Chapter 4: Communication

From reading the chapter in the textbook and the articles I have come to believe that language shapes reality from the very root of where it began. Since, we have created a language we have had history. Whether history comes from artifacts, haptics, chronemics, and other examples from the text, people have been able to put their findings into words that can be translated to practically any language. We see today how our reality is much different from the reality of the 1920's. Which is only normal because culture changes all the time. Our communication seems to be taking a turn for the unsocial. Prior to having everything at our finger tips, people had to write thank you letters not just send a typed up email. The reality has turned much more technological with all the phones and computers much of our language is being shortened to wrud (what are you doing), lol (laugh out loud), u (you), and also abbreviations like abbrev, presh, and totes. Our syntax is getting simpler and simpler everyday. As it says in our book, language changes almost every 1000 years, so who knows what the people in the future's reality of language will be.

I conclude that the way we see the world affects the language we use. A child is supposed to start hearing and taking in their first language till age 6, this period is the most crucial time for a child to grasp a language. After this period, they will most likely have the basics and schooling and reading will allow them to have a more extensive vocabulary. Whereas we see in our book Genie did not get any schooling for the first 12 years of her life. So she when she was trained to learn a language she began to take up some of it, but because she was in an attic for a portion of her life her view of the world is a lot smaller then other peoples. Therefore Genie had difficultly grasping the concept of talking in complete sentences and reading, things we often take for granted. Also in the article Shakespeare in the Bush this clearly demonstrates how since their culture has different beliefs they see the world differently and saw the play of Hamlet completely different then the person telling the story.