SDLC 105 Learning journal # 1

[Sydney Freeman]

In Crystal’s reading, “How the Brain Handles Languages,” I enjoyed learning about how the different parts of the brain function especially when it comes to learning languages. I especially found the relationship between languages and handedness to be very enlightening. I had no idea until this reading that being right handed correlates to the left hemisphere of your brain being dominant for learning languages (173, Crystal). Following Crystal’s second reading, “How We Mean,” she explores exactly what the title means by looking at the different ways ‘meanings of meaning’ are used in languages. According to Crystal, Greek philosophers debated this topic and developed two main views. Plato argued that naturally “there was an intrinsic connection between the sound of a word and the thing it referred to” while Aristotelian took the conventionalist view by claiming that there was no such connection. From my experience learning languages, I agree with Plato’s naturalistic view. Words do sound like they mean. Above all, this article raises a crucial point in learning languages. We rely on words to understand one another, to understand concepts, and we depend on words to grasp what is going on at the moment in time. Words have a variety of meanings and we can understand what a person means mainly in part by the words they choose to express themselves.