Dear David,
Get ready for head winds.
In patriarchal English, the accusative massively dominates the ergative.
This is not true in Maori where the ergative dominates. Other polynesian languages are more accusative than Maori. Why? Perhaps because traditional Maori culture was so patriarchal and violent that even men needed to be poets of distraction. (There are lots of other interesting features of Maori culture that might be brought into this discussion.)
Is the ergative more feminine? Should we teach children how to avoid conflict through a re-viewing of the morality of action?
That is, we say: "who broke the vase?" (accusative)
Rather than saying: "Look, a broken vase." (ergative)
Look, a rainbow.
Look a raindrop.
Look, a cute kitten.
Maybe social media has more of the ergative, it certain has lots of kittens.
Our Western cultures are dominated by cause and effect understandings that have psychological, legal. theological and scientific origins.
Story: Child breaks vase. Mother threatens child that she will tell father that child broke vase unless child is compliant with mother. Two dominance systems, both are accusative, for the child.
One is the mother as soft proxy for the wrath of father: "Let's not tell daddy and we'll buy a new vase but you also will have to do everything I say."
One is the full frontal patriarchal judgement: "Go to your bedroom without supper and you will have to buy a new one out of your pocket money."
The simple foundational accusative model is theological. That is, everything that happens has been caused. It rains because God made it rain. There are stars in the sky because God put them there. There are fossils buried because God buried them.
Science weakens the accusative aspects of natural phenomena. God doesn't cause electricity. Electricity is about excited electrons etc. Science just wants to know what is going on (ergate - think ergonomics - it is about work - the language is doing the maximum and minimum work required. Accusations are added-on elements required by law and morality but not required by science. Science frequently finds the questions WHY and WHO to be redundant - science follows WHAT, WHEN, and vitally, HOW. So science is NOT patriarchal even if it is mostly conducted by men.
In our everyday lives we still rail at God or gods. "Why did you have to make it rain on my wedding day, God?" (It didn't rain on my wedding day - it was a nice day, so thank you God.) In patriarchal cultures, we are moral to the core
WHY as an accusative: The easy answer to our psychological understandings is to ask why - "Why am I so neurotic?" Why don't women love me?" There are hidden accusations in these questions.
WHO: Who to accuse? Did my mother cause this? Did I cause this? Who enjoys this? These questions are patriarchal questions.
The legal examples are most blatantly the result of a judging father, especially in the adversarial systems of the US, the UK and Australia. Germany and some other countries have inquisitorial systems where the aim is to know what happened rather than to accuse the persons that were party to the action. These semi-non-accusative systems might end up punishing someone, which is patriarchal, but their approach is far more ergative than adversarial systems which are straight out accusative.
Knowing these distinctions, we are free to DESIGN our everyday language usage in ways that maximise the ergative and minimize the accusative.
We can teach pre-school children this usage by example. How? By taking the poetic approach and by taking the scientific approach and by underwriting all playground judgements with an inquisitorial approach that is genuine in its search for what actually happened, including what motivations might have been involved, what provocations and what temptations.
I think this approach, to minimize accusative language and maximise ergative language is something we can all do to the benefit of society and the individual. Inspecting our own patriarchal practices, in terms of accusative languages would seem to me to be vastly more significant that inventing an infinite series of pronouns.
Enough wind, David?
keith
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From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, 6 February 2018 3:16:58 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: On gendered experiences in life & careers
Hi All.
With centuries of patriarchal wind behind us, I find the current changes in the weather—real or foreshadowed—both interesting and welcome. Have some advocates for change in the direction of the wind gone too far? Inevitably. I have not read the offending text that started this renamed thread. Nor do I intend to do so. Life is short. But us blokes deserve a kick in an appropriate location. Languaging is just one of the things we do that can cause offence and harm.
On this aspect of life I prefer to listen and learn as the wind changes.
David
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blog: http://communication.org.au/blo <http://communication.org.au/blo>g/
web: http://communication.org.au <http://communication.org.au/>
Professor David Sless BA MSc FRSA
CEO • Communication Research Institute •
• helping people communicate with people •
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Phone: +61 (03) 9005 5903
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60 Park Street • Fitzroy North • Melbourne • Australia • 3068
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