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Language Limitations
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Ahab Offline
Machine Gnome

Posts: 996
Joined: Mar 2007
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Given 25 thank(s) in 17 post(s)
Post: #8
Re: Language Limitations

Meanings are subjective. Were we just universal in meanings, language would be a terribly unamusing field, and there would be no variation, no dialects or languages but one unless language acquisition and creation is innate if one doesn't exist. There is no language which will fit your meanings exactly, but it's the general idea of the word (and context) that counts relative to the meaning. So, does language limit itself by meaning? No, it just varies, really. The communication is inhibited, but language remains the same (ie language extinction, you might only have one person speaking the language anymore, but it's still language until they die, even if they haven't spoken it in ten years or only use it when talking to themself.)

So take "queer." Queer is a variation on the theme weird, and has in modern English taken on to have a general idea attached that something with the same sex is involved. So if you call me queer, I might filter it down to a point. I, not taking any offense to the word or any distinct meaning beyond attraction to the same sex or weirdness, would probably attach the meaning as "okay, so he's trying to call me either gay(jokingly), gay (with ambiguity), gay (generally), or faggot."

Those conditions alone make it complicated what you are communicating, but when we speak the same language with fluency we are not inhibited, we are rather helped. Telling by your intonation, by the context, etc., I can draw a conclusion that you are saying one of the four, and then by that see if one of those four have any additional context I might draw. This is all part of language to such a degree to help keep us somewhat on the same track.

Now, that additional context is where communication draws a blank. This is where the slightest change will make it come out different from your brain to my brain, and that slightest change is what causes this so called limitation. Really, it has more to do with neurology than linguistics. The slightest change can make the difference everytime, but language isn't destroyed, because if I said the same thing to myself, I'd be fine, I'd get the language. It's the communication of meanings aspect that proves difficult.

"If you think you know what the hell is going on, you're probably full of shit." - Robert Anton Wilson
08-02-2008 04:20 PM
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Messages In This Thread
Language Limitations - Happy Camper - 07-27-2008, 04:47 PM
Re: Language Limitations - AWOL - 07-27-2008, 07:16 PM
Re: Language Limitations - croush - 08-01-2008, 08:55 AM
Re: Language Limitations - Michio-kun - 08-01-2008, 11:40 PM
Re: Language Limitations - croush - 08-02-2008, 03:50 AM
Re: Language Limitations - Happy Camper - 08-02-2008, 05:00 AM
Re: Language Limitations - cryptevah72 - 08-02-2008, 08:27 AM
Re: Language Limitations - Ahab - 08-02-2008 04:20 PM

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