Re: [xmca] Language, meaning and culture.

[Ivan Rosero <irosero@ucsd.edu>]

Hello Joseph,
I'm trying to follow what you are saying.  How do deaf individuals fit into
the ideas you're presenting?

Ivan



On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 8:54 PM, Joseph Gilbert <joeg4us@roadrunner.com>wrote:

> Andy, Thanks for replying.
>
> It is my understanding that the doctrine among linguists is that since
> different words are used to refer to the same things in different languages,
> there must be no absolute, universal relationship between the sounds of
> words and their "meaning", that meaning being the things to which they
> refer. Therefore, linguists generally hold that the relationship between
> sound and meaning is "arbitrary". If we look at relationship between sound
> and internal emotive state, a new panorama opens up and we see that there is
> a direct and deep relationship between sound a meaning, that meaning being
> the emotive states that vocal sounds emanate from and create. That we are
> affected by the sounds we vocally produce provides us with the raw material
> for a system of assigning meaning to things simply by naming them. We have
> nothing other than the affects on us of our words with which to collectively
> ascertain the affects on us of the things that make up our world. We feel
> the affects of our vocal sounds internally, intuitively, intimately and with
> consistency, and all of us who speak the same language share the same basic
> perception of how we are affected by the things of our world. We process
> this basic consensus world view through the lens of our own unique self
> images.
>        One can sense the affect of any vocal sound on one by vocalizing
> that sound repeatedly while sensing what emotive state/feeling state that
> sounds stimulates/suggests. Try the sound of the letter, "R",
> "rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr". Or the sound of the letter, "M", "mmmmmmmmmmmm".  Do
> these sounds conjure up/ suggest any particular state of being? Try the "A"
> sound and the the "D" sound. I went through the alphabet, from a to z when I
> first discovered this phenomena and is appeared to me that the sequence of
> sounds represented by our phonetic alphabet tells a story. I'd like to know
> if you discern a story in that sequence. If so, a story of what?
>        It may be helpful to note that before the progenitors of we humans
> used vocal sounds as words to refer to things outside of ourselves, we used
> them to convey emotional states to one another as other social and somewhat
> social species do.
>
>                Joseph Gilbert
>
>
>
> On Aug 2, 2009, at 7:59 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:
>
>  Joseph, welcome to xmca.
>>
>> I am no linguist Joseph, but I gathered from reading Saussure that
>> linguists in his day (100 years ago) did "look for relationships between
>> sounds and things" because he argued against that idea. But surely, no
>> linguist has looked at it that way in recent times. Who do you have in mind?
>> And surely the idea of sounds relating to emotive states is more relevant to
>> the animal kingdom than culture. Or am I misunderstanding you?
>>
>> Andy
>>
>> Joseph Gilbert wrote:
>>
>>>    Is our intellectual activity driven by a quest for answers to specific
>>> questions, or is it more like a game or sport we engage in for the sake of
>>> participating in society? What questions do we ask?    I wanted to know why
>>> people behave destructively, as they do. I allowed that question to exist
>>> for many years until the answer became clear. It related to culture.
>>>    When we use words, we are making a statement about whatever things we
>>> name. By referring to things vocally, we are, virtually, informing ourselves
>>> of the affect/meaning of those things. The sounds we utter correlate to
>>> emotive states, which we experience subliminally. Consequently, we associate
>>> those emotive-feeling states with the things to which the sounds refer.
>>>    Linguists have been looking for relationships between the sounds of
>>> words and the things to which they refer, and have been, for the most part,
>>> frustrated by that search. Vocal sounds relate primarily to emotive-feeling
>>> states, and only secondarily to the things to which our words refer. Are we
>>> able to discover to what emotive states each of our vocal sounds refer?
>>>    If we would change our human behavior, which is often misidentified as
>>> "human nature",  we must address the cultural values, the unquestioned
>>> givens by which we perceive our world. These givens, these values, our
>>> culture, is a result of our language.
>>>    I would like to share more of this with youall if you want to know
>>> more.
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>>
>>
>> --
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Andy Blunden (Erythrós Press and Media) http://www.erythrospress.com/
>> Orders: http://www.erythrospress.com/store/main.html#books
>>
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