ANTH 104 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Language Of Thought Hypothesis, Steven Pinker, Linguistic Determinism
7 Sep 2016
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Enlightenment: philosophers (like john locke) were determined to get perfect language. Language myths: french as a logical language because it uses svo order (order we think in) No one correct way of perceiving the world. Each language divides the world up in its own logical functional way. Native english speakers have internalized rules: arbitrary order. Ancient greek: four words for love : ag pe brotherly, ros sexual, philia friendship, storge parents and children. English v. shawnee: english: clean with ramrod, shawnee: dry space, interior of hole, by motion of tool (instrument) Certain parts of the body that only appear sometimes: dimples, lap. English has both: relative: left/right/in front of/behind, absolute: north/south/east/west. Some languages only have one or the other. How does this shape our experiences? (which direction is east?) Elements our environment differ depending on what we have to encode in our language.
