I'm especially interested in this course because I grew up in a house filled with a variety of languages. My first language was Spanish, and since then, I've learned English, Hebrew, French, and some Italian. Although I feel most comfortable speaking Spanish, I've found that there are certain expressions, ideas, emotions that I have to express in the other languages; there's a certain gap in translation that occurs because each language is so different. It's literally impossible to ever translate a phrase perfectly from one language to another; each language is supplemented with the flavor of its culture, encompassing so much more than dictionary definitions. I'm fascinated by this richness of language!
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Intro
I love words. I love the fact that every single word has a specific connotation and denotation, and changing a single word in a sentence can communicate a very different and unique idea.
I'm especially interested in this course because I grew up in a house filled with a variety of languages. My first language was Spanish, and since then, I've learned English, Hebrew, French, and some Italian. Although I feel most comfortable speaking Spanish, I've found that there are certain expressions, ideas, emotions that I have to express in the other languages; there's a certain gap in translation that occurs because each language is so different. It's literally impossible to ever translate a phrase perfectly from one language to another; each language is supplemented with the flavor of its culture, encompassing so much more than dictionary definitions. I'm fascinated by this richness of language!
I'm especially interested in this course because I grew up in a house filled with a variety of languages. My first language was Spanish, and since then, I've learned English, Hebrew, French, and some Italian. Although I feel most comfortable speaking Spanish, I've found that there are certain expressions, ideas, emotions that I have to express in the other languages; there's a certain gap in translation that occurs because each language is so different. It's literally impossible to ever translate a phrase perfectly from one language to another; each language is supplemented with the flavor of its culture, encompassing so much more than dictionary definitions. I'm fascinated by this richness of language!
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2 comments:
You mention that "every single word has a specific connotation and denotation." Does specific imply "singular"? That is, might a word have several different connotations, or different connotations for different people, or different connotations for a single person at different times...? This begs the question, how does a word acquire its connotation or denotation???
I was thinking specific to each culture--a foreigner may use a word that by dictionary definition is correct, but sounds strange anyway because there is a specific context in which native speakers use the word. So yes, a singular connotation for a particular culture. Does that make sense?
And in terms of how does a word acquire a specific connotation...I think there's a variety of ways--the most obvious I can think of is when a word is used in a popular book, movie, article, etc.
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