Final Flashcards
(44 cards)
What does journalist Robert MacNeil say he learned from this book? (Introduction)
An Analytical attitude towards language. It has an effect.
Hayakawa made me understand for the first time what it is in language that makes one statement a report and another a judgment; one objective, another subjective.
Language in Thought and Action demonstrates how our use of language reveals us and how, through examining our language, we know ourselves better.
Our journalistic approach carries into daily practice what Hayawake calls the “MultiValue Orientation,” the realization that things are seldom as black or white, as good or bad, as we feel. (Author said he first learned this from the book 40 years ago).
What was the text written in response to? (Preface)
The original version of this book was in many aspects a response to the dangers of propaganda, especially as exemplified in Adolf Hitler’s success in persuading millions to share his maniacal and destructive views. It remains my conviction that we need to have a habitually critical thinking attitude toward language – our own as well as that of others – both to provide for our personal wellbeing and to ensure that we will function adequately as citizens.
What is the definition of Semantics and what does it address and what does it NOT address? (Preface)
Semantics is the study of human interaction through communication. Communication sometimes leads to cooperation and sometimes to conflict. The basic ethical assumption of semantics is that cooperation is preferable to conflict. * central theme of this book.
– The book does NOT address: grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc.
To learn and to think more clearly, to speak and to write more effectively, and to listen and to read with greater understanding—these are the goals of the study of language. This book tries to approach these traditional goals by the methods of modern semantics—that is, through an understanding in biological and functional terms of the role of language in human life and through an understanding of the different uses of language: language to persuade and control behavior, language to transmit information, language to create and express social cohesion, and the language of poetry and the imagination.
Teachers of semantics will concern themselves, and teach their students to concern themselves, first of all with the truth, the adequacy, and the degree of trustworthiness of statements
What is the difference between “interspecific” and “intraspecific”struggles (4)
interspecific Struggle between different species of animals. (Wolves vs. Deer)
intraspecific struggle among member of a single group. (humans vs. humans)
Biologists distinguish between two kinds of struggle for survival. First there is the interspecific struggle, warfare between different species of animals, as between wolves and deer or men and bacteria. Second, there is the intraspecific struggle, warfare among members of a single species, as when rats fight other rats or human beings fight each other.
According to Hayakawa, what are the qualities important to human survival? (4+)
To distinguish between those qualities that are useful in fighting the environment and other species (ex: floods, storms, wild animals, insects, or bacteria) and those qualities (such as aggressiveness) that are useful in fighting other people
Cooperation within species (and sometimes with other species) is essential to the survival of most living creatures. **
What does he refer to as “cooperative nervous systems?” (6)
Cooperative nervous systems = societies (both animal and human) > language is the neurochemistry of that nervous system
Cooperation by a means of noise: for example, if you did not see a car coming, but someone else saw it and made certain noises to communicate the alarm to you. In other words, although your nervous system did not record the danger, someone else did. At that time, you had the advantage of another person’s nervous system in addition to your own.
“Now, obviously, the more we can make use of the nervous systems of others to supplement our own, the easier it is for us to survive” showing the importance of survival and human cooperation.
Societies, both animal and human, might almost be regarded as huge cooperative nervous systems. Human beings use extremely complicated systems of language with which they express and report what goes on in their nervous systems. Language is so flexible that it can be used not only to report the tremendous variety of things that go on in the human nervous system, but also to report those reports. Language, in short, can be about language. This is the fundamental way in which human noisemaking systems differs from the cries of animals.
What is the relationship between language and societal progress? (6+)
They are inextricably linked
Pooling of Knowledge: Human beings are never dependent for information on their direct experiences alone; they can go on from where others left off. Language makes progress possible. We learn from hundreds of people who are no longer alive; we learn from others’ experiences.
What is meant by cultural accomplishments as “free gifts from the dead?” (8)
we pass on everything we learn
The cultural accomplishments of the ages, the invention of cooking, of weapons, of writing, of printing, of methods of building, of games and amusements, of means of transportation, and the discoveries of all the arts and sciences come to us as free gifts from the dead. These gifts offer us not only the opportunity for a richer life than any of our forebears enjoyed but also the opportunity to add to the sum total of human achievement by our own contributions, however small.To be able to read and write, therefore, is to learn to profit by and to take part in the greatest of human achievements… the pooling of our experience… available to all.
What is the difference between literate and nonliterate cultures? (7)
Nonliterate culture: Had to remember. Info passed down was limited by what could be/was remembered, as well as trustworthiness of information. Had to hold it in their mind. Is our memory getting worse because we don’t have to remember as much? This is when writing was not invented. Even people who belong to cultures in which writing has not been invented are able to exchange information and to hand down from generation to generation considerable stores of traditional knowledge.
— Preliterate cultures only transmitted information orally and had exceptionally good memories, but the amount of knowledge and trustworthiness was limited.
Literate people, who rely on notebooks and reference books, have relatively poor memories.
–INCREASES: accuracy and quantity of info passed down
The result is that in any literate culture of a few centuries’ standing, human beings accumulate vast stores of knowledge, which are far more than any individual in that culture can read in his lifetime, let alone remember.
These stores of knowledge, which are being added to constantly, are made widely available to all who want them through such mechanical processes as printing, (newspaper and magazine trade) etc., in all parts of the civilized world.
EX: Imagine if med school was entirely word of mouth.
What does he mean by the “Niagara of words?” (9)
Almost continuous inundation of words.
We are constantly being surrounded by the use of words. Immersion of words in the modern world we live in Advertising campaigns, delivering a speech, writing a letter, chatting with a buddy all contribute to the immersion of words. From the moment you switch on a morning news broadcast until you fall asleep at night over a novel or in front of the television, you are, like all other people living in the modern world, immersed in words.
Language is everywhere.
Inundations of words/environment or words are all around us.
Words we are exposed to can and do affect our thoughts
you contribute to the niagara when you deliver a speech for example
What is the definition of “semantic environment?” (11)
A “semantic environment” is one in which words are used to shape prejudice, beliefs, ideals, aspirations, and constitute the moral and intellectual atmosphere in which one lives.
Whether we realize it or not, we are affected every hour of our life not only by the words we hear and use but also by our unconscious assumptions about language.
— i.e. The name Albert. His parents want to name their baby Albert, but avoid doing so because they once knew an Albert who committed suicide.
○ All these words around us are affecting our thoughts and the way we think.
— i.e. If we use a war metaphor, violent language, etc. all the time, then it makes us act more
like that.
Words, the way he/she uses them and the way he/she takes them when spoken by others largely shaped his beliefs, prejudices, ideals, and aspirations.
They constitute the moral and intellectual atmosphere in which he lives. All of these words affect us and how we behave.
- What are the basic assumptions behind the thesis of this book? (12)
- Widespread intraspecific cooperation through the use of language is the fundamental mechanism for human survival. (We need to cooperate with each other in order to survive).
- A parallel mechanism will be that when the use of language results in the creation of aggravation or disagreements or conflicts, there is something linguistically wrong with the speaker, the listener or both. (misunderstanding and cooperation is essential in survival).
- Human fitness to survive requires the ability to talk, write, listen, and read in ways that increase the chances for you and fellow members of the species to survive together.
- What are the definitions of “signal reaction” and “symbol reaction?” How are they different? Why is this important? (14)
Signal reaction: a complete and invariable reaction that occurs whether or not the conditions warrant.
— Eg: “red light is stop,” which chimpanzee understands. To chimpanzee, the red light is a signal.
Symbol reaction: a delayed reaction, conditional upon the circumstances.
— Eg “red light stands for stop,” which only the human being understands. To the human being the red light is a symbol.
Human beings, because they can understand certain things to stand for other things, have developed what we shall term the symbolic process.
- The symbolic process permeates human life at the most savage, as well as the most civilized levels.
DIFFERENT – The animal nervous system is only capable of signal reactions. It identifies the signal with the thing for which the signal stands.
- The human nervous system, working under normal conditions, understands no necessary connection between the symbol and that for which the symbol stands.
Because they can understand certain things to stand for other things, humans have developed the symbolic process. Whenever two or more human beings can communicate with each other, they can by agreement, make anything stand for anything.
IMPORTANT – It is important because to understand the symbolic process is to be able to use to one’s advantage, not to understand it is to remain forever it’s victim.
- What is the relationship between symbols and the things symbolized? (16+)
There is no necessary connection between symbols and the thing symbolized.
There seems to be some people who never seem to realize that a film is a set of symbolic, fictional representations.
An actor is one who symbolizes other people, real or imaginative. The habitual confusion of words is serious enough in all levels of culture to provide a perennial human problem.
The symbol IS NOT the thing symbolized
The map IS NOT the territory
The word IS NOT the thing
- What is Korzybski’s “dictum” regarding the relationship between symbols and the things symbolized? (20)
The verbal world ought to stand in relation to the extensional (external outside of our head) world, like a map represents a territory.
Maps=symbolic representations of a territory. Territories are the concrete space.
● Verbal (intensional world) Report Map
● Extensional World Experience Territory
It is crucial for the verbal world and the extensional world to be relatively the same so that there wouldn’t be a shock to the person coming across the extensional world after the verbal world was taught.
False maps in our head - 13th floor of hotels, planning life based on astrological predictions (leads to living in a verbal world that is very different than the extensional world, can be dangerous)
- How do we get false maps in our head? (21)
There are 3 ways of getting false maps of the world into our heads .
(1) by having them given to us,
(2) by making them up ourselves by misreading true maps (3) by constructing them ourselves by misreading territories
The analogy of verbal worlds to maps is an important one which will be referred to frequently throughout the book.
i.e. Virginia Hamilton’s baby example. Her mother gave a great illustration about birth and nothing on the negative side.
By means of imaginary or false reports or by false inferences from good reports or by mere rhetorical exercises, we can manufacture at will, with language, “maps” that have no reference to the extensional world.
Territories are real, maps are symbols.
- What are the definitions and differences of reports, inferences, and judgments? (24-26)
Reports are based on facts and are verifiable.
- i.e. Jack said he didn’t have the car keys, but later, when he pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, the keys fell out.
1. Verifiable
2. Exclude inferences and judgement
— “the language of reports, then, including the more precise reports of science, is ‘map’ language, and because it gives us reasonably accurate representations of the ‘territory’ it enables us to get work done.”
Inferences are statements about the unknown based on the known.
Inferences are statements about matters that are not directly known, made on the basis of what has been observed. The quality of inference is directly related to the quality of the report or observations from which it stems and to the abilities of the one making the inference.
– i.e. “He’s afraid of women” this statement does not report; it draws an inference from some set of observable data. “he blushes and stammers when he sees women”;
Judgments expressions of the speaker’s approval or disapproval of the occurrences, persons, or objects he is describing.
— i.e. “Jack lied to us” vs what is above in reports
Language of reports – is known as science at its highest development. Highest development = greatest general usefulness.
- “Map language.” Gives us reasonably accurate representations of the “territory” so it enables us to get work done. Dull or uninteresting reading. Could not get along without them. There are many occasions in our daily talking and writing that require that we state things in such a way that everybody will agree with our formulation.
Language of Inference: Reports are foundations, but inferences form the main body of science (Extremely important). Inferences may be carefully or carelessly made. May be made on basis of a broad background of previous experience with the subject matter or with no experience at all.
- Why do judgments stop thought? (27)
Because they are conclusions.
They are conclusions evaluating a number of previously observed facts.
Many students have difficulty writing papers of the required length because their ideas give out after a paragraph or two. Often, the reason is that those early paragraphs contain so many judgments that there is little left to be said.
Premature judgment often prevents us from seeing what is directly in front of us.
- How are dictionaries created? (3435)
Dictionaries are created from records of documentary.
The writer of a dictionary is a historian, not a lawgiver.
- In choosing our words when we speak or write, we can be guided by the historical record afforded us by the dictionary, but we cannot be bound by it, because new situations, new experiences, new inventions, new feelings, are always compelling us to give new uses to old words.
- A vast majority of text must be read in order to write the dictionary.
- It is not the “meaning of words,” but rather records.
- Reading vast amounts of the literature of the period or subject that the dictionary is to cover. The context of each word is collected along with the word itself.
- Editors cannot be influenced by an idea of what a given word ought to mean, but must work according to what the collected quotations reveal about the word.
- The writing of a dictionary, therefore, is not a task of setting up authoritative statements about the “true meanings” of words, but a task of recording, to the best of one’s ability, what various words have meant to authors in the distant or immediate past.
- What’s the difference between verbal contexts and physical contexts? (35)
Verbal context is understanding a word in relation to others with which it appears.
- Verbal: arriving at a workable definition by understanding one word in relation to the others with which it appears. but we also learn by physical and social contexts. Children almost always learn by physical and social context.
Verbal: Read it to me in a sentence. Can’t know what the word means unless we know the surroundings of the word.
— Ex:) “You shouldn’t treat a secretary (person in the role of) like a secretary (lowlife in society).”
Physical: Shape the meaning. The way dictionary writers arrive at definitions is merely the systematization of the way we all learn the meanings of word, beginning at infancy and continuing for the rest of our lives i.e. It’s cold in here. (Golf example: “that’s a bad slice” everytime you hit straight, infer without ever being told what it means).
- i.e. Virginia’s uncle likes women and tries to get them to his house, so he told them that he is a great cook. “Butter the bottom of the pan.”
- What’s the “one-word, one meaning” fallacy?
You cannot know what a word means before it is uttered
- “To remedy this condition, they are likely to suggest that we should all agree on
one meaning for each word and use it only with that meaning.”
-“No word ever has exactly the same meaning twice.”
One word, one meaning fallacy; no 2 contexts are ever alike; you shouldn’t treat a secretary like a secretary.
Because no 2 contexts are ever the same, then you don’t know what the words mean until they are uttered.
- It’s a false way of thinking that we could ever have 1 word with 1 meaning.
- Context is everything. The meaning isn’t going to transfer until it’s been delivered in a situation.
Ex. I believe in you. (I have confidence in you)
I believe in democracy. (I accept the principles implied by the term democracy)
I believe in Santa Claus. (It is my opinion that Santa Claus exists)
—–> Definitions are not static.
- What are the definitions and differences of extensional, denotative, and intentional meanings? (36-38)
Extensional meanings refer to actual places/objects (physical world). The extensional meaning of dog can’t be pointed to if there are no dogs about, but the word “dog” denotes a class of animals which includes dog 1 (Fido), dog 2 (Rex), etc. - When utterances have extensional meanings, discussion ended and agreement reached. → ex: cover your mouth and point... - An extensional meaning is something that can’t be expressed in words because it is that which the word stands for—it is the territory, rather than the map
Denotative meanings as long as we are discussing meanings, we shall refer to that which is being talked about as the denotation of the utterance. We may not be able to point to the city of Winnipeg each time we speak of it, but the denotation of the word “Winnipeg” can be understood as the city of that name in southern Manitoba.
Intensional meaning of a word or expression is that which is suggested (connotated) inside one’s head. Whenever we express the meaning of words by uttering other words, we are giving connotations or intensional meaning.
The important difference between extensional and intensional meanings, when utterances have extensional meanings, discussions can be ended and agreement reached; When utterances have intensional meanings only and no extensional meaning, arguments often go on indefinitely and can only result in conflict; they may break up friendships, split the organization into bitterly opposed groups, etc.. “nonsense argument”.
-i.e. When I say the word “Kettle” its intensional meaning to me are the common characteristics of all kettles I remember. When Peter says the word “Kettle”, however, its intensional meanings to him are the common characteristic HE remembers. No matter how small or how negligible the differences may be between MY kettle and Peter’s kettle, there is some difference.
22.What is “verbal taboo?” (46)
In every language there seems to be certain “unmentionables” – words of such strong affective connotations that they cannot be used in polite discourse. In English, these words deal with exertion, autonomy, and sex. They produce serious problems, since they may prevent frank discussion of sexual or physical matters. We also have issues talking about death, and it’s bad taste to inquire about someone’s financial affairs.
● Certain topics that you do not discuss in social settings
● Substitute to a nicer word → “I need to go piss” to “I need to go to the restroom”
● Euphemisms are used to replace undesirable language with politeness, but
this can restrain the original meaning
● This social norm can discourage free speech and inhibit critical thinking
○ ie. difficulty for scientists to talk about AIDS
- What are the definitions and differences of informative connotation and affective connotation? (43-45)
Informative connotation: socially agreed upon “impersonal meanings”, insofar that meanings can be given at all by additional words. Informative connotations may include both the definition of a term (“pig” as a “domesticated mammalian…”) and its denotation (pig1, pig2, pig3…). But some terms have a definition, yet lack denotations: for example a “mermaid” exists by definition only (“a creature half woman and half fish”). The term has no denotative because an extensional mermaid is not to be found.
Ex. We agree a pig is an animal.
Affective connotation: the aura of personal feelings it arouses, as for example “pig”: “Ugh! Dirty, evil, smelling creatures, wallowing in filthy sties.” While there is no necessary agreement about these feelings – some people like pigs while others don’t – it is the existence of these feeling that enable us to use words, under certain circumstances, for their affective connotations alone, without regard for their informative connotations. We angrily call people pigs, rats, wolves, skunks or lovely call them honey, sugar, and sweetie pie. Almost all verbal expressions of feeling make use, to some extent, of affective connotations of words. (Example – different words we can use to refer to a guy – gentleman, fellow, person, gent, man – each of these terms reveals our feelings toward him.)
idiosyncratic and subjective
Ex: The word pig reminds us of dirt and filth.
