Lace Senegal of Team Unicorn's Blog #1

"Words"

2. Elizabeth Spelke was extremely interesting in the fact that she believed that language creates links in the brain, while some many completely disagree with this theory, I find it to be quite accurate in the sense that we all know the individual terms of “left”, “blue”, and “wall”. We can all agree that we understand the meaning these simple words, but when you are to combine them for example “left of the blue” these individual terms not only become one statement, but they take on a different meaning. It is through language that we understand this concept. Furthermore with Ann Senghas on the more complex words for thoughts results in thinking more complex thoughts, I also agree. When it comes down to the older students not knowing where the toy would’ve been hidden, I don’t think it's because the younger students were thinking more complex, I simply believe that it was mostly because of familiarity. The perfect example would be like our generation knowing much about technology such as smart phones, social networks, ipad, etc. Our parents trying to figure out these items would be more difficult than it is for us because we are more familiar with these items.


3. Now Jill Bolte Taylor also had an interesting story she lost her ability to think words basically. The way she describes the feeling is in a very positive light to where she actually enjoyed being in this state. I must say that I was completely shocked to hear the way she explained her encounter with the silence. It makes me think about a lot of things but most of them are questions rather than statements. Why did she feel joy? What was so great about this feeling that actually make the experience of complete silence joyful? She was disconnected from the world yet never felt closer? How does that even occur, this ridiculous paradox? Would this feeling be the same for everyone? That's where I would truly have to disagree, I feel that if I would have went through this crazy silence, my feelings would be quite the opposite of joy. Terror, alienation, fear, and exile would cloud my mind, thus changing me forever, even if it only was for a few hours. She spent hours trying to figure of who the President of the United States was, a question that should be easily answered. Connecting images from a silhouette to a map just seems exhausting.



"How to Tame a Wild Tongue"

1. The text in the article was easy to understand except for when the Spanish parts came about. Now I know my fair share of Spanish, granted I really didn’t know much of what was in this article. While I didn’t find myself uncomfortable while reading it, I did find myself struggling to understand just exactly what was going on in the story for example, I would be reading the English parts an understand completely what I had just read, but once I reached the Spanish areas an actually frown came upon my face because I was so confused, so much so that after passing the Spanish parts I was unsure in what the English parts were trying to tell me, that was my main struggle with this story.

4. When Anzuldua claims that denying a group their language is against the first amendment and also an act of violence, I couldn’t agree more. Who gives someone else the authority to say I cannot speak my native language, that is just unjust and in a way prejudice. That truly is just inhumane to tell someone they cant speak the language they were born with, I see it almost as destroying a part of the culture or in more realistic terms ignore it. I agree completely that, doing this so utterly wrong.