Cellar Door

i’ve just completed my first year of my undergrad degree in linguistics. looking back on this year i’ve realised just how much of an impact my studies have had on my every day interactions. particularly the influence of being introduced to linguistic relativity for the first time.

i’ve found myself constantly questioning every action i take, every word i utter, every notion i hold to be true (i imagine this is quite how alan davies began to feel after the first few seasons of QI).

clearly linguistic relativity has its limitations, as do most theories of this nature, but it also has some undeniably fascinating points to make. just how much of ourselves are a result of everything that has come before us? if we can not even take for granted things like the link between literacy and critical thinking skills, as shown by the Vai Project, then how can we ever truly separate thought from language? obviously the development of new brain mapping technology and other such things will hopefully bring us some understanding but it is still infinitely puzzling. 

i’m only starting out in this, so i don’t doubt that i am yet to fully understand it. but already my mind is blown. and it is really starting to change the way i look at society. i could stick a plato’s cave reference in here but that would be a bit wanky. oops i guess i just did. what i should really say is i can’t wait for next semester!

p.s. so everybody knows (or should know) the classic fry and laurie language sketch…..http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=hHQ2756cyD8

but today i discovered an oldish blog entry stephen fry has written in which he discusses the very same issues he was making fun of! at some points he uses lines verbatim from the sketch. he does admit to the irony in this situation but nevertheless it is still quite funny and a great piece of writing, as always.

http://www.stephenfry.com/2008/11/04/dont-mind-your-language…/