Ok...although I did enjoy the first chapter, I was a little more frustrated with the second. I realyl feel that we are beating trivial statements to the ground. The whole marked/unmarked of the past present future, I believe, isnt because one is more complex and important than the other, but MAYBE they are just spelled different...i dont know...just a thought.
When Lakoff describes the use of masculine names when referring to animals, it means the speaker is being more specific and "meaningful" then when talking about the female. But Lakoff goes to reverse the idea when the speaker is talking about the female. The female is marked and considered "not-fully-human." Where does this switch come in? It feels like a stretch to make feminist statement.
I did enjoy reading the section on common sense and the differences that envolve over time in what is common sense and what isnt. The mere fact that people who go agaist common sense always have to be justifying their views, and people who views are considered common sense does not have to.
Overall some things did frustrate me because they seemed like a stretch, but i did enjoy reading about the evolution of language and the section with dear abby excerpts.
ps. jerry springer rocks my socks...well actually not really....
1 comment:
It is intresting that the feminist part of the text "the lexical dichotomy merely replicates or represents an extranlinguistic perception of women as not-fully-human, the linguistic encoding of this perception encourages speakers to see it as inevitable and correct" (45) as a stretch. Yes it is just words describing a group like when Sloth yells to the goonies "Hey you guys!" do we really believe that he puts less value on the she-goonies than the lovable chunk of the group? perhaps not...but if you filter it down to constitutional rights and denying women something because all men are created equal I can see problems.
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