By Taru Taylor
The International Council of Societies of Industrial Design has recently designated Seoul as the ``World Design Capital'' of 2010. Hopefully, this will prove a signal event for us English professors and teachers here. Currently, Koreans learn English, essentially, as a series of colloquialisms.
ICSID's recent announcement should bring about a paradigm-shift, from English conversation, to English discourse, especially within the context of industrial design. Instead of colloquialisms, Koreans should study English as a totality of what the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein called ``atomic facts.''
English, as a language, serves two basic functions: to convey information and to express or evoke feelings. Science epitomizes the former, poetry the latter ― compare the discursive English of Charles Darwin to the conversational English of William Shakespeare. Which better serves the modern Korean's purpose?
The modern Korean seems confused. He doesn't learn English on his own terms, with a clear and definite purpose. He is ambivalent towards it as a necessary evil.
To eliminate this confusion, which results in the linguistic mongrel called ``Konglish,'' the modern Korean should first of all dispense with his emotional attitude towards English. He has positive feelings for it as a fetish connoting Western prestige.
His negative feelings apprehend it as a taboo conducing to Anglo-Saxon imperialism. He ambivalently feels it as a magic talisman. He must learn to single-mindedly manipulate it as a scientific tool. He must learn to feel in Korean, to think in English.
Thus his own language, Korean, should serve the purpose of conversation, which is to say colloquy and emotion. Hangeul should operate as the conduit of his national culture. England and the whole Anglo-Saxon world are the cult of Shakespeare.
Germany is the cult of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Russia is the cult of Alexander Pushkin. This is because Shakespeare, Goethe and Pushkin, as immortal poets laureate, are their nations' conversational pivots. Who is Korea's poet laureate? Who is the pivot of Korean conversation?
Generally speaking, Aristotle and the English philosopher Sir Francis Bacon are the pivots of international discourse, by virtue of the English translations of their masterpieces of deductive logic and inductive logic, The Organon and Novum Organum, respectively.
If conversation is about national colloquy and shared emotion, then discourse is international dialogue concerning matter and motion, logic and science. Discourse has to do with language from the perspective of the verbal liberal arts: grammar, logic and rhetoric.
By the way, ``The Tool'' and ``The New Tool'' are the titles of the above-mentioned works in English ― a hint as to the proper role of English, in Korea, as an analytical tool.
Latin, throughout medieval Europe, was the language of international discourse. During that time, the Latin translation of The Organon and Novum Organum, which Bacon wrote in Latin with respect to its role as lingua franca, were the twofold conceptual framework of scientific method.
But now English is the international lingua franca. So the English translations of Aristotle and Bacon now define the paradigm of international discourse, to which Korea would do well to shift.
More specifically, Wittgenstein is the pivot of international discourse as it pertains to industrial design. The English translation of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is the perfect conceptual framework for English education in South Korea as it prepares for 2010.
Earlier I said that Koreans must learn to think in English. I meant ``think'' according to Wittgenstein's definition of ``thought'' as ``the logical picture of the facts.'' For Wittgenstein, language is a composite picture of the sensory world, which in turn is the totality of ``atomic facts.''
He believed in a ``logical grammar,'' which would provide a strict accounting of its signs within a comprehensive symbolism. His analogy: just as whole numbers are units of arithmetic, atomic facts are units of language.
True and false are the two values of his matrix of truth tables, which are to logic what the multiplication table is to arithmetic. To him, language has to do with sense, that is, with what is perceptible by the five senses. Of the rest we must remain silent.
``Signs'' are ``marks'' that give evidence of an event, of an ``atomic fact.'' To ``design'' is to ``mark out'' a structural form or blueprint. Wittgenstein's early vision of language directly pertains to English within the context of industrial design.
If we recall that his ``thoughts'' are ``logical pictures,'' then propositional signs, as expressions of such thoughts, are representational pictures. Propositions denote scientific design. As he put it, ``The totality of true propositions is the total natural science (or the totality of the natural sciences).''
We agree with Wittgenstein's disclaimer, that Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is not a textbook. Like The Organon and Novum Organum, it is much more important than that. It is a vision. However, it doesn't quite have their general application.
Aristotle and Bacon defined the paradigms of deductive logic and of inductive logic, the twin pillars of scientific method. Wittgenstein's work fine-tunes scientific method. More specifically, it defines the linguistic paradigm of industrial design.
For the long-term, Korea would do well to study English under the tutelage of Aristotle and Bacon, in English translation. It would do well to hire professors and teachers who have mastered English grammar, logic, and English rhetoric.
But Wittgenstein is South Korea's best bet as it more immediately prepares its greatest city to be the ``World Design Capital'' of 2010.
The writer teaches English at Semyung University in Jecheon, North Chungcheong Province. He can be reached at tarutaylor@gmail.com.