"A key question is whether language influences thought or thought influences language. Both positions have been advocated. The first is known as linguistic relativity. The rival position is known as universalism. It assumes that human thought is significantly similar across all cultures - that humankind shares a certain "psychic unity" - and that since language is a reflection of human thought, all languages are significantly similar as far as their conceptual categories are concerned. In its extreme version, this position asserts that linguistic conceptualization is essentially the same in all languages. ..."
- from the beginning of chapter 6 of "Language, culture and meaning: Cross-cultural semantics. Cognitive Exploration of Language and Linguistics, written by R. Dirven and M. Verspoor.

Earlier I talked about the question of language vs. thought, and having today read this article (chapter), which we will use during this course in English translation this autumn, I have further developed my reflection on language, and specifically I have thought more about my own experience with danish vs. norwegian. I noted how I "think more freely" when I speak danish; this was very very vague. I am more comfortable with Danish than Norwegian. Also, I think Danish is a much more relaxed language than Norwegian. More slang? Is that it? Or is it just the way they talk? It's like "Hvad så?" (almost = what's up?") which is more ... personal, yet distanced, than the Norwegian "hvordan går det?" (how are things?)

The Danes are Quite different from the Norwegians, yet I am very poor in showing the differences.. Hopefully, I will be more apt at this later.

The article, which I would really like to scan and put online for others to read too, but since the work is under strong copyright, I don't think that would be seen as "fair use"... But since the article is just a chapter of a book which one could buy (I haven't found the book on Amazon tho..), and I don't want to sell the material or in other ways profit from it, I would be more bound to doing this later - perhaps. In either case, I will explain some of the terms which are used in this article.

The importance of worldview (Weltsicht).

Johann Gottfried Herder and Wilhelm von Humboldt regarded language as a prisma or grid spread over things in the world so that each language reflects a different worldview (Weltsicht). Herder and von Humboldt belonged to the German Romantic tradition, where this view on language was quite dominant. (I guess?). This perspective on language was taken to America by Franz Boas, the founder of cultural and linguistic antrhopology in the US. Boas and his students met Indians in the US and when they encountered languages like the Kwakiutl (a native American language of British Columbia), they found languages which are Very different from the European languages. An example used in this article is that in Kwakiutl one does not distinguish between one and many; as in "one stone" or "many stones". On the other hand, Kwakiutl specifies whether the stone is visible or invisible to the speaker, and so on.

All this I found extremely interesting!

Having studied philosophy earlier, I am inclined to be more interested in these, perhaps more philosophical aspects of language learning. I am afraid to say that phonetics is faar less interesting to me than these more abstract questions of, for instance, the relationship between language and thought. The article used several examples from different world languages, like French, Italian and Japanese.

Regarding the linguistic relativity (also called the "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis"), here is a small quote

We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages... We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way (...)

Dissecting nature... How do my words affect my thinking? How does our concepts help us to use the knife of thought in our dissecting? Where does the bed stop and the bedsheet start? Do we, because we have the word "bed-sheet", cut in the line between the bed and the bedsheet? If we did not have such a term as "bed-sheet", how would we then view the bed-sheet if it was lying on the floor? Would it be there? Of course it would be, a bed-sheet would not become im-material just because we didn't have a concept for it... But hmmm... trying to find a better example.. It's almost like not seeing the air/space before our nosetips. Objects and non-objects. How do we dissect?

Ethnocentrism is imposing the categories of our own language upon the description of another language. Do we often lower ourselves to ethnocentrism? Is it to be avoided, and if so, why? Personally I think (of course) we should be open-minded, and when speaking with others who have radically different ways of speaking or expressing themselves, we must take a compromising stand and try to understand some of the codes behind their language. (omg, I am rambling here...)

I see myself supporting the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis/linguistic relativity far more than the universalism stanze. I think that language DOES influence our thoughts, but of course, this is not absolute. We humans adapt, evolve, and in a growing multi-ethnic society we are (hopefully) also able to grow our vocabulary and make more flexible use of concepts from different sources.

Like Doris Lessing said:

"English is impoverished; it lacks words and concepts we need. Any writer who ha tried to describe certain processes and experiences has come up against it: the absence of words. There are ways around it -analogy is one- but the problem remains."

Doris Lessing here, of course, talks from a spiritual or artistic point of view. If she was to be an engineer or a marketing consultant, she would not have the same point at all. It's like Norwegian's two main dialects, "bokmål" and "nynorsk". While bokmål is a very good language for bureaucracy and technical terms (in my point of view), nynorsk (which is a far more rural / district-based language form) is much more poetical, almost musical. I will back up this point with examples later on.

Now, on to read some more American colonial history :)

This morning at 8 AM (having finished work at 7.15, been home to get my books, and walked to the faculty) was the introductionary lecture in Translation to English. I was quite impressed by the lecturer, she is firm, yet patient.

Two of the questions she asked us to consider today is:

What are the different views of the relationship between language and thought?

What are the different ways in which a culture is imbedded in language?

The first question could be asked like this: If I am proficient in two languages, do I then think differently when I speak the one language or the other? My girlfriend, Nicole, has cantonese (a Chinese dialect spoken mainly in Hong Kong, Macau and Canton) as her mother tongue, and English is her second language. English is, naturally, also my own second language. When we then communicate, we have Cantonese and Norwegian respectively in our innate thinking, yet we express the words in English. What is lost in the processes of translation going on there? If I am fluent in say Norwegian, English and Spanish, how would the language affect my thinking?

Having lived in Denmark for six years (aged 13-19), I can relate to this question somewhat. When I am in Denmark, talking in Danish with old friends, my thinking is much more free in one way than when I speak in Norwegian.

But how close is the link between language and thinking? This online article bluntly states that "In a human brain, the function of thinking and language is inseparable." Of course, I am not currently in a position to refute or accept that totally. I have not thought enough about this. But during this autumn semester I hope to gain more certainty of my own position (if any such develops) as I reflect more on this issue and gain knowledge of other theories out there.

The second question, What are the different ways in which a culture is imbedded in language?, is less interesting to me. Perhaps this is because to me it is obvious that culture and language are not only inseparable, but because .. for instance, I guess we have all noticed how some words or concepts in our own language simply cannot be translated to, for instance, English. Like the Norwegian word "pålegg", which is a word for whatever things you have On your bread/sandwich. Is there an English word for that? So far I have not found any.

This morning there was the information meeting about the English studies at the University. Nicole and I went there to find the room filled up almost till the last seat.

The head of the English Department's first words were something like "We are happy to see so many of you, but at the same time we must stress that we simply cannot accommodate this many students at this department! We simply do not have enough rooms or staff members!" (&etc). The rest of the meeting I sat there and thought "How patronizing! - they are treating us as elementary school pupils".., but from my experience with masses of students in an assembly, I Can understand how it is easy to fall into repeating the most important messages at least thrice.

The final words of the speaker was that to study English at the University is hard work and that it requires a full time study. And then, almost like a note of addendum, she said "Good luck!". Well, I found this meeting quite disappointing, and I still do not grasp why they were so focused on just giving warnings, pointed fingers, and talk about the system and how the reforms in higher education in Norway is making things more challenging this autumn. Personally, I agree with her tho, having worked in the student politics earlier and been heavily involved in the whole Reform process, there really will be some less smooth transitions this coming year. The Reform, nicknamed The Quality Reform by the Norwegian government, is many things, mostly an internationalisation of the Norwegian university degrees. Where we earlier had a 4-2-3 degree system (4 years Undergraduate, 2 Years Graduate/"Master", 3 years post-graduate/Doctoral), we are now entering a 3-2-3 ladder, and the first two degrees are called BAchelor and MAster. Furthermore, from this semester we will use the anglosaxon A-F letter grading system, where we earlier had a number system where 1.0 is best and 4.0 is worst possible grading before fail (4.1). Before, one differentiated for instance between 2.5 (best translated into the standard C), and 2.3, which could be something like the C+. Of course, you could also get 2.4, 2.6 and etc ad infinitum, and yes, this system was rather queer. But we will see how the letter grading system will be implemented. At least, now it IS possible to get A's, while earlier one almost NEVER gave out anything between 1.0 and 1.6 at the Arts faculty. (funny how things developed).

This Quality Reform of Higher Education is understandably creating a lot of dissatisfaction among staff members at departments at universities around Norway. The dissatisfaction is mostly connected with the fact that the government is not putting increased budgeting into the system along with the higher requirements for individual following, more seminars/groups teaching and other means which all add up to the expenses of the department. Last year the estimate was that Universities in Norway required about 25 million US$ more in order to be able to successfully transfer to this new reform. Of course, the government focused instead of saying "oh! because you save 1 year of undergraduate teaching, this should economise it all, and also you can be more effective!" or something like that. Oh well.

Anyway, I am back to University now, and I have promised myself one thing from now: No boards, no committees (not even sitting in the department Board as student representative), and no getting involved in anything besides academic matters. On the other hand, I plan to Really get involved with studies. I want to be a Student, and not just a registered student who run around at University meetings all the time... (like I did for those years).

I want to get to know the staff members at the Department, their intellectual passions and interests. And already now I want to look for possibilities of taking some months abroad during my English studies. If so, I would definitely go for UK, not the US (however much I would love to visit the US).

But argh, I gotta get back to reading William Bradford. Will write more later.

dltq

This week starts my English undergraduate studies at the University here in Bergen. I will be following three courses this autumn and two in the spring; the ones in this autumn are:

English pronunciation (15 study points)

English translation (5 study points)

American literature and culture (10 study points)

The total of these three courses is 30 study points (ECTS (sic)), which is the norm for one half-year.

I have already started reading the textbook for the American literature and culture course; to my surprise, the textbook is.. well, it looks like a book I would expect to see in a secondary school. The book is called "The Essential America" and is quite pedagogically built up, with nice color images and quizzes on the homepage... But is this a university textbook? Am I old-fashioned in my concepts about what an "university textbook" is?

I have so far read about the establishment of the American colonies, and am slowly going towards the colonies fight for independence and all that.

This autumn will be quite challenging. I will be working part time (working night shifts all nights of week 1, and having week 2 off, enabling me to focus more on my studies then), and my studies will really require a lot of work from me. Furthermore, there is the work with the International Focus magazine which I am editing. I hope to be able to not only survive this autumn, but also come up with some results which I am pleased with. I need this after my recent years of feeling inept, out of place and not in synch with myself.

I have volunteered for the Norwegian Red Cross Project Refugee Guide for some time now, and I am currently the Refugee Guide for a man from Afghanistan. He has lived here in Norway for two years now, and his biggest hope is to be able to find a job here, and be able to learn Norwegian better. It is so sad to hear the story of how he had to quit his primary school in Afghanistan due to war.. He is my age (25) and still has to go to primary school for 2-3 years before he can even start thinking about vocational training school. Oh well, I will see how I can assist him in different ways, and not only in learning Norwegian.

But alas, this autumn will be a bit more about me and my own intellectual development, and less about volunteering for x amount of organisations (as I did for years...) :)

My long term goal is to be an English-teacher in Asia, even tho I know that me not being a native English/American is Not to my advantage. Let's see where this path takes me.