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| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
Ren & Stimpy! Happy, happy, happy, joy, joy, joy 
I understand your point, but I told her she was on a path that linguists find interesting, not that there was a perfect match, because the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is closely related to what she's saying... albeit with the polarity reversed, depending on how you look at it.
Given her starting point, I could have suggested cognitive linguistics and mentioned "Fire, Women, and other Dangerous Things" which will always be my favourite book title... but the way she thinks about language reminds me a lot of my father, as he is heavily influenced by Jungian psychology and every time I tell him about my research he says "but can't that be explained by the collective unconscious?" so I thought that was the best place for her to start is the bit that really piqued his interest. My dad was thrilled when I told him about linguistic relativity, because it's sort of how he thinks, but on its head, whereas he finds cognitive linguistics "dry".
Funnily enough, I had also typed "chicken and egg" and clicked on preview reply to see if there were any typos when I realised she had beaten me to it.
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Hah! I knew my thought had merit lol. The fact that a layperson thinks/feels these things validates the whole nature of it (linguistics, the mind, etc) Imo. 
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
I would argue it's more "nature versus nurture" - the question of whether language arises to reflect the inner workings of our minds, or whether our tendency to think in language means our language shapes our thoughts. And like "nature versus nurture", as far as I'm aware linguists generally believe the truth is somewhere in the middle. |
Tomayto, tomahto, no? This convo is becoming meta lol.
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