Class 4/2/09

Tonight we discussed topics related to pragmatics.  I thought our small group had a particularly difficult time with our assigned task.  We kept going back and forth about whether information was new or given, and also got very stuck on which constituent the pronoun "it" was referring to in the sentence, "It was interesting to me because I know lots of gay people, and I know lots of famous people, but I had never known anyone who was famous and gay and struggling with what to do about it."  I guess it's good that we discovered we didn't totally understand the concept, because then Esther was able to explain it to us.  That was probably her intention all along, for us to muddle through the concepts and enhance (or correct) our learning.

It's better to sort out the issues now so that when we analyze our language samples we aren't full of misconceptions!

At the end of class she (or Kurt?) opened a big can of worms by asking the question, "Why do we analyze language?" or "Why do we study linguistics?" or something along those lines.  Seeing everyone's attempts to answer that question, along with the big picture that the video provided, made me really think about the huge scope of the field of linguistics.  I used to toss around the idea of minoring in linguistics, but wasn't sure what I'd do with that knowledge or what the point would really be (besides enjoying it!).  I'm understanding more and more that language is like a window into our brains, and we really have very little other recordable, systematic information to study.  

Sooo... if the possibilities of language are infinite and offer complete creativity, then logically we will never ever actually understand the brain.  It's fascinating and useful to study linguistics, but there will always be more information available than we are capable of studying.  If there is infinite possibility in language, then our brains in theory have infinite capacity to create.  Cognitive psychologists and linguists might as well give up now.  ;)  I'm kidding!

"Because we do not understand the brain very well we are constantly tempted to use the latest technology as a model for trying to understand it. In my childhood we were always assured that the brain was a telephone switchboard. ('What else could it be?') I was amused to see that Sherrington, the great British neuroscientist, thought that the brain worked like a telegraph system. Freud often compared the brain to hydraulic and electro-magnetic systems. Leibniz compared it to a mill, and I am told some of the ancient Greeks thought the brain functions like a catapult. At present, obviously, the metaphor is the digital computer."  

- John R. Searle