arndt@lymph.DEC (11/08/84)
It seems to me that there is a whole at the bottem of the bag.
I mean, does language really have THAT much control over how we think?
"Language exists to communicate whatever it can communicate. Some things
it communicates so badly that we never attempt to communicate them by words
if any other medium is available."
". . . what language can hardly do at all, and never does well, is to inform
us about complex physical shapes and movements. Hence descriptions of such
things in the ancient writers are nearly always unintelligible. Hence in
real life we never voluntarily use language for this purpose; we draw a
diagram or go through pantomimic gestures."
"Another grave limitation of language is that it cannot, like music or
gesture, do more thatn one thing at once. However the words in a great poet's
phrase interinanimate one another and strike the mind as a quasi-instantaneous
chord, yet, strickly speaking, each word must be read or heard before the next.
That way, language is unilinear as time. Hence, in narrative, the great
difficulty of presenting a very complicated change which happens suddenly.
If we do justice to the complexity, the time the reader must take over the
passage will destroy the feeling of suddenness. If we get in the suddenness
we shall not be able to get in the complexity. I am not saying thta genius
will not find its own ways of palliating this defect in the instrument; only
that the instrument is in this way defective."
"One of the most important and effective uses of language is the emotional.
It is also, of course, wholly legitimate. We do not talk only in order to
reason or to inform. We have to make love, and quarrel, to propitiate
and pardon, to rebuke, console, intercede, and arouse. The real objection
lies not against the language of emotions as such, but against language
which, being in reality emotional, masquerades - whether by plain hypocrisy or
subtler self-deceit - as being something else."
From: C.S. Lewis, STUDIES IN WORDS, Cambridge University Press, 1960.
Chapter 9 "At The Fringe Of Language, p.214-5.
Comments???????????????????
Regards,
Ken Arndtrobison@eosp1.UUCP (Tobias D. Robison) (11/09/84)
I disagree strongly wth the C.S. Lewis quote below (from ken Arndt). All arts that appeal primarily to one sense suffer to a degree from the fault Lewis describes, that one item of information is processed at a time, and the artwork is perceived serially in a sense. Almost all great artists in all media have wonderful ways of addressing this problem, so that it is not a limitation, but merely a challenge. In the specific example, the words of poems particularly tend to have multiple meanings, and to give additional meanings to other parts of the poem. Even if one focuses on the INITIAL reading of a poem (which is ridiculous), the words already read will continually change in perception as additional words are read. This is a heavy parallel activity! Other examples one might give: In writing, many authors contrive to describe a complicated sudden change obscurely, so that the reader knows he does not understand the words fully in his serial reading, but the entire complex moment may be understood suddenly when, after many pages, the whole situation falls into place. I'm sure we can all think of books where this occurs. For spectacular, but easy examples of this I would recommend the beginning (say, the first 15 pages) of either of these novels by Henry Green: - Living - Party Going In each case, he starts by partially describing the current situation in such an uncommunicative manner that the reader is all at sea. Conversation, observation, and environment just accumulate in the readers mind, awaiting elucidation. Then orientation occurs, the meaning of the opening pages hits the reader in a rush, and he is emotionally deep in the fabric of the book, having been struck by a torrent of words suddenly, in a way C.S. Lewis would have thought impossible... Painters and similar artists know that the eye perceives a picture serially. Most types of art attract the eye (not 100%, but materially) to a part of the picture, and then lead it from place to place. Many pictures are arranged so that the actual motion of the eye will be soothing or otherwise. Some pictures are arranged so that a surprise awaits the eye after part of the picture is perceived. [In Western Art, landscapes that slope down from left to right tend to be more soothing than the reverse, since Western eyes tend to read from left to right. Some pictures just lead the eye round and round through an unsettling maze, as Picasso's Guernica.] Musical compositions are heard serially. Again, if we focus on the initial hearing, musical ideas are being presented serially, with a minimum of parallelism possible. But as a composition goes on, the listener learns more about, and re-interprets, what he has heard. An obvious example would be a theme and variations, in which some of the variations emphasize constructional characteristics of the theme, and some recall the theme so the listener can rethink its impression on the basis of better understanding of its parts. These variations will be communicating in parallel (what happened before, plus the new variation itself). Three-dimensional sculptures must also be perceived over time, since they are not fully visible from one place. Mnay sculpors are aware of this and arrange that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. The quote: >"Another grave limitation of language is that it cannot, like music or >gesture, do more thatn one thing at once. However the words in a great poet's >phrase interinanimate one another and strike the mind as a quasi-instantaneous >chord, yet, strickly speaking, each word must be read or heard before the next. >That way, language is unilinear as time. Hence, in narrative, the great >difficulty of presenting a very complicated change which happens suddenly. >If we do justice to the complexity, the time the reader must take over the >passage will destroy the feeling of suddenness. If we get in the suddenness >we shall not be able to get in the complexity. I am not saying thta genius >will not find its own ways of palliating this defect in the instrument; only >that the instrument is in this way defective." > >From: C.S. Lewis, STUDIES IN WORDS, Cambridge University Press, 1960. > Chapter 9 "At The Fringe Of Language, p.214-5. > >Comments??????????????????? > >Regards, > >Ken Arndt
mark@digi-g.UUCP (Mark Mendel) (11/11/84)
arndt@lymph.DEC writes: > > ... does language really have THAT much control over how we think? > That depends on what you mean by `think'. This is one of my pet theories. At the very least, there are functional areas of the mind that perform verbal reasoning. This area maintains the continuous internal dialogue that we all experience. Most people identify this area as `I'. There are certainly non-verbal areas, too. But this is not identified as the self. Consider, as an example, reflex actions: `I jumped out of the way before I was even aware of it...'. Other non-verbal areas influence the `verbal-consciousness' with messages called `intuition'. I believe that the reason we assign such importance the the verbal consciousness is that we are social animals. The importance of our interactions with others of our ilk is so great that we tend to define ourselves as that which others can experience. Because language is the primary means of communication with others, we percieve verbal conscioussness as being terribly important. Self-awareness would not exist without the built-in social hooks. Language, however, has little effect on the non-verbal areas of the mind. A human in total isolation with no language experience could probably function quite well with no internal dialogue. Many complex tasks, which we would like to have computers emulate, are performed without language. Comments? -- Mark Mendel -- ...ihnp4!umn-cs!digi-g!mark