Students Choice: Language and Reality (Mythopoeia)

Before this lecture I never truly thought about how language affects my reality.  Sure I knew that different lingo can lead to different understandings but I never thought it could influence reality in such a way as I now believe it does.  Language and reality are combined in mythmaking.  In Mythopoeia the use of language is extracted to paint the picture of the world that exists.  This is not so easy to do.  When one tries to name something what it actually is one has to use language in order to do it.  While attempting to describe that object you are actually imposing your ideas on that object merely by communicating it. 

             Martin Heideggar says, “we live in the house that language builds.”  In other words, our view of reality and understanding can only be communicated and understood through the use of language.  In this way language is much like the use of myth.  By going into a story or myth, one gains inside in the other world.  Dr. Redick noted, “Myth sets forth the ordered reality that language constructs.”  Without language knowledge is truly impossible.

            Helen Keller had no use of language whatsoever.  While learning some forms of communication she learned the word “water.”  Unfortunately, learning the word did not call forth to the reality of what water was.  The word water was not actually water to her but this unfathomable object.  As she touched water she did not know that the word represented that which she felt and experienced.  Upon learning and felling water combined with the word itself she broke through the logical language barrier and experienced the freedom of narrative. 

            Narrative and myth are mystical by their very nature.  Quite honestly, I still do not fully understand them.  I first questioned whether language really did define and constrict reality.  After further investigation and more listening I believe that language is the highway on which all of our knowledge runs.  If the highway is not compatible to cars (our thinking) then there is no way we can work together to gain, spread, and enjoy