Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 20:35:14 +0300 (EET DST) From: J Laari <jlaari-AT-cc.jyu.fi> Subject: language Barkley wrote: > Hmmm, well it depends on what we allow ourselves to call > a "language." Mathematics has often been labeled a "metalanguage" > and symbolic logic has in turn involved discussions labeled > "metamathematics." I think it's quite common nowadays think of 'language' as 'sign system': we have a set of signs (for example; words) and set of rules (grammar in a case of words) which tell us how combine signs. So we have several languages - including 'natural' ones (English, Swahili, Hindi etc), mathematics, pictorial and 'acoustic' (music) systems, logic etc. all the way to computer languages. Funny thing is that 'natural' language is always needed in order to learn those other ones. After learning it we usually, or so it seems, forget the learning process and sometimes even believe that our access to some particular language is due to some mystical mercy (we 'understand' music because of inherited 'taste', for example). Perhaps someone more intimate with semiotics and linguistics could tell us more? Jukka --- from list marxism2-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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