04:189:101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: George Orwell, Linguistic Determinism, Linguistic Relativity

• School: Rutgers University
• Department: Communication and Informatio
• Course: 04:189:101
• Professor: All

Document Summary

3 11- 14: roadmap, review, more on language, intro to cq#9, what is nonverbal comm all about, types of comm, review, language. Two perspectives/paradigms: transmission window - neutral tool/just reaching out, constitutive paintbrush lang influences product of what lang should do. Core components of lang: syntax chomsky general grammar , semantics, more on language, words shape reality. Newspeak : control over lang control over thought. Lang is not a neutral medium for expressing ideas: shapes/constrains process of human thought. The sapir-whorf hypothesis: our lang influences our perceptions, thoughts, behaviors. Examples of vocab differences: hopi one word for flying things, pilot, fly (insect), airplane, eskimo many words for snow vs. english: one (not quite true, aztecs one word for snow, cold & ice . Ideas not encoded in lang cannot be thought. Ideas encoded into lang are more salient: pragmatics lang in use. Lang doesn"t simply describe things, it accomplishes social actions.