Egyptograms

Please post your notes from the Egyptogram lessons. Also, please refelct on the Egyptogram experience. Did you enjoy the exercize? Why or why not?

REASON
1. Apriori knowledge 2. Basic assumptions/premises
- We are not PURE empiricists, rather we use apriori knowledge, we make assumptions, and we infer from past experiences. We are rationalists!
-An assumption/premise has to be followed by a conclusion
-Rational knowledge is DEDUCTION (moving from a general claim to the specific conclusion), whereas induction leads from the specific to the general (i.e. empiric experiences lead to thoughts)
-Deductions are made from a syllogism, which must include 2 premises that lead to a conclusion, 3 terms that occur twice, and a quantifier (ex: 1. All dogs are mammals. 2. Fido is a dog. 3. Therefore, Fido is a mammal.)
-Logic is used to determine whether or not a syllogism is valid, not whether it is true! and just because something is valid, that does not mean it's also true! A statement may be logically valid without being true.
-Plato's version of Truth = public, independent, and eternal
-Truth is a property of statements and is not involved in reasoning and logic.
Ex: All Panthers are Pink. Huey Newton is a panther. Therefore, Huey Newton is pink.
-Context, language, and who is owning the statement also help to make a statement valid or invalid.


The Egyptogram Experience:
This was a little weird for me because I am not one who likes word games and puzzles, and it's hard for my brain to work that way, thinking letters and syllables mean signs and signs mean sounds and letters or syllables, or sometimes a God or.... They have different rules than our language and use their "linguistic symbols to organize experience" a little differently than we do. But I thought this was a good activity to show us how we use apriori knowledge and/or reasoning with language and making meaning, and to open and challenge our brains to accept different ways of writing and reading language, so yes, I enjoyed it.

Notes 4-2-09
Rationalists: Those that believe Reason is the ideal way to achieve knowledge.
Empiricists: "Perception people"
Truth: What IS the case (i.e. property of statements) --> justification of truth: empiricism/perception, authority, reason (logic), language.
"This pen is blue." = deduction because general knowledge of what blue is is used to make this specific deduction.
Reason uses logic -> there is deductive and inductive reasoning
Logic: Does conclusion follow premise?
SYLLOGISMS... rationalists believe using syllogisms preserves truth, they do not CREATE truth!
Ex: All A's are B's; some A's are C's; therefore some B's are C's. -> valid conclusion (logical)
Ex: All A's are B's, all B's are C's, therefore all C's are A's. -> INvalid conclusion (illogical)

Kpelle story reflection:
I was kind of shocked when I read the story about the Kpelle tribe not being able to figure out simple syllogisms, because to us it seems so natural, and I don't usually have to think much about them, I mean, maybe the correct answer, but not HOW to determine it... However I knew from reading stories and books and stuff that non-western tribes often have very different thinking than us and don't perceive hypothetical situations the same as we do. So I don't really know what else to say about the story, it made me think about how we solve logical problems with reasoning and drawing conclusions from premises, and how context plays a role in that process and sometimes has to be "thrown out" to understand the meat or basic meaning of the syllogism within.

Wild Child Assessment

BORN TO BE WILD (Wild Child version)

On all fours runnin'
come out of the forest
‘cause our knowledge is best.
This boy will communicate,
Doc. Itard will make it happen.
Give the glass to his love embrace
then lock him in the closet
and see Victor explode.

Use hot water and cold,
tuning forks and drum beats;
Victor will perceive.
Now Victor listen to my voice,
and Genie, say it with me now.
Speak the words in a love embrace,
try to be like one of us;
Education is all.

Like a true nature's child
They were born, born to be wild
They could climb so high,
If only they would try...

Born to be wild
Born to be wild




Since I am not much of an artist and really do not have the time or means to film a video this week, I decided to go with the changing of a song's lyrics, and I felt this song was pretty appropriate for the topic, but it turned out to be a bit hard to work with (the set up of things and the syllable counts etc.), so you'll have to forgive me for any awkwardness in the way things are worded or the way it is organized; I would love to write my own song about the Wild Child but I'm not much of a musician either. So for this "song" to be understood, one must think sort of in the abstract sense and understand that more is intended than can actually be said within the confinements of the song structure.
So the answer to the first question, "Why does Dr. Itard want Victor to speak?" is hinted at when the song says "'cause our knowledge is best" and "Speak the words in a love embrace, try to be like one of us; education is all." Dr. Itard was a behavioralist who believed "that man brings nothing with him, that education is all."(Genie, p.73) He was looking to - through training and teaching the Wild child to speak - prove his theory that people are like blank slates, and all language they learn is taught to them (contrary to Chomsky's theory described by Abel that man is born with language sort of inside him and he has only to learn the "vocabulary"). According to Abel, "There are few sharp boundaries between men and animals" and "Human language sets us apart" (Man Is The Measure p.230). In the case of the Wild Child, people barely viewed him as a person because he could not speak, he did not have that one essential element of humanity, so Dr. Itard wanted to change that and 'civilize' Victor so that he could fit into society and meanwhile prove Itard right and make him well-known for this great accomplishment.
The second question is also answered throughout the lyrics of the song, but not in a straightforward way. "Give the glass to his love embrace then lock him in the closet and see Victor explode" refers to Dr. Itard's method of teaching him both justice/reasoning of what is right and wrong, and emotion. In the film Wild Child we saw the Dr. reward Victor for doing well in his lessons, then after doing nothing wrong, Victor was locked in the closet like he had been bad. Victor reasoned that this was uncalled for and unjust, and hence got angry and kicked and screamed and refused to go in the closet; this was Dr. Itard's way of testing Victor's sense of reasoning, justice and emotion. He also used other methods like using a very harsh tone of voice and seeing Victor break down crying, or drawing pictures and words and matching them with objects to teach Victor reasoning, and also the fact that he would receive an object AFTER he asked for it with words, not before. To teach Victor perception he tried to enhance the sensitivity of his "normal" senses that civilized people used, like hearing more instead of sniffing everything and being able to tell the temperature of water and respond to it like normal humans do. To teach Victor language, Dr. Itard tried not only saying words and having Victor feel the vibration of his throat and repeating words/sounds in front of a candle to see the effect the words should make with the breath leaving the mouth, but he also tried having Victor do alphabet puzzles, match objects with their names, and spell our the word "LAIT" in wooden letters, and of course he spoke to/around Victor as much as possible.

Genie #2

Please read the rest of the Genie packet Chapters 6, 7, 10, 11, 12 & 14 and answer the following questions.

1. What was so significant about Chomsky's argument?
Unlike all the other linguists who thought vocabulary was central to language and that the rules of language were all learned, Chomsky argued not only that SYNTAX, not vocabulary, was central to language, but that "we don't learn the inner rules of language... we're born with them."(p.28)

2. What do you make of Chomsky's bird argument on p. 36?
I think he's right in that children raised by birds obviously will not end up flying, because it's not in human nature and because humans cannot. However, after watching the video of the Wild Child who was still mostly crawling on four legs after living by himself for all those years (he didn't learn to walk even though according to Chomsky since it's in our nature we should be able to "learn" to walk ourselves), AND he could not speak, and did not improve with language very much even after months of having the chance to "fill in the vocabulary" from being in civilization with the doctor, etc.

3. Do you agree with Chomsky's claim about the island at the end of Chapter 7? Please explain your answer.
I think this is a hard question because I can imagine isolated children doing both A) developing their own "language" with grunts and different sounds that evolve into word-type forms, or B) staying how we picture cavemen, using solely grunts and other forms of communication (i.e. body language) to communicate, and never having heard or depended on language before, not experiencing the need for it.

4. In Chapter 10, why were Genie's observers pleased to see her hitting other children?
They were pleased because this showed that Genie was learning to turn her anger outward, instead of, during a frenzy, hurting herself and doing other activities to make noise to express her rage. Genie was upset because a new girl was wearing a hospital dress that Genie had worn, so this was probably pleasing to her observers because it also showed that she knew who she was/was aware of what was going on around her; Abel says "the episode was the first indication that genie was developing a sense of self."(p.49)

5. Describe how Genie's language was developing.
Slowly but surely Genie's vocabulary and language skills were improving; she was very curious and eager to know the names of things, but she seemed to understand more than she could produce. since she tested very well for intelligence and comprehension, but "her speech stayed limited to a few short utterances"(p.51). In May her progress was accelerated: her verbalizations became more frequent and "her vocabulary quest became more assertive"(51).

6. After reading Chapter 11, what are the primary differences between the reading and the film?
Whereas it was not shown in the movie, the reading mentions Dr. Itard's use of a Leyden jar on Victor, as well as a much higher level of affection and emotional connection between Dr. Itard and Victor than as displayed in the movie (Abel says "Victor sat before him fondly caressing and kissing the teacher's knees" on p.53 whereas in the movie that was never shown and Victor was seen having many temper tantrums etc.). The reading also divulges that Victor never learned to talk, but in the movie they left it up in the air to the interpretation of the viewers.

7. How did the film, Wild Child, impact the symposium members? What is meant by: "all of us saw in the movie what we were prepared to see to confirm to our own biases."?
The film shocked them and made them even more aware of moral concerns concerning Genie's case and experimenting on her for the sake of science while perhaps limiting her development, and arguably hence, the research itself.
By that quote, Shurley meant that the viewers were "seeing as" - that because their minds were already swayed one way before viewing the film, they perceived the information in the film as they wanted to perceive it; those who thought Genie's development and interests should come first probably noticed the "humanity" of the Wild Boy, his emotions, etc. and the other viewers probably noticed the important discoveries in psychology, linguistics, etc. that were made by experimenting with the Wild Boy and could be made with Genie...

8. What do you think of Dr. Elkind's quote on p. 59? How do you feel about Dr. Freedman's suggestion on p. 59-61
I think Elkind's quote holds some potential truth because if they place So much importance on speech, above Genie's other areas of development like social interactions and returning affection, she could turn out imbalanced... I also feel that Dr. Frredman's suggestion holds some weight; (almost) every child grows up with a mother or guardian to care for them and give them physical attention, which I have heard is greatly beneficial and even necessary for brain development, and that children in orphanages and similar situations suffer from lack of physical contact. Having a constant figure to give one attention and care and physical contact is an important factor in one's development from birth, and I think genie wold prosper from this and be able to advance in other aspects once reaping the emotional, mental, and physical benefits from this type of attention.

9. Why was it important for Itard to teach Victor to "imagine the needs of others (p. 73)"? Does CAS do this? Why or why not?
Imagining the needs of others is part of what any normal human needs to be able to do to function in human society. Other people will not always openly express their needs, and if one cannot imagine that others have specific needs, one will not be able to understand why their own needs are not being met, or why another person is acting a certain way, etc. Understanding and helping the needs of others is part of what makes us "human" and gives us purpose, draws humans together into a society, and more; Dr. Itard wanted to make sure Victor was capable of all this.
CAS does teach us to do this, or at least it does to me, because in Service activities one is called to imagine the needs of our world and the "global issues" we are supposed to be helping; if we cannot see that others have needs we will be viewed as selfish and self-centered, and will never help much in the world. When I went on the trip to Operation Smile I had to "imagine the needs" of the poor children and families there in the hospital, and bring them any supplies I could, and I believe that's part of what CAS tries to teach us.

10. After reading Chapter 14, do you agree that Truffaut's film ending was too optimistic?
I do agree, because I know I left the movie wondering whether Victor would progress and how far, and I was pretty sure that he would, since he HAD come back to the house, and since the doctor said "we shall resume lessons tomorrow", indicating that Victor's progress-making wouldn't be cut short for anything. But in reality, Victor made a little progress after that point but not much, and he never did learn how to speak. However, perhaps it was good the movie didn't show this because it may have discouraged scientists from trying to make more progress with Genie or other cases, and I think it's necessary and beneficial to keep trying, even if it doesn't seem like there will be a break through any time soon.

Abel - The Functions of Language

1. The functions of language are cognitive ("language transmits information"), expressive ("when we attend to the words themselves and to their atmosphere"), and performatory ("they are themselves the sole instrument of the action").
2. Each boy in the story has a different interpretation of what the visitor wants him to describe, based solely on the finger pointing and the question "What is this?"
3. "The inscrutability of reference" is the inevitable confusion that comes from trying to get to definitions of language from pointing to things, etc. When someone is trying to learn a new definition, it is hard to know if they are seeing the right characteristics of the situation being referred to in defining it.
4. He means that words that are merely spoken and written down mean nothing, but when applied to a community that has a language and puts a meaning to each word, they mean much more and it is hard to make them mean something else when a meaning has already been assigned.
5. "An animal utters a fixed number of signals, each of which is associated with a specific behavior or situation" whereas humans learn and create language. It isn't restricted to communicating information. They can accommodate to new situations and create "an infinite number of new sentences."
6. Chomsky argues that everyone, regardless of the language spoken, knows certain language structures and thus they were not learned. These innate structures provide a basis for language learning, so every human has the ability to learn language.
7. Abel doesn't agree with Chomsky. He argues language universals don't exist, which is the basis for Chomsky's argument.
8. I don't think an infant with nobody around him and only a radio for a language source would learn to speak. He might be able to parrot things, like phrases that he heard often, but without human interactions to lend meaning to the words, the language would be nothing but sounds.
9. Since Abel says language is a learned skill, it is just another behavior that makes humans unique. Our language is partly instinctual and partly learned.
10. He is talking about the social norms that we all follow by a certain vague instinct. We can tell what is socially acceptable most of the time, but Abel says that we cannot fully express these pressures and feelings of what is "proper."

Genie

After your class has written the in-class essay, please read Chapters 1, 2, 4 and 5 of Genie. I apologize for the disturbing content, but the material is essential for our future discussion of Language. Once you have read these chapters, please answer the following questions and post them to your blog. The answers are due March 4.

1. What was Psamtik's experiment? What did he hope to learn? Did he?
Psamtik's experiment was to take 2 babies from their mothers at birth and place them in the isolation of a hut of a shepherd who would raise them without speaking to them, and then see what language the babies naturally began to speak, the "language of the world". This way Psamtik hoped to learn what the original language of the world was, but he didn't find out because the experiment didn't really work; the babies only said "bekos" which means bread in Phrygian, but all the other scientists since then brought out the problems with this experiment and its results, so clearly Psamtik did not truely find what he was looking for.

2. Rymer claims on pg. 5 that "while his experiment was flawed in fulfilling its declared intention...it embodied both the theological questions and the practical quandaries that still bedevil the discipline." Where did Abel hint at this same concept?
In his chapter and about naming, reference, and meaning, Abel talks about the need for science and metaphysics to make linguistic meaning... But I'm not sure what the connection is or if this is the right one :( I don't really get this question...

3. Why do Linguistics and Astronomy "constitute an unlikely sisterhood"?
Rymer explains that "they are both often constrained to be more observational than experimental-astronomy because its subjects are too distant to be experimented on, linguistics because its subjects are too human." (5-6) In other words, the sciences are similar in that it is hard to experiment and thus test theories on their subjects.

4. Why was the Social Worker concerned about the young girl that came to her Welfare Office with her mother?
The worker was concerned because the girl looked in terrible health; she had a "halting gait" and was "unnaturally stooped, hands help up as though resting on an invisible rail." Genie's malnutrition was also showing as she was very skinny and pale, etc., not anything like a normal healthy child. At first the social worker thought Genie had autism, but with more investigation their concerns for the child deepened.

5. Consider the history of Linguistics outlined in Chapter 5. Please explain how the study of language grew from the religious to the biological and finally to the psychological.
Language started out as being supposed to come from God like everything else, then after Descartes proposed the independence of the soul from the body and the mind from the brain, there was a way for science to get in there and explore linguistics without heresy, and then Epicurus felt that language was something of nature, so then biologists started researching the brain and its language... The questions then formed by linguists concerning the relationship of language to man turned into psychology.

Through Deaf Eyes & Abel In Class Essay

Using the PBS documentary "Through Deaf Eyes" and chapters 7 and 19 of Abel's book Man Is the Measure, specifically Abel's ideas of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, sense, and reference, I will discuss the extent to which the use of Oralism and Sign Language impact the deaf view of reality. One could ask if there is such a thing as reality - since everyone seems to have a different paradigm of the world and a different perspective/opinion of what happens, how do we know which one is correct, which one is the "reality"? One could also ask how I, a hearing person, could attempt to account for how deaf people view reality, but based on what we saw in the film and my general knowledge of deaf people and sign language, I shall attempt to answer this question.
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis that how we use language affects our perception of the world applies to deaf culture because some people argue that people who only know how to use sign language or who can't hear can't do as much and can't live normal lives, but the deaf people featured in "Through Deaf Eyes" say that they have perfectly functioning and normal lives and can do pretty much as much as a hearing person. One man in the video says that hearing and speaking are not the keys to the universe or to success, the key is knowledge, and reading in order to soak up all that knowledge. He could have this perspective because of his using sign language; because he does not hear and speak but can read and communicate using hand signs, he is of the opinion that hearing and speaking is not what matters, it is simply knowledge, which he obviously feels he can attain through reading and signing only. Another part of Deaf Culture is the will to communicate despite obstacles, and the independence they seem to feel they have from not relying on sounds, which hearing people do not have from their use of hearing and oralism; communication we tend to take for granted, and we rely on sounds much more than we realize. Also, because in sign language one talks with their hands, displaying visual signs to communicate with another viewer, perhaps deaf people using sign language see things more visually and focus on recreating images in life to communicate with others rather than making sounds to refer to images like hearers do. So in the respect of deaf people perceiving the world and humanity and what it takes to thrive differently than hearers do because of their use of sign language and not hearing and oralism, sign language can apparently change thinking a little, but how does it facilitate, extend, direct, or limit thinking?
Relating back to the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and how using a certain language changes perspective, oralism and sign language both direct thinking in different ways because oralism trains a person to rely on sounds and repeating taught vocal sounds which are given meaning, whereas, while similar in that not all signs are obviously representative of a larger action or real object and signs have to be taught and given meaning, sign language trains one to use their hands and eyes and visuals, and to read the signs and/or lips of another person. Each "language" in some ways limits speakers to using one medium - either sound or sight and relying on that for communication, although sometimes we accompany speech with hand gestures and read people's faces to sense feeling and expression, etc. Sign language facilitates a more visual train of thoughts and portrayals where many signs are closer to the real idea or action than a sound we make come out of our throat (for example, the word "walk" vs. the hand sign with the fingers 'walking' across the palm). Oralism facilitates, I think, more varied ways of expressing oneself because one can use voice intonation and inflection to convey emotion, and oralism can accompany the other "languages" we normally use with facial expressions and body language, etc. The creation of sign language itself, since speech existed before, was a great extension to thinking because so many people who couldn't hear wouldn't have been able to understand and communicate as well as those who could speak. Another way sign language seems to extend thinking, according to what we saw in the documentary Through Deaf Eyes and what the deaf people in the video said, is that users of this "language" think more optimistically, not of what they and others can't do, but what they can do, all their abilities and strengths. But while these languages can affect ways of thinking for users, their effect on what the deaf people KNOW is not as evident.
The knowledge by practice of deaf people who use signing is different from that of hearers or other users of oralism because they have been practicing or repeating different things (signing vs. speaking) and thus their "know-HOW"s (pieces of personal knowledge) are different, but their "know-THAT"s or impersonal knowledge is not different simply because of their use of either sign language or oralism to communicate. As far as the knowledge that deaf people have being EXPRESSED differently in each "language", I think that is a given; what people know is expressed differently in French than it is in English, and differently in sign language than in speech of any oral language. And while I do not think each language provides a different framework of reality, I do think each provides a different presentation of reality; a deaf user of sign language and a hearing (or deaf) user of oralism both see someone running down the street, and they don't view it as different events happening, they just express the idea of the reality (a person running) in either speech or in hand signs. This is the way languages work, reality is presented/communicated to others in more of one way to another but ultimately the humans usually perceive the same basic reality. I think this also applies when dealing with sense and reference.
Abel explains sense as sort of the real meaning of the word, what it's value or definition is almost, whereas reference is a more specific designation of that meaning, like an example you could point to. The deaf might use signing as a sort of "sense" of what they think is going on, but in order to connect with other users of oralism they would need to use oralism like humans use reference in order to specify; to a an oralist a sign may not mean much, so they have to use a word for the other person to grasp its meaning. Abel's quote on page 68, "Though meanings require words, they are not identical to words.” shows that deaf users of sign language don't need oral words to understand meaning because meaning is not identical to words, nor is it identical signs, meaning is just communicated through whatever human action holds meaning because it has been ordained so by the speech community, whether that be a sign symbol or a linguistic symbol or any meaningful symbol known between communicators. We hearers use "linguistic symbols to organize experience” (p. 69), but deaf people use sign symbols to organize experience. Essentially these languages are the same (in function and result).
What I have been claiming - that oralism and sign use different approaches to expressing thoughts and may even guide thoughts in a general pattern, but are essentially both languages to communicate the same reality of humans - implies that hearers and other users of oralism who look down on users of sign and vice versa are making a mistake; it is not two different groups of people that, because they communicate using different forms of "speech", view reality totally different. We are all humans developing and using symbols of whatever kind we may to organize the same experience. My claims would also imply that I know about using sign language versus oralism when in fact I do not know a whole lot about it, so a counter-claim might be that people who really use sign language do view reality through "deaf eyes" and because they cannot hear or speak they are missing both a chunk of reality and experiences that are happening all around them (noises), and an aspect of human interaction that is meant to occur (speech). One could use both oralism and sign language and still not know the answer to this question, how our view of reality is affected by our language, because there will always be many other factors impacting our view of reality and clouding our view, and inevitably, we cannot get away from ourselves and how we see things as an individual human.
Through looking at Abel's ideas of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and sense and reference, and the views expressed by the deaf people in "Through Deaf Eyes" we see that the use of oralism or sign language can slightly affect a deaf person's view of reality, but it more affects the way they present the reality in communication than what they understand or know. The core of both sign language and oralism is using designated symbols to refer to pieces of reality, and after all, both the signer and the oralist see the same thing with their eyes, which are still the same.