[Sigcr-l] Reading about how culture/language affects knowledge representation

[Simon Spero]

On Sep 19, 2009, at 5:33 PM, Dagobert Soergel wrote:

> Could you recommend a reading about how culture/language affects  
> knowledge representation?
>
> Does anyone know of the one or two articles that introduce this  
> problem, or a bibliography?  A good treatment of cultural focus (or
> bias) in classifications, such as DDC or the Colon Classification,  
> would certainly fit in here.

Is the student more interested in psychologically real aspects of  
Knowledge Representation, or in LIS style Knowledge Organization?

The effects of language on how far language shapes cognition has been  
the subject of considerable debate for a long, long time.  The  
position  that language does shape modes of thought is often referred  
to as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, and in its strong form is not  
generally accepted.  Weaker forms of linguistic relativity are  
somewhat more plausible, but much less powerful.

Whorf's paper is collected in:  Whorf, B. L. (1956) Language Thought  
and Reality, MIT Press, Cambridge Mass.

Geoff Pullum delivers a Glasgow Kiss to part of Whorf's case in the  
title essay of "The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax" - http://users.utu.fi/freder/Pullum-Eskimo-VocabHoax.pdf 
  .

The Wikipedia article on this subject is not too dreadful - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
----

If the student is interested in aspects of cultural  bias in KOS, the  
classic source is Sanford Berman's "Prejudices and Antipathies".  This  
is available online at http://www.sanfordberman.org/prejant.htm

Berman, Sanford (1971). Prejudices and Antipathies: A Tract on the LC  
Subject Heads Concerning People.
Metuchen, N.J: Scarecrow Press. P. 249. ISBN: 081080431X.

Hope Olson has written a great deal on feminist issues in KOS - "The  
Power to Name" is a book length treatment of that and related  
subjects.  Googling for the name "Hope Olson" is also the quickest way  
to demonstrate why name authority control is so important.

Olson, Hope A. (2002). The Power to Name: Locating the limits of  
subject representation in libraries.
Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.

"Radical Cataloging" has a lot of essays, many of which are excellent,  
especially sections I and III;  see the table of contents listed here: http://www.radicalreference.info/node/2296
Roberto, K. R. (2008). Radical Cataloging: Essays at the Front.  
McFarland. ISBN: 0786435437.
---

I might hesitate to recommend Birger Hjørland's JASIST article to a  
beginner, as it seems to focus on a somewhat narrower approach to  
concept theory than a new student might require.  The best survey  of  
the field can be found in  Greg Murphy's "Big Book Of Concepts";  it's  
not too big (~560 pages), and it's so wonderfully written it seems  
even shorter.

Murphy, Gregory L (2004). The Big Book of Concepts. Cambridge, Mass:  
MIT Press.
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10192
----

Finally, an older article that may be of interest is
James M. Donovan. "Patron Expectations about Collocation: Measuring  
the Difference between the Psychologically Real and the Really Real"  
Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 13.2 (1991): 23-43. Available  
at: http://works.bepress.com/james_donovan/10,