Varieties of language

Review of Frameworks for the Representation of alternative Conceptual Orderings as Determined by Linguistic and Cultural Contexts (Part #17)

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There is an extensive literature endeavouring to categorize languages and families of languages, unfortunately this literature is remarkable for its failure to clarify the conceptual distinctions between languages as they might affect the processing of information. The focus is on grammatical structures and word forms. It would therefore be instructive to have a relatively simple model to illustrate and interrelate such conceptual distinctions. One basis for such a model is suggested by a recent paper of William Huff on varieties of homonym. 

His concern is the question of how to represent succinctly the variety of ways in which words (in English, in his case) can be distinguished taking into account similarities and differences in written form, pronounciation and meaning. In essence this is analogous to the problem of how to represent the variety of different languages, taking into account similarities and differences in representational form, style of expression and meaning. 

Huff makes use of the binary bar coding device used in the Chinese I Ching system (32) to present the range of forms indicated in Figure 3. He has produced extensive word lists illustrating the different patterns of similarity/dissimilarity identified there. 

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Place Figures 3 and 4 here

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An equivalent version for Fig. 3 could be produced in the form of Fig 4. It represents a pattern of 8 hypothetical languages which are maximally distinct from each other within the rules imposed by the coding system. That system however also highlights degrees of similarity, equivalence and contrast between those languages. 

Whilst Fig. 4 can be used to illustrate many important problems in relation to information processing, the problems are in many ways less interesting. In effect Fig. 4 can best be used to illustrate the gross differences between languages which must be resolved if any kind of transformation or translation is to be designed to permit an information 'carrier wave' to travel appropriately between two languages. Fig. 4 is however interesting in that it does illustrate different strategies for using the language facility, some of which raise considerable problems for information processing. 

• 'identity': this is the ideal form for scientific communication and is obligatory in the case of computer languages; 
• 'synonym': this is an acceptable alternative in scientific communication and is acceptable in the syntax of more sophisticated computer languages (if provision has been made for the variant); 
• remainder: the remainder constitute specific problems confronted by machine translation and voice recognition programmes. 

This last group involves variants of language of double meaning, puns, symbolism, metaphor, poetry, or the encryption of one language into another (as in secret languages or codes). Exploration and exploitation of one of these variants may be the prime characteristic of a language. The Malay language makes very extensive use of metaphor for example. 

Whilst the complexity of Figure 4 is sufficient to indicate the kinds of variation between languages understood in their more obvious sense (permitting people to send information to each other), it is clearly not sufficient to indicate whether such information is likely to be considered significant. It takes more than the capacity to send and receive messages for an exchange of information to be fruitful. Figure 4 therefore models the 'gross' difference between languages. An equivalent device may be used in conjunction with it to indicate the 'subtle' or intangible differences. 

An interesting question raised by a presentation like Figure 4 is the nature of the relation between the languages denoted by the 8 trigrams. Within the Chinese culture the symmetries and complementarities between the line structures of different trigrams are the subject of extensive commentary, especially since there each trigram represents a condition or mode which may at any time become transformed into one of the other conditions. In Gardner's study of multiple intelligences (discussed above), he specifically states that current evidence does not indicate that the individual intelligence 'modules' are to be conceived as being 'yoked' to any other modules or to any governing module. What his study does not explore is the transitions from one module to another. In the Chinese interpretation such transitions are indicated by a change in one or more of the lines making up a trigram. This implies a set of transformation pathways between such distinct modes despite (or in response to) the discontinuities between them. 

The pattern of Figures 4 may be usefully presented in an alternative manner as in Figure 5. Chinese explorations of such representations exist (32). 

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Place Figure 5 here

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The trigrams are positioned in relation to each other such that the change from one form to another is indicated by the number of edges of the cube to be traversed. The maximum difference being naturally 3, namely 3 edges. 

This sort of presentation suggests the value of reflecting onconfigurations of intelligences, modes or languages in which each has a specific function (but in which none remains continually, dominant except under abnormal circumstances). Aspects of this question have been explored by the Union of International Associations in its recent 'Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential' (33). Given the extensive literature on computer models of the brain, such configurations of independent functions recall current explorations of configurations of microprocessors into rings, trees, meshes, quoit- like toruses or (most recently) hypercubes. This suggests more fruitful ways of thinking about the possible relationships between a configuration of distinct languages to improve information processing capacity.

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