Personally, I think Sapir-Whorf is only applicable with any consistancy during the same childhood years that learning languages is fluid. That is, the hypothesis is it likely true: primary language use forms thought patterns. The conclusion drawn from it, that thought patterns can be altered by use of an arbitrary new language, doesn't seem to follow to me.
Is the computer term you're talking about "Context siwtching"?
Hofstadter's essay may be brilliant, but I think his goal was to inflame as a means to educate, and that attempt doesn't seem to have had much effect on me over the course of reading it several times with years in between. My objections to "gender-neutral" language are largely based on that I still find "hir/sie" to be mentally jarring, and (affectations such as "herstory" aside) that it's entirely possible to write English in a gender-neutral manner with pre-existing vocabulary and habitual care. Even example pronouns where gender doesn't matter can fairly be assigned a gender randomly or at whim, because the gender of the person in the example doesn't matter, right? The political rights and empowerment of the homemaker don't change regardless of whether "he" or "she" is used as a pronoun. I can happily accept either and read smoothly, but "sie" jumping up and down in the text yells "Look at me! I'm being neutral!" and struggles with the author's actual point for my attention.
Was it Twain who talked of Americans and English as being "two peoples divided by a common language"? I understand "Liberty is a well-armed lamb" and most of the other pithy aphorisms attributed to the US founders. They do speak to me and, I expect, that a large part of the reason that they do stems from that I am from and of the US, and comprehend (if not always agree with) the precepts and basises upon which the country was founded. I live with them, and am surrounded by them, and comprehend fully and instantly the ram-ifcations of the "well-armed lamb". Interestingly this is likely for exactly the same formative reasons that Sapir-Whorf talks about; I'm steeped in this culture, and its vocabulary has molded my thought patterns.
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regna
(no subject)
Date: 2002-10-18 09:40 am (UTC)Is the computer term you're talking about "Context siwtching"?
Hofstadter's essay may be brilliant, but I think his goal was to inflame as a means to educate, and that attempt doesn't seem to have had much effect on me over the course of reading it several times with years in between. My objections to "gender-neutral" language are largely based on that I still find "hir/sie" to be mentally jarring, and (affectations such as "herstory" aside) that it's entirely possible to write English in a gender-neutral manner with pre-existing vocabulary and habitual care. Even example pronouns where gender doesn't matter can fairly be assigned a gender randomly or at whim, because the gender of the person in the example doesn't matter, right? The political rights and empowerment of the homemaker don't change regardless of whether "he" or "she" is used as a pronoun. I can happily accept either and read smoothly, but "sie" jumping up and down in the text yells "Look at me! I'm being neutral!" and struggles with the author's actual point for my attention.
Was it Twain who talked of Americans and English as being "two peoples divided by a common language"? I understand "Liberty is a well-armed lamb" and most of the other pithy aphorisms attributed to the US founders. They do speak to me and, I expect, that a large part of the reason that they do stems from that I am from and of the US, and comprehend (if not always agree with) the precepts and basises upon which the country was founded. I live with them, and am surrounded by them, and comprehend fully and instantly the ram-ifcations of the "well-armed lamb". Interestingly this is likely for exactly the same formative reasons that Sapir-Whorf talks about; I'm steeped in this culture, and its vocabulary has molded my thought patterns.