Reddy 1979

Reference:

Under construction

Review

Excerpts

'I am going to present evidence that the stories English speakers tell about communication are largely determined by semantic structures of the language itself' (285).

Domains: Under construction |

Key Terms: | communication | evidence | language |



'We are engaged perforce in frame restructuring' (286).

Domains: Under construction |

Key Terms: | frame |



'Language seems...to help one person to construct out of his own stock of mental stuff something like a replica, or copy, of someone else's thoughts -- a replica which can be more of less accurate, depending on many factors' (287).

Domains: Under construction |

Key Terms: | construct | language |



'Our examples thus far have been drawn from the four categories which constitute the "major framework" of the conduit metaphor. The core expressions in these categories imply, respectively, that: (1) language functions like a conduit, transferring thoughts bodily from one person to another; (2) in writing and speaking, people insert their thoughts or feelings in the words; (3) words accomplish the transfer by containing the thoughts or feelings and conveying them to others; and (4) in listening or reading, people extract the thoughts and feelings once again from the words' (290).

Domains: Under construction |

Key Terms: | framework | language | metaphor | reading | writing |



'The "minor" framework overlooks words as containers and allows ideas and feelings to flow, unfettered and completely disembodied, into a kind of ambient space between human heads.... There are three categories of expressions in the minor framework. The categories imply, respectively, that: (1) thoughts and feelings are ejected by speaking or writing into an external "idea space"; (2) thoughts and feelings are reified in this external space, so that they exist independent of any need for living human beings to think of feel them; (3) these reified thoughts and feelings may, or may not, find their way bank into the heads of living humans' (291).

Domains: Under construction |

Key Terms: | framework | idea | writing |



'Humanists, those traditionally charged with reconstructing culture and teaching others to reconstruct it, are not necessary in the scheme of the conduit metaphor. All the ideas are "there in the library," and anyone can go in and "get them." In the toolmakers paradigm, on the other hand, humanists themselves are the repositories, and the only real repositories of ideas. In the simplest of terms, the conduit metaphor lets human ideas slip out of human brains, so that, once you have recording technologies, you do not need humans anymore' (310).

Domains: Under construction |

Key Terms: | culture | metaphor | paradigm | teaching |



Last Modified: July-12-96 10:22:58

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