Home » Opinion » Book review
The mysteries of words and their multiple meanings
By Wan Lixin |
September 5, 2009, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
TO speak in our native tongue seems such an effortless competence that few of us realize that understanding exactly how we speak is still giving researchers headaches.
Issues like children's language acquisition, the relationship between language and reality -- the fact that your concept is a shaper of your perception of the world -- should appeal to academics and laymen alike.
These are some of the considerations addressed by "The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature," by Steven Pinker, who teaches psychology at Harvard University.
For centuries philosophers, psychologists and linguists have been speculating on the nature of language, though the multiplicity of explanations they have come up with probably hint more at the futility of such effort.
How children learn to speak is a telling point.
In an apparently very short time, without any formal instruction, children manage to speak their native tongue with a proficiency that is forever beyond reach of adult learners.
It seems that the children are endowed with an uncanny capacity to internalize and update their language system.
This is a marvelous process given children's limited exposure to the living language and their seeming lack of discipline.
One highly influential theory holds that the human brain has a built-in mechanism for language and other foundational ideas.
This is very close to the view held by uneducated Chinese villagers that adeptness in words is somehow "innately prearranged," or "divinely inspired."
And this perception leads to another equally intriguing debate: Do concepts come from reality, or are they imposed on our experience?
In this aspect the most influential observation still comes from Immanuel Kant, who argued that concepts originate in the human mind, and that people use these concepts to impose organization onto a fluid, complex reality.
"It is sometimes humbling to think that the foundations of common sense are just the design specs of one of our organs," the book observes.
Journalists often pride themselves on their "objective, unbiased" reportage, but how can this be possible when the very concepts you use can be evocative of some associations peculiar to your own experience?
Any mainland Chinese today under age 50, who have grown up with standard textbooks, would automatically associate "science" with "progress" and "religion" with "superstition" or "spiritual opium," since school days.
Are these associations revealed to us, or imposed on us?
How do we understand Albert Einstein's statements, "There is a religious motive for doing science," and "I am a deeply religious man"?
Instances are many where our perception of the reality is determined or heavily tinged by the concept we entertain.
For most of us, the term "grave robber" conjures an image disgusting and macabre, while a grave-robbing "archeologist" is considered to be plying a noble trade.
Does it occur to us that sometimes the distinction can be suspect?
First, grave-robbing archeologists acknowledge that they have learned a lot from grave robbers in terms of methodology.
Second, while a grave robber as a rule shows little interest in the remains entombed, an archeologist usually subject the remains to a thorough examination before showing them off as an exhibit.
An observer may say a grave robber is motivated by need for a livelihood, while an archeologist is merely curious. But decades ago I learned that archeology has become highly profitable.
To carry our argument further, if we suppress archeology and there is no longer academic curiosity about what are contained in tombs of our ancestors, will there be still so many grave robbers?
This illustrates that the concept in our brain often serves as a label that can be misleading and confounding.
But this book has avoided such dismal thoughts by trying to strike a lighter tone.
For instance it observes that expressing obscenities can be cathartic, and that we sometimes deliberately avoid saying something because it is too risky.
"Say a woman has just declined a man's invitation to see his etchings. She knows ... that she has turned down an invitation for sex. And he knows that she has turned down the invitation. But does he know that she knows that he knows? And does she know that he knows that she knows?"
Issues like children's language acquisition, the relationship between language and reality -- the fact that your concept is a shaper of your perception of the world -- should appeal to academics and laymen alike.
These are some of the considerations addressed by "The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature," by Steven Pinker, who teaches psychology at Harvard University.
For centuries philosophers, psychologists and linguists have been speculating on the nature of language, though the multiplicity of explanations they have come up with probably hint more at the futility of such effort.
How children learn to speak is a telling point.
In an apparently very short time, without any formal instruction, children manage to speak their native tongue with a proficiency that is forever beyond reach of adult learners.
It seems that the children are endowed with an uncanny capacity to internalize and update their language system.
This is a marvelous process given children's limited exposure to the living language and their seeming lack of discipline.
One highly influential theory holds that the human brain has a built-in mechanism for language and other foundational ideas.
This is very close to the view held by uneducated Chinese villagers that adeptness in words is somehow "innately prearranged," or "divinely inspired."
And this perception leads to another equally intriguing debate: Do concepts come from reality, or are they imposed on our experience?
In this aspect the most influential observation still comes from Immanuel Kant, who argued that concepts originate in the human mind, and that people use these concepts to impose organization onto a fluid, complex reality.
"It is sometimes humbling to think that the foundations of common sense are just the design specs of one of our organs," the book observes.
Journalists often pride themselves on their "objective, unbiased" reportage, but how can this be possible when the very concepts you use can be evocative of some associations peculiar to your own experience?
Any mainland Chinese today under age 50, who have grown up with standard textbooks, would automatically associate "science" with "progress" and "religion" with "superstition" or "spiritual opium," since school days.
Are these associations revealed to us, or imposed on us?
How do we understand Albert Einstein's statements, "There is a religious motive for doing science," and "I am a deeply religious man"?
Instances are many where our perception of the reality is determined or heavily tinged by the concept we entertain.
For most of us, the term "grave robber" conjures an image disgusting and macabre, while a grave-robbing "archeologist" is considered to be plying a noble trade.
Does it occur to us that sometimes the distinction can be suspect?
First, grave-robbing archeologists acknowledge that they have learned a lot from grave robbers in terms of methodology.
Second, while a grave robber as a rule shows little interest in the remains entombed, an archeologist usually subject the remains to a thorough examination before showing them off as an exhibit.
An observer may say a grave robber is motivated by need for a livelihood, while an archeologist is merely curious. But decades ago I learned that archeology has become highly profitable.
To carry our argument further, if we suppress archeology and there is no longer academic curiosity about what are contained in tombs of our ancestors, will there be still so many grave robbers?
This illustrates that the concept in our brain often serves as a label that can be misleading and confounding.
But this book has avoided such dismal thoughts by trying to strike a lighter tone.
For instance it observes that expressing obscenities can be cathartic, and that we sometimes deliberately avoid saying something because it is too risky.
"Say a woman has just declined a man's invitation to see his etchings. She knows ... that she has turned down an invitation for sex. And he knows that she has turned down the invitation. But does he know that she knows that he knows? And does she know that he knows that she knows?"
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