Fascinating concepts... This is why the fact that Russian has two different words for blue (light blue and dark blue) is so interesting. So these Russian words occupy two points quite close to each other in the semantic space described by Professor Gärdenfors. Another example could be how Eskimos have a number of words for "snow"...
Canguro English, Thank you for bringing professor Gardenfors to your youtube blog. I liked that he show pine trees as the background of his image, it showed a dimension of nature. On that topic, I would like to understand better the metaphor dimension, it is not a concrete visual or sensory touch/sound (for the visual impaired) memory represantation but it is a byproduct of an original sensory stimuli for sure. Once the student can get the meaning of a metaphor in his target foreing language, she can enjoy the poetry of the language.
Great conversation! I really appreciate your interest in the scientific aspects of language and cognition. I myself am a big fan of Prof. Wierzbicka. For the moment I think they (her lab) have managed to identify about 70 semantic primes. They have created a minimal English on the basis of the primes. They are trying to take it out of the lab and see how it can be used by people as a practical communication tool. Wierzbicka wrote a book in the Minimal English. It is about Christianity, if anyone ever thinks about teaching their kids about the Judeo-Christian tradition, this book is a great option. Honestly I learnt myself a lot reading it. I believe the title is What do Christians believe in, or sth along these lines. Look forward to more interviews from the Canguro English and Happy New Year 2020!
In very simple terms, his theory is that we make maps of language in our minds - and the maps are mostly determined by our perceptual experience as human beings. You could think of it by imagining the map of the stars in the sky from our perspective on Earth - this is the totality of the language you know, with each star being a word, and then you connect those stars to make 'constellations'. Those constellations and connections are 3D maps and the 'shapes of language' you create in your mind. He's not saying it's something we do consciously, but rather that we have evolved to do this. That's just my simple analogy though, not his - so don't take my word for it. I have not read his book, but I am interested now, because this theory reminds me of Derrida's theory of language as a network without a center. I hope this explanation makes sense! 🙂
@@learningenglishpath8148 I think I begin to relate what you said. But, since we started learning our first language, school and social life put in our brain many colollocations words like " pay attention " " be careful, , " make an effort", " fast food", " commit suicid, " take a look", and so on...I think very early in our lives, the maps are already etablished ..the same remains when we start learning another language. Only poets create their own words. Not only the household name poets but all those who like to play with words as well as music.
@@brigittesaint-pe2604 Yes, that's right - we use the words we are given, and then we learn the maps by word-to-word association as we acquire the language. The associations can come as a result of strong collocations, as you say, as well as weak collocations, lexical families, lexical categories, false friends, etc... When I say we "make" the maps, I mean our brains make them unconsciously while we learn any language - not at all that we are creating our own words. However, I think it's worth investigating how far we can use this internal 'language mapping' system to learn a second language, which could involve some conscious manipulation of these maps/shapes either by the learners themselves or by a teacher.
@@learningenglishpath8148 .Why do simple when one can do complicated?" Why complicate matters?" . It is obvious that word collocations are integrated into us very early in our native language. Through our learning at school, in our social environment, etc....sometimes there are similarities with other languages that fit the same pattern. Sometimes we have to deal with fake friends. And there, "the maps" are no longer useful except to confuse us more...I am sorry but I find all this very intellectual.
As a singer I can tell you that when we talk about a high or low sounds it is not totally metaphorical. The treble tend to resonate in the head, the bass, in the chest and even lower. The same happens if we call the sound thin or thick. It is a quality there that we recognize.
I don't mind if you do. I agree that, in essence, all language is itself metaphorical. If you are pointing to that, I'd be happy to go deeper in the matter
Christian, thank you very much for this really interesting conversation about teaching and learning foreing languages, and this really interesting exercise of listenning English. And, as the teacher says, the only way to learn to speak a language is, well, speak that language. And another time, thanks.
Very interesting things were said about sound. Then in the Ukrainian language, the metaphor of sound will be like a ball that can be increased/inflated or decreased/deflated.
I am thinking about English in this video. Language is swimming courses. breathing is just issues of our pattern of language. English has played a role on parter.
Hello Everybody I have been trying to find articles from Peter Gärdenfors who is also a famous philosopher in Sweden. I have only found English articles, just only one in French. Considering the complexity of the vocabulary used, I didn't understand nothing at all and that got on my nerves . Suddenly, I felt a little stupid but I think that his research is dedicated to an advertised audience or that calls for much more explanation. But for French who watched this video, and who want to get their head down, here is a link to an article in French. web.univ-ubs.fr/lmba/seminaire/Resume171013.html
