LING 200 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Cognitive Ethology, Biolinguistics, Body Language
8 Dec 2013
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All of these too vague to constitute the object of scientific inquiry. Pretty much anything expressive can be called language in everyday discussion. Language should be defined in its relation to thought and reasoning, or so commonly believed. Language shapes our perception of reality and predetermines what we see in the world around us. According to sapir whorf theory, we conceptualize nature along lines laid down by our native languages. Other views think thoughts exist independently of language and language just matches the thoughts or concepts that exist independently in our mind. It is not very clear what the boundaries of our thoughts are and how to derive these boundaries. Language used by a culture primarily reflects that culture"s interests and concerns, thus language can be defined as a medium of culture. Not true, because pretty much every positive or negative correlation among race, language and culture can be paralleled to languages from the american.
