7.830, Disc: Language and dreams

[The Linguist List]

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-7-830. Wed Jun 5 1996. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines:  88
 
Subject: 7.830, Disc: Language and dreams
 
Moderators: Anthony Rodrigues Aristar: Texas A&M U. <aristar at tam2000.tamu.edu>
            Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at emunix.emich.edu> (On Leave)
            T. Daniel Seely: Eastern Michigan U. <dseely at emunix.emich.edu>
 
Associate Editor:  Ljuba Veselinova <lveselin at emunix.emich.edu>
Assistant Editors: Ron Reck <rreck at emunix.emich.edu>
                   Ann Dizdar <dizdar at tam2000.tamu.edu>
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Editor for this issue: dseely at emunix.emich.edu (T. Daniel Seely)
 
---------------------------------Directory-----------------------------------
1)
Date:  Fri, 31 May 1996 09:17:49 EDT
From:  kvt at husc.HARVARD.EDU (Karl Teeter)
Subject:  Re: Language and Dreams
 
2)
Date:  Tue, 04 Jun 1996 09:05:09 PDT
From:  dalford at s1.csuhayward.edu (Dan Moonhawk Alford)
Subject:  Disc: Hypnosis & forgotten languages
 
---------------------------------Messages------------------------------------
1)
Date:  Fri, 31 May 1996 09:17:49 EDT
From:  kvt at husc.HARVARD.EDU (Karl Teeter)
Subject:  Re: Language and Dreams
 
Dear Friends: While it has been fun reading all of the interesting
anecdotes here related on this subject, I am a bit disconcerted to see
everything we have learned in scientific psychology since William James
swept away, until we are back to pure introspection.  It should not be
necessary to point this out to this list, but we know very little
about what really happens in dreams. Even the rem sleep business, which
now seems to be taken so for granted, is known only because of
painstaking and detailed empirical study. As for the languages of which
one has fluent command in dreams, it's simple.  In real life, I struggle
to approach limited fluency in any language beyond my native English.  In
dreams I can speak any language fluently -- you name it. What does this
prove?  Yours, kvt
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2)
Date:  Tue, 04 Jun 1996 09:05:09 PDT
From:  dalford at s1.csuhayward.edu (Dan Moonhawk Alford)
Subject:  Disc: Hypnosis & forgotten languages
 
On June 1, Benji Wald wrote (vol-7-811):
 
> No doubt such hypnosis research has or should be done (or should it?)
> with language-forgetting.  Hypnotise some adult into remembering a
> language they haven't spoken or heard spoken since they were four,
> six, or whatever.
 
Interestingly enough, such work is on-going in Native America right
now, though it's being done for real and not an experiment, and it's
called 'ritual' vs 'hypnosis'. Turns out this country has a huge target
client population of Native Americans who were kidnapped by the
federal government when they were 6 or 7 years old, taken away from
their families and tribal languages and sent to boarding schools
half-way across the country, and forced to learn English and not speak
their 'barbarous tongue'. Virtually all of the early 'boomers and older
were subjected to this treatment by the dominant majority, and many
of them lost/forgot their first language.
 
According to one of my students, of the River People between Oregon
and Washington, ceremonies have recently begun, and are spreading
across the Native population, which effectively restore Native
languages that have lain dormant since boarding school days; the
restoration of the language usually brings a dramatic personality
change as well, he says. Unfortunately, anecdotal evidence is probably
all our profession will get on this, given that during that historical
period we did nothing to stop what was going on. I really doubt that
any Indians would allow Western researchers in to observe; survival
takes precedence over research. Note that this ritual is not a factor
taken into account in projections of language death in Native America.
 
PS -- I seem to remember Steve Krashen doing work on Western
hypnotic regression techniques for recovering early languages; whether my
remembering is right or not is a different matter.   moonhawk
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