Thursday, January 08, 2015
Writing, and Speaking, in Space in Time
This one is a no-brainer. My eight year old Japanese son is already able to write letters to his Japanese mother in space, in time, using his finger which I am unable to read despite the fact that I am as yet somewhat better than him at Kanji. I just can't seem to be able to maintain the trace in space of the finger moving through time.
This sort of test should be doable using an animation function in Powerpoint. I predict that Japanese who have high private shame will be able to recreate characters written in space and time. Somehow I feel that there would also be a greater ability among those Japanese, like my son, that practice forms or kata (in my son's case, karate kata/forms). Again, this ability, to read characters written in space in time, is greater among the deaf, who do not use phonetic mental imagery.
I may have a greater ability than many Japanese to maintain a phonetic trace in time due to all the time I spend "listening to myself." Derrida writes: To listen to oneself, can that be pleasant? Can one find that pleasant without the nasty taste of a poison, or the foretaste of an illness? I doubt that more and more.
Image from Emmorey, K., Kosslyn, S. M., & Bellugi, U. (1993). Visual imagery and visual-spatial language: Enhanced imagery abilities in deaf and hearing ASL signers. Cognition, 46(2), 139-181.
This sort of test should be doable using an animation function in Powerpoint. I predict that Japanese who have high private shame will be able to recreate characters written in space and time. Somehow I feel that there would also be a greater ability among those Japanese, like my son, that practice forms or kata (in my son's case, karate kata/forms). Again, this ability, to read characters written in space in time, is greater among the deaf, who do not use phonetic mental imagery.
I may have a greater ability than many Japanese to maintain a phonetic trace in time due to all the time I spend "listening to myself." Derrida writes: To listen to oneself, can that be pleasant? Can one find that pleasant without the nasty taste of a poison, or the foretaste of an illness? I doubt that more and more.
Image from Emmorey, K., Kosslyn, S. M., & Bellugi, U. (1993). Visual imagery and visual-spatial language: Enhanced imagery abilities in deaf and hearing ASL signers. Cognition, 46(2), 139-181.
Labels: blogger, deaf, Flickr, japanese culture, nihonbunka, 日本文化
This blog represents the opinions of the author, Timothy Takemoto, and not the opinions of his employer.