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Re: [lojban] Re: Why linguists might be interested in Lojban (was: RE: Re: a new kind of fundamentalism

Invent Yourself wrote:

On Sun, 6 Oct 2002, Robin Turner wrote:



I imagine cognitive linguists would also find it interesting from the
point of metaphor.  Lojban combines the explicit metaphor-making of
lujvo (which are not metaphorical in the common sense of the word, but
are in the cogling sense) with an attempt to suppress unmarked metaphor
(which to a mainstream cognitive linguist would be quixotic but
interesting).



Can you explain more about what Lojban is doing that seems quixotic to
linguists? Thanks!
One thing to bear in mind in these discussions is that terms like "cognitive linguist" or "Chomskyan" are very vague (zo'o family resemblance categories?); this is why I qualified it by saying (le'e) "mainstream cognitive linguist"!

The reason for the word "quixotic" in this case is that most cognitive linguists would argue that metaphor is an integral part of language because it is an integral part of thought (for those who make a language/thought distinction at all). the interesting part would be to see to what extent the permitted mechanisms for metaphor could handle the need for metaphorical conceptualisation (essentially lujvo, gismu with inbuilt metaphoraical meanings {which is arguably not metaphor at all} and marked metaphor). My guess would be that Lojban discourse could remain relatively free of illegal metaphor (a lot of what comes under the heading of malglico or mal-whatever) so long as it was being used as a secondary language (especially in written form), but the more it became used as a primary means of commung(ication, the more naughty metaphors would creep in.

Another interesting focus for research would be to observe Lojban as an interlanguage between speakers from radically different cultures who conceptualise abstract ideas using different metaphors - this is pretty close to the Sapir-Whorf stuff Loglan was originally designed to investigate.



--
"We do not imprison ourselves with laws, or impoverish ourselves with money" - Iain Banks

Robin Turner
IDMYO
Bilkent Universitesi
Ankara 06533
Turkey

www.bilkent.edu.tr/~robin