Re: some joint activity re contextless reading?

Angel Lin (ENANGEL who-is-at cityu.edu.hk)
Tue, 30 Mar 1999 16:18:12 +0800

Yes, Ken, and this reminds me of what Karen Ogulnick says in her 1998 book
(New York: SUNY Press): Onna Rashiku (Like a Woman): The diary of a
langauge learner in Japan. : "To learn a language is to fit into a diferent
social structure.". In the case of Karen, the gendered hirarchy
encoded/embodied/embedded in the language she's learning is what she tries
to engage in cultural resistance to, as a foreign language learner.
Language, as embodied social structure, is through and through a site of
both oppression and resistance, whether based on gender, class, or ethnic,
sexual orientational differences.
Angel

At 11:12 PM 3/27/99 -0700, you wrote:
>While whorf felt that language shaped thought to the social
>perspectives, I think that language develops to express cultural views.
>It is not so much that thought is different in different languages but
>rather language results from different social- and personal- ways of
>thinking.
>Ken Goodman
>--
>Kenneth S. Goodman, Professor, Language, Reading & Culture
>504 College of Education, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
> fax 520 7456895 phone 520 6217868
>
>These are mean times- and in the mean time
>We need to Learn to Live Under Water
>
>
***************************************************************
Angel Lin, Ph.D.(Toronto)
Assistant Professor
Department of English
City University of Hong Kong
Tat Chee Ave., Kowloon
Hong Kong
Fax: (852) 2788-8894
Phone: (852) 2788-8122
E-Mail: enangel who-is-at cityu.edu.hk