Dear Lady, 
 
Thank you for your compliment. I hope the above is not far from my 
oral presentation. 
 
Since you are interested in this topic, I would like to go a little bit 
further. 
 
1. I am afraid the English word 'neutral' or 'impartial' is judgmental. 
People use these words to impose their own rules or ideas on others. 
The existence of such words reflects that the people who use these 
words believe in certain standards or indices based on their own 
knowledge and understanding of the world.  
 
2. Although I am trying to understand the relationship between 
language and culture, I believe that language is not only an integral 
part of a culture, but also and an indicator of a culture. The way people 
speak reflects the way the people think. Different cultures have 
different ways of thinking behind it (it is hard to say which begets 
which). I tend to think that if a language contains too many (how many 
are too many?) judgmental words, the culture it represents might very 
likely have the tendency to impose its own value on other cultures. 
The stealing of aboriginal children in Australia might be a reflection 
on this tendency, if it was truly out of "good will". Now the idea of 
'cultural tolerance' is popular. It gives me the impression that a 
'superior' culture is 'tolerating' the 'inferior' ones. It just does not 
sound right. 
 
3. I do not speak many languages. I speak three Chinese languages and 
limited English. After certain studies, I find that in all these languages, 
judgmental words are important, so important that we can not record 
our observation without using them. The fact is, our languages are of a 
subjective nature. 
 
4. We are all aware of objectiveness now, after thousands of years of 
evolution. But how can we be truly objective while recording and 
communicating by means of subjective languages? Hence I think it 
might be helpful to our future to know what stage we are currently at 
in our history of evolution, and what stage we are heading. There are 
great teachers in our past history, religious and not religious  (people 
turned their teachings into religion anyway.)  They, among them Jesus, 
told people not to judge others. We still can not, after two thousand 
years. Might be we will in the future, when out languages changes, 
which indicate we have changed our way of thinking. 
 
5. Chinese is an analytic language. It is more subjective than English, 
which is synthetic.  This fact implies that the Chinese have a 
subjective way of thinking. I guess that there is a co-relation between 
the nature of language and lawlessness society of China. (I believe 
that law acts as an objective frame with the purpose of containing and 
controlling our behaviour.) Mind you, China has never been ruled by 
law in its over two thousand years of recorded civilisation. 
 
6. After attending Sandra's previous lecture regarding the politeness 
of English, I came to the vague idea that there might be a co-
relationship between the language and the successful establishing of 
the British Empire during the past centuries. The hypocritical 
politeness of the language assures the speaker feels that "what I am 
doing is right, and if not, you are at fault." It gives the speaker a sense 
of in control. When the speakers came out to conquer and exploited, 
or even tried to eliminate other cultures, they acted with a sense of 
righteousness. 
 
7. I think I had better stop here. I think so I write, and I will never stop 
thinking :-) ! I have no intention of being offensive, and the above 
views are for your pleasure, I mean, not serious. 
 
Regards, 
 
Z. LI,    Wednesday, 16 April 1997