#碎碎念系列# Language Acquisition, Culture, and Inspiration

(This is a total digression from my original intention)

The word ‘intellect’ was originally derived from an Ancient Greek philosophy term used to mean ‘to understand’, from which ‘intellectual’ and ‘intelligence’ were created. It’s always an interesting and enlightening experience to excavate the historical connotations of a word by tracing back to its origin.

我的新偶像

Like many people, I first got acquainted with the word ‘intelligence’ by learning the meaning of the ability to think, learn and understand things, and through commonly used abbreviations, like IQ and EQ. It was only in recent years that I became familiar with the terms ‘intellect’ and ‘intellectual,’ which seem to be understandable. As English learners, we don’t use these words as often as the word ‘intelligence’ in part because we don’t seem to subconsciously replace them with their “Chinese equivalents” when speaking Chinese as if we’ve never doubted the corresponding meaning in Chinese or had trouble articulating them. So are pretty comfortable with that, at least I am. I am getting more and more familiar with these words only because I am more informed about linguistic expressions in a comparable context in different cultures.

Being somewhat biased, I used to tinge the term ‘intellect‘ or ’intellectual‘ with a sort of nobleness that would evoke a sense of superiority to our“average men” and their daily life. Therefore, I naturally associated most terms or phrases that these words partly constitute with implications of high quality, high standard, and excellence, such as intellectual life, intellectual community, and intellectual curiosity. In retrospect, I ascribed a “special status” to the meaning of those terms, which resembles a kind of class bias and classification, mainly because I picked up these terms in English and did so only under the English culture context, in which I also gained a perception, though biased, of the social circumstances and scenes where these terms “were supposed to be used.” In comparison with English, Chinese is a more straightforward language full of abundant characters, which provides us with diverse linguistic expressions that are also direct relatively speaking. Of course, there are terms and expressions in one language that we can’t find appropriate counterparts in another language or at all. In learning characters and terms of another language, we put ourselves into theirmindset, at least partially, and we are learning foreign concepts as well. That’s why I struggled to properly articulate them in Chinese, and I still do.

But where the nobleness and class bias came from? I tend to think that I was letting myself be confined in this environment of language acquisition where I learned those words and terms from people who use or has gotten used to using them in their life. The environment I refer to, simply put, is the upper or elite class of society. Certain people decide the way that most people should speak and the standards by which people should learn to abide both verbally and in writing. There are always words and terms in any developing language that are tinted with socioeconomic status, cultural conceptions, and implications. When you learn their language, you are becoming one of them as you are supposed to learn how and where to use it as a native speaker.

Speaking of the “special status” of the term intellect or intellectual, we actually don’t need to go as far as its origin to look for answers. The original meaning of intellect only represented a small group of people’s way of life - people who had the ability, whether it’s acquired in later life or innate, to think and learn the most fundamental questions concerning human beings, God, and their relationship. I believe that’s how intellect/intellectual was inherently associated with knowledge in the beginning. As the way of acquiring and spreading knowledge became more systematic, people who did either were a part of this community, which had been dominated by the upper class and elites before it became more accessible to the middle and lower class. I was not wrong about why I felt a vague remoteness between the term intellect or intellectual and ordinary people, yet I was ignorant by equating elitism to excellence. I also failed to recognize the evolvement of these terms in the modern era where the western world was going through social and cultural revolutions that culminated in a more democratic and liberal society. The term intellectual first came into use in France in the 19th century where it was adopted by people involved in an ideological holy war. Thus, it’s not difficult to understand that the modern idea of intellectuals is identified with the idea of political and moral protest. Inspired by the French intellectuals, the American philosopher and psychologist William James wrote, in a letter, “We ‘intellectuals’ in America must all work to keep our precious birthright of individualism, and freedom from these institutions (church, army, aristocracy, royalty) Every great institution is perforce a means of corruption-whatever good it may also do. Only in the free personal relation is full ideality to be found.” I must say, I was initially drawn to the term intellectual/intellect mostly because of its representation of knowledge;I admire how the intellectuals transformed knowledge and am inspired by how the intellectuals endowed moral and social significance to the meaning of this term intellectual/intellect.