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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 5 page essay/research paper that discusses the relationship between language, societal constructs and reality. Since the time of ancient Greece, people have contemplated the nature of reality. As Berger and Luckmann point out in their treatise on the nature of reality, what is referred to as reality is basically unknowable except through the narrow channel of human experience as we each interpret it through the facility of our own particular social enclaves and institutions. In other words, reality, rather than being concrete and immutable, is also subjective, that is, subject to change in accordance with the manner in which it is perceived. These ideas are discussed. Bibliography lists 6 sources.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khreall.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
referred to as reality is basically unknowable except through the narrow channel of human experience as we each interpret it through the facility of our own particular social enclaves and
institutions. In other words, reality, rather than being concrete and immutable, is also subjective, that is, subject to change in accordance with the manner in which it is perceived. Berger
and Luckmann point out that social institutions are human constructed, rather than biologically determined. However, they have taken the place of human instinct to such an extent that societies tend
to take it for granted that their structure is the equivalent of physical nature (i.e., whatever my society believes is "right" or "natural"). This sort of ethnocentrism naturally derives from
the fact that all of human knowledge is based on the abstraction of language. Linguist Noam Chomsky has persuasively argued that language structure reflects innate "deep structures" that are
unique to human beings (Christensen 22). Berger and Luckmann relate these structures to the manner in which objects in reality come to stand for meanings apart their actual being. For
example, they discuss how if someone expresses anger towards you and you wake up with a knife stuck in the wall above your head, that knife comes to objectify, to
stand for, the anger of your assailant. "In other words, the knife in my wall has become an objectively available constituent of the reality I share with my adversary and
with other men" (Berger and Luckmann 35). In other words, how reality is viewed is influenced not only by the what precisely is viewed, but also in terms of
its social context and the language in which it is expressed. This fact is reflected in social life in a variety of ways. For example, it is very telling that
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