12 Days Left!
Ok, the title may sound more dreary than interesting, but as I was considering
some philosophical aspects of language over summer, I began wondering about why
Language was not already an Area of Knowledge (AoK). To give some background,
Language is a Way of Knowing (WoK),
which as the name suggests is a way of gaining knowledge. WoKs provide answers
to the ‘How Do We Know?’ question. The other WoKs are emotion, intuition, faith,
reason, imagination, memory, and sense perception. The existing AoKs, which I
believe Language should join, are Ethics, History, Natural Sciences, Human
Sciences, Mathematics, Religious Knowledge Systems, Indigenous Knowledge
Systems, and the Arts.
An Area of Knowledge can be defined by its characteristics, which include
having specific Scope and Application, having its own Concepts and Language, a
concrete Methodology, Historical Development, and Links to Personal Knowledge. To
argue my case, I’ll be looking at each component of the AoK through the lens of
Language.
Language can be described as a system for communication, where information
can be conveyed when symbols are put together on paper, or when these symbols
are given sounds that give meaning when they are spoken. This is what Language
as an Area of Knowledge is about – communication. It studies how humans
transfer information to one another, and by doing so solve problems in other
AoKs. For example, certain conundrums in psychology (a Human Science) could be
explained with the absence of certain words that exist in other languages.
Having a word for a concept makes it more concrete in our minds, as it fits
into our communication system. For instance, the word litost is Czech for ‘depression caused by sudden insight into one’s
own miserable self’. It could be argued that the Czechs would be more prone to
this malady, as they are more aware of
it than we are (as it exists more indirectly in English). Additionally, just
like the Scope of any other AoK, Language contains open questions (e.g. What is
the origin of Language?) that are still being explored.
The next characteristic of an AoK is slightly trickier. Concepts and
Language emphasize the role of language in the way knowledge is created in each
AoK. Language encompasses concepts, and it is these concepts that constitute
the Areas of Knowledge as we know them.
One way around this would be to consider not the system for communication
itself, but the study of it (which we mentioned earlier). For example, linguistics
is a study under Language, which looks at its structure and its implications (e.g.
social, historical etc.). Like any scientific field, Linguistics has its own
terminology. We even learnt some of it in class, for example ‘creole’, ‘dialect
leveling’, ‘code switching’ etc. These words represent key concepts in
linguistics, a field directly related to Language, and so consequently explain
our knowledge of this area.
Linguistics as a field of Language is rather ‘meta’, as it attempts to
understand the origins, structure and implications of itself. It also fits well
into the AoK framework under Methodology. Experiments involving language (such
as this game) are frequently conducted, revealing to us more information
about how we communicate with each other. In fact, other subsections of
Language, like literature (the production of artistic language) also have
distinct ways of being understood that could be considered Methodology. One
might analyze themes, diction, characterization, plot etc. to further
understand the work. Additionally, Language again resembles an AoK through the
things it values (which we see directly in literature), and the rejections it
makes (font size, for example, does not matter as much in literature).
Do I really need to explain why Language has a Historical Development? Although
there are contrasting theories on the origins of language (e.g. Discontinuity
and Continuity theory), they both involve it’s gradual evolution to what we
know it as today. Even from the linguistics perspective of meta-language, our
understanding of the communicative systems we use is constantly changing based
on historical context. For example, at a time when people relied on the church
for explanations, the story of the Tower of Babel illustrated the origin of
different languages. Now, however, linguists believe different languages arose
out of different needs and contexts. Etymology can also provide interesting
insights into the historical development of specific words and ideas.
The last component of an Area of Knowledge is its Links to Personal
Knowledge. With this element, the AoK must tell us what it should mean to us,
and why it is important. There are many direct connections to the Knower in
Language, as its usage is almost unavoidable (an interesting article here
talks about thought without language – a very rare occurrence). Language is
also instrumental in the many forms of communication that surround us today –
from advertisements to entertainment and social media. Any interaction with
people will use some form of language, and establish our personal links to the
AoK.
It seems that Language does follow the structure of an AoK. But one must
also realize the compelling argument for it as a WoK – the way that Language
encompasses nearly every aspect of our lives and also every AoK is what places
it in that category. To counter this, we can focus on the purpose of an AoK –
to categorize our knowledge into systems to understand it better. Language fits
well here, especially as our earlier definition explained it as a communicative
system and the study of it.
All in all, I believe that Language can fit effectively into the Area of
Knowledge framework. This argument does not make a statement about Language but
rather about ToK, proving that the existing WoKs and AoKs are not infallible
structures that govern all knowledge. They have their own limitations, which
must be recognized to truly understand ToK.
Of course, many of the examples I brought up here fit in well with
Language and Literature, and the analysis was also completed on the English
language, which we are studying in this course. The argument is not flawless as
it does not look at other languages, but it provides a good beginning for more
analysis. What do you think?
Sources
http://simplyphilosophy.org/words-are-arbitrary/