Language and Thought Stacy Phipps December 13, 2001 The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis has changed the way many people look at the relationship between language, thought and cultural perception of reality. It has influenced many scholars and opened up large areas of study. While many like Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf support the notion that language strongly influences thought and others argue that language does not influence thought, the evidence from research indicates that language does influence thought and perception of reality to a degree but language does not govern thought or reality. Language and Thought The relationship between language, thought and reality has occupied philosophers, linguists, anthropologists and psychologists for centuries. Our senses, conversant about particular sensible object, do convey into the mind several distinct perceptions of things according to those various ways wherein those objects affect them. 1. 2. 3. 4. Brown, Roger. 1968. Carroll, John (ed.) 1956. Chaika, Elaine. 1989.
Why Does My iPhone 4S Now Say 4G, Not 3G? Because It Is* 4G? Psh. Tell us when a software update transforms our phones into 5G devices: Then we'll be excited. Yes, you read that right. A Tuesday software update released by Apple bumped all iOS devices up to version 5.1 of the operating system. In other words, Apple has finally patented a method for upgrading the hardware of one's device over the airwaves. We kid. Much has been written about how AT&T's playing a "marketing game" with the 4G terminology, but is it really the carrier's fault that it brands non-LTE devices as "4G?" Spoiler: All of the major U.S. carriers share a little blame. When the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) released its first definition of "4G," the umbrella term included just two networking technologies: WiMax 2 and LTE-Advanced, representing two standards that could hit the ITU's "4G" speed requirements of 100 Mbps while mobile and 1 Gbps while stationary. So how did the carriers solve this dilemma? Confused?
John R. Ehrenfeld: Sustainability and the Sacred Hacking a metaphor in five steps | Metaphor Hacker - Hacking Metaphors, Frames and Other Ideas Preliminaries 1. Before you start metaphor hacking you must first accept that you don’t have a choice but to speak in some sort of a figurative fashion. 2. Once you’ve done the above, you can start hacking (or really do them at the same time). 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. But driving a metaphor forward is most often a positive experience. This process never stops. Conclusion All good hackers, engineers, journalists or even just members of a school or pub debate club have been hacking at metaphors ever since the phrase “is like” appeared in human language (and possibly even before). George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors we live by (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).Jeffrey R.
theories of metaphor Metaphors are not simply literary devices, but something active in understanding, perhaps even the very basis of language. Read this section for arguments that metaphors organize our experience, uniquely express that experience, and create convincing realities. Poetry, which uses them instinctively, is following a scientific truth. Introduction Metaphor commonly means saying one thing while intending another, making implicit comparisons between things linked by a common feature, perhaps even violating semantic rules. {1} Scientists, logicians and lawyers prefer to stress the literal meaning of words, regarding metaphor as picturesque ornament. But there is the obvious fact that language is built of dead metaphors. Metaphors are therefore active in understanding. Metaphors in Science How does science and scientific prose deal with this most obvious of facts? Linguistic Philosophy Can metaphors be paraphrased in literal terms? Not everyone agrees. Lakoff and Johnson Evidence of Psychology 1.
Should we stop calling people 'overweight'? 30 May 2012Last updated at 12:14 ET By Vanessa Barford BBC News Magazine An MPs' report on body image has advocated the use of "weight-neutral language". So should we stop calling people "overweight"? There are many people who would agree that using the term "fat" to somebody's face is neither helpful or pleasant. But there's a growing movement to get doctors and other public health professionals to stop using words such as "overweight" and "obese" as well. MPs think the terms have a negative impact on body image and self-esteem, and want doctors to promote broader health and lifestyle messages instead. The idea has been gaining momentum for a while. And in March, draft guidance issued by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence said those who were obese should merely be encouraged to get down to a "healthier weight". But not everyone agrees. Somebody with a BMI of 30 or more is classed as obese So does weight terminology need a rethink? Continue reading the main story
New metaphors for sustainability: nine so far « The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts This post comes to you from Ashden Directory From the ‘iron curtain’ to the ‘glass ceiling’, metaphors are one of the most powerful ways in which we frame the way we think. Yet one of the key concepts in environmentalism – sustainability – seems to be remarkably short of vivid metaphors. So we asked some artists, writers, architects, cultural commentators, environmentalists, activists and scientists to come up with their own metaphors for sustainability. We’ve published nine new metaphors so far. More to follow. Watch a film about four of the new metaphors. Please suggest metaphors of your own. “ashdenizen blog and twitter are consistently among the best sources for information and reflection on developments in the field of arts and climate change in the UK” (2020 Network)The editors are Robert Butler and Wallace Heim.
Words That Don’t Work | George Lakoff By George Lakoff Progressives had some fun last week with Frank Luntz, who told the Republican Governors’ Association that he was scared to death of the Occupy movement and recommended language to combat what the movement had achieved. But the progressive critics mostly just laughed, said his language wouldn’t work, and assumed that if Luntz was scared, everything was hunky-dory. Just keep on saying the words Luntz doesn’t like: capitalism, tax the rich, etc. It’s a trap. When Luntz says he is “scared to death,” he means that the Republicans who hire him are scared to death and he can profit from that fear by offering them new language. What has been learned from the brain and cognitive sciences is that words are defined by fixed frames we use in thinking, frames come in hierarchical systems, and political frames are defined in moral terms, where “morality” is very different for conservatives and progressives. But Luntz is not just addressing his remarks to Republicans. Like this:
Birdsong Not Music, After All In the Hans Christian Andersen tale "The Nightingale," a songbird melts an emperor's heart with its singing, but flies away when the ruler forces it to sing duets with a jeweled, mechanical bird that warbles only waltzes. There's a moral here, a new study suggests. Although humans have long attributed musical qualities to birdsong, cold, hard statistics show that's all an illusion. The birds we prize most for their songs sound most like the human voice, says Robert Zatorre, a cognitive neuroscientist at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who was not involved in the study. Billions of potential notes exist between the low and high notes in an octave. Unlike a piano, a human or bird is capable of making seamless transitions between notes without paying heed to any definite scale, blurring intervals willy-nilly. The study, published in this month’s issue of Animal Behavior, shows that the resemblance between a nightingale wren's song and music is nothing more than a coincidence.
One Per Cent: Pictionary-playing computer deciphers your sketches Hal Hodson, technology reporter Next time you're stuck for someone to play Pictionary with, don't despair. Now you can always get a game against a computer and, reassuringly, you'll probably win. Sketching is something nearly any human can do, even if we use inaccurate representations like outsized ears on rabbits, or stick figures to simplify complex objects. Now machines can play too, after researchers from the Berlin Institute of Technology in Germany and Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, trained a computer to recognise human sketches. Humans easily outplayed the trained computer on a database of 20,000 sketches from 250 different categories, placing 73 per cent of all sketches correctly. The researchers' iPhone app, tested out in the New Scientist office, works about as well as our limited touchscreen drawing skills allowed. The paper was presented at the recent SIGGRAPH conference in Los Angeles.
Metaphor Introduction Examples of metaphors Common types of metaphors Uncommon types of metaphors Misc Metaphors Metaphorical Thinking Metaphors and business Metaphors and the creative process Metaphorical Thinking Summary Creativity tools | Metaphor | Analogy | Shifting Paradigms Introduction A metaphor is an analogy between two objects or ideas, conveyed by the use of a word instead of another and also denotes rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via association, comparison, and resemblance such as antithesis, hyperbole, metonymy, and simile; all are species of metaphor: Synectics - creates connections by making the unfamiliar seem familiar and vice-versa. Examples of metaphors Fuzzy logic is a term meaning the logic in a statement is intentionally left vague. Common types of metaphors A dead metaphor is one in which the sense of the transferred image is absent. An extended metaphor, establishes a principal subject (comparison) and subsidiary subjects (comparisons). Misc Metaphors Links.
Edward de Bono Edward de Bono (born 19 May 1933) is a Maltese physician, author, inventor and consultant. He originated the term lateral thinking,[citation needed] wrote the book Six Thinking Hats and is a proponent of the deliberate teaching of thinking as a subject in schools. Biography[edit] Professor de Bono has held faculty appointments at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, London and Harvard.[1] He is a professor at Malta, Pretoria, Central England and Dublin City University. He has written 57 books with translations into 34 languages.[1] He has taught his thinking methods to government agencies, corporate clients, organizations and individuals, privately or publicly in group sessions. In 1995, he created the futuristic documentary film, 2040: Possibilities by Edward de Bono, depicting a lecture to an audience of viewers released from a cryogenic freeze for contemporary society in the year 2040.[1] Ideas[edit] Critiques[edit] In the Handbook of Creativity, Robert J. Published works[edit]