Our eyes, says Takao Suzuki, author of this sociolinguistic text, "do not see things objectively and impartially like cameras. Our perceptions are always subject to cultural selection." Indeed, we do not use words to describe things but only to reflect a particular view of them. We are like the blind men who describe the elephant according to what parts of it they touch: It is like a tree if you stroke the leg, like a snake if you handle the trunk.
Giving something a name, says Suzuki, simply means that we have recognized the value of treating one portion of the world separately from all the other sections and fragments.
We all have different ways of doing this, with cultural assumptions ruling everything. We bring meaning by applying what we know, whether this is appropriate or not. In studying a foreign language, therefore, we project upon it the structure of our own language and construct parallels that are not, in fact, accurate.