A new start!

[erastes]

And by that I mean that (as most of you will already know, so no need for further comment!) I've closed my underlucius fandom journal and will now be here on a permanent basis.

It's scary.

Am writing a short story and my first completely (or so I thought) unlikeable, unredeemable character. However, I'm not as clever as I thought I was as when I read it out to my mother she said "oh - poor man, I feel really sorry for him." *headdesk*

However: Have a quandry. It's a character study. He's thinking the entire story and he sounds more intelligent than you'd give him credit for. Hmm. need to try and address that, but what I was wondering... Do untutored people sound like that in their own heads? Do you think in dialect? *ponders*

Comments

[quatorze.livejournal.com]

That's a tricky one... I'm not sure I could define it as thinking in dialect or something, because thoughts aren't always formulated in any particular language (although I know that sometimes I quite distinctly think in Finnish, sometimes in English).

However, there's this one thesis that's stuck in my head from the studying days: that the limits of your language are the limits of your world. Meaning that having sufficient language skills (vocabulary etc.) define the extent to which a person is able to define and explain and comprehend the phenomena around him. While I don't necessarily buy this 100%, I still think there's a lot of truth in it, too.

(I think I've heard this during my linguistics studies, and more particularly when we were discussing the importance of ensuring that everybody learns at least one language properly.)

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Nod nod. Dialect wasn't really the word I meant, I suppose I meant what you say, that his language would be limited to his world, and considering he was raised by pigs, near enough, he'd be very limited.

But the thing is, I'm painting it from his own head, and it's not necessarily his thoughts.. it's more his perceptions of his world, which was completely skewed. But reader WILL think it's his thoughts, and hence the dilemma coz the piece is poetic and arty farty and he just wouldn't speak like that.

*shoots self*

Thanks!