Linguistic Relativity, Bilingualism

-After a period of "separation", liguist anthropologists seem to be
joining the cogsci community. THis is good news; Limbert-Gomez is a
typical example.


-A basic question in Lakoff's framework is whether it is possible to learn
a second language at all?
	
	-Degree of understanding is important.
	-When there is such a degree of within-language variability, the
	 problem of between-language variability is not a big issue, after
	 all.
		-We have so many different meanings for a single word.
		 -Examples?
		 -Polysemy is just one kind.
		 -A commonplace concept like "mother" is another. 
		  What would you say about somebody saying:
			"I don't have a mother"!	
		 -The variety of meanings for the word "over" is yet
		  another one.

-If two people speak different languages, how can they "understand" each
other?
	
	- It seems more suitable to replace "understanding" with
	 learning.
	- Learnibility has to do with the preconceptual stage
 
-Conjecture:
 If language penetrates the conceptual structure, you can compare the
 conceptual systems of people without referring to language.

-What is a conceptual framework?
 Two views are possible.
	1)There is a conceptual system and what the language does is to
	  map onto it
	2)It is the language that constructs the conceptual space

 Which one of these are we talking about?
 If it is the second version,is language special in this functioning?
 How about social relations and skills?

	
-How about bilingual children?
	-They seem to be very comfortable in learning two languages at
	 the same time.
	-Do they have two conceptual systems or just one for the two
 	 languages?

-Proposal:
 Everything in Lakoff's criteria for commensurability could be basically
 captured in the concept of "organization" or, for the sake of generality,
 in the concept of "structure". 

	-This holds whether we are talking about translatability,
	 understanding, use, or framing.

	-How dould you capture "use", which is a practical matter?
	 -Think of it as nonstatic conceptual structures that emerge 
	  on-line.

-The example of Mixtec people and, given their concepts of oreintation, 
 the possible imaginable ways that they would confront novel  objects, 
 pushes one toward the following conclusion:

-The Central Dogma of Linguistics:
 	
	Every concept in a language is describable in any other language.

 This is a minimum requirement for one to do linguistics.   
 
 The other requirement is for them to have a thorough understanding of 
 those notions in the language which are "gramaticized", or for better or
 worse, "gramaticalized"!