h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

From the foreword of 'A Mouthful of Air' by Anthony Burgess (I paraphrase, not having a copy to hand)

"This is a book about language, and primarily the English language. But before I tell you about English, I'm going to have to discuss how it differs from other languages. And in order to do this, I am going to have to teach you sufficient of the science of linguistics to be able to make comparions between different languages. I can think of no sensible place to start, so I might as well jump straight in and teach you about phonetics"

Anyway...here's a thread about Language and Linguistics. The idea is that we can range beyond the confines of the British English thread (a fine thread thoough it is).

So...where shall we start? Saussure and arbitrary signifiers? Derrida and Differance? Neurolinguistics? Eskimo words for snow?

Start with Derrida and Difference. Ani.

btw someone on the BBC Christian Topic message board came up with the term 'Schrodinger's God.' That is such a brilliant, wicked, playful, subversive, gorgeous turn of phrase. It has made my whole year. Probably my whole life. Oh! Thank you thank you thank you. Ani.

It's 'Differance' (sic).

Derrida was making a point about the primacy of the written word over the spoken (the reverse of what most would argue - that the written word is merely a graphical representation of spoken language). 'Differance' in French would be pronounced the same as 'Difference', but means something different. It's meant to have overtones of 'different', 'defered' and 'distant'.

As far as I understand it (and I by no means claim to be a Derrida expert) - It's to do with how we can perceive different, conflicting meanings in a text. But as we shift from one, we forget the other...and by the time we shift back, the first one is not quite the same because our understanding has been modified by the second one, and so on...so that meaning is always defered.

We don't always have to be so deep on this thread, by the way. Our heads might explode.

I'm not sure that Derrida, Wittgenstein et al have any practical contribution to make in understanding language, anyway. (that was another provocation)

Edward: Thank you for the clarification of 'differance.' My first response was that it might be picking up on earlier concepts of 'otherness' and 'fusion of horizons.' However, I am happy with this notion of the effects of distance.

I posted elsewhere about pluralism. That current thinking is to attempt to see the whole mountain with split-screen, pluralist intimate and immediate pov's as opposed to establishment shot, distanced, wholistic pov.

Meaning of course is one approach. Asking the question 'what does language do' opens the field up from the limits of meaning.

Thanks for the provocation, btw. I am busy on the Christian Topic Board questioning the guy who coined the phrase 'Schrodinger's God' so I may be somewhat 'differante' from this h2g2 thread for a bit.

If you want to check this ctmb conversation out, here is the link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/h2/h2.cgi?find=%3Cmod.1098282644-23578.5%40forum1.thdo.bbc.co.uk%3E#mid

Ani.

Ah! Sorry. I'ma born-again militant atheist fundamentalist. God never *was* in the box, open or closed. (But that's a topic for yet another thread)

Schrodinger's God or Fundamental Atheism? Ani.

Well that is a really nice thread on Religion & Ethics; the question is a wonderfully productive one: Can a Christian be an Atheist? or perhaps it was the other way round, can an atheist be a Christian. Makes you wonder how a Christian may reasonably be defined. I tried to write a reply but my password wouldn't work; I'll try again later.

I think it is a matter of linguistic freedom; we shouldn't have to impoverish our language by never allowing ourselves to mention religion or religious concepts just because we don't buy the T shirt.

Wot? They have a t-shirt? Where can I get one? Ani.

Recumbant Man: you need a new password and login name to post on the ctmb. Ani.

Ah. They had me foxed by showing "Recumbentman" in the name box and the right number of asterixes in the password box, as though they knew me, which they might as it was a pan-BBC identity as far as I knew. OK I'll set myelf up there all in good time.

My response to the question "Can a Christian be an atheist" was initially "of course, just as a Wittgensteinian or a Kantian could".

There are lots of leaks in this kind of question: for instance "I'm not a very good Christian, and I'm not a very good atheist either" -- what do you say to this point of view?

For the sake of political correctness:

“Eskimo” is a discriminating term. Say “Inuit” instead.


katkodl

Came here from the Brit Eng thread.
I like the idea of expanding the question of language and linguistics to a more general discussion not confined to British English.

It was a good idea to create another thread for this broader purpose so as not to clutter the Brit thread with non-Brit stuff. Like eskimoes. Or Esquimaults.

OK yeah, it's a disparaging word, but at least it ain't an English word. Or even French as the variant spelling implies. Nope it weren't white folks who came up with a racist term for the Innu. It's an injun word meaning 'eaters of raw flesh' and is common thru several indian linguistic groups from Quebec to the west coast.

Personally I think we ought to honour the injun ancestors by keeping their ethnocentric bigotry alive too. Especially since the word, when said as a matter of fact and without any injun prejudice, is a better description of all the northern peoples generally of which their are several tribes including the Innu.

~jwf~

You're quite right to pick me up on 'Eskimos'. I was carelessly quoting a familiar myth. In reality, I would, naturally, refer to the indigenous peoples of the Arctic by their own, prefered name.

On that theme....has been a developing debate on terms to describe ethnic minorities, especially those of the African diaspora. Thankfully, the N-word is now regarded with extreme distaste (in the UK, it's second only to the c-word). At first, 'negro' was the acceptable term. 'Coloured' was also acceptable, even though it was the language of Jim Crow legislation - as in the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People. Then, in the 70's, 'black' was re-colonised as a positive term: 'Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud'. More lately, 'African-American' has been prefered, reflecting the right of African-Americans at the heart of US society.

Some observations:
1) In the UK, terminology has tended to follow the political lead of the US movements. However, we are left floundering with 'African-American'. Not only is the 'American' inappropriate, but the 'African' fails to fully include both those from the former African colonies and those who see themselves as having a distinct, West Indian heritage.
2) The use of the N-word in African-American youth culture is often criticised. But can it be seen as a recolonisation, much in the same way as 'Queer' (and, indeed, 'gay', which originally refered to amle prostitutes)

Just to expand a bit on the n-word; it is of course based on the word for 'black' in Portugese and is similar to the word for 'black' in most of the Romance languages.

Portugese explorers gave the Niger River its name. Like 'eaters of flesh' this was not a value judgement just an observation of the most obvious distinguishing characteristic of the locals found there.

The country it flows through is still called Nigeria. Thankfully no one has yet suggested Nigeria should change its name to be more politically correct. The local Nigers probably had their own name for the place, but hey, the white guys were the ones drawing the maps.


~jwf~

Names of ethnic groups.

Important questions, but why open this particular can here? Is it at all a question of language and linguistics, in the sense that a useful conclusion ccould be reached from linguistic considerations?

Is it not rather a question of good and bad behaviour, good intentions perceived as bad, bad intentions disguised as good, the giving and the taking of offence, all of which will continue to go on quite regardless of the linguistic details?

It's a pity that Political Correctness got a bad name, but inevitable perhaps. Nobody ever described themselves or their actions as PC, it was invented as a term of derision. But the baby that is not to be thrown out with the bathwater is the courtesy of calling someone by the name they prefer, within reason.

'Queer' extends beyond gayness to trans, bondage, s&m and so on.

Absolutely! Simple human politeness!

But...disregarding the politics for a litlle while...I reckon that sociolinguistics is a perfectly valid topic here. So to respond to ~jwf~, yes, it would be perfectly acceptable to use the various Romance-language words for 'Black'. Nobody objects to them. Similarly, nobody is objecting to 'Niger' or 'Nigeria'.

The N-word, however, has a specific social context. It was applied to a particular slave class, and racism was pretty much deliberately established to keep this class in order (I'm reading 'A Peoples' History Of The United States' by Howard Zinn at the moment. There are some convincing arguments that racism did not exist between black slaves and white indentured servants, but was manufactured from the top when slave revolts became a problem). Anyway - in this context, the N-word is used to denote an inferior identity...hence its offence to African-Americans. It doesn't just signify 'Black'. It signifies 'Different' and 'Slave' and 'Excluded from the terms of the US constitution'. Making a taboo of it is more than meddlesome white liberalism: it is seen as grossly offensive to African-Americans themselves.

As Muhammed Ali said: "No Viet Cong ever called me [n-word]."

Yes indeed, ani. Queer and gay are overlapping but not synonymous. My point, though, was about deliberate re-colonisation of 'offensive' words.

As I'm sure Mr Recumbent knows, there's another one from Irish history: 'Tory'. (Although I personally can think of no term more offensive )

'scuse the three posts in a row. I meant to mention that there's a good article in today's Grauniad about the Whorff Hypothesis, the largely discredited idea that our language governs our thoughts:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,,1331672,00.html

I'm not sure how Sapir-Whorff fit in with Heidegger. There's certainly a quite a lot of evidence against the idea, which suggests that Heidegger may also have been mistaken in part.