#4 LANGUAGE – with polyglot & TFS Head of School Dr. Josep González – podcast

“To have a second language is to have a 2nd soul,” said Charlemagne. This week’s expert & polyglot Dr. Josep González highlights that each language serves as a window into a culture. With more windows comes more complexity and sophistication. You can become a more sophisticated thinker by mastering your language skills: avoid thinking in binary pairs; read history; and negotiate with philosophical discourse–recognizing what is fact vs. opinion. Ultimately, “language is the vehicle for authentic democracy.”   References & Links Dr. Josep González & TFS Canada’s International School * https://www.tfs.ca/page/our-community/head-of-school-welcome Dr. Steven Pinker * “The Language Instinct” (https://amzn.to/2VYTlIN)** * “The Blank Slate” (https://amzn.to/2MgwZxX) * “The Stuff of Thought” (https://amzn.to/2Mpa1Vv) Trevor Noah * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Noah * https://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/Shows/TheDailyShow Hélène Cixous and Death Dealing Binary Combinations * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_opposition * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A9l%C3%A8ne_Cixous * http://homepage.westmont.edu/hoeckley/Readings/Symposium/PDF/201_300/219 Linguistic Relativity and Grammatical Gender * https://www.ted.com/talks/lera_boroditsky_how_language_shapes_the_way_we_think/transcript?language=en#t-100610 * Boroditsky, L., Schmidt, L., & Phillips, W. (2003). Sex, Syntax, and Semantics. In Language in mind: Advances in the study of language and cognition, ed. D. Gentner & S. Goldin-Meadow, pp.61- 80. Cambridge University Press * https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/432232?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents Multilingualism * https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/how-many-languages-are-there-world * https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/09/03/the-mystery-of-people-who-speak-dozens-of-languages * http://ilanguages.org/bilingual.php   Interview Transcript  Dr. Andrea Wojnicki: Thank you so much for joining us, Josep. I really appreciate your time. I thought we should just start with the basics. What is language? Dr. Josep González: Language is a lot of different things. I would describe language as a system of signs that we use for communication purposes. Language is made up of words.