2013-02-23, 6:06 am
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2013-02-23, 6:26 am
It's a pretty flawed article. Every single one of those examples in which an English speaker "cannot say this" is a lack of imagination and poor logic. I can say every single one of those examples this person cites as which I cannot say, and rather often I've found those "less educated" using similar grammatical patterns. Sounds more like a fallacy of grammar 
The same could be said of double negatives; yet there are groups of people which use them regardless and the meaning isn't simply negated due to the defined structure of the syntax. Language is bent and broken all the damn time; that's how it becomes "language" instead of "sound".
Language is powerful in how it shapes thought, but people do not live in language bubbles disconnected from each other. We do business with each other all over the world. Social, political and historical factors are far more useful in this context as opposed to linguistic traits.
The article sounds as though confusing the map for the territory.
Edit: That was pretty rough. Um, yeah.
The same could be said of double negatives; yet there are groups of people which use them regardless and the meaning isn't simply negated due to the defined structure of the syntax. Language is bent and broken all the damn time; that's how it becomes "language" instead of "sound".
Language is powerful in how it shapes thought, but people do not live in language bubbles disconnected from each other. We do business with each other all over the world. Social, political and historical factors are far more useful in this context as opposed to linguistic traits.
The article sounds as though confusing the map for the territory.
Edit: That was pretty rough. Um, yeah.
2013-02-23, 7:18 am
It's disturbing to think that there are Yale students paying thousands of dollars a semester to be educated by professors like this.
The field of economics is such a joke.
The field of economics is such a joke.
Edited: 2013-02-23, 7:18 am
2013-02-23, 8:12 am
nadiatims Wrote:It's disturbing to think that there are Yale students paying thousands of dollars a semester to be educated by professors like this.It's a great system for Yale, however. They clearly understand what's going on, lol
The field of economics is such a joke.
2013-02-23, 1:59 pm
If you want to hear the researcher's arguments first-hand, he did a TED talk which was posted on youtube a few days ago:
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I think the fact that he narrowed down families who are identical on every criteria he could reasonably measure except language which support his theory makes for a pretty convincing point. He's not saying that language is the only factor but it does seem that the difference in tenses has an impact on your concept of present and future.
@nadiatims: You're dismissing his research as a joke, but I'm not hearing any real arguments
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I think the fact that he narrowed down families who are identical on every criteria he could reasonably measure except language which support his theory makes for a pretty convincing point. He's not saying that language is the only factor but it does seem that the difference in tenses has an impact on your concept of present and future.
@nadiatims: You're dismissing his research as a joke, but I'm not hearing any real arguments
2013-02-23, 3:32 pm
^ One's religion has a far superior impact on your concept of present and future, than the language they manipulate, though.
2013-02-24, 4:36 am
that thing he mentions about the chinese language forcing people to select between a bunch of different words for uncle to me just reflects that chinese culture (not language) places more importance on family hierarchies. English speakers use the word uncle because most english speaking societies don't really care about the relative age, marital status etc of an uncle.
wrt to grammatically specifying time, I don't really see the difference between saying in English "it will rain" and in Mandarin "tomorrow rain." English is conveying the future information using tense and mandarin through additional vocabulary. If anything Mandarin is the more "futured" language because you have to specify the time (tomorrow, next week, this afternoon etc). Slight differences in culture will influence the emergence of a language, it's grammar, syntax, vocabulary and so on, but across modern societies people have fairly common communicative needs and will find ways to convey the same kinds of messages using whatever tools they have at hand.
The way he interprets the data from about 6:30 in his TED talk seems really dodgy. Is it just me or is this just really bad science...?
wrt to grammatically specifying time, I don't really see the difference between saying in English "it will rain" and in Mandarin "tomorrow rain." English is conveying the future information using tense and mandarin through additional vocabulary. If anything Mandarin is the more "futured" language because you have to specify the time (tomorrow, next week, this afternoon etc). Slight differences in culture will influence the emergence of a language, it's grammar, syntax, vocabulary and so on, but across modern societies people have fairly common communicative needs and will find ways to convey the same kinds of messages using whatever tools they have at hand.
The way he interprets the data from about 6:30 in his TED talk seems really dodgy. Is it just me or is this just really bad science...?
Edited: 2013-02-24, 4:37 am
2013-02-24, 3:43 pm
devilsbabe Wrote:I think the fact that he narrowed down families who are identical on every criteria he could reasonably measure except language which support his theory makes for a pretty convincing point.Haven't watched the vid... but isn't it true that most modern societies (a large number of them being english) have social security and other measures to care for people when they get old? Point being saving for retirement tends to be taken care of by the government
OTOH most developing societies have very little support for elderly thus forcing families to plan for old age.
Eg. In India parents live with their adult children because the government doesn't support them and are unable to support themselves. Now when they move to Canada they can get free money and probably can live on their own... but since the above pattern is ingrained in their culture Indian parents still live their adult children here.
2013-02-24, 4:00 pm
I don't buy the finding, but in his defence, the research is far more sophisticated than the BBC report makes it out to be. It also already anticipates everything that's been said here and shows that it doesn't change the results. See for yourself
http://faculty.som.yale.edu/keithchen/pa...gPaper.pdf
If I had reviewed that paper, I would have asked to use the exogenous variation that juniperpansy's mentions. I.e. what happens to people when the language in the family changes from one generation to the next, does the savings behaviour change in the same direction as we'd expect, and then compare that across countries. So for example Chinese immigrants to Canada would save less while Chinese immigrants in Germany would keep saving at the same rate, all else equal. I'd bet that would have undermined the results, but then again maybe not.
The challenge for behavioural economists like him is that when he finds something that contradicts people's views, they dismiss it, when he finds something that confirms their views, they say it's obvious and that you don't need research to show it.
http://faculty.som.yale.edu/keithchen/pa...gPaper.pdf
If I had reviewed that paper, I would have asked to use the exogenous variation that juniperpansy's mentions. I.e. what happens to people when the language in the family changes from one generation to the next, does the savings behaviour change in the same direction as we'd expect, and then compare that across countries. So for example Chinese immigrants to Canada would save less while Chinese immigrants in Germany would keep saving at the same rate, all else equal. I'd bet that would have undermined the results, but then again maybe not.
The challenge for behavioural economists like him is that when he finds something that contradicts people's views, they dismiss it, when he finds something that confirms their views, they say it's obvious and that you don't need research to show it.