Author Archives: RobMartin

Linguistic Pragmatics and the Uselessness of Truth

The Language of Oppression: The Oath of Allegiance for New Canadian Citizens and its Implications for Teachers of the English Language

I originally wrote this as a paper for a linguistics course I took two years ago. I’ve been thinking about this issue quite a lot recently, and I was quite pleased by this essay when I read back over it. It’s a little more academic than my previous posts, and it’s specifically written from the perspective of a language teacher, but I think it gets the point across pretty clearly. I’m reproducing it here without any alterations.

A language teacher’s role is to assist their students in improving their linguistic ability so that they are free to make more and better choices in their lives. The skills that are taught in a language classroom shape the students’ lives in a very real way. Language both shapes and reflects identity. A person’s choices in life depend on their linguistic competence, and the words that people use to express themselves give huge insight into their personalities, desires and moods. Situations in which a person’s agency is taken away, situations in which that person is forced to say things that they find abhorrent, are fortunately rare, but situations of this kind do exist and they are damaging. The oath of citizenship that all new Canadian citizens are required to take is one example of this kind of situation. This oath is colonial in nature and damaging to new immigrants to Canada, both those who take it and those who abstain from taking it and remain in Canada as mere permanent residents without the right to vote or hold certain government positions. In this paper, I will discuss why this oath is damaging and why ESL teachers in Canada need to be conscious of it.

In their 2011 paper, Discordant anthems: ESL and critical citizenship education. Citizenship Education Research, Brian Morgan and Douglas Fleming argue that the ways in which ESL is currently taught to immigrants to Canada who are hoping to become citizens there is unsatisfactory. They claim that the standards that the teachers of these immigrants must work with, the Canadian Language Benchmarks, were not designed to accommodate the specific needs of these immigrants. They claim that these standards seem “to view English language learners as having rights and responsibilities that pertain almost exclusively to being good consumers. The content includes the need for learners to understand their rights and responsibilities as a “client, customer, patient and student” (p. 95), but not as workers, family members, participants in community activities, or advocates.” Instead of increasing the ESL learners’ agency as new Canadians, these standards do little more than help these immigrants fit in; ultimately, the standards serve the pre-existing Canadian social system rather than the immigrant.

I am in agreement with Morgan and Fleming’s analysis of the Canadian Language Benchmarks, but I believe that the issue of language instruction for prospective citizens to Canada is just one manifestation of a far more insidious and complicated problem. When I started reading Morgan and Fleming’s article, I was a little unsure as to what they meant by “critical citizenship”. The word citizenship has come to be used in several ways (digital citizenship, global citizenship), and I was not sure if “critical citizenship” was a technical academic term that I had not yet come across. However, it became apparent fairly quickly that the authors were not using the term citizenship in an obtuse manner; they were literally talking about Canadian citizenship. As an immigrant to Canada, I have had to familiarize myself with the Canadian citizenship process, and it is my belief, and the belief of many others, that this process is demeaning to the individuals who have to go through it. It requires new immigrants, a vulnerable group of people, to use language to compromise, undermine and sometimes negate their identities.

The Government of Canada’s official website gives a list of conditions that an individual must meet before they can apply to become a citizen of Canada. According to this website, the prospective citizen must have already received permanent residence status in Canada, have lived in Canada for a certain amount of time, and have three years records of income tax. The individual must also have a satisfactory criminal record and they must have reached level 4 of Canadian Language Benchmarks for both speaking and listening. (Given this information, Morgan and Fleming’s concern is justified. A person can not become a citizen in Canada unless they have reached level 4 of the standards that Morgan and Fleming are critiquing. Interestingly though, these authors note that “In the entire [CLB] document, there are only three references that could be considered to be associated with citizenship”, and “Further, these references to citizenship occur at the very highest levels of proficiency” (pp. 6-7). This is peculiar considering that CLB level 4 is the requirement for citizenship and that there are 12 levels in total.) However, the Canadian Government’s list of criteria for potential citizens is incomplete. There is at least one more requirement for all immigrants to Canada who wish to become citizens: the willingness to swear allegiance to the Queen.

Canada prides itself on being a multicultural and welcoming country, but it still requires its citizens to swear allegiance to the descendant of individuals for whom this land was stolen, the heads of the largest colonial empire the world has ever seen. Ena Lee, in her 2015 article Doing Culture, Doing race, writes, “liberal discourses of multiculturalism, equality and tolerance such as those prevalent in the Canadian context of multicultural diversity lull us into complacency that we have moved away from these dark pasts, but have we genuinely moved to more critically aware spaces, or have we merely languaged our way out of the shadows of the past while remaining subject to its discourses and common-sense notions?” (p. 3). Despite the national image it wishes to promote both within itself and to other countries, Canadian society is unwilling to abandon its colonial, Eurocentric traditions. Immigrants of colour, from countries around the world are still being asked to swear the following oath of subservience to a white monarch from Great Britain.

I swear (or affirm)
That I will be faithful
And bear true allegiance
To Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second
Queen of Canada
Her Heirs and Successors
And that I will faithfully observe
The laws of Canada
And fulfil my duties
As a Canadian citizen.

From Government of Canada – Oath of Citizenship

Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada’s full title is “Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of her other realms and territories” (Britannica.com). The phrase ‘by the Grace of God’ in her title implies the Divine Right of the British monarch; it implies that this person was chosen by God to rule over the United Kingdom and her other realms and territories, including Canada. New Canadian immigrants are essentially being asked to acknowledge that this woman was chosen by God to be their ruler and to swear allegiance to her. This is not bureaucratic rigmarole that the new citizen faces, it’s not just another box they have to tick off on a form; it is a solemn oath that is given during an official ceremony. It is hardly surprising that language training for prospective Canadian citizens focuses on fitting them into a box rather than preparing them to be dynamic, successful individuals when the final step of becoming a Canadian citizen is a mandatory oath of demeaning subservience.

Morgan and Fleming note that “the citizen-subject is not the autonomous, free-reasoning individual commonly depicted in liberal discourses but a form of subjectivity shaped by the dominant discourses of nationhood.”(p. 2). The new citizen is for Canada as opposed to Canada being for them, and the Citizenship Oath serves as a means of making this clear. For all of Canada’s progressiveness and multiculturalism, its immigration system still serves to maintain a certain social hierarchy. It is worth remembering that citizens born in Canada never have to take the oath. It is only for immigrants.

Leonid Sirota notes that “For some, swearing allegiance to what they regard as a person embodying inequality, colonialism, and oppression goes against their deeply-held republican or egalitarian values,”(p.1) but that some immigrants merely find the oath perplexing and bemusing and that others view taking the oath as symbolic (p. 2). So not all new citizens find the oath repulsive, but perhaps, for at least some of these immigrants, their lack of objections has something to do with their English proficiency. Remember that the Language requirement for citizenship is CLB level 4, ‘Fluent Basic Ability’. At this level the individual can “Understand, with considerable effort, simple formal and informal communication on topics of personal relevance” (CLB Standards, p. 28) and “Communicate information about common everyday activities, experiences, wants and needs” (CLB Standards, p. 64). At this proficiency level, the learner might not be able to voice their opinion on complex political and social issues in English. Also, it is worth keeping in mind the other issues that a new immigrant may be facing. Even if they find the oath objectionable, they might take it regardless, for the good of their family. As newcomers to the country, they will likely keep their complaints about that country to themselves so as not to draw unwanted attention to themselves.

As previously mentioned, the language that a person uses both reflects and shapes their identity. What does it do to a person’s self-esteem when they are forced to say something that they find morally repugnant, something that goes against values they hold dear? The United Kingdom has a complex history of colonialism, and has, throughout history, colonized countries on every habitable continent. Immigrants from these countries may have suffered directly from British Colonialism, but when they come to live in Canada, they are asked to swear allegiance to the British Crown. Also, individuals from countries that did not suffer under British colonialism may well have other political, religious and moral objections to swearing allegiance to a monarch supposedly chosen by God. All of these people are left with a choice: they can sacrifice their dignity and integrity and take the oath or they can abstain and remain in Canada only as tax-paying residents without the right to vote and hold certain government positions. There are many such residents in Canada. (Gray, 2015)

Ryuko Kubota claims that “engaging students in thinking and debating about controversial issues is educationally vital for developing critical thinking, building interpersonal skills in public discussion, and fostering morally responsible citizens in our society” (p. 7) Given then, that the Canadian citizenship procedure and the language standards that it requires are inherently unjust, discriminatory and oppressive towards new immigrants, it seems that the language instructors of potential Canadian citizens should address these issues in their classrooms. It will be valuable and empowering for one’s students to discuss a controversial issue that affects them directly. Kubota also notes that, “In a classroom, what the teacher or peers say or do not say about contentious issues might be shattering to students.” (p. 22) While the truth may be unpleasant, these students deserve to know the unsavoury details about the country they are living in. However, it is crucial to remember that the individuals coming to take language classes to attain citizenship will be primarily concerned with passing the interview portion of the citizenship procedure in which the officer decides whether or not they have sufficient English proficiency. While the conscientious instructor may want to warn the new immigrants of the problems of the system they are about to enter, doing so must be performed with extreme caution and sensitivity. The instructor’s job is still to aid the immigrants citizenship procedure, not to discourage it.

The issues with the Canadian citizenship procedures extend far beyond the control of language instructors, but the conscientious language instructor will feel compelled to address these issues in their language class. Doing so must be performed with the goal of empowering the students to use language to think critically so that they can join the battle for equity and fairness both while and after they establish themselves as a Canadian citizen. Fleming and Morgan quote Morgan and Vandrick’s claim that “the newcomer’s or outsider’s eyes and ears are alert to power in ways no longer available to habituated, domesticated insiders, who see but no longer perceive the beauty, horror and complacency around them.”(p. 3) The Canadian Citizenship Oath has been challenged in Canadian courts as unconstitutional on two occasions in the past 25 years, and both times it was brought to the attention of the court, it was done so by immigrants. (Sirota) Hopefully, by bringing this issue to the attention of more immigrants, language instructors will be able to do their bit in ridding Canada of colonialist oppression.

References

Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks. Canadian Language Benchmarks. Retrieved November 3, 2017, from http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pdf/pub/language-benchmarks.pdf

Encyclopædia Britannica. (2017, November 09). Elizabeth II. Retrieved December 05, 2017, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Elizabeth-II

Fleming, D., & Morgan, B. (2011). Discordant anthems: ESL and critical citizenship education. Citizenship Education Research, 1, 28-40.

Gray, J. (2017, March 25). Supreme Court won’t hear citizenship oath to Queen challenge. Retrieved December 05, 2017, from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/supreme-court-wont-hear-oath-to-queen-challenge/article23211504/

Immigration Canada. (2017, October 11). Find out if you’re eligible – Citizenship. Retrieved December 05, 2017, from https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/canadian-citizenship/become-canadian-citizen/eligibility.html

Immigration Canada. (2015, December 22). Oath of Citizenship. Retrieved December 05, 2017, from https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/operational-bulletins-manuals/canadian-citizenship/ceremony/oath.html

Canadian Government. (2017, April 18). What does “adequate knowledge” of English or French mean when applying for citizenship? Retrieved December 05, 2017, from http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/helpcentre/answer.asp?qnum=567&top=5

Kubota, R. (2014) “We Must Look at Both Sides”—But a Denial of Genocide Too?: Difficult Moments on Controversial Issues in the Classroom, Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 11:4, 225-251,

Lee, E. (2015). Doing culture, doing race: Everyday discourses of ‘culture’ and ‘cultural difference’ in the english as a second language classroom. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 36(1), 80-93.

Sirota, L. (2014). True allegiance: The citizenship oath and the charter. National Journal of Constitutional Law, 33(2), 137.

The Canadian Press. (2012, October 04). Lawyer Charles Roach dies with citizenship dream unfulfilled. Retrieved December 05, 2017, from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/lawyer-charles-roach-dies-with-citizenship-dream-unfulfilled-1.1292161

E-Prime: A Linguistic Exercise to Avoid Confusion and Clarify Meaning

6 Replies

Aristotle opens the 4th book of his metaphysics with the claim that “There are many senses in which a thing may be said to ‘be’ “. The verb ‘to be’ is perhaps the most commonly used verb in the English language, but we rarely contemplate the fact that it is used in drastically different ways. A thing being a chair is very different to a thing being late. (The former being is the ‘being of identity’, but the latter is the ‘being of predication’.) It has been argued that the different uses of the verb ‘to be’ are so potentially hazardous to human understanding that the verb should be abandoned entirely. I want to take a look at this argument and the implications and possible benefits of to-be’s abandonment.

Not, I guess.

Oxford Dictionary defines General Semantics as “A system of linguistic philosophy developed by Alfred Korzybski (1879–1950), which explores the arbitrary nature of words and symbols and attempts to refine ways of using language.” Encyclopedia Britannica says that “Korzybski and his followers sought a scientific, non-Aristotelian basis for clear understanding of the differences between symbol (word) and reality (referent) and the ways in which words themselves can influence (or manipulate) and limit human ability to think.” I think the main idea of General Semantics can be summed up by saying that the language we use affects how we think. The followers of General Semantics believe that by changing the ways we use language, we can change the ways we think and respond to our thoughts. This seems pretty similar to the concept of idea of strong linguistic relativity, but apparently Korzybski came to this idea by himself. (Some of his followers have even gone so far as to refer to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as the Sapir-Whorf-Korzybski hypothesis.) I know that linguistic determinism is passionately refuted by many scholars, but I’m sure most people will accept the claim that the words we use can affect how we think. I haven’t read Korzybski’s books, but I sense that there’s some sense behind his ideas. This doesn’t mean these ideas are accurate or reliable though, and academics have been suspicious of General Semantics for more than half a century.

In Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (1957), Martin Gardener notes that Korzybski and his followers accepted their own ideas too readily and that one follower of General Semantics even claimed that sufficient linguistic programming could lower the amount of acid in a person’s saliva. Gardener explains that General Semantics is basically a mish-mash of other people’s good ideas and doesn’t really contain anything revolutionary. He also notes that the actual practice of GS isn’t effective in changing its practitioners. Gardener does concede that GS may have some merit, but he doesn’t really elaborate on what that merit might be.

I want to examine English Prime or E-Prime, an idea born within the realm of General Semantics, to see if it is of any merit. E-Prime, put simply, is the English language without the verb ‘to be’ or any of its conjugates. That means no ‘be’, ‘is’, ‘are’, ‘being’, ‘was’, ‘were’, or ‘been’. E-Prime was first put forward by David Bourland, a follower of Korzybski. It has its roots in Korzybksi’s distinction between word and referent, a distinction summed up in his mantra, ‘The map is not the territory.’ The idea here is that words are not things they refer to. The word ‘dog’ is not a dog. It’s a word. A dog is a dog. It’s a simple idea, but we forget it fairly regularly.

When we say something like Rob is a teacher, the idea in our heads looks like this:

Rob = a teacher

But the equal sign should be reversible. When we say that 2+2=4, we can also say 4=2+2. The above equation implies that “a teacher = Rob”, but that is obviously incorrect. There are lots of teachers that are not Rob. When we remove the verb ‘to be’ from the statement, we can clarify our meaning. Instead of saying “Rob is a teacher.”, we should say, “Rob teaches for a living.” or just “Rob teaches.” This might not seem hugely improved, but there are examples where avoiding this type of ‘is’ make things easier to understand.

Opinions are more clearly delineated from objective truths in E-Prime. Instead of claiming that ‘Metallica are the best band in the world’, a person speaking E-Prime would say, ‘I prefer Metallica to all other bands.’ Instead of saying that the dress is blue, they would say that the dress appears blue to them. These statements express opinions without inviting argument.

Robert Anton Wilson, an advocate of E-Prime

I first came across E-Prime in a book called Quantum Psychology by Robert Anton Wilson (an author I have written extensively about elsewhere), and while the title of that book and the reputation of its author might have some (arrogant) academics rolling their eyes, it was Wilson’s description of E-Prime that convinced me of its usefulness. Instead of saying that a photon is a wave or a particle, Wilson claims that scientists should avoid trying to identify the photon and should instead try to describe it. Instead of saying a photon is a particle or a wave, it is more accurate and less confusing to say that the photon acts like a particle when measured by certain instruments and that it acts like a wave when measured by other instruments. Schrödinger’s cat dies if the atom decays. The cat lives if the atom doesn’t decay. No problems.

Isness has long been recognised as a source of philosophical confusion. E-Prime abandons it and avoids this confusion. The disagreement of Parmenides and Heraclitus can’t be expressed in E-Prime; this form of English allows reality to change while staying the same. This approach might seem like avoiding the topic, but in my view, the problem of existence is either far too complicated to discuss meaningfully or it is actually a non-issue, a philosophical phantom, created by the limitations of our language. ‘I think, therefore I am’ put through E-Prime becomes ‘I think, therefore I think.’ It’s a redundant statement, but it’s not philosophically confusing.

E-Prime delineates opinions from facts, it can make science less confusing and it bypasses philosophical nuisances. It seems like a pretty good idea to me. My main concern is that it doesn’t go far enough. ‘To be’ is a verb, and I am convinced that it is a troublesome one, but every single noun in the English language implies an ‘isness’. If we are getting rid of the word ‘is’, perhaps we ought to get rid of implied ‘isness’ too.

“Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.”

But is a rose really a rose? Roses, like most other plants, consist of mainly carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms. These atoms and their particles incessantly interact with the atoms in the air and soil surrounding the rose. To which sub-atomic particle can we point and say ‘This is where the rose ends and the soil begins?’ To delineate one object from the objects surrounding that object may make day-to-day human experience seem more manageable, but no thing can ever exist independently of its surroundings. Things can’t really ‘be’ in and of themselves, but nouns operate in such a way that they make us think that things “are”. If language becomes more accurate by omitting all forms of the verb ‘to be’, does it follow that its accuracy will be further enhanced by avoiding all words that imply ‘being’?

No. A language without nouns falls apart pretty quickly. Verbs have no subjects or objects to latch onto, and pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, articles, and prepositions become meaningless without nouns. I write this not in any sincere effort to get people to abandon language, but to suggest that language is not designed to accurately describe the actual physical word. It is designed to make sense out of human’s subjective experiences of that world. Our language is built to set up to help us find food, shelter and mates. It’s not really equipped to describe the objective nature of existence.

What of E-Prime then? Should we be satisfied with a means to increase the accuracy of our language knowing that it falls short of complete linguistic clarity? Does it do any good?

Robert Anton Wilson wrote that “when baffled by a problem in science, in “philosophy,” or in daily life, I gain immediate insight by writing down what I know about the enigma in strict E-Prime.” I’m not convinced E-Prime would be useful enough to warrant adopting it in our day to day lives, but I do think that it can be a useful strategy to help think about things. It forces the use of active verbs, and I have personally found that it can help clarify ideas.

When I started researching for this post, I came across a lecture on youtube given by Dr. Daniel Zimmerman. I was expecting a deeply academic analysis of the philosophy behind E-Prime, but thankfully it was more a practical presentation on the use of E-Prime as a means to revise academic essays. Zimmerman claims that it sharpens his students’ language and makes their meaning clearer. In English Teaching Forum, online (Volume 41, Issue 3), “a quarterly journal published by the U.S. Department of State for teachers of English as a foreign or second language”, John C. Herbert, a professor of English as Akashi College, advocates using E-Prime to strengthen ELL learners’ written English, claiming that “E-Prime shows great potential for transforming standard English sentences into more creative and clearer statements of description.” Even David Bourland, the father of E-Prime, referred to his creation as a “tool for critical thinking”, and I think that this is exactly how we should think of it. E-Prime is a tool to help clarify things; it’s not an instant deliverance to linguistic enlightenment.

I haven’t used E-Prime in my own classroom yet, but that’s only because I am currently working with lower level ELL students. I definitely intend to try out an assignment in E-Prime with higher level students in the future. I didn’t write this post in E-Prime, but I did use it to refine certain paragraphs and sentences that were getting a bit slippery. I don’t believe that it’s necessary for us to entirely abandon the verb ‘to be’, but I do think that E-Prime can be used as a tool to help clarify meaning in argumentative, philosophical and scientific writing.

The other posts on this blog have focused on one or two books. This one involved a good bit of reading, so I’m going to include a disorganized bibliography for my own future reference.

Bibliography:

Quantum Psychology – Robert Anton Wilson
https://www.britannica.com/science/general-semantics
https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Martin-Gardner-Fads-and-Fallacies-in-the-Name-of-Science.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20061007112531/http://exchanges.state.gov/forum/vols/vol41/no3/p26.htm
https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/56091/what-is-the-difference-between-the-is-of-predication-and-the-is-of-identity
https://web.archive.org/web/20130204204954/http://www.generalsemantics.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/articles/etc/46-3-bourland.pdf
https://www.generalsemantics.org/the-general-semantics-learning-center/overview-of-general-semantics/basic-understandings/
https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/general_semantics
http://www.nobeliefs.com/eprime.htm
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/16/e-prime-change-your-life
https://youtu.be/sl4UZDLFNT0 – Zimmerman
http://www.textjournal.com.au/april16/frazer.htm
The other posts on this blog and any book I read for them
http://www.nobeliefs.com/Sapir-Whorf-Korzybski.htm
http://www.nobeliefs.com/eprime.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20080103161605/http://www.esgs.org/uk/art/epr1.htm
http://www.generalsemantics.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/articles/etc/47-4-kellogg-bourland.pdf

Chomsky and Universal Grammar

1 Reply

I’ve been planning a new post for this blog for a few months now. I previously wrote a post about all of the parts of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy that interest me, and I was originally thinking of doing a similar post on the work of Noam Chomsky, but after doing a bit of research I quickly realised that Noam’s important ideas on language are not going to be easily or sensibly summarised in a brief blog post. Chomsky, as most of you undoubtedly know, is the most influential linguist alive. He has been working in the field since the 50s, and he has covered a lot of ground. Instead of attempting a summary of his work, I’m going to focus on one of his ideas and how it relates to my work as a language teacher. I will preface this post by claiming that most of what I know about Chomsky’s work comes from lectures I watched on youtube. It’s possible that some of the ideas discussed in this post are actually those of other individuals that Chomsky referenced in his own lectures. The failure to provide references is mine, not Chomsky’s.

Chomsky’s most famous idea is probably Universal Grammar. This is essentially the belief that the ability to use language is part of our genetic make-up. Prior to Chomsky proposing this idea, the prevalent view was that language was learned through a process of trial and error – a kid would watch their parents point at things and try to reproduce the corresponding utterances. Chomsky pointed out that this behaviorist view of language can’t explain the fact that most sentences that are spoken are spoken for the first time – the ‘point and repeat’ model of language acquisition can’t account for the infinite variety of sentences that can be produced. (If this behaviorist view was correct, it would in theory be possible to teach language to an intelligent animal.) Chomsky proposed that a language faculty is innate, and all the language learner has to learn are the arbitrary sounds that we use for words and the different linear structures (the order of words) that different languages use to produce sentences. He argues that aside from these superficial differences, all languages are essentially the same. This is a crude summary, but I’m pretty confident that’s the general idea.

This concept has been knocking about for a long time now, and I know that loads of people have criticized it and pointed out problems, but in my mind it still seems pretty sensible, especially in comparison to the alternatives I’ve seen proposed. The refutations that I’ve understood seem to attack the wording of the current form of the theory rather than the central idea behind it. I don’t have the background to refute or defend it properly. Right now, I’m more interested in considering the consequences that the theory of Universal Grammar has for a language teacher.

For me, the most consequential idea that comes from the concept of Universal Grammar is the notion that language is not really something that is learned but something that grows. Like the faculty of sight, the language faculty is innate and develops along with the rest of the organism. It follows that language is not something that can be ‘taught’ in the traditional sense of that word. Small children pick language up with very little instruction. I am the parent of a two year old, and I can testify to the truth of this statement. When I think of the word ‘teach’ or of the traditional role of a teacher, I imagine a one-way transfer of ideas – a teacher takes what they know about a topic and tries to copy this information into the heads of their student, but this can’t be done in the case of language. As already mentioned, most sentences have never been spoken before, and a teacher can not possibly put into another’s head what does not yet exist in their own.

As a language teacher, I need to consider this idea carefully. If language can’t be taught or learned, should I just throw in the towel? It sounds discouraging, but on closer analysis, it doesn’t really change that much.

This Chomskyian view by no means negates the need for instruction for learners of a second (or third or fourth…) language. If it’s true that the only differences between language are vocabulary and sentence structures, as Chomsky’s model suggests, it seems likely that learners of a second language would greatly benefit from explicitly learning the rules of a new language. When Chomsky says that language isn’t learned, I don’t think he’s speaking about specific languages but rather the more foundational ability to use language.

One sensible consequence of the fact that the teaching of language does not involve the copying of information from one person’s head to another’s is that every person must then speak their own unique language. The languages of two neighbours or siblings are similar enough to communicate clearly, but these languages will, by their nature, be slightly different. Noam has me convinced that this is a natural consequence of any serious consideration of what language means. I speak English fluently, but my English is very different to the fluent English of somebody living in the Southern US. Indeed, the flow of communication between a speaker of Punjabi from Jalandhar and a speaker of Hindi from Delhi might flow more smoothly than the verbal communication between a speaker of English from Scotland and another from Zimbabwe. Chomsky pushes this idea to another level and points to studies that have shown that the way language is structured suggests that it is primarily a means of organizing thoughts rather than a means of communication. This makes the concept of ‘teaching’ a language even more daunting. Teaching a person to communicate seems tricky enough, but how can I possibly ‘teach’ a person how to organise their thoughts?

I don’t know exactly how Chomsky would respond to this question, but I reckon the correct answer is “through an extended process of immersion, understandable instruction and practice.” I don’t think that directly studying Chomsky has changed much about the way that I’ll do my job, but that’s probably because his ideas have already had a big influence on the way I was taught to teach language. I think Noam is a real cool guy, and I’m sure I’ll come back to his work in the future.

A note regarding my sources:
Over the course of the last few months, I have been downloading lectures Noam gave off of youtube and listening to them as I walk to work or make dinner. The content of these talks was largely similar. I haven’t kept a record of the exact videos, but you can find all of them by using the search term “Chomsky Language”. The only written texts that I consulted for this article were an essay called “Overview of Language Teaching Methods and Approaches” by Marianne Celce-Murcia in the 4th edition of Teaching English as Second Language edited by Celce-Murcia, Brinton and Snow and Introducing Chomsky by John Maher. I’ve read a few of the Introducing series (Wittgenstein, Joyce, Sartre, Islam, and Freud) and most of them are pretty good, but I found the Chomsky one overly technical for an introduction.

Linguistic Relativity and Determinism: The Differing Approaches of Linguistics and Philosophy

1 Reply

When I started studying linguistics a few years ago, I was surprised at how close some of the topics in linguistics sounded to the stuff I had encountered in the philosophy classes I had taken years previously. I am currently interested in the area where these two disciplines meet, and I have just read a book that has helped me identify one of the boundaries between linguistics and the philosophy of language.

through the language glass.jpg

Through the Language Glass by Guy Deutscher is a book about linguistic relativity. Linguistic relativity is the idea that the different languages spoken around the world affect the thoughts of their speakers in different ways. Apparently this idea used to be fairly widely accepted, but it went out of fashion for a good half century. In this book, Deutscher gives several examples of how different languages affect how their speakers think, but he makes it very clear that while languages can affect the thoughts of their speakers, they do not limit these thoughts. Languages aren’t static, so even if a language comes across something that it can’t express, it can always create a way of doing so or borrow a way from a different language.

The specific concepts that Deutscher uses to explain how different languages affect the thoughts of their speakers are colour, gender and direction. Through experiments, scientists have shown that our thought patterns relating to these concepts are actually affected by the language that we speak. For example, people who speak Russian are slightly faster at differentiating shades of blue because their language has different words for light blue and dark blue. The actual differences between how different language users think about colour, gender and direction may seem small, but think about how foundational these concepts are to how we perceive the world.

One must also consider the fact that setting up reliable experiments to prove these differences is extremely tricky due to the almost infinite amount of variables that might interfere. If comparing people’s ability to differentiate colours is complicated, imagine how difficult it would be to set up an experiment to reliably test the effects that different languages have on individuals’ abilities to solve complicated word problems. We’ll never know if certain languages are conducive to philosophy. One might be tempted to put forth German and French as candidates due to the immense volume of philosophy written in those languages, but one could also argue the exact opposite point.

Deutscher’s thesis is that different languages cause their users to think in different ways. This is not to say that the concepts of any one language can’t be expressed in another. While he accepts linguistic relativity, Deutscher steers clear of linguistic determinism, the idea that our language limits our thoughts. At one point in the book he says, “there is one toxic fallacy that runs like quicksilver through all the arguments we have encountered so far, and this is the assumption that the language we happen to speak is a prison-house that limits the concepts we are able to understand.” Hang on there Deutscher, it sounds like you’re contradicting my much beloved Wittgensteinian view of language! In fact, Deutscher goes on to say that the aforementioned assumption is based on “a premise as crude as it is false, namely that “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world,””. That’s a quote from the Tractatus! Don’t worry Ludwig, I won’t let him get away with this!

Either Deutscher is deliberately mispresenting Wittgenstein’s ideas because the quote fits his paragraph or he has misunderstood Wittgenstein’s point. For the sake of argument, I shall assume the latter. Examining this misunderstanding will make clear the differences between linguistics and the philosophy of language.

Do Wittgenstein’s thoughts add up to linguistic determinism? Taken at face value, it seems that way, but surely any Wittgensteinian worth their salt will point out that it’s a foul move to bring up a point of philosophy in a game of pure linguistics. While Deutscher is concerned with comparing and contrasting different languages, Wittgenstein was talking about language in general (I’ve previously used the phrase Language with a capital L). Wittgenstein did not mean to say that a German speaker’s world is limited by the German language; he was speaking more generally. Human perception is limited by human linguistic capabilities, not the limitations of any specific human language. As a philosopher, Wittgenstein was attempting to view language from the outside in an effort to see its limits. (He ultimately concluded that this task was impossible.) Deutscher, as a linguist, is fully immersed in language and is measuring the phenomena from within. The way Deutscher writes about Wittgenstein’s idea is a really good example of how easy it is to mix up language games

This is a very minor point in Through the Language Glass, and it doesn’t really take away from the message or efficacy of this insightful and entertaining book. I just found it an illuminating point that helped me understand how the disciplines of linguistics and philosophy approach the same topic.

Some Thoughts on Wittgenstein: Are Language Games just Playing on Words?

4 Replies

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s ideas had a huge effect on the way that I think about language, and I felt the need to revisit these ideas and to look at them a little more carefully before I delve any deeper into the study of linguistics. The summaries of his ideas in the first two parts of this post were written as an exercise of refamiliarising myself with Wittgenstein’s philosophy. There’s probably clearer explanations of these ideas elsewhere online, but I think I’ve done a passable job.

Part 1 – The Tractatus

In his first book, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein puts forth his picture theory of language. The basic idea here is that language corresponds to reality by picturing it. When we say or think of the word ‘flower’, a picture of a flower appears in our mind. By ordering words (and the pictures they bring to mind) into sentences, we construct a mental image of what we’re hearing. Unfortunately, this really only works properly for straightforward sentences about physical objects in the real world.

“The flower is on the table.” or “My dog is swimming in the river.” are fine. These statements will call similar images into the minds of different people, and the differences between our mental images can be decreased by adding descriptive language to our sentences. Our capacity for image forming allows us to imagine things that we have not actually seen. Sounds pretty good, right?

But what picture comes to mind when you hear a sentence like, “Phenomenology is a presuppositionless science of essences that proceeds through pure intuition.”? Maybe you can form an image of this sentence, but you will concede that it is very unlikely that anyone else will form the same or even a similar image. Statements about philosophical issues don’t form neat little mental images. Wittgenstein’s solution to this problem? Don’t talk about philosophical issues.

I love Wittgenstein.

Now, do human beings find it difficult to express philosophical truths because:

(a) our language is not complex enough to discuss certain philosophical issues,
or
(b) because these philosophical issues are actually illusory phantoms that only appear because of the limits/shortcomings of human language?

To put it another way, are philosophical issues genuinely outside the realm of human comprehension, or are they actually non-issues that only appear because our language is imperfect?

For example, whether or not God exists is a popular philosophical debate. Is the lack of a resolution to this debate due to the fact that our language is simply not developed enough to express/comprehend the divine, or is it because we only ever postulated a God to answer odd questions that have no sensible corresponding mental image like, “why are we here?” or “why does evil exist?”?

I don’t know the answer. I’d say it’s a mix of (a) and (b). I’m sure that there are certain topics that our language just isn’t equipped to deal with. Doesn’t quantum physics show that a thing can be two places at once? Our language won’t make talking about that easy. Language changes though, and there’s always hope that what we can’t talk about today, we’ll figure out tomorrow. There has to be limits to language though, and those limits are going to be very difficult to pin down. I was listening to a podcast on Wittgenstein, and Barry Smith pointed this out. He said that “He (Ludwig) was worried about how we actually describe limits without breaching them, without being outside them”. If we don’t know where the line is, how can we ever know that we’re about to cross it and fall head first into pseudophilsophical nonsense?

Part 2 – The Philosophical Investigations

Wittgenstein believed that his Tractatus had solved the problems of philosophy or that it had at least come as close to solving them as was possible. After writing this monumental work, he quit philosophy and became a school teacher. After a few years, he changed his mind. He no longer believed that language was merely a means of painting mental pictures. In his later work, he claims that meaning derives from how words are used instead of from their correspondence with the physical world. To put it more simply: what a word means depends on how it is being used. (The usage is its meaning.) To explain how this is, Wittgenstein introduces his concept of language games.

Ludwig posited that language has a myriad of uses. We don’t just use it to make empirical claims about the observable universe such as “The chair is red” or “The boy is 5 foot tall”. We also use language to pray, to express frustration, to condone, to accuse, to insult, to exaggerate and so on. Think of how the word red is being used in the following sentences:

The ball is red.
Her favourite colour is red.
He was caught red handed.
I’m seeing red.
Boy, is my face red?!
The Reds won the game!
The Reds won the election!
This curry is red hot!

To native English speakers, these sentences are easily understood. In the first sentence, red is being used to describe a physical object. In the second, it’s redness itself and not a red object being discussed. In the third sentence, red is being used to imply guilt. In the fourth, it is being used to express anger. To a language learner, this will be very confusing, and Wittgenstein’s picture theory can’t really account for these different uses of the same word.

The different uses of the word red above represent different language games. Language games is just a name for the many different uses of language. Expressing emotion is a different language game to describing a physical object. The difficulty is that both of these language games use the same words. Wittgenstein now claims that the problems of philosophy (and many other problems) are caused by people not understanding which language game they should be playing.

Although the sentence ‘Are you Irish?’ looks like a lot like the sentence ‘Are you free?’, the process of answering these questions is very different. The only visible (or audible) difference between the sentences are the words ‘Irish’ and ‘free’, both of which are adjectives. Whether or not I am Irish is an empirical issue. I can answer this question by producing my passport. Whether or not I am free is far more complicated – first of all, I must figure out if the person asking the question is asking me if I am currently free to grab a cappuccino at Starbucks or if they are asking a deeper philosophical question that will require a resolution to the apparent conflict between determinism and my true will. The verbal similarities between the two questions leads people to think that they can be answered in a similar fashion, but this is obviously not the case.

While the main point of Wittgenstein’s picture theory seems to be negated by his later ‘usage theory’, I believe that a lot of what he said in describing the former theory is still very relevant to the latter. In fact, with regards to the specific element of his work that I’m interested in, Wittgenstein’s later ideas serve as a development on his earlier ones rather than a refutation. Philosophical problems remain very much the product of the shortcomings of language.

Just as a game of soccer is not played on a chessboard, a discussion of the compatibility of free will and determinism should not follow the same rules as a discussion of ones nationality. Unfortunately, Wittgenstein does not put forth a set of rules for the philosophical discussion. I think Ryle did a pretty good job of providing the rules for that particular discussion by marking category mistakes as a foul, but the rules for other philosophical discussions and even the possibility of these rules sensibly existing are still rather unclear.

Part 3 – More Investigations

I have previously discussed three potential causes of philosophical problems:

1. People using language poorly. (This includes Rylean category mistakes such as the mind/body problem)
2. Language simply not being equipped to deal with certain issues. (What is the meaning of life?)
3. Philosophical bogeys arising as people encounter the limits of language. (This is like a combination of the first two issues.)

To emphasise the linguistic basis of the problems of philosophy, I want to return to Wittgenstein’s concept of language games.

Language games appear in the Philosophical Investigations to give an example of an incomplete picture of language. Imagine two immigrant bricklayers working together. Both of these men are from different countries and speak different languages, but their work is relatively simple. One of them, let’s call him A, actually builds the wall, while the other, a chap named B, provides A with the necessary materials to do so. Maybe sometimes they switch roles so they don’t get too bored. The only three things that they ever use are bricks, mortar and a trowel. (This is not the exact analogy that Wittgenstein uses, but it’s close enough for you to get the idea.) Given the simple nature of A and B’s relationship, the only things that they ever need say to each other are commands that indicate the need for a brick, some cement or the trowel. Although they don’t speak the same language they agree on arbitrary sounds that correspond to these commands. For A and B, the utterance ‘gah’ means ‘Give me a brick.’, the utterance ‘mah’ means ‘Give me some cement.’, and the utterance ‘bah’ means ‘Give me a trowel.’ When A says ‘gah, B gives him a brick. When B says ‘mah’, A gives him some cement.

Now it’s quite obvious that real world relations are never this simple, but as a hypothetical situation, this isn’t particularly difficult to imagine. Some philosophical arguments require people to imagine such absurd scenarios that they become infuriating, but Wittgenstein’s idea of the two construction workers is easy to follow because similar situations are probably a fairly common occurrence amoungst immigrant workers.

The idea of these two workers and their direct but very limited ability to communicate is supposed to emphasise the shortcomings of Wittgenstein’s earlier picture theory of language. In the very simplistic “language” of these two men, words might very well represent pictures. When A says ‘bah’, both he and B momentarily hold an image of the trowel in their heads. The problem for Wittgenstein is that the picture theory of language only works if we view all language as being as simplistic as the communication between the two bricklayers. While these men may have developed a system of communication that allows them to build walls efficiently, neither man can express his fondness for the other, his appreciation for the fine walls they have been building or the existential angst that builds up when one spends all day on a construction site. Wittgenstein seems to concede that these men may have developed a language but that their language does not represent all that Language (with a capital L) is.

While Wittgenstein’s actual point is that Language is far more complex than the system of communication developed by A and B, I’m still fascinated by how much the two systems have in common. Yes, our language has more words, but our vocabulary is also finite. An English speaker with a high vocabulary supposedly knows about 50,000 words. The men who have three words can’t talk about the weather or where their kids go to school, and while 50,000 words makes a lot more possible for us, this level of word power doubtlessly has limits too. We can’t possibly explain everything. It won’t matter how smart we are or how hard we try; we just don’t have the words to talk about certain things.

And it’s that idea that brings us back to the eerie yet beautiful final line of the Tractatus, “Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent.” While Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations points out the shortcomings of some of his earlier ideas, it strengthens the argument for others. The final message of the Tractatus is safe, and it’s that line that has always seemed the most potent for me. I remember reading the Tao Te Ching for the first time and being shocked with the similarity of its opening passage with the closing line of the Tractatus. Compare “The name that can be named is not the eternal name.” with “Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent.” I later discovered that many others have also noticed this similarity, but I still think it’s interesting enough to mention again. Considering the millennia, thousands of miles and radically different cultures that separated Wittgenstein and Lao Tzu, they make a surprisingly similar point – language can’t do everything we want it to do.

I’m going to leave it there. The notion of writing a 2300 word essay on Wittgenstein in my free time would have seemed very unlikely to me a few years ago, but I’m almost more surprised that I still have lots to say about him. I’m quite sure his ideas will pop up on this blog in the future. To write with full disclosure, I must admit that although I have attempted to read both of Wittgenstein’s major works, I have read neither in their entirety. Despite several attempts, I’ve only ever made it through a few pages of the Tractatus before being completely unable to follow what was going on. I fared quite a bit better with the Philosophical Investigations, but it’s quite dense and quite repetitive, and I gave up before I got half way through. That being said, I’ve read several books and papers on his writings, listened to a bunch of lectures about his work, and watched this cool documentary and the Derek Jarman film about him several times. I’m confident in saying that I have a pretty good idea of what he was talking about. I’m not an expert on this though, and if I have misunderstood something or if what I’m saying is really dumb, I would be genuinely appreciative of any feedback.

Ryle’s Category Mistakes and why Philosophy sucks

5 Replies

Gilbert Ryle thought that the way that philosophers distinguished between mind and body was very confusing. He believed this confusion was due to the way we use the word “mind”. He said that we talk about minds in a parallel way to how we talk about bodies and that this is what causes the confusion. Bodies exist in the physical world and hence obey physical laws. Minds don’t really exist in the physical world, so they must exist in a mental world, and if minds exist in a mental world, surely they must obey mental laws. Alright, I already agree. That is a confusing way to think about it. This way of thinking about mind leads to all kinds of absurdities.

I don’t know whether it’s because I bought what Ryle was selling when I first read him or if it’s the small amount of psychology that I understand, but I have no qualms with accepting the notion that there is no clear distinction between mind and body. (I’m fairly sure that modern psychology confirms this notion.) I’m far more interested in the approach that Ryle took to make his point than the actual point itself.

gilbert ryle concept of mind.jpg The Concept of Mind (1949) is the only thing I’ve read by Ryle. In truth, I only read a few chapters.

Ryle claims that the idea that the mind works in a similar yet altogether separate way to the body is due to a “category mistake”. A category mistake is when a person talks about something as though it’s a different type of thing than the thing it is. He gives the example of a person visiting a university and seeing the gym, the lecture halls, the cafe and other bits and pieces around the campus, only to turn to their guide at the end and ask where the university is. This person has miscategorised the noun ‘university’ – they think a university is a single entity and not a collection of entities. Ryle’s main claim is that the mind is not the same type of thing as the body. It’s not even a similar type of thing. This is probably easier to understand today than it was when this book was written. If you’re still unsure of what he means, just think of the difference between hardware and software. When the volume on Netflix is turned off and you try to fix it by turning your speakers up, you are making a category mistake.

After explaining category mistakes, Ryle says of the people who made these mistakes, “Their puzzles arose from inability to use certain items in the English vocabulary.” This, I find very interesting. Ryle is blaming the ability of the language user for the problem at hand. The mind/body distinction, according to Ryle, is due to the inefficient use of language.

That idea was huge for me when I read it first. I was coming towards the end of my philosophy degree. I had just spent a year talking about the differences between intention and volition, between causes and reasons, between cups and mugs… I had read and written stacks of papers, but hadn’t learned a single fact. Philosophy, it had started to seem, was just the art of talking rubbish – lots of words, but very little substance. Here was a lad saying that the distinction between body and mind, an ancient philosophical problem, was due to sloppy language use. Might not other, if not all, philosophical problems be caused by the same issue?

That was the view I adopted from there on in. After submitting my dissertation, I abandoned philosophy. I valued the fact that my studies in the subject had strengthened my reasoning abilities, but I wasn’t bothered reading any more of it. Philosophical problems aren’t really problems anyway, and even if you solved one, how would that make the world any better?

More than 10 years have passed since I first read Ryle, and while I’ve avoided philosophy for the last decade, I have become rather involved in language. I trained to become a language teacher, and while taking some courses in linguistics, I started thinking about Ryle’s category mistakes and how he blamed imprecise language use for the creation of philosophical problems. I am certain that some philosophical problems are due to imprecise language use, but I suspect that others are due not to the limitations of language users but to the limitations of language itself. The limitations and frontiers of language are the topics that I’m hoping to discuss in future posts on this blog.

Bad Language

A teacher's blog on language, philosophy and linguistics