My Diary: Word & Culture

WORD AND CULTURE

Whorf

   The claim that the structure of a language influence how its speaker how its speaker view the world is today most usually associated with the linguist sapir and his student whorf, a chemical engineer by training, a fire prevention engineer by vocation and a linguist by avocation.

Kinship

    One intrestin way in which people use language in daily living is to refer to various kinds of kin. There is considerable literature on kinship terminology, describing how people in various parts of the world refer to relative by blood and marrriage. Kinshp systems are a universal feature of language.

Taxonomies

    A folk taxonomy is a way of classifying a certain part of reality so that it makes some kind of sense to those who have to deal with it.

Color

    Our world is a world of color but the amount of color varies from place to place and time to time. Except to those linded to it, color is all around but it is not everywhere treated in the same way.

Prototype

    A “Bird” is not best defined by reference to a set of features that refer to such matters as wings, warm – bloodedness and egglaying characteristics, but rather by reference to typical instances, so that a “prototypical bird” is something more like a robin than it is like a toucan, penguin, ostrich or even eagle. This is the theory of prototypes.

Taboo and Euphemism

     This chapter is about “meaning”, specifically about how cultural meanings are expressed in language. but language is used to avoid saying certain things as well as to express them. Certain things are not mentioned, not because they cannot be, but because “people do not talk about those things” or if those things are talked, they talk about in very roundabout ways.