Camil Stoenescu's blog

Există vreo legătură între limba (maternă/nativă) și modul în care gândim și percepem realitatea?

SINCE THERE IS NO EVIDENCE that any language forbids its speakers to think anything, we must look in an entirely different direction to discover how our mother tongue really does shape our experience of the world. Some 50 years ago, the renowned linguist Roman Jakobson pointed out a crucial fact about differences between languages in a pithy maxim: “Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.” This maxim offers us the key to unlocking the real force of the mother tongue: if different languages influence our minds in different ways, this is not because of what our language allows us to think but rather because of what it habitually obliges us to think about.[…]

When your language routinely obliges you to specify certain types of information, it forces you to be attentive to certain details in the world and to certain aspects of experience that speakers of other languages may not be required to think about all the time. And since such habits of speech are cultivated from the earliest age, it is only natural that they can settle into habits of mind that go beyond language itself, affecting your experiences, perceptions, associations, feelings, memories and orientation in the world. […]

Let’s take genders again. Languages like Spanish, French, German and Russian not only oblige you to think about the sex of friends and neighbors, but they also assign a male or female gender to a whole range of inanimate objects quite at whim. What, for instance, is particularly feminine about a Frenchman’s beard (la barbe)? Why is Russian water a she, and why does she become a he once you have dipped a tea bag into her? Mark Twain famously lamented such erratic genders as female turnips and neuter maidens in his rant “The Awful German Language.” But whereas he claimed that there was something particularly perverse about the German gender system, it is in fact English that is unusual, at least among European languages, in not treating turnips and tea cups as masculine or feminine. Languages that treat an inanimate object as a he or a she force their speakers to talk about such an object as if it were a man or a woman. And as anyone whose mother tongue has a gender system will tell you, once the habit has taken hold, it is all but impossible to shake off. When I speak English, I may say about a bed that “it” is too soft, but as a native Hebrew speaker, I actually feel “she” is too soft. “She” stays feminine all the way from the lungs up to the glottis and is neutered only when she reaches the tip of the tongue.

In recent years, various experiments have shown that grammatical genders can shape the feelings and associations of speakers toward objects around them. In the 1990s, for example, psychologists compared associations between speakers of German and Spanish. There are many inanimate nouns whose genders in the two languages are reversed. A German bridge is feminine (die Brücke), for instance, but el puente is masculine in Spanish; and the same goes for clocks, apartments, forks, newspapers, pockets, shoulders, stamps, tickets, violins, the sun, the world and love. On the other hand, an apple is masculine for Germans but feminine in Spanish, and so are chairs, brooms, butterflies, keys, mountains, stars, tables, wars, rain and garbage. When speakers were asked to grade various objects on a range of characteristics, Spanish speakers deemed bridges, clocks and violins to have more “manly properties” like strength, but Germans tended to think of them as more slender or elegant. With objects like mountains or chairs, which are “he” in German but “she” in Spanish, the effect was reversed.

Articolul integral, aici.

Explicația științifică – aici.

Ideea unui american, Alec Brownstein pe nume, transpusă – cu doar șase dolari – în locul de muncă visat:

Meet Alec Brownstein, senior copywriter at creative advertising shop Young & Rubicam (Y&R) New York. Last summer, Alec was just another tired, 28-year-old copywriter at a large international ad agency who wanted nothing more than to work at “a really creative shop for really creative [creative directors].”

 

While Googling his favorite creative directors last summer, Brownstein noticed that there were no sponsored links attached to their names. Since Brownstein Googles himself “embarassingly frequently,” he assumed that the creative directors did so as well, and thus he decided to purchase their names on Google AdWords.

 

“Everybody Googles themselves,” Brownstein explained. “Even if they don’t admit it. I wanted to invade that secret, egotistical moment when [the creative directors I admired] were most vulnerable.”

 

Since Brownstein was the only person bidding on the names of the five creative directors he most admired, he was able to get the top search spots for a mere 15 cents per click. Whenever someone ran a search for one of the creative directors’ names, the following message appeared at the top of the page: “Hey, [creative director's name]: Goooogling [sic] yourself is a lot of fun. Hiring me is fun, too” with a link to Brownstein’s website.

 

Over the next couple of months, Brownstein received calls from all but one of the creative directors whose names he had purchased. And finally, at the end of the year, he received a job offer from two: Scott Virtrone and Ian Reichenthal of Y&R New York.

 

The whole campaign cost him $6.

Nu reprezintă pentru nimeni o noutate faptul că – în România – cercetarea este codașă în lista de priorități a guvernanților, indiferent de coloratura lor politică. Cifrele brute vorbesc de la sine și nu lasă loc de nuanțe și interpretări. În acest context (vitreg), descoperirea cercetătorilor de la Institutul ”Victor Babeș” apare cu atât mai remarcabilă. Astfel, aceștia au descoperit un nou tip de celule, denumite telocite, celule care joacă un rol important în capacitatea de regenerare și reparare a țesuturilor și organelor din corpul omenesc, împreună cu celulele-stem.

Romanian researchers from “Victor Babes” National Institute for Research and Development in the Field of Pathology and Biomedical Sciences have discovered a cell type, which, together with stem cells could promote regeneration of heart muscle affected by stroke. Victor Babes Institute’s specialists have discovered by chance, while doing research on cells in the intestine, the presence of very small cells that help regenerate organs.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal discovered a particular cell type in the gut, which he named “interstitial neurons” more that 100 years ago. In the early 1970s, electron microscope (EM) studies showed that indeed a special interstitial cell type corresponding to the cells discovered by Cajal is localized in the gut muscle coat, but it became obvious that they were not neurons. Consequently, they were renamed “Interstitial Cells of Cajal”(ICC) and considered to be pace-makers for gut motility. For the past 10 years many groups were interested in whether or not ICC are present outside the gastrointestinal tract, and indeed, peculiar interstitial cells were found in: upper and lower urinary tracts, blood vessels, pancreas, male and female reproductive tracts, mammary gland, placenta, and, recently, in the heart as well as in the gut. Such cells, now mostly known as Interstitial Cajal-Like Cells (ICLC), were given different and confusing names. Moreover, ICLC are only apparently similar to canonical ICC. In fact, EM and cell cultures revealed very particular features of ICLC, which unequivocally distinguishes them from ICC and all other interstitial cells: the presence of 2–5 cell body prolongations that are very thin (less than 0.2 mm, under resolving power of light microscopy), extremely long (tens to hundreds of mm), with a moniliform aspect (many dilations along), as well as caveolae. Given the unique dimensions of these prolongations (very long and very thin) and to avoid further confusion with other interstitial cell types (e.g. fibroblast, fibrocyte, fibroblast-like cells, mesenchymal cells), was coined the term TELOCYTES for them, and TELOPODES for their prolongations, by using the Greek affix “telos”.

According to Laurenţiu Popescu, President of the Academy of Medical Sciences, the telocyte cells were highlighted by Romanian scholars and their existence was confirmed by independent teams from Italy, Germany, Britain and China. In tandem with stem cells, telocytes can help restore some vital organs like heart and brain.

“If we succeed to isolate, multiply them with stem cells, we can use effectively to treat heart attack,” said Professor Laurenţiu Popescu, M.D., Ph.D.

De aici. Cine vrea să cunoască mai multe despre istoria și detaliile descoperirii poate arunca o privire aici.

Lesne de înțeles, o finațare corespunzătoare a institutelor de cercetare care chiar produc rezultate științifice ar reprezenta o promovare mult mai bună pentru România, în loc de aruncat bani aiurea pe concerte și scene inutile marca Ridzi sau pe campanii de plagiat frunze marca Udrea & co. De pildă, comparați milionul de euro necesar Institutului ”Victor Babeș” cu sumele care se fură, cu acte în regulă, în România actuală…

PS Aflu că știrea nu este tocmai nouă, domnul Popescu acordând un interviu încă din luna aprilie revistei Viața Medicală, interviu în care acesta vorbește despre descoperirea telocitelor. Pesemne mass-media autohtonă nu a considerat subiectul destul de important pentru a fi strecurat în vreun jurnal de știri sau colț de tabloid, în cele patru luni scurse de atunci…

Cercetătorii de la AVG au alcătuit un clasament al țărilor în care utilizatorii de Internet sunt cei mai predispuși a fi ținta unui atac informatic sau ai unui virus. Topul riscului e condus de Turcia, Rusia și Armenia, cele mai „sigure” țări fiind Sierra Leone, Niger și Japonia – primele două adevărate „pete albe” pe harta rețelei globale.

Dincolo de reclama implicită, rezultatele complete și metodologia pot fi găsite aici.

Acum câteva zile prezentam un argument în favoarea rămânerii în țară. Astază voi încerca să sintetizez  o serie de argumente în sprijinul plecării/emigrării din România; unele se regăsesc și în comentariile de la postarea respectivă. Bineînțeles, considerentele pecuniare sunt doar o fațetă a problemei. Dorința de a pleca este determinată și de alte criterii, mai greu sau mai ușor de cuantificat, dar la fel de întemeiate:

• corupția cvasi-generalizată;
• cel mai prost sistem de sănătate din Uniunea Europeană;
• educația – contrar mitului „școala românească producătoare de olimpici”, nu avem nicio universitate în topul celor mai bune 500 din lume, spre deosebire de Ungaria, Cehia sau Polonia;
• sistemul de pensii;
• infrastuctura și transporturile – situații ilustrative se pot găsi aici sau aici;
• o clasă politică incapabilă, formată din grupări/găști de interese clientelare, fără viziune sau ideologie, ce pompos își spun „partide politice”;
• un stat român slab și incompetent care își bate joc de proprii cetățeni;

Și s-ar putea continua, fiecare își poate completa lista cu propriile argumente și percepții.

PS  O privire la criteriile Indexului de Dezvoltare Umană este utilă.

Reportajul din New York Times mi-a atras atenția, dincolo de tematică și modalitatea de abordare, datorită prezenței unui nume neaoș românesc – Oana Marin – printre fumătorii ce fac obiectul articolului respectiv, într-o societate americană în care fumatul devine tot mai stigmatizat:

“I always thought it would have made me sick or made me cough,” Ms. Marian said as she recalled her first drag, at 16, at that summer camp in Romania. “But it was like I had always smoked.”

Her father was a journalist and her mother worked at the National Theater; both smoked. Her father’s position brought them privilege — a nice apartment in the center of Bucharest, the summer camp. Ms. Marian attended a government school that focused on physics.

She smoked off and on, mostly at a cafe over a cup of coffee. But it wasn’t until she moved to Haifa, Israel, with her mother, after her father died, that she bought her first pack. She was a student again, studying electromagnetic engineering at Technion, Haifa’s polytechnic university. Everyone smoked, so she smoked more.

She met her husband there. He was studying civil engineering. They began as friends in 1981 and romance seeped in. In 1986, they married. In time, she tossed engineering aside to help a friend with corporate accounts at a travel agency.

“I always liked to travel,” she said. “All these nice places. It spoke to me.”

Moving to the United States was a key goal. She settled into Jackson Heights, Queens, in 1990 with her husband and had a son, who graduated from Bronx High School of Sciencetwo years ago. He is 19 now, a sophomore at the State University at Stony Brook. She worked first as manager of an Israeli restaurant in Queens, then jumped to reservations at a travel agency, and now coordinates travel road shows for clients of HRG, a huge firm specializing in corporate travel.

She became a citizen in 2000 and, like many immigrants, is fiercely loyal and proud of her adopted country. “If anybody asks what I am, I say American,” she said.

But, like a parent with a gifted child who doesn’t live up to expectations, she has been occasionally disappointed. She expected a meritocracy, where hard work and intelligence rule the day, and found that whom you know and how you present yourself can best the best. The smoking rules, too, bring back a few memories of her childhood.

“Land of the free, I envisioned it that way,” she added. “I probably idealized it. Being born and raised in a Communist regime, I was looking for the exact opposite — capitalism, free market, individual freedoms.”

O „felie” dintr-o societate diferită, o lectură instructivă.

Azi, în Grădina Botanică din Craiova:

Acum ceva vreme fragmentul de mai jos făcea parte din manualul de filosofie pentru clasa a XII-a, capitolul „Dreptatea”:

[…]

— Întrebarea este ce a vrut să spună R. Daneel prin folosirea termenului „justiţie”.

— Din contextul conversaţiei noastre, el s-a referit la ceea ce am înţelege eu, dumneavoastră şi orice alt om, dar ce n-ar putea înţelege nici un robot.

— Domnule Baley, de ce nu-i cereţi să definească termenul?

Baley simţi că siguranţa începea să i se destrame. Se întoarse spre R. Daneel:

— Ei bine?

— Da, Elijah?

— Cum defineşti tu justiţia?

— Justiţia, Elijah, este ceea ce există când toate legile sunt aplicate.

— O definiţie bună pentru un robot, încuviinţă Fastolfe din cap. Dorinţa de a urmări aplicarea tuturor legilor a fost recent încorporată în Daneel. Pentru el, justiţia este un termen foarte concret, deoarece se bazează pe aplicarea legii, care la rândul ei se bazează pe existenţa unor legi specifice şi definite. Nu este vorba de nimic abstract. Un om poate recunoaşte faptul că, pe baza unui cod moral abstract, unele legi pot fi proaste, iar aplicarea lor injustă. Ce părere ai, R. Daneel?

— O lege injustă, răspunse egal R. Daneel, este o contradicţie în termeni.

— Aşa stau lucrurile pentru un robot, domnule Baley. Din acest motiv, nu trebuie să confundaţi justiţia dumneavoastră cu cea a lui R. Daneel.

                                                                                                                                        Isaac Asimov – Caverne de Oțel

Ce este – sau ce ar trebui să fie – un doctorat, explicat în 12 imagini:

de aici.