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Language

The 1 st Way of Knowing. Language. Language. ‘ No matter where we go in the world, people possess the amazing ability to make noises to each other and convey this thing called meaning. In many places, they also make marks on paper or other surfaces and expect

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Language

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  1. The 1st Way of Knowing Language

  2. Language ‘No matter where we go in the world, people possess the amazing ability to make noises to each other and convey this thing called meaning. In many places, they also make marks on paper or other surfaces and expect others to understand meaning from the marks. This capacity for language is a human characteristic, with children everywhere learning the language passed onto them by their own speech community.’ Dombromski 2008

  3. Language? • What is the role of language in knowing? • How does it influence what we know and how we know it?

  4. Language –symbolic representationWhat is the connection between the sounds and what they are taken to represent? • We use sounds to stand for things. • Find anything which all these words have in common, either visually or in terms of the way they sound.

  5. Language –symbolic representationWhat is the connection between the sounds and what they are taken to represent? • There is no necessary link between the bag of our sense perception and the word ‘bag’, any more than the word ‘sac’ in French or any other sound we might generate. If we called a bag a ‘woodlebug’ we could still communicate just as well as long as everyone else in our speech community had learnt the same convention.

  6. Is language a metaphor? • One figure of speech which compares two things by saying one IS the other. • Is the use of language a metaphorical endeavour? • Are we saying one thing = another

  7. What may have been meant by the comment ‘how strangely do we diminish a thing as soon as we try to express it in words” (Maurice Maeterlinck)? • Which woman? A. B. D. C.

  8. What may have been meant by the comment ‘how strangely do we diminish a thing as soon as we try to express it in words” (Maurice Maeterlinck)? • Which man? Chinese / English? A. B. C. D.

  9. What may have been meant by the comment ‘how strangely do we diminish a thing as soon as we try to express it in words” (Maurice Maeterlinck)? • Which drink? A. B. C.

  10. What is lost in translation from one language to another? Why? • The babelfish • Babel Fish is a translator programme available on http://babelfish.altavista.com/ Go to this program and try to translate 5 different phrases. • Why don’t literal translations work? Discuss. • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untranslatability mentions the top ten hardest English words to translate, and discusses the problems of translation.

  11. If people speak more than one language, is what they know different in each language? Does each language provide a different framework for reality? • Examples of bad translation: • The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la meaning, "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax" depending on the dialect. Coke later found the right Chinese characters that are phonetically close to the brand, "ko-kou-ko-le" which can be translated as, happiness in the mouth". • In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" came out as "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from dead". • In Chinese, the KFC slogan "finger licking good" came out as "eat your fingers off". • Pinto, a Ford brand car, was Brazilian slang for "tiny male genitals". • In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into Schweppes Toilet Water. • From http://www.rowan.edu/business/FACULTY/dosoglu/intmkt4.html

  12. If people speak more than one language, is what they know different in each language? Does each language provide a different framework for reality? • Homework: Find out about the Sapir-Whorf’s hypothesis. Write down your thoughts about this.

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