How do we know that language is more than denotation?

A denotation is defined as the literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests. Language itself is defined as a method of communication. However, claiming words are only their definition is not looking at all the evidence. All you need to do is say a simple word like retard whose definition is a "mentally handicapped person" but within our culture, has a negative connotation to it.

For a for a long time, however, no connection between language and the way we think was found or even contemplated. When Benjamin Lee Whorf suggested that language shapes our reality, he was shut down harshly, due to the lack of hard evidence. His ideas were based on language being a restraint on knowledge. suggesting that if a language had no word for a concept, then the concept did not exist for those who spoke that language. Of course, if this were true, it would mean one could never learn anything new outside the concepts presented by their language. There is no evidence of such thing.

This is where the linguist Roman Jakobson comes in, who said, “Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.” In other words, different languages can influence the mind differently, not by restricting what we can think about but by making us think about certain things in certain ways.

For example, during one of my theory of knowledge classes, my teacher held a pen in her hand and dropped it. When describing her actions, she said, "I dropped the pen." Then, she asked the Spanish speakers to describe her actions in Spanish, which would be: "Se me cayo la lapicera." A direct translation to English would be "The pen fell from me". Unlike English, where the action is directly attributed to the subject, the individual who was holding the pen did not act. It fell from her. The pen become the subject. The blame is now shifted.

Another example is the way language affects sense of space and geographical orientation. Imagine you are stopped in the street by a stranger who asks for directions to the nearest pharmacy. You would say something along the lines of go three blocks up, then turn to the right and walk straight for another block. This is called egocentric coordinates, where direction depends on our bodies according to a left to right axis and a front to back axis. However, you could also say go north and then turn east, the pharmacy will be facing north. These are geographic directions, which are not dependant on our bodies therefore do not change according the directions our body is facing. It's more natural for us to give directions and in general, associate ourselves with the space we're in according to the direction our body is facing. However, a remote Australian aboriginal tongue, Guugu Yimithirr, uses geographic directions as the natural way, the same way we use egocentric instinctively. If they want you to move over, they'd say "move a bit to the east." To tell you exactly where something is, they'd say, "It's on the northern edge of the eastern counter." This is a situation where language creates a different way of associating with the space around us.  And this particular use of language was not simply used in Australian, but rather found in countries like Bali and Mexico.

The thing about speaking a language like Guugu Yimithirr is not necessarily that it means they have a different sense of space but rather, their language obliges them to know and see the world differently. They have to know where the cardinal points are every single second of your waking life. You need a mental compass at all moments. Regardless, of where they are, be it in their home or a totally unknown city. Anyone who's grown up with that language would not even need to look at the sun to know the coordinates, they'd just...know them. Since it's something they were taught to be aware of since they were children, it becomes natural. The same way we instinctively and mindlessly know where "behind" and "forward" is, they know where north and south is.

In the end, the language is much more than a denotation. The language we grow up with teaches us to pay attention to certain things. It deeply impacts our schema, for it forces us to look at the world from the lenses of that language. It can shape our emotional response to inanimate objects or create in us an innate understanding of cardinal points. It creates habits for the mind which end up affecting everything, from our experiences to our expectations to our association with the space we're in.

"How do we know that language is more than denotation?"

Language is human communication that is either spoken or written, our central life as humans is solely based on our ability to communicate. We are currently in environments where we are forced to be able to share our perspectives, idea and learn from others. We need to be able to read anything from poems and quantum physics articles. We need to understand what they are trying to convey and when it is a literary piece we need to read the subtext, understand not only the denotations but the connotations as well.

 Denotation refers to the words explicit or direct meaning, as opposed to connotation that refers to an idea or felling that a word invokes. As an example take the words home, house, residence and dwelling. They all share the same denotation, that they are places where people live, but they each have different connotations. Words like the ones listed are synonyms of one another, a synonym being a word that shares a denotation with another word. But you must be asking how this answers the question? Well if these words weren’t different from one another then it would be pointless to have these words. Their difference lies in their connotations. Connotations can very based on a persons schema and should be kept in mind when reading a specific piece but certain connotations can be generalized. So if you were to analyze the word based on positive and negative connotations, home would be the most positive, house and residence indifferent and dwelling negative. If you still cant see how these is important I would urge you read a classic poem and then reflect on how it makes you feel. As soon as you start to feel you are using connotations and not denotation thus showing that language us ore than connotations.

Language is a human capacity, one that separates Human beings from other living beings. Yes other animals can communicate but there is no animal that uses both spoken sound and written language. Animals communicate, they can signal danger in the flap of the fluke to screeching cries but they cannot have a passionate discussion about politics in their communities. Now More than ever, humans can communicate not only the rudimentary but also the most complex of ideas.  Language is our primary form of symbolic communication; with each word being associated to and idea, concept, definition and so on; complemented by math, art, maps, and scientific models. Consider the most common signs in your daily lives, form the ale to female bathroom o flammable on hairspray and deodorant cans. These are simple symbols that we learn as we grow up using the information we have learnt. Now think of the words that you use when speaking, these are complex symbols. As humans we have the ability to move from symbolism and to use our sounds as meaningful communication. We are able to connect our experience to those of others.  But for the right message to be received we need to use more than words, we need body language and tone. Tone and body language are the things that can express what you ‘feel’, if are you angry, sad or ecstatic. Your tone and body language can convey these things. Imagine someone who speaks with no indication of emotion in his or her tone or body language. The monotonous voice would sound the same when they were mad or when happy. This would make it extremely difficult to comprehend and perceive what he truly meant while he spoke.  If language were purely denotation then it would be like speaking to Sheldon cooper from the big bang theory in the first seasons. It would be speaking with someone who interprets everything you say with the definition and not the connotation, someone who does not express emotion like others, and it would be an infuriating conversation. But because not everyone we talk to is like this then we can assume that language is not purely denotation because we se signs, tone, body language among others to communicate effectively with others.

Language has become a collection of symbols that all have meaning though some are not as simple as others; it is jumble of nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, synonyms and antonyms. Yet it is something that comes so naturally that Chomsky, a linguist from he 70s, claims that it is an innate ability. Language is no longer rudimentary but a highly developed human characteristic, one that is influenced and influences perspective.

How do we know that language is more than denotation?

In order to answer this question, we first have to understand what is meant by "denotation". According to the dictionary, denotation means "the literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests." In other words, it is literally what the word means, not the meaning between the lines of a text. The antonym for denotation would be connotation. So, for example, when the word "dog" is used, the denotation of the word would be a mammal with four legs and a tail. The connotation on the other hand would be that it is known as the man's best friend, as it is always happy and exuberant. That is a connotation as the word "dog" itself does not mean the "dog" is friendly. And so, this question actually asks how we do we know that language is more than what it is actually meant by the words used, or the language used. 

I strongly believe that language is not simple denotative. One of the examples I like to use when saying this relates to my cultural Chinese heritage. As family is one of the most important aspects of Chinese culture, there is a lot of different naming within the family. For example, I have an older sister, however although in english I would simply call her "sister", in mandarin depending whether she is my older sister or younger sister I would call her differently, 姐姐(JièJié) and 妹妹 (MèiMei), respectively. This is a great example of language honorifics, which relates to a hierarchical structure within a language, meaning that there is a different tone of importance and respect when talking this way. This clearly shows that  that language is way more than denotation, not only in mandarin but in many languages, especially asian languages. Honorifics ar a connotation of a way of referring toa person. For instance, when 姐姐(JièJié) is used, not only does it refer to an older sister, as it implies a greater respect when referring to her and increases the tone of formality. There is also a contrast to this: when a person calls someone who is not related to them, for example a waitress, as a 妹妹 (MèiMei), it is disrespectful depending on the context of the situation, unless you are an elderly person, which in this case is completely normal and expected. 

Honorifics is a great part in the Chinese language. 

Relating to the the previous topic of perception, there is also a huge role of schema in language. Depending on how you were raised and what your culture is, the way you used your language is greatly impacted by this. Schema affect the way you communicate, as it shapes the way you see things. It is important to talk about perception when talking about language, as they work hand-in-hand.

Furthermore, the TOK book gives us a great argument that shows that language is much more than simply denotation. The example that is given is the symbolic system, which is a language, as a language is classified as anything used as a mean/system of communication. So for example a restroom sign is either a sign of a man, or either a sign of a women, If we simply saw language as a denotation, the signs would only mean a man and a women. However, we know that that signs implies that behind the door that the sign is hung on, there is a bathroom for the sex the sign shows. The same in science labs, where many symbols are used for hazardous material and dangers in the lab. And if we dig deeper into science, the periodic table is made of symbols of elements, and so shows us that it is not simply a denotation, because if it were the symbol C would not mean Carbon but be genuinely understood as a letter. 

Moreover, sign language for the deaf is a example of the language being more than denotative. As shown in Sound and Fury, sign language plays a vital role in the lives of deaf people. But if language were denotative, deaf people would only see different movement and shapes of hands of people, and not the meaning that is trying to be conveyed. 

Concluding, we know language is more than denotative because each language has its own connotations. Whether it being honorifics in a language, or whether it is symbols in another, language has a greater meaning than simply the literal, direct meaning of the words or symbols. 

How do we know that language is more than denotation? - Leonardo Kim

A word’s denotation simply means the actual meaning or the dictionary definition of the word that refers to the actual thing or idea it represents. Therefore, through the meaning of denotation, we can say that language is more than its denotation. If we take a look at two examples, one from the article “Does Language Shape How You Think” and one from the telephone game we played during class, it is possible to analyze how different languages when translating brings new and altered meanings and different interpretation to it. An interesting example used in the article was a situation where two people were talking. One of them said in English “I spent yesterday evening with a neighbor”, but the thing is that we don’t know whether the neighbor was a woman or a man and the only way to know is by asking to the person. However, if this same sentence was spoken in a different language, for example, in French or German, because of the way the language is structured in its vocabulary, it would be possible to know the gender. They would have been obligate to either use between voisin or voisine, nachbar or nachbarin. Therefore, we can see that if we translated certain sentences or words, the meaning of it would have been altered because language is more than denotation. Another example that can enforce this statement is the telephone game. We tried to play this game twice during class and I thought that the second time we played had a more interesting idea about language. When the teacher gave the word tortoise to be passed by through the use of different languages, consisting of Portuguese, Spanish, English, French and Mandarin, the word changed to something similar. There are many languages that do not have a one word that means tortoise. For example, in Portuguese, there is no word that differentiates tortoise and turtle; it only has the word tartaruga that can mean tortoise or turtle. From the beginning of the telephone, the word tortoise became turtle because of the different languages used to transmit the word. According to our Theory of Knowledge book, language carries a perspective. This connects to the video we watched last class about the experiments with the two babies and the tribe. This shows that the language does affect how you perceive certain things. For example, the Himba tribe had a different categorization or classification for colors, where a word for them meant some tones of green and blue, while for English, green means all tones of greens and blue means all tones of blues. The experiment they made with the Himba tribe was showing two different images for them. One of the images was a set of green colors, that for me looked all of the same, and it was asked to one of the member of the Himba tribe to find the different color from the set. Without much difficulty, according to his perception and plasticity, he chose one of the green as being the different colors. However, for me, as a English speaker, was completely sure that all of the colors were the same. Then they showed to the same guy a set of green colors but with one as blue. It was obvious to most of us that the color that was different was the blue one. But the person from the Himba tribe had a lot of difficulties to determine the different color. This shows that because of their language, that some colors are classified with different words due to their unique language; they tend to perceive things, in this case, the colors in a different way than people that speak other languages. 

How do we know that language is more than denotation?

Denotation tends to be described as the literal or obvious meaning of a sign, in the case of linguistic signs denotative meaning is what the dictionary describes the word as. According to the denotation theory what distinguishes and meaningful from a meaningless word is that the meaningful word will stand for something, in other words, will have a context for it. An example is the word France, it means something since it stands for the country in Europe. While, Julatamba is meaningless because their is nothing in the world that corresponds to it. I believe that language is much more than denotation because it will affect our perception and thoughts about the world. We think in words therefore the more words you know the more thoughts you can have. This means that language allows you to have ideas that might be un-haveable without language and also that people who master different words will live in different conceptual worlds, this theory is called "whorfianism" named after Benjamin Lee Whorf. Lets think about Eskimos, they have a lot of different words for snow affecting how they perceive it. Try calling dry now "dax" even wet snow "blicket", it will certainly change the way you think about snow. We have only one name for frozen precipitation, snow, therefore we will see it and perceive differently than Eskimos. 

Another important concept of language is that the mother tongue does not force or prohibit certain ideas or perspectives, however its speakers form habits of perceiving concepts in a particular way. By learning words and attaching meaning to them one immediately forms a unique kind of comprehension for a object or concept. I am not saying that language may limit perspective, and what one is able to perceive, but it can influence how someone perceives and understand a particular idea. An example is the Himba tribe, which have words that describe various colours at the same time. When asked to differentiate the green square from the blue they were incapable of or took a very long time, since the word for blue and green in their culture is the same. Although, when asked to differentiate different shades of green they rapidly were able to do it, due to the different names for these shades. Many of us would find it extremely hard to differentiate these shades since we classify these various shades as green therefore perceiving everything as the same and not being able to distinguish between them. 

The linguist Roman Jakobson said, " Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey". This quote is basically trying to unlock the real force of the mother tongue, which is that; if different languages influence our minds, this is not because of what our language allows us to think, but because of what it constantly makes us think about. An example is that when speaking English the gender of a friend, neighbour or person that comes up in conversation may not be revealed, while in other languages it must be revealed. Consider this phrase,"I spent yesterdays evening at my neighbours house", the gender of the neighbour is not defined. Although when speaking in French or German the gender of this neighbour must be defined due to the words "voisin" or "voisine" and "Nachbar" or "Nachbarin". These languages make me inform you about the sex of the neighbour whether or not it is your concern. This does not mean that english speakers are unable to differentiate between evenings spent with male or female neighbours, but it means that they do not need to consider the sex of the neighbour, differently from other languages that speakers must reveal this information. If your language make you specify certain information, it may force you to be attentive to details in the world, in which speakers of other languages may not be aware of. Overall, habits of speech can become habits of mind, which affect perceptions, memories, feelings, experiences and universal comprehension of the world. 

To believe that language is merely denotation is to underestimate the power of words. Language can serve as denotation and connotation since a word invokes much more than its literal or primary meaning, it invokes our ability to reason, therefore shaping our mental structure and mindsets that as a consequence affect our line of thoughts.

"How do we know that language is more than denotation?" Blog

It doesn’t take a lot to realize that a certain language is not only the literal meanings of words. An activity as informal as a telephone activity played in class already shows us how languages are complex and carry cultural values within them.

Translating words or phrases in between languages can be often tricky. The BBC Horizon video on seeing color, reveals a fascinating aspect about colors and languages. The Himba, of northern Namibia classify color totally different than we do, as this makes the translation of certain colors, impossible. The fact that different languages have different color spectrums is a clear identifier of all the cultural values that a language carries.

On the article “Does Your Language Shape How You Think”, published on The New York Times, points several aspects on languages differences. A key aspect of language, is how we analyze the gender of things. The article extensively shows how with languages having different genders for a thing, affects the culture’s perception of it. In French, a fork (la fourchette), is feminine, causing people to assimilate the fork with female human voices. On the other hand, Spanish speaking people wanted the fork (el tenedor) to have a male voice, as the work is masculine in Spanish.

Furthermore, the article showed other factors that build a language, such as navigation. Showing examples of different cultures, the reporter argued that in some languages egocentric coordinates are predominant while in others, only geographic directions are used. This affects how people who speak a language perceive the world and have a tremendous influence of how a speaker of a language will perceive space.

Another interesting factor from the article is how different languages incorporate spoken language. Depending on the language, a person will have to construct phrases that include details. And the astonishing thing is that the details are determined based on the language. For example, in English, you need to specify when an event happened (past, present, or future) while in Chinese, this is not required.

The chapter “Language as a Way of Knowing”, from the ToK book, also gave fundamental reasons for why languages can’t be seen as a simple denotation. A simple word like “rock” is not literal in any way. There are several different interpretations to it and this happens to signs to. We inference what is happening on a sign, based on our cultural perception, and then act based on our understanding.

Further than that, metaphors take languages even further away from being denotations, changing completely how we perceive the world through language.

Summing all of this up, the hypothesis developed by Whorf, the linguistic relativity hypothesis, claims that the particular language one speaks will make one think drastically different of the world. With all of the examples already found, it is difficult to say languages are denotations and leaves us to think of who we would be if we spoke a different language.

How do we know that language is more than denotation? -Erik Larsen

We know that language is more than denotation because of the ways in which we have seen how language can affect our thinking and even our perception. Around the year 1940, a man by the name of Benjamin Lee Whorf was studying this effect that language had on perception on  native american tribes, as we learned from the article “Does Your Language Shape How You Think?” But due to Whorf’s lack of evidence, all his claims were ridiculed and for 70 years on, no further studies were conducted in this area. Whorf was on to something though. Now the study on the effect of language on perception is growing and we have lots of evidence to support this claim.

Another idea from the article “Does Your Language Shape How You Think?” , that I found interesting was that “Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey”. This idea from Roman Jakobson shows how language shapes our societal ideas. In the example given in the article, if you were to say “I was at a friends house last night”, in English, you could not tell if they friend was male or female. Giving me the choice of weather it is your business to know or not. If you were to say the same phrase in Spanish, you would have to use a male form or female form for the word friend (amigo/amiga). Weather you like it or not, that person you told knows a bit more about your situation than you might want them to know. The way I see it, this affects what we think as a society because, if you were a Spanish speaker, you have to live with this male/female form of words and so it is common for people to know information like that. In English, it is often rude to ask if the person you are referring to is male or female, if the person sharing hasn't started already. I is not right in that society for information like that to be disclosed. This is one of the more obvious and possibly easier to understand ways in which language shapes perception.

Looking back on the short documentary we watch in class about color in newborns as opposed to post language childeren, and the study in the Himba tribe, there are more ways in which language affects perception. In this case, it is the language of color classification that affects our perception. Newborn babies do not see color immediately and  it takes around 3 months for color to develop. The study in the video compared babies pre and post language, to see the difference in reaction and behavior with color. What they found was that, even without language, babies are still dividing and sorting colors into categories of their own. When they tested a 3 year old child that could speak language, they found that the post language children would processes color on the right side of the brain, closer to the language area of the brain. Unlike pre language children who use the left side of their brain. Clearly there is some sort of effect that language has on how we perceive color, otherwise there would be no change. How language is effecting our color perception is still a mystery but we have enough evidence to someday find the answer. This evidence is being supported by the other experiment in the second half of the video where there was a study on the Himba tribe in Namibia. This tribe only has half the amount of words to categorize color than we do in English and most other languages. The Himba tribe people were shown a circle of squares, where one square was a different color. The first of these types of slides was, what looked like to use, a circle of squares that had all the same shade of green on them. We could not see the difference in the shades of green but nearly all the Himbas could spot it within a few seconds. Their name for that shade of green was different from the other shades of green and so it was different to them. The second slide that was shown to them was just like the other, except there was a light shade of blue with the other green shaded squares. To us, anyhow, it was blue, and we could see the difference easily. The Himbas however, did not have a different name for that color and so could not spot the difference in the circle. That shade of “blue” and that shade of “green” was known to them by one word. The Himba Tribe cannot perceive two different colors, if what they are being asked to differentiate is known as the same thing to them.

This type of language effect on perception with the Himba tribe is similar in character to the game telephone, but in different languages. The normal game telephone doesn't have much to do with language and perception because it is normally played in one languages. Changing the language each time the message is passed on down the line in a game of telephone shows a lot about how we translate what we hear in one language and put together in another language. Things like context, verb tense, and conjugation cloud the original message. When you have to comprehend these three things in one language, then as accurately as possible, translate that in your own head to then carry on the message to the next person in a different language it becomes apparently difficult. But apart from the inability to translate certain words, conjugations, and verb tenses, how much of the original  message is being changed by our perception and not just   handicaps of a the language? This question had a striking resemblance to the original question of how do we know that language is more than denotation. (after thinking about it as I went to get a drink of water because I have been working for a good 45 min now). Looking at this game of telephone with different languages hold more information to answering the blog question than I had originally anticipated. Language can affect perception but then so can perception affect language. The way we picture what we are told in our minds and the way we describe what we pictured is done by a the use of a complex structure of words that we then share. That structure of words cannot be reprocessed into the same mental image by a different person that that first person created. That different person will understand that you said but picture something different and use his “own” words to describe what he/she pictured. The denotation of words, at this point, are non existent because the meanings of words in different languages change each person's perception, which then the perception that each person has of those words leads to the change in the meaning of words due to way in which people use them. Ironically, this makes complete sense to me but will most likely will not make sense to others who will read up to my conclusion.

Using the texts you've read, videos you've watched, and activities we've done, consider this question: How do we know that language is more than denotation?