Easton is approaching 21 months old, but his only words so far are 'Dada', 'Mama', Emma, and (if we ask him to say it) 'hot'. I suppose we could be worried (since we've met many kids his age who can say dozens of words by now), but his comprehension is great, and he communicates very effectively by pointing and using a system of grunts that we suspect is highly developed (think: tonal language). :)
Over the weekend I was reading Kevin Vanhoozer's Is There a Meaning in This Text? I was startled to find the following discussion of Plato's Cratylus, a dialogue on language theory. Bear with me:
"Cratylus [one of the characters in the dialogue] does not really appear to believe what we might call the 'imitation theory' of meaning. He follows Herclitus's notion that 'all is flux' and concludes that one ought not to say anything but only point with one's finger, since no true statement can be made about what is constantly changing." (17, emphasis mine)
So you see that we have confirmation of our son's brilliance. His apparent lack of verbal skills are a actually a deliberate attempt to represent postmodern theories of language. Who could have guessed?!
Monday, March 15, 2010
a budding philosopher?
Dr. Carmen Imes is the Associate Professor of Old Testament at Biola University in La Mirada, CA, and serves the broader church through teaching, speaking, writing, and creating YouTube videos. She earned a PhD in Biblical Theology (Old Testament) from Wheaton College under Dr. Daniel Block, an MA in Biblical Studies from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (Charlotte), and a BA in Bible and Theology from Multnomah University. She and her husband, Daniel, served as missionaries with SIM 15 years. They have three children: Ana, Emma, and Easton.
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Our 13-month-old uses a similar theory of language to indicate what food she wants next, but typically accompanies it with screeching to alert the parents that her mouth might become empty soon. :)
ReplyDeleteAmazingly powerful, those gestures. Sometimes words are just not necessary. ;-}
ReplyDeleteThat is so cool... I learn so much from reading this blog!
ReplyDeleteRoyce E Hostetler