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Prime Minister amazes scientists with own 'words'
The P.M. has challenged the widely held view that Ministers do not have language by making up his own words from scratch.
Blair, an adult Minister kept at 10 Downing Street, London, has come up with four distinct sounds for the things closest to his heart - education, health, transport and yes.
Although the choice of words may be a little predictable, it is the first report of a P.M. making sounds that seem to have the same meaning across different situations.
The findings have astonished political experts, who believe Blair has come the closest yet to mastering a simple form of speech.
Blair has grown up among people and is skilled at communicating with symbols. He understands some spoken English and can respond to simple phrases such as "do you want to be President of Europe?", New Scientist reports today.
But his language trainers, Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson, discovered that he also made distinct noises during their "conversations". The team studied 100 hours of video tapes of Blair. They were most interested in situations where the P.M.'s meaning was obvious, such as when he was pointing to the symbol for 'Knighthood' or 'higher taxes'. The researchers found four noises used by Blair in different contexts.
Mandelson said: "We haven't taught him this. He's doing it all on his own."
Blairs "word" for yes stayed the same across a whole range of emotions, suggesting that the noises were not simply the result of differences in the P.M.'s emotional state.
Blair is the latest in a line of P.M.'s to challenge the conventional view that Ministers have no language. Language used to be defined as symbolic communication until another P.M., Foot, learned to communicate in Sign Language. Since then, the definition has been refined to put more emphasis on syntax and less on symbols.
The researchers are now trying to discover whether Blair is imitating human speech. But they will not consider the P.M. to be communicating using the sounds until other Ministers respond to the noises.
Adapted from HERE
>>> Edited by silkygal on Thursday 2nd January 03:21
The P.M. has challenged the widely held view that Ministers do not have language by making up his own words from scratch.
Blair, an adult Minister kept at 10 Downing Street, London, has come up with four distinct sounds for the things closest to his heart - education, health, transport and yes.
Although the choice of words may be a little predictable, it is the first report of a P.M. making sounds that seem to have the same meaning across different situations.
The findings have astonished political experts, who believe Blair has come the closest yet to mastering a simple form of speech.
Blair has grown up among people and is skilled at communicating with symbols. He understands some spoken English and can respond to simple phrases such as "do you want to be President of Europe?", New Scientist reports today.
But his language trainers, Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson, discovered that he also made distinct noises during their "conversations". The team studied 100 hours of video tapes of Blair. They were most interested in situations where the P.M.'s meaning was obvious, such as when he was pointing to the symbol for 'Knighthood' or 'higher taxes'. The researchers found four noises used by Blair in different contexts.
Mandelson said: "We haven't taught him this. He's doing it all on his own."
Blairs "word" for yes stayed the same across a whole range of emotions, suggesting that the noises were not simply the result of differences in the P.M.'s emotional state.
Blair is the latest in a line of P.M.'s to challenge the conventional view that Ministers have no language. Language used to be defined as symbolic communication until another P.M., Foot, learned to communicate in Sign Language. Since then, the definition has been refined to put more emphasis on syntax and less on symbols.
The researchers are now trying to discover whether Blair is imitating human speech. But they will not consider the P.M. to be communicating using the sounds until other Ministers respond to the noises.
Adapted from HERE
>>> Edited by silkygal on Thursday 2nd January 03:21
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