These discussions about language really have been so interesting to me. I never though of language to be such an important part of a system but I do have to agree language shapes our world and culture with different symbols and sounds. The colour example a lone is quite intriguing to think about especially when you see other cultures catergorizing colours we know differently.
These discussions actually remind me of my friend who is colour blind. Alot of the times I am interested in what he sees so I will point out a colour (which to most of us would call red) and he would say he sees blue, but I used to say to him how did he know what blue really looked like if he didn't ever see it, I couldn't understand how he could catergorize colours if he never really saw them. But then I thought what is blue to anyone for that matter? Really I only know blue as a certain color because of the culture I was brought up in and how I was taught. So now these discussions even further bring out that point that blue is a word that we used to symbolize a colour and this is why language is so important and helps shape who we become. Symbols is what we use to attach a meaning to everything, it is symbols and words that define our relationships. The sociology book I am currently reading actually quotes "without symbols, our social life would be no more sophistacted than that of animals".
Is the fact that in the Italian language they call what we would call soccer they call "football" another example that follows this topic about language? Even though I know we said language is not just talking about ( italian,french, latin,etc.) I just was wondering if this is the same concept.
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I think the sociology book you quote makes an interesting distinction; it is concerned with what criteria can be used to establish "the human." Similarly, Freud is interested in human beings as social subjects: entities born into complicated social relations which precede them and which are "bigger" than they are. In order to be counted as a functioning social subject, human beings have to quickly negotiate their place in things. How they do this and what the consequences of it are, is at the heart of psychoanalysis.
ReplyDeleteNow, for our purposes, we will be starting to look at how Freud analyzes things, his stance as a reader, and what his methods offer us as readers.