[lit-ideas] Re: SOS or Charles Taylor's Sources of the Self

> [Original Message]
> From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 5/19/2006 3:48:05 AM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: SOS or Charles Taylor's Sources of the Self
>
>
> The procedures you describe might well be the beginning of teaching 
> English to those who don't know it; but they'd also be the beginning of 
> teaching words to those who do know it. That is to say, it's about what 
> one would expect in ordinary conversation between those who do and those 
> who don't know the meanings of particular English words*. What's clearly 
> missing is what I took you to be asking Taylor for, namely, a precise 
> (or 'formal') definition of anything.


Very busy but can't resist, and if I misunderstand your point, then
apologies. Teaching English, or any language, to those who don't know it,
has nothing to do with definition.  It's translation.  Everyone in every
language knows what a chair is, a dog is.  The idea is to learn how the
concepts someone already knows are expressed in another language.  The
words or concepts, unless they're unfamiliar cultural constructs or
something completely new, don't need definition.  Putting the words
together is not definition either, it poetry in its own right, looking for
the essence of what is said.  As far as Rottweiler, I as an English
speaking non-dog lover may not know what a Rottweiler (or Palamino or lots
of things) is/looks like without seeing a picture.  I'm a cat lover yet for
years I wondered what a tabby looked like.  (I'm still not sure I know what
a tabby is.)  

In any case, often words that don't exist in one language but do exist in
another language are simply transliterated from language to language
instead of coming up with new words in the target language.  Tons of French
words became English words, now tons of English words are becoming Russian
and German words.  At some point tons of Chinese words may enter English. 
None of them will need defining, only translating.  

I can't see how a meaningful conversation can take place if meanings of
words aren't clearly agreed on, whatever the language.  If you say
Rottweiler and I think it's a cat or a poodle, we wouldn't get very far,
would we?  Likewise if I say love and to me it equates to having needs met
at someone's expense and to you it equates to sitting on Cloud 9, how much
of a conversation would we have?

> ---------------
>
> *I'm pretending that 'Rottweiler' is an English word.
>


We pretend all kinds of words are English words.  





> Robert Paul
> The Night Institute
>
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