• Needing the other: the anatomy of the Mass Noun Thesis

    Author(s):
    Lajos Brons (see profile)
    Date:
    2014
    Subject(s):
    Japanese language, Linguistics, Philosophy, Social sciences
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    Identity and Otherness, Othering, The Other, Mass Noun Thesis, Japanese linguistics
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M66M4Q
    Abstract:
    Othering is the construction and identification of the self or in-group and the other or out-group in mutual, unequal opposition by attributing relative inferiority and/or radical alienness to the other/out-group. Othering can be “crude” or “sophisticated”, the defining difference being that in the latter case othering depends on the interpretation of the other/out-group in terms that are applicable only to the self/in-group but that are unconsciously assumed to be universal. The Mass Noun Thesis, the idea that all nouns in certain languages are grammatically and folk-ontologically similar to mass nouns in English, is an example of such sophisticated othering. According to this Thesis, (a) count nouns refer to discrete objects and mass nouns to stuffs; (b) the other’s language has only mass nouns and thus no count nouns; and therefore, (c) the other’s folk-ontology is an ontology of mass stuffs only. There is much evidence, however, that folk-ontology is independent from language. This paper argues that the Mass Noun Thesis is a case of sophisticated othering rooted in a conflation of grammatical and ontological conceptions of mass and count nouns that is applicable to the language of the interpreter/self but not to the languages of the relevant others, and that othering in this case is driven by a need to create some radically alien other to support a scientific or philosophical theory.
    Metadata:
    Published as:
    Journal article    
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    7 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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