chinese

[Guest guest]

I just read an interesting article stating that Chinese use different parts of

the brain when they read than one uses if he reads European languages.

Interestingly this will not change when one learns Chinese or European language

as a second language. To me this shows that the study of Chinese only allows one

to get excess to information not to a different way of thinking

Alon

 

 

[Guest guest]

, " Alon Marcus "

<alonmarcus@w...> wrote:

> I just read an interesting article stating that Chinese use

different parts of the brain when they read than one uses if he reads

European languages. Interestingly this will not change when one learns

Chinese or European language as a second language. To me this shows

that the study of Chinese only allows one to get excess to information

not to a different way of thinking

> Alon

 

That is a bad conclusion.

 

Think of a counter example such as the language of mathematics.

Learning Calculus certainly allows one to think in a different way

than if one just had learned arithmetic. However, both use the same

part of the brain.

 

Brian C. Allen

[Guest guest]

 

bcataiji [bcaom]

Sunday, September 05, 2004 2:00 PM

 

Re: chinese

 

 

, " Alon Marcus "

<alonmarcus@w...> wrote:

> I just read an interesting article stating that Chinese use

different parts of the brain when they read than one uses if he reads

European languages. Interestingly this will not change when one learns

Chinese or European language as a second language. To me this shows

that the study of Chinese only allows one to get excess to information

not to a different way of thinking

> Alon

 

[Jason] Also I think that this is debatable, I have read other sources that

say the opposite.

 

-Jason

 

 

That is a bad conclusion.

 

Think of a counter example such as the language of mathematics.

Learning Calculus certainly allows one to think in a different way

than if one just had learned arithmetic. However, both use the same

part of the brain.

 

Brian C. Allen

 

 

 

 

 

Chinese Herbal Medicine offers various professional services, including

board approved continuing education classes, an annual conference and a free

discussion forum in Chinese Herbal Medicine.

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

, " bcataiji " <bcaom@c...> wrote:

> , " Alon Marcus "

> <alonmarcus@w...> wrote:

> > I just read an interesting article stating that Chinese use

> different parts of the brain when they read than one uses if he reads

> European languages. Interestingly this will not change when one learns

> Chinese or European language as a second language. To me this shows

> that the study of Chinese only allows one to get excess to information

> not to a different way of thinking

> > Alon

>

> That is a bad conclusion.

>

> Think of a counter example such as the language of mathematics.

> Learning Calculus certainly allows one to think in a different way

> than if one just had learned arithmetic. However, both use the same

> part of the brain.

>

> Brian C. Allen

 

 

I think there is a little more to it. You are exemplifying how one can use the

same part of

the brain for different modes of thinking. The question here is also whether

one can also

use different parts of the brain for the same mode of thinking. If someone

learns chinese

first, they use a different part of their brain than someone who learns it

second. While the

person who learn chinese second learns it in the part of their brain that also

learned

English, a chinese uses another part of his brain to process language. Now

since both of

these persons speak chinese, either both parts of the brain are fluid enough to

handle

language of all types, but the nature of the chinese language just drives it to

one area of

the brain predominantly. I think it is also likely that one's first language

lays down

structures and connections in the brain that foundational for all future

language

acquisition. I think a good followup would be, " What about those who learn

chinese and

english simulataneously (children in bilingual homes)? " and " what about those

who not

only learn chinese, but immerse themselves fully in the culture? " What do their

brains look

like?

 

But while learning chinese certainly could reveal new understandings according

to Brian's

analogy, I believe this would perhaps be mitigated by the learning taking place

in a less

than ideal part of the brain. I think it is unlikely that learning that takes

place in two

different areas of the brain is identical. So we may understand chinese, but

not exactly

like a native speaker does (which is what they always say). I also think the

math analogy

does not totally hold up because in that example the part of the brain being

used in both

cases is probably the ideal section of the brain for all math activities. It

may be that there

is more variation in how the brain can process language than in how it can

process

numbers. Numbers are numbers. We all do the same math, but language can be

pictographic or alphabetic, quite diffrent things. You call math a language,

yet it is well

documented that the " language " of math is not at all related to verbal ability

viv a vis is

location in the brain.

 

While this might confirm to Alon that learning Chinese will only provide more

data and

not deeper understanding (a position with which I largely agree, BTW), it also

confirms the

idea that if one is not native chinese, then one will never fully understand

anything rooted

in the chinese psyche. It may also confirm the value of an integrative approach

to medicine

for westerners. Since it may be also true that the chinese cannot understand

science the

way we do as a result of this language acquisition issue. The door swings both

ways and

we might actually provide better care in the long run if we emphasized our

strengths in

science rather than focusing on our inadequacy at grasping a foreign mode of

thought

when that might be all but impossible for most. Though demographically, asians

kick butt

in science and Americans are the world's idiots amongst industrialized

countries,

americans still make most of the advances and breakthroughs. A better

comparison

would be Europe which is right up there with Japan in science and math. The

idiot factor

in the US has other roots. Our language is considered perfect for science and

is used for

that purpose worldwide.

 

We all know that CM transforms as it moves from culture to culture and era to

era. But in

the past, that movement was largely confined to other sian cultures, all of whom

used

pictographic languages at the time of the transmission. In modern times, TCM

was

transmitted to the west with a veneer of western science that has grown ever

more dense

over the decades. While many bemoan this, is it not actually possible that is

actually the

best mode of tranmssion for this era and culture. As CM moves into the

mainstream, we

only see more demand for sicence and much less for mysticism. It seems the PRC

model

was right on the mark. Consider if no work towards integration or a body of

modern

research had been undertaken in modern china. That all we had of CM was the

premodern

literature. No science at all. Do you honestly think any state in the entire

US would ever

have licensed acupuncturists. Of course not. It was solely because the chinese

had

integrated acupuncture into their modern hospital settings that it was accepted

in the

west. I was personally drawn to TCM because it made physiological sense to me

(I had just

gotten my degree in biology with an emphasis on human physiology when I was

exposed

to TCM).

 

Transformations of knowledge and culture are things that happen due to many

influences,

but they cannot be controlled by any plan. These transformations reflect the

nature of the

development of all self-organizing systems. There is nothing anyone can do to

control

that TCM has arrived in a modern technological world and that setting will more

than

anything else determine its fate. For those who embraced TCM because they

thought it

would replace WM with a kinder, gentler face or because they reject science or

western

culture or because they think the world is about to either end or molt into some

hippy

utopian paradise, all I can say is I doubt it, I doubt it, I doubt it.

 

 

[Guest guest]

> We all know that CM transforms as it moves from culture to culture

and era to era. But in > the past, that movement was largely confined

to other sian cultures, all of whom used > pictographic languages at

the time of the transmission.

 

The idea that Chinese writing is pictographic is widely held, even by

Chinese, but, as DeFrancis has, I believe, ably demonstrated in The

Chinese Language: Fact & Fantasy, this simply is not true. Chinese

writing is overwhelmingly phonetic. This is the same misunderstanding

that kept Westerners from cracking Egyptian hieroglyphs. As long as

people thought they were pictograms, we couldn't read them. It was

only when we realized that Eygptian hieroglyphs were a phonetic system

of writing did we learn how to read them. Both these systems may have

started as pictographic but evolved beyond the limitations of such

systems of writing. IMO, the myth that Chinese writing is pictographic

is one of the things that keep Westerners a) from learning it and b)

having Orientalist fantasies about it.

 

Sorry for the digression from the main thrust of this thread, but I

just couldn't let this pass by unanswered.

 

Bob

[Guest guest]

Sorry for the digression from the main thrust of this thread, but I

just couldn't let this pass by unanswered

>>>However, the data of differing areas in the brain remains

alon