Reflection on the reading...

Chapter 3 of Speaking Culturally, "Cultural Dimensions of Discourse," certainly stimulated some thought on a variety of topics. In fact, anytime I come across the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis I begin to ponder its implications. How much does language truly influence our thought processes? Am I aware of phenomena for which I don't have any language? Is there anything we can do to mitigate its effects? Would we even want to do that? The questions are endless. When viewed from a sociological perspective, it almost seems like language and culture "stain" a person. They become "tainted" by their original upbringing. Much like learning a first language, absorption of the culture around us seems to happen without effort or resistance...unconsciously. Maybe we're even born with a "culture acquisition device." And later on in life, our earliest paradigm still serves as a back-drop for future evaluations and judgements, even when we'd prefer that it didn't. It seems to take a tremendous amount of determination, awareness, and diligence to do away with these early formative experiences. Even when you rebel, or join the "counter-culture" (whatever that might be), you're still influenced by those early notions of culture since that is precisely what you're rebelling against. It's not unlike learning a foreign language (as an adult -- past the critical period). You're earliest attempts always involve relating the new language to the old. Each word and concept needs to be mentally translated back into the first language. I wonder if, much like some authors have speculated that having many different words for various shades of color gives a person the opportunity to make finer distinctions, being able to speak many different languages can give you more "material," and a greater number of perspectives from which to view things.

It's funny how different languages can have a single word for a concept that might need a few sentences of words within a different tongue, and still not achieve the same effect. I encountered this firsthand on a Zen contemplation retreat known as a Sesshin. When discussing a word like the Mandarin "Tao," it means so much more than just "the way" or "the path." Entire books have been written on trying to explain such concepts in English and vice-versa.

The information on the Universal vs. Romantic paradigms of culture and language were also rather intriguing. I didn't realize that the Universal perspective was still espoused within academic circles. Those kind of black and white comparisons always amuse me, since sooner or later someone tries to bring them together into a solution that's "gray." It sort of reminds me of the old rationalism vs. empiricism debate.

It'll be interesting to find ways in which the language influences food and tastes. Since food is such an important factor within culture and language "both symbolizes and creates culture" (Johnson, 2000), there's bound to be a great deal of carryover into this course.