General relativity

Commonly confused, the Linguistic relativity and linguistic determinism theories represent different points on a range of intensity regarding the influence of language on human thought. In order to understand the latter, the relativity theory must be understood, since it is a simpler form of determinism. Relativity, similar to the scientific uses of relativity theories, provides psychologist with a two sided phenomenon, often leaving people with varying positions; Simply put, language we are…

Philosophy 2400 Zhiyuan Li Is the general will always right? In November 2014, China released a draft amendment to its Criminal Law, including exempting nine crimes from the death penalty. However, a considerable number of people almost immediately expressed their strong disagreement on lightening punishment for those crimes and asked for the most severe punishment instead. If we regard reducing death penalty crimes as the general will, or what is best for the whole society, the opponents might…

There is no doubt that there exist institutional and individual bias in promotion board process.” In order to have an increase in blacks as general officers, would be to (1) make the promotion board more transparent, allowing the members to understand the promotion criteria in which the board members base their selection on. (2) remove any indication of the officers assign branch/job and (3)…

Language Geniuses While there is no universally accepted definition of the language, it is considered as a method of communication which consists of abstract symbols that are governed by rules. Language contains subsystems such as semantics, syntax, phonology, pragmatics and morphology. As a means of communication, human babies learn languages spoken around them in a manner that suggests they are language geniuses. Babies also are claimed to have a natural ability to acquire and master languages…

The relationship between thought and language holds a diverse range of theories. Much of the background literature suggests that the connection between the two begins as early as infancy, with some research into the field of anthropology. Three key figures in its origins are Vygotsky, Piaget and Sapir-Whorf. Vygotsky held a cultural, or ontogenetic, view on the origins of thought and language. In his view, language and thought held two separate roots that developed on a parallel which had…

Background/ Early Years Louis “Louie” Zamperini, “the son of Italian immigrants, who had come into the world of Olean, New York on January 26, 1917” was “eleven and a half pounds of baby under black hair as coarse as barbed wire” (5 Hillenbrand). The Zamperinis soon decided to move to Torrance, California when Louie was three for his father’s job as a railroad electrician. Louie grew up in Torrance with his parents, older brother, and two younger sisters. Louie was the second of four…

The flexibility of language is a highly controversial topic in the field of linguistics. How easily does language acquisition occur and in what ways may it be limited? Through his text Language and Symbolic Power, French linguist Pierre Bourdieu introduces a market metaphor in order to explain the ways that communicative exchanges relay both messages contained in words and nonlinguistic information about a person’s social status. He explains that in the process of “linguistic exchange,”…

The impact of second language acquisition on individuals Second language acquisition, often defined as the process of an individual learning a second language in addition to a person’s first language. This could also be incorporated as learning a third, fourth or fifth language. (Gass and Selinker 2008,p7) The process is usually divided to 5 stages: preproduction, early production, speech emergence, intermediate fluency, and advanced fluency. (Haynes 2007 p29-35) The learning process requires…

Kassie Tulenko In Kulick’s article “Anger, Gender, Language Shift And The Politics Of Revelation In a Papa New Guinean Village” he focuses on a synchronic view of culture and language in Papa New Guinea to argue for broader diachronic shifts. Kulick describes two languages, Tok Pisin and Taiap, and speakers’ use of code switching between these languages to index gender, intelligence, and sociability. The men use the formal language, Tok Pisin, which indexes education, Christianity, and progress…

because of past political leaders and activist that through their language abilities convinced massive populations to do both positive and negative things. Nevertheless, power is an essential component of not only language but also of our society in general. This concept can manifest dominance among people and nations around the world. The co-cultural theory also explains that powerful societies will estipulate the way we progress linguistically and culturally. This is related to leadership…