HOW LINGUISTS THINK OF A “WARDROBE MALFUNCTION.” There was an extended discussion of Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” at the 2004 Super Bowl. Linguists think of it differently than the other discussants. In Professor Boroditsky’s article, and in the comments on Language Lab here, “wardrobe malfunction” is discussed as a “nonagentive coinage introduced into the English language by Justin Timberlake.”
Archive for July, 2010
HOW LINGUISTS THINK OF A “WARDROBE MALFUNCTION.”
Saturday, July 31st, 2010DO LANGUAGES AFFECT THINKING ABOUT CAUSATION?
Saturday, July 31st, 2010DO LANGUAGES AFFECT THINKING ABOUT CAUSATION? Professor Boroditsky gives an example of a cognitive science experiment which shows how a language can shape thinking about causality. In the experiment, subjects were shown videos of people breaking eggs or spilling drinks either intentionally or accidentally. When the breaking or spilling was accidental, people who spoke Japanese or Spanish did not remember which of the people did it as well as English speakers remembered. Boroditsky gives the explanation that English speakers describe events in terms of agents doing things: “John broke the vase,” In Japanese or Spanish, the usual phrasing is “The vase broke itself.” Apparently people who structure their sentences in terms of agents do better at remembering who dropped an egg accidentally.
UPDATE ON THE LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY WARS.
Friday, July 30th, 2010UPDATE ON THE LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY WARS. I posted here at the beginning of this year about the “fierce debate” in linguistics between “those, such as Noam Chomsky, who think that all languages function roughly the same way in the brain and those… such as Benjamin Lee Whorf…[who think] that different languages condition or constrain the mind’s habits of thought.” I said then that “I have the impression that the universalist school has the majority view.”—a cautious conclusion because I had linked to this wikipedia article on linguistic relativity, which said, in discussing the “universalist Period”, “[Chomsky's] theory became the dominant paradigm in American linguistics from the 1960s through the 1980s and the notion of linguistic relativity fell out of favor and became even the object of ridicule.” Lera Boroditsky, a professor of psychology at Stanford, in an article in the weekend Wall Street Journal (July 24-25) indicates that the debate is still unsettled, saying: “after decades of work, not a single proposed universal has withstood scrutiny….” Professor Boroditsky acknowledges that “The idea that language might shape thought was for a long time considered untestable at best and more often simply crazy and wrong.”. but now, she says, “a flurry of new cognitive science research is showing that in fact, language does profoundly influence how we see the world.” I remember graduate students telling me about Chomsky’s theory back in the sixties, and, some fifty years later, it is still debated. There is an excellent blog about linguistics, Language Log, which is a good place to follow this and other issues in linguistics.
DON’T REJECT KEYNES.
Thursday, July 29th, 2010DON’T REJECT KEYNES. Kids, you will be reading claims in the future that Keynes should be ignored because his ideas were unsuccessful in dealing with this great recession. I know you will be reading that because many people are saying that now. My opinion is that Keynesian thinking has not been tried. I say Keynesian thinking advisedly, for the reasons I gave in the last posts. (Remember that I am a Keynesian.) I have looked at macroeconomic developments through Keynesian glasses since 1961, and the Keynesian explanations of those developments always seemed plausible. I think that I have lived through two successful applications of Keynesian policies during those 50 years: Kennedy’s and Reagan’s. (Reagan did not say his policy was Keynesian, but there was a combination of fiscal easing and monetary tightening.) Both Kennedy and Reagan included measures to encourage increased investment. Kennedy had an investment tax credit and Reagan had accelerated depreciation. There has been little discussion of encouraging investment in the last couple years. I think that the uncertainties about future health care regulations, financial regulations and tax rates for 2011 and beyond have had a discouraging effect on new investment and new hiring. Of course, I can’t prove it, but I don’t think that the case against Keynes has been proved or can be proved either. The next time there is a recession, look at Keynes to help you understand what’s happening.
A KEYNESIAN ANALYSIS OF DEFICITS.
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010A KEYNESIAN ANALYSIS OF DEFICITS. I think that in analyzing a policy to deal with a recession, Keynes would include an analysis of the policy’s effect on aggregate investment. A letter in the Financial Times (July 22, 2010) by Sheila Dow, Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of Stirling, Scotland, analyzes the current debate about deficits in terms of the effect of deficits on investment. She points out that Keynes “argued that policymakers must seek to boost business confidence, to change conventional judgments and to stir up their animal spirits (the urge to action in spite of uncertainty).” She then restates the deficit debate in Keynesian terms: “The debate now is about whether fiscal stimulus or austerity would in fact encourage reasonable producers to invest.”
GOING BACK TO KEYNES—THE IMPORTANCE OF INVESTMENT.
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010GOING BACK TO KEYNES—THE IMPORTANCE OF INVESTMENT. Professor Glaeser observed that “For decades, the economics profession had been moving away from Keynes….” One indication that economists have moved away from Keynes is that while the name of Keynes has been often invoked during the past two years, much of the discussion has reduced Keynes’s thinking to the simplified issue of whether larger government deficits can stimulate the economy and by how much. The effect of government policy on the amount of private investment has rarely mentioned in the last two years, and, despite the great importance of aggregate private investment for Keynes, private investment is almost never mentioned in discussions of Keynesian thinking. Keynes wrote a great book, THE GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT, INTEREST AND MONEY, which can be found (in its entirety!) here. Note that “Book IV” (one of six “Books”) is entitled “The Inducement to Invest.” In his discussion of the determinants of investment, Keynes stresses the importance of expectations of investors. Keynes says in Chapter 11 of his discussion of “The Inducement to Invest” that “Two types of risk affect the volume of investment….The first is the entrepreneur’s or borrower’s risk and arises out of doubts in his own mind as to the probability of his actually earning the prospective yield for which he hopes.” Another chapter in Keynes’s discussion of the “Inducement to Invest” (Chapter 12) is devoted to “The State of Long-Term Expectation.” In it points out that: “The outstanding fact is the extreme precariousness of the basis of knowledge on which our estimates of prospective yield have to be made. Our knowledge of the factors which will govern the yield of an investment some years hence is usually very slight and often negligible.” Thus, for Keynes, aggregate private investment is very important and subject to great volatility because the people who make investments can know so little about the future.
“WHAT ECONOMISTS DON’T KNOW AND PERHAPS CAN’T.”
Monday, July 26th, 2010“WHAT ECONOMISTS DON’T KNOW AND PERHAPS CAN’T.” The caption for this post is taken from the title of this article by Professor Edward Glaeser. I posted here about the pessimism that I learned in the sixties about what economists can find out (because nature doesn’t run very good experiments.) Professor Glaeser is relatively optimistic about what economists know and can learn about microeconomic issues, pointing out that “Our knowledge of microeconomic policies comes from repetition and randomization.” The randomization studies are relatively new. (He mentions Professor Esther Duflo’s randomization work that I posted on here.) In contrast, Professor Glaeser is pessimistic about what we can learn about macroeconomics, concluding: “It is a great tragedy that the most important area of economic decision-making is also the area where we will always know the least.” His reasons (which are similar to the ones I gave here) are that “Recessions aren’t that common, and there are too many moving parts. Times change….”
SEAM AND GREASE (COMMENT).
Sunday, July 25th, 2010SEAM AND GREASE (COMMENT). I think that Professor Liberman’s association of “unseaming” with “guts” remains valid. My OED gives the usage of “seam” for “fat” or “grease” going back to 1200, with examples from 1483, 1513 and 1541. I think that for an Elizabethan audience, “unseaming” would evoke visions of a butcher at work. I also think that this meaning of “seam” would be evoked by the passage from Troilus and Cressida (II, iii, 183-189) and that this association would be reinforced by the later lines in the speech (lines 194-195):
By going to Achilles.
That were to enlard his fat-already pride….
In both cases, I think the metaphors operate in two different ways at once. I like this conclusion because, as I posted here, I read William Empson’s SEVEN TYPES OF AMBIGUITY when I was young and love it.
SEAMS AND SEWING (COMMENT).
Sunday, July 25th, 2010SEAMS AND SEWING (COMMENT). I posted here on Professor Biberman’s observation that in the phrase “he unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops”, Shakespeare’s audience would be familiar with the use of “seam” to refer to “guts.” Trent commented that the sewing analogy is logical when applied to both the phrase from Macbeth and to another passage from Shakespeare. The passage is from Troilus and Cressida, and I am retyping it here because the quotation in the comments was garbled by the software. In the passage (II, iii, 183-189)), Ulysses is speaking about Achilles and his pride:
Shall the proud lord
That bastes his arrogance with his own seam,
And never suffers matter of the world
Enter his thoughts, save such as doth revolve
And ruminate himself, shall he be worshipp’d
Of that we hod an idol more than he?
I like to think of Shakespeare as a glovemaker’s son, so I am happy to have these sewing metaphors. (Note that the idea of unseaming by ripping out stitches and the idea of basting or preliminary sewing fit with the process of making gloves).
CHESTERTON ON TIMES SQUARE.
Saturday, July 24th, 2010CHESTERTON ON TIMES SQUARE. The human context often distracts us from the visual beauty of a scene. Back in the day, I treasured the beauty of sunsets that resulted from air pollution. G. K. Chesterton said about Times Square (at least 70 years ago): ” How beautiful it would be for some one who could not read.”
