Hi all, my question may be more towards linguists or people following that field. There's this Romain Gary quote: "The language barrier, that's when two guys speak the same tongue. No way of understanding eachother." More broadly he also describes (in fiction) how the respective two guys started out with no common language, but communicating all the time, and progressively as one of them learned English and mastered it, they dropped out and stopped talking altogether. It's romanticizing, and all in a funny tone, sure, but it got me thinking.
A language barrier doesn't just mean 'totally different languages' it can be based on jargon, vocabulary, dialect etc. Aren't those differences a spark for learning, communicating ideas, sparking interest in understanding eachother? I think if two people spoke the same language at the same level with the same terminology and vocabulary, their communication might be reduced to functionality only after a while; you'd have nothing to explain. It's sort of comical, I know and I am counting on that, but I'm looking to see if someone, a linguist, philosopher, etc. or even yourself! has made a case for language barriers.
And I don't mean absolutely defending it to the last piece, but at least tried to theorize its merits? Also, what do you think? Might comical misunderstanding be a spark for some conversations, or interest in conversation?
I hope this is really not a weird sub to ask that!
[link] [comments]
from Language Learning https://ift.tt/Y1nHmUg
via Learn Online English Speaking
Comments
Post a Comment