LANGUAGE COMPETENCY
Introduction
An understanding of other cultures is a major catalyst for people to be encouraged to pursue an active, political life. Fluent communication skills open horizons. People will become interested in others’ lives and societal parameters. They will be encouraged by newly acquired comaraderie to participate on the international stage. They will be confident in their voting decisions. International relations and conflict transformation will become areas of personal interest. Language determines how people view the world. Perhaps they create language to represent their world view. To understand another language is to understand how other people view the world. To know these differences in outlook through language cognition, gives us the power of intercultural communication. Do you doubt that language knowledge will raise confidence levels in all things? To know how other cultures think, and to be able to define it, engenders power.
“Language as Game
On this conception of the philosophical enterprise, the vagueness of ordinary usage is not a problem to be eliminated but rather the source of linguistic riches.
It is misleading even to attempt to fix the meaning of particular expressions by linking them referentially to things in the world. The meaning of a word or phrase or proposition is nothing other than the set of (informal) rules governing the use of the expression in actual life.
”
In the following four essays, I ruminate about, relate actual experiences in, and give evidence of learning achievements through my studies at SIT. My wish is that you find they validate my KASA of language learning - and that they are reasonably enjoyable.