This is the settlement from which Karin Tidbeck's debut novel takes its name, and much of it will be familiar to anyone with even a passing acquaintance with standard soviet dystopia: collective work units inadequate resources unbending, all-powerful committees and a constant, gnawing cold. The act of making explicit what was implicit simultaneously renders what was solid and constant up for question as though no one knows what these things really are and needs perpetual reassurance, lest they forget that the blackboard is, in fact, a blackboard-or lest the blackboard itself forgets what it's supposed to be.

This is especially true for the quotidian aspects of our lives I've worked in more than a few classrooms that have been marked up in the above fashion, and while it may well help the students, as a fluent speaker myself the effect is always ever-so-slightly disorienting. I mention this not to suggest that this trick can't assist in learning, but to illustrate that while language is our primary means of labelling the world around us, the act of labelling is frequently (mostly?) an unconscious process. There's surprisingly little evidence of how effective this is, given how commonly it's recommended, but the thinking goes that if you encounter often enough a thing in tandem with the word for that thing, then the association will become ingrained in your brain. (Ingrained in your membrane.) It works better for some people than others, as always, but one of the principal drawbacks is that this isn't really how we use language for either thought or communication: How often do you look at a table and then consciously think 'table?' How often do you look at a door and think, 'That's a door?'

If you've ever tried to learn another language, you've probably encountered the advice to attach labels to all the objects in a room which display those objects' names in the new language.

Amatka karin tidbeck