The first reading discussed the composition of the brain, and the biology of language learning. The article analyzed the characteristics of specific parts of the brain, and how each individual parts contribute in forming our language learning abilities. Though human’s biological nature do shape our ability to comprehend speech, our ability to acquire more knowledge and learn more languages are defined by neurology. In the section “Localization,” the work of neurologists Paul Pierre Broca and Carl Wernicke only suggested that “damage to specific areas of the cortex correlated with the loss of certain kind of linguistic ability in their patients.” (Crystal, 174) Physical defects could affect one’s ability, but there is no evidence suggesting that some people are physically more capable in language learning than others. Like the TED talk we heard from Benny Lewis, language is not a purely biological phenomenon, and anyone can learn more languages with the right method.
While reading the second assigned article “How we mean,” the section on the necessity of studying both the “sense” and the “reference” of different languages, in order to understand their distinctions, reminded me of one discussion session during my HIST299 ST: Human Rights Course. During our seminar, we were studying the meaning of “Human Rights” and how it had evolved during time, and I noticed that in Mandarin Chinese, Human Rights is 人权, which is also a word of word translation of the phrase. What was interesting is that 权also means power and authority in Mandarin. The difference in the sense and reference of this phrase could imply larger cultural and social differences between the Chinese and Western Civilization, and this further indicates the significance of analyzing the distinctions between “sense” and “reference”.
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