James McElvenny
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474425032
- eISBN:
- 9781474444859
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474425032.003.0003
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
This chapter explores C. K. Ogden’s project Basic English against the background of the contemporary international language movement. An exposition of the international language movement, its ...
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This chapter explores C. K. Ogden’s project Basic English against the background of the contemporary international language movement. An exposition of the international language movement, its political and philosophical commitments, is followed by an examination of the features of Ogden’s Basic and the rhetoric surrounding it. The connections between the theories developed in The Meaning of Meaning and Basic English are looked at in detail. The chapter closes with a discussion of the influence of Jeremy Bentham and his Panopticon on Basic, and of the reaction of George Orwell to the project, as revealed in his published writings and correspondence with Ogden, and in Newspeak, his parody of constructed languages.Less
This chapter explores C. K. Ogden’s project Basic English against the background of the contemporary international language movement. An exposition of the international language movement, its political and philosophical commitments, is followed by an examination of the features of Ogden’s Basic and the rhetoric surrounding it. The connections between the theories developed in The Meaning of Meaning and Basic English are looked at in detail. The chapter closes with a discussion of the influence of Jeremy Bentham and his Panopticon on Basic, and of the reaction of George Orwell to the project, as revealed in his published writings and correspondence with Ogden, and in Newspeak, his parody of constructed languages.
Ingo Venzke
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198725749
- eISBN:
- 9780191792731
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198725749.003.0017
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law, Constitutional and Administrative Law
The present chapter combines the ubiquitous metaphor of the language of international law with the analogy between interpretation and the playing of games. It argues that interpretation might not be ...
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The present chapter combines the ubiquitous metaphor of the language of international law with the analogy between interpretation and the playing of games. It argues that interpretation might not be well understood in analogy to games, not if the game is anything like the typical example of chess. In law, as in language, we make the rules as we go along. If that is so, how then can we still see interpretation as an ordered activity? A first answer fleshes out a view of interpretation as a creative practice in which actors struggle for the law. A second, more radical, alternative demonstrates how and why it might make sense to argue that there is no language to play with. Interpretation then aims at a better understanding of the speaker, not of any language of international law.Less
The present chapter combines the ubiquitous metaphor of the language of international law with the analogy between interpretation and the playing of games. It argues that interpretation might not be well understood in analogy to games, not if the game is anything like the typical example of chess. In law, as in language, we make the rules as we go along. If that is so, how then can we still see interpretation as an ordered activity? A first answer fleshes out a view of interpretation as a creative practice in which actors struggle for the law. A second, more radical, alternative demonstrates how and why it might make sense to argue that there is no language to play with. Interpretation then aims at a better understanding of the speaker, not of any language of international law.
Roger Bagnall
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520267022
- eISBN:
- 9780520948525
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520267022.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Archaeology: Classical
Most of the everyday writing from the ancient world—that is, informal writing not intended for a long life or wide public distribution—has perished. Reinterpreting the silences and blanks of the ...
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Most of the everyday writing from the ancient world—that is, informal writing not intended for a long life or wide public distribution—has perished. Reinterpreting the silences and blanks of the historical record, the author, a leading papyrologist, argues that ordinary people—from Britain to Egypt to Afghanistan—used writing in their daily lives far more extensively than has been recognized. Marshalling new and little-known evidence, including remarkable graffiti recently discovered in Smyrna, he presents an analysis of writing in different segments of society. His book offers a new picture of literacy in the ancient world in which Aramaic rivals Greek and Latin as a great international language, and in which many other local languages develop means of written expression alongside these metropolitan tongues.Less
Most of the everyday writing from the ancient world—that is, informal writing not intended for a long life or wide public distribution—has perished. Reinterpreting the silences and blanks of the historical record, the author, a leading papyrologist, argues that ordinary people—from Britain to Egypt to Afghanistan—used writing in their daily lives far more extensively than has been recognized. Marshalling new and little-known evidence, including remarkable graffiti recently discovered in Smyrna, he presents an analysis of writing in different segments of society. His book offers a new picture of literacy in the ancient world in which Aramaic rivals Greek and Latin as a great international language, and in which many other local languages develop means of written expression alongside these metropolitan tongues.
Mari Yoshihara and Juliet Winters Carpenter
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231163026
- eISBN:
- 9780231538541
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231163026.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter discusses the future of non-English national languages in a world that uses the English language as the “international” language. It argues that each nation will suffer tensions between ...
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This chapter discusses the future of non-English national languages in a world that uses the English language as the “international” language. It argues that each nation will suffer tensions between encouraging English fluency and protecting its own language. This chapter first turns to the Western Germanic and Nordic nations, where there is a risk that the population might eventually become more attuned to Anglophone culture than to its own heritage. Because writing in English comes easily for users of Germanic languages, more writers might begin to write literature in English with a world audience in mind. The chapter then highlights the case of India, whose government is trying to encourage the spread of Hindi as India's national language, while remaining under the obligation to strengthen regional languages as well. It concludes with an examination in Japan, analyzing how Japanese schools have failed to teach the modern canon of Japanese literature.Less
This chapter discusses the future of non-English national languages in a world that uses the English language as the “international” language. It argues that each nation will suffer tensions between encouraging English fluency and protecting its own language. This chapter first turns to the Western Germanic and Nordic nations, where there is a risk that the population might eventually become more attuned to Anglophone culture than to its own heritage. Because writing in English comes easily for users of Germanic languages, more writers might begin to write literature in English with a world audience in mind. The chapter then highlights the case of India, whose government is trying to encourage the spread of Hindi as India's national language, while remaining under the obligation to strengthen regional languages as well. It concludes with an examination in Japan, analyzing how Japanese schools have failed to teach the modern canon of Japanese literature.
Peter D. McDonald
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198725152
- eISBN:
- 9780191792595
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198725152.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory, Prose (inc. letters, diaries)
This chapter begins by reflecting on various reactions Joyce’s Finnegans Wake provoked during its long gestation, looking in detail at H. G. Wells, T. S. Eliot, Eugene Jolas, and C. K. Ogden. After ...
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This chapter begins by reflecting on various reactions Joyce’s Finnegans Wake provoked during its long gestation, looking in detail at H. G. Wells, T. S. Eliot, Eugene Jolas, and C. K. Ogden. After explaining why it is important to consider the Wake’s place in intellectual history, it focuses on three traditions from which Joyce derived inspiration: the political thinking of the late nineteenth century, reflected in the writings of the Russian anarchist Léon Metchnikoff (1838–88); the linguistic thinking of the early twentieth century, as manifest in the work of the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen (1860–1943); and the philosophical thinking also of the early twentieth century, associated with the Austro-Hungarian journalist, novelist, and philosopher Fritz Mauthner (1849–1923). The chapter concludes by considering the Wake’s various lessons in reading, the centrality it accords to writing, and the bearing this has on how we think about language, culture, community, and the state.Less
This chapter begins by reflecting on various reactions Joyce’s Finnegans Wake provoked during its long gestation, looking in detail at H. G. Wells, T. S. Eliot, Eugene Jolas, and C. K. Ogden. After explaining why it is important to consider the Wake’s place in intellectual history, it focuses on three traditions from which Joyce derived inspiration: the political thinking of the late nineteenth century, reflected in the writings of the Russian anarchist Léon Metchnikoff (1838–88); the linguistic thinking of the early twentieth century, as manifest in the work of the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen (1860–1943); and the philosophical thinking also of the early twentieth century, associated with the Austro-Hungarian journalist, novelist, and philosopher Fritz Mauthner (1849–1923). The chapter concludes by considering the Wake’s various lessons in reading, the centrality it accords to writing, and the bearing this has on how we think about language, culture, community, and the state.
Florian Coulmas
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198736523
- eISBN:
- 9780191818646
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198736523.003.0012
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics, Historical Linguistics
The link between language and nationalism has often been decried, while the idea of an international language has been applauded but also ridiculed. The creator of Esperanto, Ludwik Lazarus Zamenhof, ...
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The link between language and nationalism has often been decried, while the idea of an international language has been applauded but also ridiculed. The creator of Esperanto, Ludwik Lazarus Zamenhof, is the most famous inventor of an artificial language. Intended to be a politically neutral language, it first attracted a sizeable community of speakers in many countries, but stalled after the Second World War. The chapter discusses Zamenhof’s motivations, and the ideals and limitations of an artificial language and the politics that accompanied its development.Less
The link between language and nationalism has often been decried, while the idea of an international language has been applauded but also ridiculed. The creator of Esperanto, Ludwik Lazarus Zamenhof, is the most famous inventor of an artificial language. Intended to be a politically neutral language, it first attracted a sizeable community of speakers in many countries, but stalled after the Second World War. The chapter discusses Zamenhof’s motivations, and the ideals and limitations of an artificial language and the politics that accompanied its development.
