Does Language Determine Our World’s Borders? The Deaf Beyond the Pale

Does Language Determine Our World’s Borders? The Deaf Beyond the PaleThe limits of our language are the limits of our worldLudwig Wittgenstein“If not in words, how did she organize her thoughts?,” asks contemporary American writer André Aciman thinking of his deaf mother. In other words, how did she organize her world – one could ask, since even if not consciously, it is often assumed that “the limits of our language are the limits of our world.” Taking Ludwig Wittgenstein’s well-known dictum as a starting point, I would like to present an interdisciplinary approach to the subject, set on the border of comparative literature, linguistics, and medicine. In my paper, using the works of Plato (Cratylus), Denis Diderot (Paradox of Acting), Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (Philosophical Writings of Etienne Bonnot Abbé de Condillac), Oliver Sacks (Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of the Deaf), and others, I focus on how people perceive the borders (limits) of our world through the prism of language. Is language just a prosthesis, a grafted limb one can live without? Do hands speak more intimately than words? Or maybe deafness is more of a disability than blindness? Is hearing essential for creating memory, allowing comparison, judgment and association of ideas? From a medical point of view, it is impossible to develop speech without hearing. So how does not hearing and therefore not speaking limit our world? Does it at all? Czy język określa granice naszego świata? Głusi poza nawiasemGranice naszego języka są granicami naszego świata.(Ludwig Wittgenstein)Jeśli nie w słowach, jak organizowała swoje myśli? – pyta współczesny amerykański pisarz André Acimana w eseju o swoje głuchej matce. Innymi słowy, można zapytać - jak organizowała swój świat - bo nawet nieświadomie wierzymy, że: granice naszego języka są granicami naszego świata. Biorąc za punkt wyjścia słynne powiedzenie Ludwiga Wittgensteina oraz wykorzystując dzieła Platona (Kratylos), Denisa Diderota (Paradoks o aktorze), Étienne’a Bonnota de Condillaca (Traktat o wrażeniach zmysłowych), Olivera Sacksa (Zobaczyć głos) i innych, analizuję postrzeganie granic świata przez pryzmat języka, w ujęciu interdyscyplinarnym, z pogranicza literatury porównawczej, językoznawstwa i medycyny. Czy język to tylko proteza, bez której można żyć? Czy ręce mówią dokładniej niż słowa? A może bycie głuchym to niepełnosprawność znacznie bardziej ograniczająca niż bycie niewidomym? Czy słyszenie jest naprawdę ważne, ponieważ odgrywa kluczową rolę w tworzeniu pamięci, umożliwiając porównywanie, ocenianie i tworzenie skojarzeń? Słyszenie, z medycznego punktu widzenia, jest niezbędne do wykształcenia mowy. Jak zatem niesłyszenie, a zatem niemówienie ogranicza nasz świat? Czy ogranicza?

New Priorities for Dairy Cows Feed Production System Using Fuzzy-AHP

Management criteria can be used as the deciding device of the performance of dairy cows feed production system successfulness by prioritizing those criteria, and it can be used as an improvement step. The aim of this study was to determine the priority of management criteria and established the improvement step to increase the performances of the dairy cows feed production system in Batu, East Java by prioritizing four management criteria (Planning, Organizing, Directing, and Controlling). The method used the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy-AHP) which is a combination of two methods, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and fuzzy logic. Fuzzy AHP is proposing an evaluation tool which inherits advantages from that two methods. Fuzzy AHP will translate decisions makers comparison judgment into the fuzzy number. There were three highest priorities for management criteria, namely goal planning for the long-term from planning criteria, divisions of work from organizing criteria, and activator from controlling criteria. It was concluded that those three highest management criteria could be established as an improvement step for the performances of dairy cows feed production system.

Evaluating the relative effects of cognitive approach with 3D content and non-cognitive approach on the development of EFL learners’ knowledge about the different degrees of sureness

The present pilot study compared the effects of cognitive and non-cognitive approaches on the development of Japanese learners’ knowledge about the different degrees of sureness attached to certain, probable, and possible items. The results showed that the cognitive approach group outperformed the non-cognitive approach and control groups in writing and comparison judgment tests, and that both the cognitive and non-cognitive approach groups performed better than the control group in the categorization judgment test. These results suggest that the cognitive approach with 3D image content through computers can promote L2 language learning because it may have made the target structures more salient and also enabled the participants to connect spatial concepts with different degrees of sureness attached to the certain, probable, and possible items, thereby facilitating deep processing of form-meaning pairings.

Study on the Difficulty Sorting of Experimental Projects Based on the AHP

To classify the difficulty of the experiments is the basis of the effective mutlit-level experimental instruction. In this paper, we employ the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method to compare and analyse the difficult of the experiments, and set up a corresponding comparison judgment matrix to the difficulty of the projects. We obtain some sortings of difficulty of experiments, which coincide with the fact. Our studies offer an effective way to the rational sorting of difficulty of experiments.

Words from the Managing Editor

<p><span>At the ISAHP 2009 meeting in Pittsburgh, Thomas L. Saaty offered a challenge to the attendees to explain the eigenvector solution of the pairwise comparison judgment matrix that is the basis of the Analytic Hierarchy Process so that it would be understandable to any intelligent layman. He wrote an essay himself on it during the meeting, and submitted it as his offering. A second essay on the subject, also during the meeting, was written by Stan Lipovetsky. These two papers appear in this issue of the journal. </span></p><p><span>Rozann Saaty</span></p><p><span>http://dx.doi.org/10.13033/ijahp.v2i2.86<br /></span></p>

Study on Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation Model of Printing Quality Based on AHP Method

A fuzzy comprehensive evaluation model of printing quality was established by using the method of fuzzy evaluation and analytical hierarchy process(AHP).The main parameters which influence printing quality were analyzed. The factor set to constitute fuzzy comprehensive evaluation was confirmed. The structure of analytical hierarchy was established by analyzing different plans, which influences printing quality evaluation. Comparison judgment matrixes were constructed by pairwise comparison of each factor using Saaty 1-9 scales. The weights of every factor were determined by calculating the feature vectors of comparison judgment matrixes and the consistency test. Finally the printing quality hierarchy was evaluated by using fuzzy comprehensive evaluation and according to maximum membership principle. The result indicated that the model objectively determined the weights of parameters which influence printing quality, subjectively evaluated the printing quality hierarchy, and realized the unification of subjective evaluation and objective evaluation.

Application of Multiple Attribute Decision-Making (MADM) and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) Methods in the Selection Decisions for a Container Yard Operating System

This study examines and evaluates important parameters in container yard operating systems. The objective of this study is to set up a basis for decision-making to select the best scenario among other options. It examines the important attributes determined using a multiple attribute decision-making (MADM) method. The MADM method is suited to the study of complex problems and allows the consideration of qualitative attributes expressed in linguistics terms and quantitative attributes illustrated in financial and throughput measures in container terminals. An analytical hierarchy process (AHP) technique is employed for solving the MADM problems. The AHP and principal eigenvector weighting techniques have been proposed in this study as weighting tools because they allow decomposition of a decision problem into a hierarchical order and enable a pair-wise comparison of the attributes with an acceptable level of consistency. The analysis assures that both qualitative and quantitative aspects of the decision are incorporated into the process. The results obtained from this study may be used to develop a basis for pair-wise comparison, judgment and selection of the best container yard operation option for the purpose of this study. For the first time, this study proposes the application of MADM and AHP for selection decisions in container terminals.