i remember reading the article when it came out. i've briefly discussed it with the element of kirchnergross who's a linguist, but can't honestly remember the meat of what he said (i think it came down to "there are a number of different opinions on that, and it's not my area of research").
one of the knee-jerk reactions to the anomalous findings is that the researcher must think that the Pirahã people are too stupid to form a proper human grammar. the other reaction is that the Pirahã people really are stupid. another is that the researcher is stupid misunderstanding his data, and that their language actually does fit chomsky's theories....
they live in a permanent and concrete present <zen>so do we :-)</zen>
i think it's important reading for anyone who wants to write fiction about aliens. shall i pass it on to peter w? heck, i think he blew far past it in blindsight.
when i meet someone online, my entire opinion of them is formed by their facility with language. at least on sites like LJ, this is unavoidable and necessary: our entire interaction here is mediated by our use of language .html-augmented language. (well, that and our clever choice of userpics.) it might work differently on Second Life or WoW, i suppose. on WoW your opinion would be formed by how well the other performs in combat farms yak livers or whatever it is they spend so much time doing there.
how do we get an accurate impression of someone if we can't see them active in their native environment and we have already established a failure to communicate? i don't think we do. failure to communicate kinda implicitly dooms get an accurate impression. an accurate impression requires information transfer, i.e. communication. well, at least one-way communication. i guess the best answer i can come up with is to pay attention to as much information about the other as possible, and view all theories based on that information as contingent. this is difficult.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2008-12-12 01:53 pm (UTC)one of the knee-jerk reactions to the anomalous findings is that the researcher must think that the Pirahã people are too stupid to form a proper human grammar. the other reaction is that the Pirahã people really are stupid.
another is that the researcher is
stupidmisunderstanding his data, and that their language actually does fit chomsky's theories....they live in a permanent and concrete present
<zen>so do we :-)</zen>
i think it's important reading for anyone who wants to write fiction about aliens.
shall i pass it on to peter w? heck, i think he blew far past it in blindsight.
when i meet someone online, my entire opinion of them is formed by their facility with language.
at least on sites like LJ, this is unavoidable and necessary: our entire interaction here is mediated by our use of
language.html-augmented language. (well, that and our clever choice of userpics.)it might work differently on Second Life or WoW, i suppose. on WoW your opinion would be formed by how well the other
performs in combatfarms yak livers or whatever it is they spend so much time doing there.how do we get an accurate impression of someone if we can't see them active in their native environment and we have already established a failure to communicate?
i don't think we do. failure to communicate kinda implicitly dooms get an accurate impression. an accurate impression requires information transfer, i.e. communication. well, at least one-way communication. i guess the best answer i can come up with is to pay attention to as much information about the other as possible, and view all theories based on that information as contingent. this is difficult.