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Post by Born2BBruin on Jul 31, 2020 19:08:43 GMT -8
Good for you!
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Post by blindness on Jul 31, 2020 19:31:59 GMT -8
I am not taking this personally.  I love conspiracy theories that either suggest that the world is more interesting than it appears, or provide a much simpler alternative to a otherwise painfully convoluted and strained explanations. I can't deny. |
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Post by mhbruin on Aug 1, 2020 6:03:48 GMT -8
I am not taking this personally. I love conspiracy theories that either suggest that the world is more interesting than it appears, or provide a much simpler alternative to a otherwise painfully convoluted and strained explanations. I can't deny. Do you present them as true, with no evidence? |
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Post by grant73 on Aug 1, 2020 6:43:50 GMT -8
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Post by blindness on Aug 1, 2020 6:56:33 GMT -8
I am not taking this personally. I love conspiracy theories that either suggest that the world is more interesting than it appears, or provide a much simpler alternative to a otherwise painfully convoluted and strained explanations. I can't deny. Do you present them as true, with no evidence? I take care to insert whatever verbal modifications I need to differentiate between What I know and what I speculate or heard form other sources is a serious distinction for me (Turkish uses different tenses for the two, so it's seared in my head). It's not easy though. On eneed sto take extra care. The loss of the English subjunctive does not help, and neither does the counter-factual construction seriously overloading the regular past tense. Yeah, you thought this was a cultural or political issue? Nope. It's a grammar problem! |
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Post by Floppy Johnson on Aug 1, 2020 10:41:16 GMT -8
Yeah, you thought this was a cultural or political issue? Nope. It's a grammar problem! Grammar problems are cultural issues, right? I've read several oblique references to the idea that the structure of a language influences how a person thinks. Never actually read such an article, but the headlines are there, I tell ya! |
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Post by bruinfan13 on Aug 1, 2020 12:24:13 GMT -8
Do you present them as true, with no evidence? I take care to insert whatever verbal modifications I need to differentiate between What I know and what I speculate or heard form other sources is a serious distinction for me (Turkish uses different tenses for the two, so it's seared in my head). It's not easy though. On eneed sto take extra care. The loss of the English subjunctive does not help, and neither does the counter-factual construction seriously overloading the regular past tense. Yeah, you thought this was a cultural or political issue? Nope. It's a grammar problem! LBB is that you |
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Post by blindness on Aug 1, 2020 14:28:24 GMT -8
Indeed. I underwent a name change. Though it turns out the new me is much the same as the old me. |
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Post by bruinfan13 on Aug 1, 2020 21:10:01 GMT -8
Indeed. I underwent a name change. Though it turns out the new me is much the same as the old me. No Doubt |
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Post by blindness on Aug 2, 2020 15:00:30 GMT -8
Yeah, you thought this was a cultural or political issue? Nope. It's a grammar problem! Grammar problems are cultural issues, right? I've read several oblique references to the idea that the structure of a language influences how a person thinks. Never actually read such an article, but the headlines are there, I tell ya! That's an idea that has been around for a long time and I think it is true in its weak form: The grammar and vocabulary of your language helps foregrounding or backgrounding some ideas. If your language does not have a gender system for instance, the question of presupposed gender of third persons in narratives is something that listeners fill in the way they personally see fit, and it pushes gender bias to the background in those situations rather than make it something unavoidable.
On the other hand, there is a much stronger version of the idea, where they would claim your grammar dictated how you perceived the world. The originators of this idea were a bunch of American descriptive linguists going around in Native American reservations to capture as much of these languages as possible before they died out, and there was a strange exoticist mindset they took on (similar to the "noble savage" idea at some level). They observed that some Athabaskan langauges (Navajo, Apache, and a bundle of languages spoken in northwest US and Canada) did not use a tense-based system, marking time on "time's arrow" (as in "now", "before now" and "after now") but relied on aspect, which refers to the nature of the event (completed, on-going, iterative, not started yet) regardless of where they stood on the "arrow", which is not an uncommon choice language families make, and concluded that therefore, native americans did not see time as a linear thing.
To which, you can only say ... "yeah, right! What else, Kimosabe?"
A Hungarian professor of mine I was TA-ing for was asked this question in an undergrad class. She said "well, Hungarian does not have a gender system, but obviously I can tell the difference between men and women". The icing on the cake was that she was visibly pregnant at the time.
So I think the claim captures something in its weak form, but can completely go off the rails if you go strong with it.
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Post by Floppy Johnson on Aug 3, 2020 9:44:28 GMT -8
Grammar problems are cultural issues, right? I've read several oblique references to the idea that the structure of a language influences how a person thinks. Never actually read such an article, but the headlines are there, I tell ya! That's an idea that has been around for a long time and I think it is true in its weak form: The grammar and vocabulary of your language helps foregrounding or backgrounding some ideas. If your language does not have a gender system for instance, the question of presupposed gender of third persons in narratives is something that listeners fill in the way they personally see fit, and it pushes gender bias to the background in those situations rather than make it something unavoidable.
On the other hand, there is a much stronger version of the idea, where they would claim your grammar dictated how you perceived the world. The originators of this idea were a bunch of American descriptive linguists going around in Native American reservations to capture as much of these languages as possible before they died out, and there was a strange exoticist mindset they took on (similar to the "noble savage" idea at some level). They observed that some Athabaskan langauges (Navajo, Apache, and a bundle of languages spoken in northwest US and Canada) did not use a tense-based system, marking time on "time's arrow" (as in "now", "before now" and "after now") but relied on aspect, which refers to the nature of the event (completed, on-going, iterative, not started yet) regardless of where they stood on the "arrow", which is not an uncommon choice language families make, and concluded that therefore, native americans did not see time as a linear thing.
To which, you can only say ... "yeah, right! What else, Kimosabe?"
A Hungarian professor of mine I was TA-ing for was asked this question in an undergrad class. She said "well, Hungarian does not have a gender system, but obviously I can tell the difference between men and women". The icing on the cake was that she was visibly pregnant at the time.
So I think the claim captures something in its weak form, but can completely go off the rails if you go strong with it.
Wonderful reply. Thank you! |
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