Re: [Phys-l] Fuzzy language

[brian whatcott <betwys1@sbcglobal.net>]

 On 7/28/2010 6:46 PM, John Clement wrote:
> Since I commented about how being vague or using inappropriate language is a
> sign of confusion, I just got this article.  It actually confirms my
> observation.
                     *
I was tempted to make some slighting reference to this leading sentence, 
then I thought again about casting stones.
                     *
> /snip/
> Lost in Translation
> New cognitive research suggests that language profoundly influences the way
> people see the world; a different sense of blame in Japanese and Spanish
>
> Do the languages we speak shape the way we think? Do they merely express
> thoughts, or do the structures in languages (without our knowledge or
> consent) shape the very thoughts we wish to express?
>
> Take "Humpty Dumpty sat on a..." Even this snippet of a nursery rhyme
> reveals how much languages can differ from one another. In English, we have
> to mark the verb for tense; in this case, we say "sat" rather than "sit." In
> Indonesian you need not (in fact, you can't) change the verb to mark tense.
> In Russian, you would have to mark tense and also gender, changing the verb
> if Mrs. Dumpty did the sitting. You would also have to decide if the sitting
> event was completed or not. If our ovoid hero sat on the wall for the entire
> time he was meant to, it would be a different form of the verb than if, say,
> he had a great fall.
>
> In Turkish, you would have to include in the verb how you acquired this
> information. For example, if you saw the chubby fellow on the wall with your
> own eyes, you'd use one form of the verb, but if you had simply read or
> heard about it, you'd use a different form.
                                  *
   It seems to me that English can subsume these  foreign language 
forms, quite readily.
 Perhaps other languages too can be molded more to the foreign heart's 
desire?

H.D sat on a wall.                              "past perfect"
 H.D. was sitting on a wall.                       "past continuous"
If H.D were sitting on a wall, he would have...    Subjunctive"
 H.D sits on the wall and has a great fall.                "historic 
present".

Still, there is a point to be made:  just as in English there is an 
aphorism that
"people will achieve wonderful things, so long as they don't care who 
takes the credit",
I hear that there is a social mode in Japanese society that one should 
pay great attention to not losing face, nor taking part in allowing 
others to lose face: a way of doing things that includes resigning a 
senior post and its  older counterpart - ceremonial self- immolation -  
for demonstrated shameful actions.   Shame, now THERE'S a topic for 
academic research: a quality in short supply, as I sometimes think.

 I expect some other languages fall more easily into the way of 
anonymizing assertions - so that although "one" no longer falls easily 
from the American lip, "they"  serves readily for the singular pronoun 
which one prefers not to endow with gender.

Brian W