{"id":8258,"date":"2024-10-19T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-19T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=8258"},"modified":"2024-06-25T21:35:52","modified_gmt":"2024-06-25T21:35:52","slug":"looking-at-n-j-enfields-book-2022-language-vs-reality-part-11-of-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=8258","title":{"rendered":"Looking at N. J. Enfield’s Book (2022) “Language vs. Reality” (Part 11 of 23)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

0930 “In 1919, I get a job at a place that distributes this new-fangled liquid, called ‘gasoline’ to these dispensaries around Chicago, in order to fuel the automobiles, which are fast replacing horse and carriage.  Instead of drinking water, like a horse does, these mechanical carriages drink gasoline.  And that is where I come in, I load barrels of this gasoline onto wagons to bring to the stations that… you know… don’t want to pay for the truck delivery.  Horse-driven wagons are much cheaper.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Anyway, I tried the gasoline.  It tastes horrible.  I prefer the home-distilled whiskey from Indiana.  And when its slow, I take an nip or two, and then smoke a cigarette over in the shed, where they keep the empty barrels.   Gasoline catches fire.  So, no smoking near the full barrels.  But, the empty barrels…. what harm can be done?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0931 Four months later, an insurance investigator reads these words, uttered by a fellow who miraculously survives the explosion and fire in the shed, then the storage unit, and then about half a city-block in Chicago.  The investigator’s name is Benjamin Whorf (1897-1941) and his hobby… or is it side job?… is the linguistics of Mesoamerica.  Funny how the world works that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, Mr. Whorf… or is it Dr. Whorf?… has an idea, that Dr. Enfield calls “linguistic framing”.  It concerns how spoken words can generate misleading realities and how misleading realities can burn down half of a city-block in Chicago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0932 Here is the current version of Enfield’s interscope, with words in the fellow’s testimony placed in the proper places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On the content level, the spoken words2a<\/sub> of “empty barrel” frame a referent2a<\/sub>, which I call “no gasoline”.  Now, the frame influences the normal context of what is happening3a<\/sub><\/em> and the potential of ‘something’ happening1a<\/sub><\/em>.  In this case, the worker knows that gasoline is explosive.  So ‘something’1a<\/sub> is a full barrel of gasoline catching fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0933 So, what does “no gasoline2a<\/sub>” imply?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, the worker is now primed to sensibly situate a referent, “no gasoline2a<\/sub>“, on the content level , as “will not catch fire2b<\/sub>“, on the situation level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, I know what that implies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0934 In chapter seven, on framing and inversion, Enfield widens the scope of Whorf’s insight.  Each spoken language creates its own linguistic frame.  Enfield begins his graduate career studying the mother tongue of a society in Laos.  The linguistic distance between an indigenous tribe in southeast Asia<\/em> and the British Empire<\/em> must be considerable. However, both languages have something in common.  They are spoken.  They are classified as speech-alone talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0935 According to the hypothesis of the first singularity,<\/em> both Kri and English belong to our current Lebenswelt<\/em>.  Both traditions have histories.  Those histories trace back to ancestral hand-speech talking cultures that drop the hand-component of their hand-speech talk<\/em> in the process of adopting speech-alone talk<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0936 The ancestral cultures make the transition spontaneously after exposure to representatives from “more advanced” speech-alone talking cultures.  The representatives could have been missionaries, traders or warriors.  It probably does not matter because they express wealth and power<\/em> that each hand-speech talking culture<\/em> cannot imagine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, people in the hand-speech talking culture<\/em> are really much happier that these aliens showing up at their huts, but look at what these strangers have to offer<\/em>.  They want to give us gifts.  And, they have a spoken word<\/em> for the process.  They call their gifts, “trade”.  In fact, isn’t it odd that they have no hand talk?  They just use their mouths, which we do, but we gesture as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0937 By the time that Enfield publishes his book, nominally 7822 years after the start of the Ubaid, the last remnants of hand-speech talk<\/em> disappear into the mists of prehistory<\/em>.  Four hundred years ago, both the North American Plains Indians and the Australian aborigines practice fully linguistic spoken and “signed” languages.  Yes, they practice hand-speech talk, however modified by exposure to alien civilizations.  Now, these ways of talking<\/em> slip through humanity’s fingers even as the theory of the first singularity<\/em> places them in high regard.  Here are samples of who we evolved to be<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0938 This is not exactly new, but it is fresh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

See Comments on David Graeber and David Wengrow’s Book (2021) “The Dawn of Everything”<\/em> (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues) for a harbinger of the coming age when we (humans) realize precisely what Dr. Enfield is not aware of<\/em>.  Our current Lebenswelt<\/em> is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A portion of the above-mentioned commentary appears in Razie Mah’s blog in March 2023 titled Looking at David Graeber and David Wengrow’s Chapter (2021) “Why the State Has No Origin”.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

0939 Once, our gesture-words pictured and pointed to their referents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, our spoken words do not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, as noted in the general picture of the current interscope,<\/em> spoken words on the content level are entangled with two referents.   One referent associates to Frege’s term, “reference” and the second overshadows Frege’s term, “sense”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, spoken words permit the differentiation of the content and situation levels.  Referent2a<\/sub> for the content level may be explicitly differentiated from the reference2b<\/sub> on the situation level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plus, the difference between reference2a<\/sub> and reference2b<\/sub><\/em> depends on the way that ongoing discourse3b<\/sub><\/em> contextualizes the manner whereby reference2a<\/sub> is situated1b<\/sub><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, one might expect that those who are able to formalize the manner in which a reference2a<\/sub> is situated1b<\/sub><\/em> as reference2b<\/sub><\/em>gain certain advantages over those who are not able<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hmmm….<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0940 Here is a picture of Enfield’s interscope<\/em> as it currently stands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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