Nothing particularly interesting

Just because of an interesting point raised on a discussion forum, I thought I would post some of my notes on Condillac's ideas about the importance of sensations in human language.  A much fuller and better explanation can be found on the fantastic Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy - but for what it's worth... Like Locke, Condillac founded his ideas on language on an attempt to understand the natural state of humanity. Locke determined that human understanding was an 'empty closet' or a 'blank slate'. This means that language is something which is developed through experience, and that the formation of words can only be through convention just as Hermogenes argued. As Condillac's ideas developed throughout his career, he came to disagree with this notion. For him, the nature of human understanding was to be found in sensations. Some of these sensations arrives to us through the faculty of attention – which means that they are sensations ...

  The Divine Reason of Speech: Classical Theories of Language From the very earliest days of classical history, language was recognised as perhaps the most singularly significant factor which defined human beings as distinct from the animal kingdom.  The Greek rhetorician Isocrates (436-338 bc) argued: In most of out abilities we differ not at all from the animals; we are in fact behind many in swiftness and strength and other resources.  But because there is born in us the power to persuade each other and to show ourselves whatever we wish, we not only have escaped from living as brutes, but also by coming together have founded cities and set up laws and invented arts, and speech has helped us attain practically all of the things we have devised.  For it is speech that has made laws about justice and injustice and honor and disgrace, without which provisions we should not be able to live together.  By speech we refute the wicked and praise the good....

  I have been pondering of late my new venture into teaching Creative Writing - which I will be doing this semester. It comes at the same time that I have been expending considerable thought on how to embed employability more explicitly into the English modules which I teach, and one of the first things I have had to address is the issue of how useful a Creative Writing module will be for students? After all, the idea of Creative Writing on an English Literature and Language degree might at first seem a little incongruous. Even the images associated with 'Creative Writing' tend towards the archaic and the disconnected: Old type-writers, pencils and fountain pens scratching away on parchment-type paper.  Unlike linguistics or the theoretical and historical weight of Language and Literature, the idea of sitting around discussing our own jolly wee stories might seem a little irrelevant - like an short vacation from the critical rigours of academic study.  ...

In preparation for a class, I am here posting my lecture presentation and notes.  All comments welcome... as long as they are nice ones...

Today was my first day back in the classroom (hooray!), and despite feeling about as unprepared and disorganised as I ever have on a first week, it is certainly good to be doing 'real work' again.  Today, I was introducing a module on the philosphy of language.  This tends to be rather a fun module, because it focuses more on the ideas of a few key philosophers (Socrates, Locke, Humboldt, Russell, Davidson, Austin), and the classroom experience of thrashing ideas about is much more at the heart of both the learning and assessment process. The assessment itself for this module takes the form of a learning journal, in which students are required to effectively 'blog' each week about what they have learned.  This will hopefully mean that their work will demonstrate on-going reading, thinking and (perhaps more importantly than all) observing language at work. Since I am demanding that my students write each week about the experience, I would feel a little guilty if I di...

Loading... Language is frequently defined as being simply a form of communication – and this is true to an extent, because language is certainly a means of communication. But then there are many ways in which both humans and animals communicate. A Chimpanzee might wave its hand in such a way as to communicate irritation, or anger. A husband might leave a rose with his wife’s breakfast in order to communicate love. There are even forms of communication which humans and animals make without any conscious effort at all. As two cats approach each other, they pick up from scents, sounds and body posture whether the other cat is friendly or unfriendly. A women meeting a man for the first time might unconsciously flutter their eyelids, part her lips and fidget with her hair in a way which indicates attraction. Or a man being questioned by the police might blink rapidly and look up towards the right in a way which might suggest they are lying. In both these examples, we can see a mean...