128141 FS FS Research Seminar I / II (2022W)

Traditionally, languages have been thought of as tools that help people to communicate and to think, and that are controlled by their speakers. Recently, however, the view has been gaining some ground that languages might also be thought of as mental viruses that use speakers for getting themselves replicated from brain to brain and that exert at least some control over what their ‘hosts’ say and think.
In this seminar, we will consider a variety of language-related phenomena to assess the relative plausibility of the ‘tool’ view and the ‘virus’ view. Among these phenomena will be (a) linguistic diversity (impeding communication and motivating language based ‘othering’), (b) the pressure on people to conform to linguistic norms, (c) the dynamics underlying language change, (d) biased and discriminating language, or (e) the fact that much of what we consider reality is linguistically constructed, sometimes imposing roles on us that we accept as natural even though they seriously constrain our pursuit of happiness or even harm us.
The seminar will begin with an introductory phase, in which current arguments for the ‘tool’ view and the ‘virus’ view will be presented. It will be followed by a phase of joint brainstorming in which we reflect on such basic questions as how one should at all determine whether something is good or bad for people, or what it might even mean that something is good or bad for language or their constituents. Next, participants will choose topic areas for in depth exploration, and try to derive arguments – either from extant literature or from empirical investigations – for dealing with the question to what extent speakers control their own languages and to what extent they are controlled by them. The idea is that we form pairs of participants one of whom tries to defend the ‘tool’ view, and the other the ‘virus’ view. Oral presentations will then assume the form of a debate, and also written final papers may be written jointly, with ‘opponents’ commenting on one another’s positions and arguments.