By Jason
November 8,
The Article about the Synchronic and Diachronic structuralist schools:
I think it impossible for a truly synchronic analysis of a language to exsist. Granted, a person can disregard the origin of words or roots of the language, but it doesn't negate it's importance to the way the language functions. Negative connotations that are pinned onto words evolve into socially unacceptable parts of speech (such as queer, or savage).
To properly explain "harsh" or "bad" words, a person would have to explain where the distinction stemmed. Therefore a synchronic analysis would not be able to explain a dirty word. Social structure and norms play such a vital role in the language that removal of the speakers and their history from the language is lingual suicide. This is why I have a hard time believing in the Synchronic system.
The evolution of the language is blatently obvious and very measurable. The study of ancient languages through the present language historical documents would be fascinating. It would be amazing to see a description of the home countryside of an ancient roman citizen next to the same description of an Italian living in Rome two-thousand years later. The differences would be vast, but the content would be similar.
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Jason,
I like your critique of the synchronic analysis of a language, however; I'm not sure I'm totally on board with you. While I too will agree that the historical analysis of language is easy to see, the synchronic analysis will give you a better understanding of the way people communicate during a given period of time, rather than a history of how the words changed. For example, it wouldn't matter why the negative connotations came to be attached to words if you were analyzing something synchronically, you'd just have to find out that they are negative and understand what effect that has on the modern writer and why. I think this gives you a better understanding of what a writer is trying to say, rather than how a writer is saying, what they're saying. If that makes any sense at all.
I agree with Jason in his belief that a truly synchronic language analysis can take place. To disregard the origin of words or our roots of language is not acceptable. Without them, we would not have been able to form the complex languages in which we speak today.
Our lingual heritage is something that ties our world together, regardless of what language anyone speaks. It is something that we can look back on and see that at some point our paths have all crossed. This is an important issue to remember, especially when nations begin deeming themselves superior to others. It is something that can be used to show people that we've all stemmed from a similar background, and therefore should be able to level with one another and accept each other for social, economical, or lingual differences.
I also agree with Jason. We need to know the history of a word from a particular language and how it has changed over time to maybe understand the word correctly. Knowing where the word derives gives us information on the original meaning and the path the word has taken through time. This binds the relations between words. History in all forms, even language development and change, are important for us to learn where we came from and how we got to where we are today.
This is not a belief system. These are tools of science. A doctor uses a scalpel to accomplish something and a suture to accomplish something else. If you want to get your mind blown away...at least this is one of my nerdy guilty pleasures... go to the Morris Library webpage, type in OED for the Oxford English Dictionary, and look stuff up. Start with "racist"...I had to do a paper whether a piece of literature was racist or not. Well, the piece predated the word...which came into being well into the 20th century. "pretty" and "handsome" both had origins of positive descriptions of soldiers...and then later become "snarky" in connotation. Cool stuff!
I agree synchronic and diachronic structuralism gives you an idea of how language has evolved over the millennia. However, you don’t need to do an analysis or experiment to determine that language has evolved over time; you can listen to the way your parents and grandparents speak, and figure out the changes in meaning and content of the words they are using. So this type of language analysis is ridiculous, because most people don’t need to tell you how language has evolved; you hear it in everyday speech from earlier generations. However how words have evolved overtime is important though; it allows us to realize how society has changed.
The study of synchronic and diachronic is important in that it traces the historical development of language back to its earliest known form and usage. I find it very important to be able to trace back to the root of a word to see how its meaning has changed and has it has come into play in our language at present. They help us to determine the meaning of a word.
Synchronic focuses primarily on examining the language within a particular culture to help us figure out meanings among different ancient cultures.
The history of a word can teach us a lot, as with any such type of history can. So not only does this study help to figure out word meanings but also the history and grammatical usage of it as well.
I agree with you when you say that our social norms shape the way we add meaning to words. I dont think it is possible for us to disown the origin of a word, without that origin or hiistory the word wouldnt exist.
The majority of the population does not need to do this type of study to understand language. Like Jason was saying, it is easy to look at how older generations speak to see that it has evolved, but I think it is important because it is part of history, which should be kept as a record.
I agree with everyone who advises to listen to our parents or grandparents for proof of how our language has evolved. Over time, societies have chosen to give more power to words or use them to describe something very important.
If we want to know what a society's values were, we can look at their language. It is no coincidence that cultures closer to the North or South Poles have more words to describe snow. It kind of reminds me of the comparisons we made between English and French when speaking of chicken/poultry/etc. I can't off the top of my head remember any other examples, but language is the window into a culture, no matter the time period.
I agree with Jason when he says that it is impossible for a truly synchronic analysis of a language to exist. We do turn words negative like queer and gay and even fag. All these words are used negatively and have been pinned negative. Like gay for instance gay was a word to describe a person who is happy now it's hardly used in that form anymore gay now is used in a negative sense towards people who live a different lifestyle. We're just changing the words and disregarding its origin.
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