Monday, 11 July 2022

Each Language Construes Experience In Its Own Way

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 523):
We have outlined the picture from the point of view of English, but doing so as far as possible in a way that would enable the relevant questions to be raised for other languages. In the last resort each language construes experience in its own way — has its own "characterology", as the Prague linguists expressed it. But every language embodies a working, and workable, schedule of compromises, that taken all together constitute its speakers' construction of reality.