Although some information packages seem to have an easily determined subject, it may not really be so easy. A work titled history of sociology is about the discipline of sociology ; but it is more specifically aboutsociology from a historical perspective while not being about the disciplineof history. This distinction has a certain subtlety that is learned througheducation in our present-day Western tradition. It is possible that in another place and time, history would be considered to be the major subjectof anything historical, regardless of the specific topic.
Cultural Differences
An understanding of the place of ones culture as well as ones education in determining subject matter is also important. George Lakoffhas written about the research of Brent Berlin and Paul Kay on the understanding of color depending upon ones language. They found that thereare eleven basic color categories in English, but in some other languagesthere are fewer basic color categories. In languages that have only twobasic color terms, the terms are the equivalent of black and white, or cooland warm. The effect upon subject analysis of growing up in differentcultures with different languages, then, means that persons from differentplaces cannot perceive reality in exactly the same way.
Another example is provided by Langridge. He comments upon theunconscious effect that must occur in the mind of a person used to the arrangement of the library in the Peoples University of China, where allknowledge is divided into three groups: theory of knowledge, knowledgeof the class struggle, and knowledge of the productive struggle.
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