When
looking at how humans are bad we are also deciding what is bad and if a bad
thing makes humans bad. To make those kind of decisions we need to look at the
humanity aspects of life and think critically about actions and what is said. The
academic disciplines of the humanities are human history, linguistics, literature,
arts, philosophy, and religion. I will focus on linguistics, philosophy, and the
arts.
I
have believed that humans decide what they want to become with each action and
step they take in life because we are constantly choosing what path to take and
consciously deciding where that path will take us and how it will affect us.
That is a mere true belief because I believe it and do not have any facts to
provide as information to back-up my beliefs, but I hope to provide evidence
here to make it a true belief. I choose to live my life following my beliefs, I
will constantly take my future and what I want into account when deciding what
to do. Based on that mere true belief I established a second one, depending on
what one’s environment one might have a different sense of paths possible and
then what is bad, good, or possible.
Linguistics
is more than just the words we use it is “the science of language, including
phonetics, phonology,
morphology, syntax,
semantics, pragmatics,
and historical linguistics” (“Linguistics”). In Montgomery’s fifth chapter of An Introduction to
Language and Society he takes a look at the study of linguistics
specifically focusing on the outsider form of language used in the world. Montgomery
provides insight on the creation and variation of words used in society by
showing the differences in words used in subcultures. “Often the subculture or
group (the ‘anti-society’) has an antagonistic relationship with society at
large and their natural suspicion of outsides makes it difficult to study their
language” (Montgomery). These anti-societies use “anti-languages are basically
created by a process of relexicalization
– the substitution of new words for old” (Montgomery) or will also make up new
words. There is an invisible line that separates the ordinary society from the
anti-society, but the language used in the subcultures is created by them to
make that separation apparent when you hear the way that the same words would
be used for different meanings.
The
expression of language used in societies and anti-societies are different and
can be told based on the manner that the words are used and the reasons that
they are used for. By explaining the “slang” that the subcultures created Montgomery
hints at the evolution of language from a parent language to the establishment
of anti-language and how the languages developed based on the environments
alone. Montgomery fulfilled the area of linguistics with the fifth chapter of
his book by explain the background of words and how the slight changes can be
understood because of the science of language.
A
touchier attribute of linguistics in today’s society is what words are acceptable
to be spoken and where it is acceptable for them to be spoken. Bowers and
Pleydell-Pearce did a study and wrote Swearing,
Euphemisms, and Linguistic Relativity to explain their findings on
participants and their neural stimuli when they would say swear words and
euphemisms. “Past accounts of linguistic relativity and thinking-for-speaking
tend to focus on how structural features of a language encourage specific lines
of thought…in this current paper we consider a situation in which structural
features may discourage specific thought”
(Bowers). “Our key claim is that the phonological form of a word can directly
evoke a negative emotional response, via verbal conditioning”.
During
the study consisted of participants who were a group of twenty-four volunteers
between the Age of 18 and 26. The participants were informed of the swear
words, euphemisms, and normal words that they would be reading aloud and given
the chance to recuse themselves from the study and then they were recorded and
monitored while saying them. The recording and monitoring of the sessions were
to get results and see the amount of electrodermal activity or emotional impact
measured by a physiological response from saying the three kinds of words. In
the end, it was found that saying euphemisms was less stressful on the
participants than it was to use the swear words. We might be used to hearing
and using swear words today, but the effect we feel using them is still
existent. When I read that I was curious if the readings result would have
changed in a four year difference because they seem to have become more of a
norm as of late. Montgomery wrote in An Introduction to Language and Society
that the use of swearing stems from anti-societies making up words that the
normal society did not know the meaning of, but today swearing is used in our
normal society.
From
the humanity study of linguistics societies are divided into the original one
and the anti-society that built off from originals comes the idea that the
original society must be made of good people that wanted their society to
follow that path without varying. The anti-societies or subcultures could be
seen as the people that wanted something different and different could be seen
as bad. The words that the anti-society use are not the proper usages, so they
could also be seen as bad because they have an unknown and potentially scary
meaning to them. Swearing is seen as bad in society because the words are bad,
so the connection that people that use them must be bad is used. Euphemisms are
used and seen as better than swearing, but because it is commonly known the
swear word that they replace they are also frowned upon in most professional
and critical situation. Society deems words bad and good and we as people must
follow those decisions or we could be placed in those boxes without question or
a second thought to it.
From a philosophical perspective, John Locke’s
An Essay concerning Human Understanding
takes the view similar to the one I have lived my life by, that we start of
life as a blank canvas and as we grow we are creating art. Everything we know
comes from our personal experiences and those experiences we decide to go
through and in turn give every person the opportunity become a good or bad
person. In the film Pulp Fiction, we
watch the main characters commit crimes and do what society says is bad, and at
the end Jules played by Samuel L. Jackson has come to conclusion that he might
have done some wrong things that got him to where he was at that point in life.
Life is always changing and we each grow every day, we grow from the experiences
we partake in our daily life whether it is trying something new or taking a
step further towards the future we have planned our whole lives.
Locke’s perspective falls under philosophy
because he is explaining to his readers his knowledge about the mind and how we
as humans act. His theories might have flaws or holes in them, but he is
talking about the nature of knowledge itself which is what philosophers do. A
common form of art we are used to today is film, and it gives humans a visual
way to see the different kinds of societies and hear how people from different
social classes, locations and upbringings speak. The broad range of humanities shows
each side of the debate of humans being bad and adds a personal question of
what is bad. Bad is subjective, and connects to the idea of how and the need
for deeper explanations of the human mind and how it works and the development
process that we each as human beings make our own decisions on what is good and
bad and how to be good or bad.
Bowers JS, Pleydell-Pearce CW (2011) Swearing,
Euphemisms, and Linguistic Relativity. PLoS
ONE 6(7): e22341. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022341
ONE 6(7): e22341. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022341
“Linguistics.” Dictionary.com.
N.p., n.d. Web. Oct. 23 2015 <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/knowledge>.
Locke. John.
(1689) An Essay
Concerning Human Understanding. 38th Edition from
William Tegg, London.
Montgomery.
M. (1995). An introduction to language and society, 2nd ed. Routledge: London.
