From: Lev Lafayette <lev-AT-ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Language as Technology?
Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1999 08:30:13 +1100 (AEDT)


> 

Keachies,

I don't think structural advantages in different languages makes it a 
technology. For example, in French, it is quicker to to issue commands than
it is in English. This may be an advantage, but it is not a technicisation.

The key issue is how language and technology are formed; the former is 
through intersubjectively shared meaning, the latter through the rationalisation
of the material world. Wittgenstein's 'Philosophical Investigations' is
probably the key place to start on this differentation.

Lev

> 
> Languages differ by much more than grammatical rules and vocabulary.   Navaho, for example, consists of mostly verbs, and you can't really
> say, "A cat is an animal." in Navaho.   The closest you can come to it is, "Animalizing is taking place cattelly."   This turns out to be a
> decided advantage over English, when contemplating the inner workings of sub-atomic particles, according to one physist who learned Navaho
> on a lark, and then realised he was using it to think about his work in a more effective fashion than using English.
> 
> I would submit the language is a technology we barely understand, much like McLuhan's fish in water, or was that Fuller ?
> 
> Keachie
> 
> 


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