Irony and Cultural Neutrality

[Ashley Yakeley <AshleyB@HALCYON.COM>]

At 1997-11-14 10:12, Logical Language Group wrote:

...
>And part of defining a language includes at least a little bit of defining
>the culture.  In our case, I try to minimize this, but for one example, I
>go out of my way to derogate cultural artifacts of English because Lojban
>is currently dominated by native English speakers, and it is desirable that
>Lojban develop  as culturally independent of native English culture as
>possible, to meet its goals of cultural neutrality.

So you accept that this is a cultural matter? 'Cultural artifact of
English' does not well characterise irony, since many (most? all?) other
cultures make ironic use of their languages. In any case, this is not a
good approach to cultural neutrality. A better approach might come from
the notion that cultural tendencies in language come largely from its
constraints or impediments to expression, and that a language should
therefore avoid such impediments as much as possible.

I certainly feel constrained by prohibitions on irony, since occasional
irony is part of my culture.

--
Ashley Yakeley, Seattle WA
http://www.halcyon.com/ashleyb/