, and here I may be going a bit out of my expertise, but what I'd guess is that gestures like the thumbs-up, where a certain proposition can't really be attached to the gesture, would not be considered by the analytics to be a subject for philosophy of language at all, but for a broader theory of action. Either that or they'd try real hard to pin down a proposition being expressed. [Reposted because my browser had Kev's info stored in its cache when I made the post the first time.] |
Kevin Ott
True Believer
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posted 11-25-2001 01:33 AM
quote:
Analytic philosophers would probably consider it an interjection, along the lines of 'oh!' It's not referring to anything, it's not adding any content to the proposition -- it's not a necessary part of the sentence, even if it conveys some kind of emotional content.
But if you read the Tomato Nation column sl linked to, I'm not sure this holds up. Because, like Bunting says in the column, one word, when accompanied by paralinguistics like nodding or eye rolling, can convey something that could otherwise be conveyed with an entire sentence's worth of language. Then maybe what we're talking about here is not the philosophy of language, but the philosophy of communication, which hopefully I'll know a lot more about in the next few years. Cross your fingers. |
Dave Thomer
Guardian of Peace and Justice in the Galaxy
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posted 11-25-2001 02:10 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Kevin Ott:
But if you read the Tomato Nation column sl linked to, I'm not sure this holds up. Because, like Bunting says in the column, one word, when accompanied by paralinguistics like nodding or eye rolling, can convey something that could otherwise be conveyed with an entire sentence's worth of language.
I wonder, though, if in such cases you could pin down a precise proposition that's being communicated, rather than a general sense or feeling. Bunting's examples all have a certain vagueness to them such that the analytics wouldn't consider them examples of language. Now, as a pragmatist, I would say that if you get the reponse out of me that you desired with your word and gesture, that's what's matters, but there's no way I can do any more than paraphrase what you're getting at -- it's a rough sketch, but in the real world, a rough sketch is often good enough. quote:
Then maybe what we're talking about here is not the philosophy of language, but the philosophy of communication, which hopefully I'll know a lot more about in the next few years. Cross your fingers.
Communication, meaning, intelligence, thinking, the whole ball of wax. One of the problems I have with the analytic philosophers I read is the way it seems to want to wrap all these things completely in precise, symbolic, proposition-expressing language -- a program that results in head-scratching responses like yours when taken out of the philosophical discipline. [This message has been edited by Dave Thomer (edited 11-25-2001).] |
Kevin Ott
True Believer
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posted 12-02-2001 04:28 PM
See, this is why I really prefer the science of language and communication to the rhetoric of it. quote:
In the real world, a rough sketch is often good enough.
quote:
One of the problems I have with the analytic philosophers I read is the way it seems to want to wrap all these things completely in precise, symbolic, proposition-expressing language -- a program that results in head-scratching responses like yours when taken out of the philosophical discipline.
I'm certainly not above the notion of academic exploration of ideas and the defining of concepts above and beyond what would be needed in the Real World. But sometimes the analytics seem to go way too far, if the way you're describing them is correct, and I can certainly believe that you're not exaggerating (I'd be willing to bet that you're even holding back a bit). |
Dave Thomer
Guardian of Peace and Justice in the Galaxy
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posted 03-11-2002 10:01 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Kevin Ott:
See, this is why I really prefer the science of language and communication to the rhetoric of it.
Man, every time I read this post I get depressed. My first instinct is to leap to philosophy's defense, and talk about how philosophy can help clarify the ideas and questions that scientists investigate. But then I start to wonder how much philosophy actually accomplishes that, and I get bummed out. Still, I wonder if linguists find any of the material in the field of philosophy of language to be at all useful. At the least I'd think stuff like Mead's social behaviorism would be useful. | |
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