I found an interesting article today on JSTOR titled, Language and Space, which considers language as an "'everyday' spatial concept" and its relation to cognition. I found it interesting because it relates the way our mind works and how we frame "our" world through the everyday use of language and frames of references in our culture. The following paragraph further describes the concept:

It was suggested...that cognition is the intermediate variable between
language and other aspects of culture. Thus we would expect specializations in cognitive style-correlated with spatial language to surface in other cultural manifestations (Levinson 376).

One's use of language is the result of the prominent frame of references our language makes prominent. I think that it is safe to say that when learning a new language, adapting to a different frame of reference can be a bit difficult. Maybe this is where native speakers have a cultural advantage? I hope this makes sense!

Topic Analysis

I'm currently working on my topic analysis (aren't we all?) and I'm just pretty much trying to break things down as far as questions go. I have the who, what, when, where, how and why, now I just need to put it all together in some sort of coherent paragraph form. I'll have copies tomorrow for all to read.

Thus far, I am becoming more interested in the use of oral language and it's ability to either join people into groups or act as a pulling force. Maybe it would be a good idea to incorporated literature on how spaces are created by language?