weblogs and critical thinking
A few years back I got out on the web and realized that some expatriates had started weblogs and were doing some very interesting discussions on the nature of teaching and language. This is what I should be doing, I thought at the time, though it took me a few years to first start a weblog, then begin thinking these things out. One of the threads that got me started was this one on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and the Korean honorific system. It's interesting...something I've mulled over since the days that I learned Korean and the days that I first heard about the S-W H.From this I've learned: old weblog threads get lost easily; this one was hard to dredge up, and I hope it stays. Second: discussions of the S-W H bring up all kinds of facts: that Hopi has no past, present or future; that Japanese has no word for water, only words for hot water and cold water; that in Hopi words for thunder and lightning are verbs, not nouns (this I remember from graduate school, but haven't run across on this round). More research follows. The question really is: how powerful is language in shaping our perceptions or the way we experience reality? Good question, why did I stop asking it?
The fact is, weblogs tend to keep such things alive. And more. More about this also to come.
posted by tom @ 10:05 PM
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