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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created July 26, 2001
Latest update: July 26, 2001
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu
And the Imaginary
Collaborative Writing Journal Notes for Review and Teaching Essay
by Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata
Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan Takata, July 2001. "Fair use" encouraged.
This essay is based on an article by Timothy Mason: Could Chomsky Be Wrong?.Language acquisition relates to our discussions of social justice through the imaginary. Theories of "language as a cloak" have long been with us. (The Untruth I Taught for Years) They suggest that our imaginary is constrained by the limits imposed on conceptual thought through the naming of concepts, that is, through the language we speak. When there is no word that has been accepted to communicate a newly-thought-out concept, communication on that concept is difficult. And if we use words the existing words of our language that others do recognize "they understand us too quickly," and communication is again, difficult.
It's hard to imagine what is different from all that we have known. Easier to think in terms of what we have known as just the "way it is" and/or "the way it should be." And then we need to think of this issue in terms of expectations and status characteristic differential theory. I'll get more on that up soon. But meanwhile, it might be a good idea to start reading Timothy Mason's article on Chomsky and Pinker, as representing different approaches to language and the imaginary:
Could Chomsky Be Wrong? by Timothy Mason