The scarlet letter referenced in the book title no doubt has a negative connotation, but it and pretty much every other word in existence only really has as much power and meaning as we decide to give it. I mean, think about the idea of a scarlet letter if it was not referenced with a book. It would be a red colored...letter. It would be like hearing a word from another language. Without some knowledge or context to work out what the word in question means, the only real thought possible in such a situation is simply, "What does that signify"?
The thing is, the scarlet letter only has meaning when we have an idea or know what it means. Reading the first chapter of the book is enough to give you enough context that the letter is probably bad. Looking at the covers of the books we were given and seeing the rather sullen face of the woman with the letter is also context. We learn that the book is going nowhere good and the woman is probably not doing so well (Also if you DO know what the letter means note that the woman is holding a baby).
We made language by assigning values or definitions to arbitrarily picked sounds (this is probably why we have different languages -- everyone just assigned the values to different sounds). This is also why some languages happen to have words for certain things while others suffer from such lexical gaps (see below).
This is also a scarlet letter, and though it is also not good news, it most certainly is NOT the same as Hawthorne's scarlet letter
Lexical Gaps (as explained by Hank Green)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LpHfPOM6GQ
That is quite true that a lot of what we allot meaning and value to in society only matters because we want it to. Beauty, for instance, is an excellent example of this as even in Brazil we have a different idea of what is considered beautiful than what Americans do.
ReplyDeleteAnways, I liked your insight into the topic and great GIF usage.
DFTBA
The connotations we have with words don't come out of nowhere. I agree that much of what we think of a word comes from prior knowledge or the feelings we get from them. If this wasn't true, such a word as connotation would not exist. I also agree with what Sadie said above that some words' connotations are different across the world. Nice post
ReplyDeleteFirst off, are you a part of nerfighteria?! DFTBA. Back to business, I agree! So many things, if you were to take off their connotation, are just regular things. That's why in sports, if someone mentions a specific event or practice, bystanders are like, "So what?" but people that understand the connotation of it are all, "Woah. I feel you, dude." I like how you linked how our prior knowledge and context are needed to determine the connotation.
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