The Importance of Language's Vague Nature
To me, a sixth sense is a sense of knowing without concretely knowing. All of the senses we are equipped with help our perception of the world, but we still know things without perceiving in the same way. The early part of this book brought up the interesting topic of language's ambiguity. David Abram reflected how language is limited as a medium. It has no way to convey one's thoughts completely and the vocabulary used wrongfully describes conveyance in some instances. Oftentimes when my parents speak to me, they use a word that is completely wrong from what they mean to say and it's taught me to not hold a high value to specific words used in favor of what someone means. At the same time, who am I to discern what is being communicated to me? The familiar usage of language shapes "the perceptual style of any community is both reflected in, and profoundly shaped by, the common language of the community," (91). One's demeanor is influenced by their vernacular such as: one that does not have much self-respect using self-deprecation (either playful or serious) often. Word choice not only influences thought but the available words in your mind can influence one's emotional options. Several words outside of English exist that convey the emotional complexity of humanity. Words can convey the pleasure of competition, a certain feeling of close friendship, pleasure about an event before it happens, and the urge to hug something that is adorable, etc. In a way, language is a sixth sense because it conveys information and perception but is not objective at all. In my opinion, more forms of communication should be familiarized and normalized to a similar degree to speech because we are too familiar with the form of speech that is not all-encompassing. If we value the subtle nature of humanity instead of what is blatant, then we will see more beauty in life.
I really liked how you touched on being able to convey meaning without words. For me something like that is the language of love. You might have words to describe who you love but there is also a strong feeling that is important too.
ReplyDeleteI really like the way you described language as a sixth sense. Often language is referred to or incomplete. We can't describe/convey everything exactly how we want or how it is because of the constraints of language. I think of color when I think of the constraints of language and how people who are not colorblind could never hope to describe color to someone who is colorblind. They could attach it to a feeling or an object, but they can't make a colorblind person envision color they way they see it. The way you wrote about language as its own sense makes it feel less constricting but more different. Things don't line up perfectly and the same goes for language. It's not perfect or all encompassing because it's not meant to be. Tone, body language, volume, and words all create language as it's own sense.
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