Not last night but the night before, as I was lying in bed, I started wondering 'does Matt still have a beard?' I just had a weird suspicion that he might not have. However, being a good person and having a modicum of self control I didn't reach over and pat his chin to find out.
Lo and behold, when he came home from work yesterday I scrutinised his chin and he had no beard. When did it go? 2 or 3 weeks ago... Did anyone else notice? Apparently not!
I'm working on my essay. I'm slightly behind with my reading - I'd hoped to have read all the stuff on my reading list for the seminar on constructivism by now and spend the next week writing up a vague outline which I could then build on, but I haven't managed it. I'm going to finish reading this afternoon, move on and hopefully come back to the reading later. Just remembered there's one very important article which I didn't finish reading because I hated it so much.
Constructivism is concerned with language and meaning. One thing constructivists argue over is what words refer to. Depending on your view of the world, there seems to be three options.
1. Words refer to things (referential)
2. Words refer to 'shared templates' - shared ideas
3. Words refer to other words
I'm confused.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
constructivism is also an artistic movement I believe originating in Russia. I like the beard story. I often forget whether some of my friends still have beards and I have to fight the temptation to reach over in bed and pat their chins.
Constructivism is many things - see Wikipedia
for a selection...
I've grown at least 4 new beards since I last saw you Sarah...
All on top of each other?
The layered beard. Now that is a new concept. Would it be anything like puff pastry where you have very thin layers of pastry rolled together?
Chris has a beard now. It's very cute and I won't let him shave it off...
According to my dictionary of word origins:
"Dog is one of the celebrated mystery words of English etymology. It appears once in the late Old English, in the Prudentius glosses, where it translates Latin canis, but its use does not seem to have proliferated until the 13th century, and it did not replace the native hound as the main word for the animal until the 16th century. It has no known relatives of equal antiquity in other European languages, although several borrowed it in the 16th and 17th centuries for particular sorts of 'dog': German dogge 'large dog, such as a mastiff,' for instance, French dogue 'mastiff', and Swedish dogg 'bulldog'.
A word simply communicates a reality from one to another. It refers to nothing in itself. Is the paint on the canvas of the Mona Lisa a woman, does it refer to a woman, does it refer to the idea of a woman. No - it creates the image of a woman in the brain of the viewer. Words have no point unless they have a recipient.
Listen to a poem - words themselves mean nothing - the collection of words paint a concept in our minds. Grapefruit.
Yes, but there's a difference between a representation in the form of a picture and representation in the form of words. Words have connotations. Socially they mean more than what a dictionary definition would imply. For example, if I called someone a dog (which I wouldn't...) it might mean they were not very attractive if they were a girl. However, if was Jewish and called someone a dog, it would be a huge insult.
Language can be used to build up a social reality and to create or exclude possibilities. For example, globalisation is often talked about using language related to nature ('withering', 'erosion') to make it seem more like a natural process and less like something which has been planned and pushed forward.
I'm glad you agree. Words mean nothing in themselves - it's the picture created in the mind of the recipient that is important. With a painting you can use colours and shapes to convey a mood or feeling - the same with words. The use of the word dog can convey a different meaning depending on the recipient and it's context. The word dog has no meaning on it's own - it only means something once it is conveyed to and interpreted by somebody.
This is very often an issue when you talk with a lot of people from different cultures (like at the UN), where a simple phrase can convey many meanings to different people (you have no idea how easy it is to offend somebody with an innocent phrase). It is made harder by the fact that the word dog means nothing to many people - they translate it into their own language, and their nearest word may be different in many ways.
The use of words is all about communication of a concept between people. Sometimes we need to use odd words to convey a concept. So words do not strictly refer to any of the things in your list. I suppose our ideal is a template - we understand the same as the person speaking - but that just isn't true (see Hitch Hikers Guide and the war on earth for a reference on that). Words refer to something different in the mind of every person that hears them.
I once had a conversation with somebody that spoke no English - and whose language I didn't speak. We chatted for about an hour. I understood many things at the end (including his need to take asprin after having open heart surgery). I guess part of that was the signing along with the talking. But his words meant nothing to me on their own - they referred to nothing in my mind - but they created a concept in my mind nevertheless. I wonder if he was actually talking of asprin and open heart surgery or hormones and gender reassignment? No - I think it was the heart.
Oh - and uncle Tony says that globalisation is not done to us - it is us that does it to the world. Governments, after all, simply represent the wishes of the people...
Post a Comment