THEME E: LANGUAGE AND REALITY
El Animal, vegetable, or mineral
E5 Abstract, general, and particular
The units in this theme explore the degree to which an individual's experience of the world, his response to objects and people, is determined by the patterns and idiosyncrasies of his language. The first three units consider how language can provide a framework to give meaning and coherence to experience. 'Animal, vegetable, or mineral' looks at the way in which the words of a language provide basic categories for sorting and ordering experience. 'Birds and beasts' considers how language can determine the individual's sense of what is and is not 'rational' or 'real'. 'Reticence' looks at the gaps left in the framework, the areas of' experience which can be talked about only with difficulty or awkwardness, because language provides very restricted ways for talking about them.
The remaining six units are all concerned with the different ways in which language relates the individual to his world. 'Half, please' looks at the degree to which language can be so dependent on physical context that it can only be understood if the physical context is known. Words enter into complex relationships with each other and networks of' these relationships are one of the primary ways by which language imposes order on experience. 'Abstract, general, and particular' explores the part played by these networks in determining how an individual describes his world and relates things to each other.
The next two units also look at the relationship between words and what they have to describe. 'Colour labels' considers the limitations of' language in relation to one small area of' the vocabulary. It examines the problem of languaging the multitude of shades and tones that our eyes can distinguish.
The interpretation of' words like 'essay' is just as much bound by context as many of the examples in 'Half, please'. 'Write me an essay' looks at the way in which local or personal interpretations of such terms put limits upon the range of activities that they will suggest to pupils.
The last two units look at the degree to which language can affect our understanding of what is real and our judgement of it. 'Fiction and reality' considers the ways in which the representation of 'heroes' in fiction can influence popular views about what is, and is not, heroic, while 'Fiction and documentary' examines how our response to experience is modified if we are told that what we took for fact is fiction and what we took for fiction, fact.