full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Steven Pinker: What our language habits reveal

Unscramble the Blue Letters


I think the key idea is that language is a way of negotiating relationships, and human reiainostlhps fall into a number of teyps. There's an influential taxonomy by the aoplnsoihtogrt Alan Fiske, in which relationships can be categorized, more or less, into camnlmuitoy, which works on the principle "what's mine is thine, what's thine is mine," the kind of mindset that operates within a falmiy, for example; dominance, whose principle is "don't mess with me;" reciprocity, "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours;" and sxuilteay, in the immortal words of Cole Porter, "Let's do it."

Now, relationship types can be negotiated. Even though there are default situations in which one of these mindsets can be applied, they can be stretched and extended. For example, communality applies most nalutalry within family or finerds, but it can be used to try to transfer the mtenltaiy of sharing to groups that ordinarily would not be disposed to exercise it. For example, in brotherhoods, fraternal oaaoigznitnrs, sororities, locutions like "the family of man," you try to get people who are not related to use the relationship type that would ordinarily be appropriate to close kin.

Open Cloze


I think the key idea is that language is a way of negotiating relationships, and human _____________ fall into a number of _____. There's an influential taxonomy by the ______________ Alan Fiske, in which relationships can be categorized, more or less, into ___________, which works on the principle "what's mine is thine, what's thine is mine," the kind of mindset that operates within a ______, for example; dominance, whose principle is "don't mess with me;" reciprocity, "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours;" and _________, in the immortal words of Cole Porter, "Let's do it."

Now, relationship types can be negotiated. Even though there are default situations in which one of these mindsets can be applied, they can be stretched and extended. For example, communality applies most _________ within family or _______, but it can be used to try to transfer the _________ of sharing to groups that ordinarily would not be disposed to exercise it. For example, in brotherhoods, fraternal _____________, sororities, locutions like "the family of man," you try to get people who are not related to use the relationship type that would ordinarily be appropriate to close kin.

Solution


  1. naturally
  2. types
  3. friends
  4. organizations
  5. mentality
  6. relationships
  7. communality
  8. family
  9. anthropologist
  10. sexuality

Original Text


I think the key idea is that language is a way of negotiating relationships, and human relationships fall into a number of types. There's an influential taxonomy by the anthropologist Alan Fiske, in which relationships can be categorized, more or less, into communality, which works on the principle "what's mine is thine, what's thine is mine," the kind of mindset that operates within a family, for example; dominance, whose principle is "don't mess with me;" reciprocity, "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours;" and sexuality, in the immortal words of Cole Porter, "Let's do it."

Now, relationship types can be negotiated. Even though there are default situations in which one of these mindsets can be applied, they can be stretched and extended. For example, communality applies most naturally within family or friends, but it can be used to try to transfer the mentality of sharing to groups that ordinarily would not be disposed to exercise it. For example, in brotherhoods, fraternal organizations, sororities, locutions like "the family of man," you try to get people who are not related to use the relationship type that would ordinarily be appropriate to close kin.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
french academy 3
relationship types 3
honest officer 3
human nature 2
cognitive machinery 2
govern human 2
container metaphor 2
concrete metaphor 2
indirect speech 2
speech acts 2
dishonest officer 2
traffic ticket 2


Important Words


  1. alan
  2. anthropologist
  3. applied
  4. applies
  5. brotherhoods
  6. categorized
  7. close
  8. cole
  9. communality
  10. default
  11. disposed
  12. dominance
  13. exercise
  14. extended
  15. fall
  16. family
  17. fiske
  18. fraternal
  19. friends
  20. groups
  21. human
  22. idea
  23. immortal
  24. influential
  25. key
  26. kin
  27. kind
  28. language
  29. locutions
  30. man
  31. mentality
  32. mess
  33. mindset
  34. mindsets
  35. naturally
  36. negotiated
  37. negotiating
  38. number
  39. operates
  40. ordinarily
  41. organizations
  42. people
  43. porter
  44. principle
  45. reciprocity
  46. related
  47. relationship
  48. relationships
  49. scratch
  50. sexuality
  51. sharing
  52. situations
  53. sororities
  54. stretched
  55. taxonomy
  56. thine
  57. transfer
  58. type
  59. types
  60. words
  61. works