English Blog 1/18/2008

Our previous readings have really made me think hard about languages in more ways than one. One key point that no one really thinks about is what is a "word." There is no easy way to give an accurate definition. Questioning every definition of a word does seem ridiculous and rather silly; however it is true that our definitions are technically not correct in a way. Neil Postman's article "The World Weavers/The World Makers" showed a different way to view words. His most influential idea to me is "abstract." Abstracting is the continuous activity of selecting, omitting, and organizing the details of reality so that we experience the world as patterned and coherent. For example, if you were to ask someone what the definition for a phone is they would probably respond with something along the lines of it being a mechanical device in order to communicate with people. However, it would not be wrong to say that a cup is made of many electrons constantly moving and undergoing change. This idea really surprised me and made me think about how everything else is like that. We really do not see the world the way it really is and that is a little freaky to think about it.
Language is interesting to me because I have a very foreign family. My mother is from France and my father is from Syria therefore i have been exposed to a couple of completely different languages and it is interesting to wonder how like people from different countries communicate with each other by putting together different sounds to form sentences and words. I often wonder how different languages started because it would not be hard to believe that there could be one language in the world. If adam and eve were the first ones to enter this world and they obviously spoke one language and their offspring had to of spoken the same language. However, you could also say that language evolved as time went on and as people lived in different regions. People even talk differently in the states in separate regions like the north and south. Southerners say stuff like yall and git 'r done while northerners speak more formally. There are many interesting things that could be learned about language in its entirety that we still have to discover.