Tag: language

Reading List - Language

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How can I incorporate this into my photography?

Wilson and Sperber conclude that human language developed and became so powerful because of two unique cognitive abilities of humans, language and the power to attribute mental states to others. We look for context for the words we hear. And we are very proficient at absorbing this context to infer meaning.Farnam Street

What is Goverment?

We argue over ideology without regard for the fundamental purpose of what the government actually is.

Government is simply the way we order ourselves.
That’s the accepted definition. That’s the historic definition. And living in a democratic republic predicated on maintaining that togetherness while supporting our individual liberty has been our common purpose for over two centuries.Drew Downs

Travel is good for the world.

In times of distress like these, we need to roam, we need to travel, we need to see. We need more love and hope in this world. We need to believe in others and see the beauty in people and the world once again. If we stop traveling, we stop flourishing. We stop accepting people who are different then us and we stop connecting with the world.We need to unite and stay together, because we are always more powerful as a unit. This is true in so many aspects of life. There’s a need for us to choose good over evil.Mersad Donko

Language and Communication, Cameras, Street Photography, and Envy

The desire to affirm that women are equal has made some scholars reluctant to show they are different, because differences can be used to justify unequal treatment and opportunity. Much as I understand and am in sympathy with those who wish there were no differences between women and men—only reparable social injustice—my research, others’ research, and my own and others’ experience tell me it simply isn’t so. There are gender differences in ways of speaking, and we need to identify and understand them. Without such understanding, we are doomed to blame others or ourselves—or the relationship)—for the otherwise mystifying and damaging effects of our contrasting conversational styles.

Excerpt from a book I am currently reading in iBooks Store. The book, “You Just Don't Understand.”, is by Deborah Tannen.

Remember that the camera itself is only half of what makes a camera good. How dedicated you are, how hard you work, and how many good and great pictures you get out of it are the other half. How much you use it is just as important as whatever it is.What makes a camera good

As humans we are naturally wired to focus on important things and filter out all the rest. Although such an approach has served us well over the ages, in creative seeing it’s a major obstacle. In addition, our education system and our daily routine push us to see and react in a certain way. Have you noticed when walking around the city how your brain filters out the noise and visuals? We usually stroll around town without challenging what we see or how we see it. In order to find “something interesting in an ordinary place,” you need to break your seeing patterns and go for something new, uncomfortable and different.A personal rant about street photography

Avoid letting yourself fall into the all-too-common kinds of comparative thinking that breed envy, self-doubt and other kinds of unproductive energy. Nip that shiz in the bud if you do feel yourself going down that road. Snuff it out before it take take root and steal your energy – and instead, use the power of comparative thinking to your advantage– turn it into positive energy and critical thinking about craft– that will fuel your progression as a creative professional. Compare your work to that of the best, and do it with unflinching honesty. Rinse and repeat.Chase Jarvis

People!

Language is impossible to nail down: any description can become a label, and any label can become a self-fulfilling inference. What these labels mean in society, hearts, and minds is more than the sum of their syntax.

Then it struck me, the term ‘people with lived experience’ only changes semantics, not attitudes and assumptions. Whether you say people experience homelessness or are homeless, the fundamental question is what you presume and presuppose about the concept of homelessness itself. Psychologically speaking, the influence of our syntax is quite limited here: rejigging the subject and predicate of a sentence does not somehow automatically override the feelings and beliefs we have internalized about the nature of homelessness. Even though the new term grammatically reframes homelessness as a condition instead of an identity, it nonetheless continues to carry the assumptions, biases, and stigmas of its speakers and hearers.James Shelley

James is right. One thing that has annoyed me about many recent efforts to change the meanings of words is that they do not account for human behaviour. Human beings are meaning making machines. The word “dude” can mean anything from “you are awesome” to “you are an ass”. It’s the same word, the difference being only the intent of the person using the word.

And if you, like me and many others, didn’t receive the memo that the word has changed meaning, the assumption is that you are intentionally trying to cause harm.

Consider the implications here: the phrase ‘people with lived experience’ can easily be used as a cognitive-linguistic short-cut for an extremely complex set of circumstances. It can be as presumptive as the terminology it was created to replace; it can be as equally typecasting and prejudicial as referring to people as ‘the homeless’, ‘those people’. Given time, a phrase originally intended to reduce generalizations and identity-imputing stereotypes can itself become a plug-and-play term for conventionalizing and pigeonholing. Language is impossible to nail down: any description can become a label, and any label can become a self-fulfilling inference. What these labels mean in society, hearts, and minds is more than the sum of their syntax.

The challenge is that words only have the meaning given to them by human beings.