Language in Use 123-124

This unit is concerned with the way in which language influences our interpretation of the world by its tendency to make pairs of words, which together divide up a particular aspect of experience into clear-cut categories. It makes use of a familiar word game in order to show how it is that language puts a grid upon our experience of the world. If language did not categorise experience through this kind of network of pairs of words, fitting together like a sequence of Chinese boxes, the game would not be playable at all.
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[1] The aim of this session is to . let the class see, by playing a form of 'Twenty Questions', how language is so patterned that words form a network of interlocking meanings. One member of the form thinks of a person or a thing, while the rest of the form attempt to guess its identity by a series of questions like 'living or non-living?', 'animal or vegetable?', 'human or non-human?', and so on. The point should be made that the game proceeds by successively eliminating one member of a pair of categories. It is important to give a full session to the game so that the basic linguistic principle can be seen at work in relation to a wide range of experiences. Each sequence of the game must be noted so that at the end of the session the pattern of questions asked is available for further exploration in session [2]. For this session, the class need to have in front of them some of the sequences recorded in [I].

The aim of the session is to explore the linguistic basis Of the game. Ask the class to look at the type of question asked. Examine what sort of properties came naturally to mind, how general were those that moved the game forward, how particularity came in as the game narrowed the field, and what kind of particularity it was. Ask the class to consider next any sequence of the game that failed to elicit the correct answer. Examine what led to this failure. Consider in particular:
(a) whether the object or person was far outside the experience of the majority of the class
(b) whether the questions built upon each other, or whether they were haphazard
(c) whether the categories necessary to make the questions successful were not available to the majority of the class.

This procedure will develop an awareness in the class that they have used pre-existing linguistic network in playing the game and that this network represents for them the 'natural' or 'obvious' way of looking at the world. The aim of this session is to examine some of the categories which we abitually take for granted, because they are basic to our experience of the world. Divide the class into groups, and give each a pair of words such as young/old : us/them : native/foreign. Ask each group to draw up a list of all that they associate with each word of the pair.

Circulate the lists -and through discussion build tip on the board a picture of the associations which have been drawn from the class. The object is to show how closely identified with our individual experience is our response to these pairs, and yet how much is shared with anyone else from our own culture and especially with those from other cultures.

[4] The aim of this session is to go on from very familiar categories to explore unexamined categorisations. Give the class, working in the same groups as for [3], a number of unusual categorisations that might be applied to living creatures. Ask them to list examples tinder each category, and then, through class discussion, build tip on the board a picture of the class's response to what is unfamiliar. Here the likelihood is that very much less will be found acceptable to all than was the case in [3]. (Such categories might include eatable/uneatable, domestic/wild, pets/non-pets, frightening /not frightening.)

Further ideas for the last session are to be found in the last chapter of The Naked Ape-Desmond Morris (Pan), or on page 41 of New Directions in the Study of Language, ed. Lenneberg (M.I.T. Press).

A related topic may be explored in F 1.

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