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Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 12:44 pm Post subject: Neurolinguistics and Popular Articles
OP "vk78"
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I've mentioned neurolinguistics in another thread, and I'd like to bring attention to it in full, here.
Why? Because language, especially written language exists as the basic and most widespread form of communication on 21st century earth -- ie. the Internet.
Mr. Thornhill has on several occasions pointed at how scientists write mainstream public-oriented articles. From a neurolinguistic standpoint, those articles contain many invalid patterns, and I will mention just two for now. I feel confident we can create an extensive list of logical fallacies produced in any number of modern popular sci articles.
1. Presuppositions -- in linguistic communication, the language behaves as one giant Presupposition. With every sentence, the participants of the communication do suppose that they know what the words stand for, even if they don't have direct perception of the phenomena the word describes.
Unfortunately, we, as human beings, should either go out and try to obtain direct perception of every possible phenomena that the written or spoken word may describe, or we must simply presuppose the assertions made in the message, as true. Few examples:
The important thing is that X... -- in this pattern the speaker asserts the importance of X, usually without any clear arbiter of that importance.
We know that... -- in this pattern, often found in popular scientific articles, two mistakes exist: First, the "We". What does "We" stand for? Just a limited number of people who present the idea. But the reader may include him/her self in the "We". Or perhaps the entire human kind. Second, the "know". Should the reader presuppose that the group described as "We" possesses direct undeniable perception stored in some memory and called "knowledge", instead of observe it as speculation, or assumption, or theory.
Everything we know about X.... -- aside to the "know", described above, this pattern sports the foul "Everything" which assumes the ENTIRETY, the population, rather than sample, of some facts.
The Black hole in the center of.... -- whoa, hold the phone! The sentence started with direct assertion. Not with "The object in the center of X, which we think is a black hole, ...". And the reader usually, automatically presupposes the factual existence of black holes.
Etc...
2. The Elusive "To Be" -- To "be" or not to "be", that "is" the question. That verb, "To Be", acts as a neuroliguistic toxin. As a verb, it can assume so many different relationship, that can imply so many different meanings.
The map does not equate to the the territory. Likewise, the language exists as a map of sorts, and it describes phenomena of perception, it implies certain relations among them, but the two (word and phenomena it describes) do not equate.
A blatant example of the fallacy of "being":
This man is a pig. -- an assertion that can have so many meanings:
1. Does he look like a pig?
2. Does he act like a pig?
3. Does he smell like a pig?
4. Does he eat like a pig?
Now, which version should we assume? Used as popular phrase, it probably describes a man that exhibits all of the above properties. But it requires presupposition that the listener knows of the phrase and its meaning.
So, what happens when someone says that:
The object X, which we see in the picture, IS a black hole.
Does it look like a black hole?
Does it behave like a black hole?
Does it affect the environment like a black hole?
Etc...
The first problem, that of presuppositions, one cannot deal with so easily. Either your readers will have direct perception of the things you describe, or they will have to suppose they understand the words.
There exists a remedy for the second problem, the problem of "Being". Using so called E-Prime, the english language without any occurence of the verb "To Be".
If you take a careful look at this post, you will notice that I did not use the verb "to be" anywhere except where describing the verb, or when quoting patterns.
And yet, you may have a feeling (most likely) that this post seems "powerful", in some way. It contains some high degree of precision not usually found elsewhere. Why? Because I did not plague your brain with additional task of having to detect the relationship between words as directed with "being", but have used verbs that directly, unambiguously put the subject and object into relation.
So, what do I wish to suggest here?
I wish to suggest that EU articles become written using E-Prime. In my opinion it will create a neurolinguistic context that should seem to the reader as more precise. Such articles should seem more trustworthy and more precise.
A psychological trick to compete with mainstream nonsense? Possibly so.
