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Notes by Alan Dix on "In Praise of the Garrulous"

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In Praise of the Garrulous

Notes

p.2

language/dialogue - opening yourself up, therefore the powerful are silent

p.5

bourgeoisie language - argument forms direct - few subordinate clauses - "hypotaxis to parataxis"

p.13

richness of primitive language

p.15

Darwin and relation between high/low race (!)

p.16

dolphins lucky not have opposable thumb (because language plus thumb leads to oppression)

p.17

Vandals, Huns and Mongols destroyed Middle Eastern and Asian civilisations (AC suggests reason for European pre-eminence)

p.19

"modern man is moving swiftly to plain language, reduced vocabulary and an absence of memory"

p.25

language verb/object order and Gaelic special case for "to be"

p.25

"Reason … is probably something that is taught, whereas language is universal …"

p.26

unique qualities of humanity - walking and talking

p.28

Bushmen "Where we die, we die" - sedentary Egyptians needed afterlife journey to make up for those missed in this life

p.34

language is the history of a people

p.39

critique if Pinker's 'mentalese'

p.40/41

problem of translation - uniqueness off languages

p.41

picture pairing - English and Indonesian tense structures affects pairs

p.44

quoting Pinker who cites Berlin and Atran - 'universal categories for flora and fauna (me) seems to contradict Lakof

p.57

"the social mind" - linked through language (c.f. A Mind so Rare)

p.60

Francis Yates - easier to remember language when associated with images along an itinerary (c.f. Wanderlust - importance of walking!)

p.61

Galileo "every memory fades if not stimulated by images form the external world"

p.61/62

- Hasidic story - shortening memories with each generation leading to shortened itineraries ,,, and further from God

p.63

Zulu - rich and naturally alliterative inflections

p.63/64

importance of rhetoric

p.64-67

the power of narrative - woman caught in adultery, Madame Bovary, Garibaldi

p.69

the tablets in the library of Ninevah crushed beneath the feet of early archaeologist seeking vases and weapons

p.69

written language "dead" - Sartre "graveyards are peaceful places, and the most pleasant ones are called libraries"

p.71

"In oral society poetry was both mnemonic and aestheticism…" writing challenges the former

p.71

"with the invention of writing … the social mind becomes tangible"

p.71/72

imperialism as simplifier of language (me) in 20th C media!

p.73

Sartre - reading "an act f generosity" - as reader opens their mind to the author (me) N.B. in Semitic languages also the reader is part of the record as needed to fill in vowels

p.74

writing and professionalism … but (me) maybe more important to have cast and role in oral tradition where memories persist in people?

p.74/75

Zhuangzi (about Tao) - reading clogs the brain; Bacon an intellectual, but also early anti-intellectual; Zhuangzi - words dangerous as they lead to action (!)

p.76

the physicality of libraries - armies can destroy wisdom of centuries in hours - but clay tablets vitrified 9fixed forever) by fire whereas papyrus burns … (me) what of digital media

p.77/78

bibloclasts (me!) - illiterate and religious

p.84

radical way to deal with copyright infringement - denounce as heretic

p.85

physical decay of books - from oral, through writing and pronto to digital media - information must be constantly recreated/re-represented (but information persists in copies)

p.85

Machiavelli "I was sitting on the bog when they brought me your letter"!

p.86

- Horace - do not publish for nine years "the word once set forth can never come back" - c.f. Twitter??

p.87

Doni (1551) "we paper-shitters"

p.87

empiricism vs literature - Vesalius anatomist "leave your books"

p.89

imp. of translations of Bible for Slovenian and Welsh compared to Knox's English rather than Gaelic or Scots

p.93

Dr Johnson - two kinds of knowledge "what we know and what we know how to find out"

p.95

Donald Macdonald "the English do not have a soul, they have understatement"

p.96

Latin was a language because "although people disagreed over what correct latin was, they accepted that there was such a thing as correct Latin"

p.97

Welsh - attempts to eradicate in late 19th C

p.98

critique of English - fair?

p.100

language depletion 90% loss by end of century

p.101

the distinct character of a language

p.106/107

Tessa Jowell - Gaels not as vociferous as Welsh language movement

p.123

network effects for English

p.128 (on)

imp of register - adapting language to context

p.140

language divides us … but …

p.141

common language (Serbo-Croat) may intensify misunderstanding (me) sharp distinctions often less problematic than fuzzy boundaries

p.143

pop music as promulgator of English (trusting future of culture to the teens?)

p.154

the power of the periphery - Western isles used to be greatest prop. of doctors, lawyers, graduates (me) maybe also revivals and protestant ethic?)

p.157

human thrive on disorder and chaos but have innate drive to order it

p.165

"language is a gift from the past"

[A

Mind so Rare] :author: Merlin Donald :isbn: 0-393-04950-7

[Wanderlust]

:author: Rebecca Solnit :isbn: 1844675580