Language and the Making of Truth

In our readings this week was the reoccuring theme of how humans use language to make truth. Though Rorty's article seemed more straightforward to me, I like the way Burke put it best: "We must use terministic screens, since we can't say anything without the use of terms; whatever terms we use, they necessarily constitue a corresponding kind of screen; and any such screen necessarily directs the attention to one field rather than another."

I like the term "terministic screens." It brings to mind the example Burke uses early in the article regarding how different color filters over a picture reveal different featurs of the image that could not be see with the other filters. This use of screen apparently holds true for languages as well.

I think a really good example of terministic screens can be found in this Cracked article (I have to put in a disclaimer for the use of strong language). The article adresses how language "controls your mind" or, in relation to our reading, creates "truth." The article contains five examples including how languages affect how we point blame, follow directions, perceive colors, perceive time, or view objects as femine or masculine. All are worth reading, but I'm only going to talk about the first one.

In the English language, we are taught each sentance has a subject and an action and usually an object that the action is being done to. If someone sits on a bed and the bed breaks, English speakers are more likely to say "John broke the bed" instead of "the bed broke." Even though the second sentance is gramatically correct, it doesn't sound right to us because the bed can't break itself. It's being broken, so we are more likely to proportion blame by saying that someone broke the bed because it makes more sense to how we structure sentances.

What this does is create the "truth" that John broke the bed, even though the bed might have been old and it wasn't really John's fault. The example used in the article is the wordrobe malfuction of Janet Jackson during the superbowl. People given a report that stated "Justin Timberlake ripped the costume" handed out higher fines than those with the report that said "the costume ripped." In ether case, the ripping of the costume could have been an accident, but placing a subject up front imeadiately proportions blame.

This ties in with our reading that language creates truth. As Burke states, "the nature of our terms affect the nature of our observations." Our language's tendancy to have a subject performing a specific action causes us to observe that person as having respoinsibility over their actions, whether their actions were intentional or not. I am going to go a step further than Burke and say that the nature of our observations also affect the nature of our actions. If the struction of the English language causes us to observe the subject as having responsiblitiy over their actions, then our most likely action from that observation is to proportion blame.

To provide contrast, the Spanish language is structured differently than English. In the study sighted in the Cracked article, Spanish and Japanese speakers were more likely to say "the bed broke" and not apply a subject of blame. Like different color filters, different terministic screens (in this case from different languages) affect our observations.