Date: Fri, 21 Nov 1997 19:32:56 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199711220032.TAA04572@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Chris Bogart Sender: Lojban list From: Chris Bogart Subject: Re: Irony and Cultural Neutrality X-To: "lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu" To: John Cowan Status: OR X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 1931 X-From-Space-Date: Fri Nov 21 19:33:13 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU So you accept that this is a cultural matter? 'Cultural artifact of English' does not well characterise irony, since many (most? all?) other cultures make ironic use of their languages.=20 My brother, who lived in a Nepali villiage for a couple years and came = to be pretty fluent in Nepali, tells me that they basically don't use = irony. He had to learn to curb his American sense of irony because he'd = simply be misunderstood. After being there a few years he said he began = to get a sense that there was some kind of irony going on with using = inappropriate tone of voice, but he was never fluent enough to quite = grasp it. But certainly no literal irony. In any case, this is not a good approach to cultural neutrality. A better approach might come from the notion that cultural tendencies in language come largely from its constraints or impediments to expression, and that a language should therefore avoid such impediments as much as possible. I certainly feel constrained by prohibitions on irony, since occasional irony is part of my culture. If you were talking Lojban with a Nepali, it would be to your advantage = to avoid irony. If you were talking to someone from an unknown culture, = it might be safer to avoid it as well. Yes, it would feel constraining. = Dealing with people from other cultures can be stressful. I wouldn't hesitate to use irony speaking Lojban with someone I knew = could understand it, but it seems reasonable to me to have direct, = unironic, unmetaphorical exposition as the theoretical ideal, for a = langauge that aspires to provide a means of communication that's biased = towards what we call "logic", and which hopes to allow communication = with computers. I don't see why it matters if that verges on javni = rather than gerna -- after all, I'm capable of following either type of = rule if I want to. -- Ashley Yakeley, Seattle WA http://www.halcyon.com/ashleyb/