LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY, METAPHORS SHAPING THOUGHT, AND HOW I AM A GOD BY WILL REBLANDO
How do we think about and communicate ideas? This is the problem upon which every language attempts to solve. Throughout human history there have been thousands of different languages, all constantly dying, evolving, splintering, and adapting. Linguistic relativity is the idea that language can change how people understand reality. If I were to have two different people describe to me fire, person one saying “bright” and person two saying “hot”. These two very different descriptors could change how a third party understands what fire is, from person one it may seem like a torch, and from person two it may seem like an oven. We know fire is both hot and bright, but applying this notion of limited language to describe more complex ideas and how different peoples decide to describe them is the basis of linguistic relativity.
In a similar vein to linguistic relativity, metaphor is another way language can change how people understand reality. Metaphor is when one idea is connected to represent another idea. Metaphor is so ubiquitous that unless it is very poetic and flowery it usually goes unnoticed. One common example of metaphor that goes unnoticed is that ideas are objects. The common phrases like “I gave you that idea” or “I have an idea”. Ideas are not physical objects and they cannot be physically given or had. If I were to think of an idea like a jolt of electricity I could say “I transmitted you that idea” or “I sparked an idea”. This again can be applied to more complex ideas and change how we think and connect ideas to each other.
You might be asking, “how does this apply to creativity?” I believe being able to see past my own linguistic relativity and the metaphors I use in everyday life can help me understand reality in a new way allowing me to be creative in ways people haven’t even thought about or would have made the connection to. I am a god, in a metaphorical sense. I am attempting to see the world in an omnipresent view, from every understanding and every connection. I am a creator.
