[Chris Cherpas (980318.1528 PT)]
Bruce Nevin (980318.1807 EST) --
Yet environmental effects created by other people controlling perceptions
(the effects and the perceptions alike called language and culture) seem to
be as fixed attributes of the environment as any boulder,...
Maybe for you.
Regards,
cc
[From Bruce Nevin (980318.2227 EST)]
Chris Cherpas (980318.1528 PT)--
Bruce Nevin (980318.1807 EST) --
Yet environmental effects created by other people controlling perceptions
(the effects and the perceptions alike called language and culture) seem to
be as fixed attributes of the environment as any boulder,...Maybe for you.
What I mean by this is not e.g. the meaning of "I kicked a rock" but the
utterance, the auditory event, that you and I recognize as the words and
the sentence "I kicked a rock" as distinct from other arrangements of those
words, other words in that arrangment, other arrangments of other words,
utterances of a language other than English, vocalizations that are not in
any language, other sounds, and so on.
At any given time in a given speech community the elements of the language
of that community such as its words are discrete, arbitrary, and pre-set in
speaker and hearer, that is, repeatable. Words that are unknown, e.g.
"flarm," are recognized and repeatable as being sequences of discrete,
arbitrary, pre-set phonological elements. Repetition includes differences
that don't make a difference for users of that language (but which might
well make a difference for users of a different language). These are
observable facts, subject to Test, not subjective judgements that apply to
me and not to you.
I'm sure you meant something by your objection, but I think probably it was
based on a different interpretation of what I said.
Bruce Nevin