language parallax

I’ve just registered linguisticparallax.com and languageparallax.com. I’ll use the first as the brand for this blog and for any java packages that I publish.

In doing so, I’m finally embracing the photography (and astronomy) metaphor that I’ve been thinking of for a while. The word parallax refers to the change in the relative position of objects that results from a change in the observer’s position. Substitute “position” with “meaning” and “language” (respectively) and the metaphor is complete.

This idea is not new. It’s related ideas that have been floating around the study of natural languages and philosophy for many decades. James Joyce used the word several times in Ulysses to describe the idea of multiple perspectives. Someone wrote a book about poetry in the early 80’s called “Language Parallax”.

I’ve also scrubbed some of the entries of this blog to make it more academically oriented. That will be its primary function for the next couple of years.