DigitalFUTURES 2022 Doctoral Consortium
Lecture Series
Shiqiao Li
This series of three lectures attempts to reshape the discussion on the multifaceted connections between language and architecture. I argue that the current norms of language-architecture connections – semiology, space syntax, shape grammar, pattern language, codes, algorithms, autopoiesis – are almost exclusively constructed within the Indo-European linguistic-philosophical tradition; from these norms, theories speak for, rather than think with, non-Indo-European linguistic-philosophical traditions. This narrows the intellectual resources available to us. Although Indo-European languages make up the largest language family in the world today, the second largest language family is Sino-Tibetan, with Chinese having the largest number of native users in the world. Yet, despite the diversity of languages, our world has been a result of what David Anthony called the greatest Indo-European linguistic-philosophical take-over from 4,500 BCE onwards. This set of three lectures traces the broad trajectories of the Indo-European linguistic-philosophical expansion throughout the world, explains the moral and aesthetic divergence between the Indo-European and the Sinitic linguistic constructs, and speculates on how language-architecture connections can be reconstituted to include both the Indo-European and the Sinitic.
If architecture and the city are language-leaning constructs, then the structure of the type of language and its derivatives are consequential in both the production and reception of them. This lecture outlines the inter-disciplinary research in historical linguistics, archeology, and genetics to explain the great expansion of Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) from eastern European steppe to northern India and the Mediterranean. It explains the deep structural differences between the Indo-European and the Sinitic in strategies of meaning, and through them, general linguistic theories from linguistic relativism of Sapir and Whorf to linguistic universalism of Chomsky, DeFrancis, and Hannas.
Lecture One
The Indo-European and the Sinitic Divergence
Lecture Two
Phonocentrism: The Indo-European Linguistic-Philosophical Construct
Lecture Three
Shapes and Patterns: TheLanguage of Similitude
Find more information on the Doctoral Consortium on the DigitalFUTURES website
Lecture Series
Shiqiao Li
This series of three lectures attempts to reshape the discussion on the multifaceted connections between language and architecture. I argue that the current norms of language-architecture connections – semiology, space syntax, shape grammar, pattern language, codes, algorithms, autopoiesis – are almost exclusively constructed within the Indo-European linguistic-philosophical tradition; from these norms, theories speak for, rather than think with, non-Indo-European linguistic-philosophical traditions. This narrows the intellectual resources available to us. Although Indo-European languages make up the largest language family in the world today, the second largest language family is Sino-Tibetan, with Chinese having the largest number of native users in the world. Yet, despite the diversity of languages, our world has been a result of what David Anthony called the greatest Indo-European linguistic-philosophical take-over from 4,500 BCE onwards. This set of three lectures traces the broad trajectories of the Indo-European linguistic-philosophical expansion throughout the world, explains the moral and aesthetic divergence between the Indo-European and the Sinitic linguistic constructs, and speculates on how language-architecture connections can be reconstituted to include both the Indo-European and the Sinitic.
If architecture and the city are language-leaning constructs, then the structure of the type of language and its derivatives are consequential in both the production and reception of them. This lecture outlines the inter-disciplinary research in historical linguistics, archeology, and genetics to explain the great expansion of Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) from eastern European steppe to northern India and the Mediterranean. It explains the deep structural differences between the Indo-European and the Sinitic in strategies of meaning, and through them, general linguistic theories from linguistic relativism of Sapir and Whorf to linguistic universalism of Chomsky, DeFrancis, and Hannas.
Lecture One
The Indo-European and the Sinitic Divergence
Lecture Two
Phonocentrism: The Indo-European Linguistic-Philosophical Construct
Lecture Three
Shapes and Patterns: TheLanguage of Similitude
Find more information on the Doctoral Consortium on the DigitalFUTURES website