原型批评3

Summary of Archetypal Criticism

Main Idea: The origin of human beings and the development of archetypes.

First we will deal with the difference between symbol and archetype. What is a symbol? It is image, and it is picture. When we see picture A, it may represents something else, it is a concept or idea. Symbol is cultural, it should be understood and interpreted through education, and it is narrow and cannot be inherited. Take dragon as an example of symbol, it is the symbol of power, unity, spiritual totems in China while the foreigners could interpret it in another way because of their different cultural background. Archetype has two meanings: one is the mixture of image and symbol; it has some features of symbol on the surface and another one is event. Archetype is a universal symbol, it can be realized by all the people from every culture, we can inherit biologically and we are born with it.

According to Darwin’s theory, throughout the development of evolution, there is a missing link until the fishbone was found. This fishbone tells that how humans developed from it into animals. The mother of human beings Lucy was found 3,000,000years ago. This African female was believed to have been the great mother of modern men. 150,000years ago, modern men and women lived in Africa, the natural drift, the sun and the geography and the climate have changed them into what we are now. We have changed outside, and inside, we also changed.

There are two questions about archetype and its biological nature, one is that how could our ancestors share their experiences in their physical and spiritual survival millions of years ago and another one is that are archetypes biological or psychological? The earliest human art were about 4500 years ago, they all were women shape. How we could interpret them, what did they tell us? We can find similarities in them; they are fat, strong, and big size and African looking, because they are all these sculptures are the earliest totems. Totems came before the invention of language, among the seven sculptures, there is no man, we could see close links between them and African women, and they could tell us that our ancestors are African, and at that time, women were worshipped.

语言与意识----我们的思想是由语言所约束的吗

在 Jeffrey Mishlove同Steven Pinker的访谈中，Pinker阐述了他关于语言和意识的观点。Pinker认为人类是用语言和文字来进行思考；用可见图像或是声像思考；我们用抽象的论点来思考什么是真实的。在Pinker看来，语言是一种交换思想的方式， 是通过制造声音把一个人脑中所想加入另一个人脑中。如果观察语言本身，在文字中也会隐藏一些东西，因为文字本身就是模糊不清的。当我们需要的时候我们会发明俚语和比喻，这都说明我们先有的观念然后我们考虑怎样用文字来描述这些东西并让其他人明白。比如谈话就像是把心理语言翻译成英语或是日语，或者是把英语或日语翻译成心理语言，这都取决于你说哪种语言。但这就是为什么我们能明白对方所说的话，并可以进行翻译，并且当我们需要的时候我们还会制造出新词，但是如果文字和思想是一个意思我们就不可能造出新词。聋人可以使用手语，因为手语是一种表达强，符合语法规则复杂的语言。对于那些不幸的成长于没有手语的环境下的聋人来说，他们也有思想可以理解这个世界。心理语言的内容大多由语言提供，通过学习远处的事物，通过对话和阅读学到抽象的概念，就像一个通向思想的入口。心理语言的实际言语并不是直接地来源于语言，因为我们不会记住我们听到的每一个词，但是我们记住了要点，这个要点就是一些类似心理语言的东西。因为在人类进化的过程中，语言的进化和思想的进化是同步的，相辅相成。

在《语言是人类的本能》中，Pinker认为语言是一种本能，而其他认知科学家称之为心理器官，一个模组。语言是同孩子一样无意识发展起来的复杂专业的能力，由人类大脑中的脉络演化而成。Pinker的主要工作是侧重于自从1950年科学家关于语言的发现，他用三个观点总结了一系列关于语言的问题：一是人类关于语言认识的事实是错的，科学领域和人文领域的人都认为语言是历史文化和教育的产物；假如语言是一个心理器官，那么它是怎么来的，Pinker认为它和生理器官有着一样的来源，在人类进化过程中，是适应自然选择的产物；第三个观点是语言是人类明显的特征，语言一直是讨论人类思想和特征的关键，因为它是最接近人类思想的部分。所有这些论据都可以回答我们为什么如此关注语言的问题和证明语言是一种本能。