Thank you for the review of what must have been a fascinating panel, Kate Nepveu.
Sartorias, I agree with the distinction you make between plot and story, but I think that one could just as well swap the signifiers "plot" and "story" when defining terms, which is always a problem in discussions like that one.
Also I need to go and re-read Steven Pinker's "The Language Instinct".
The story about the American college sophomores and the Inuit story is interesting. Perhaps the result was also a function of the subjects being members of a particularly inward-looking society? I don't know if the results would have differed significantly if the experiment had been performed somewhere where the society as a whole had more exposure to the outside world. It is unlikely that similar test subjects would have specific knowledge of the Inuit context, but they might be more aware that there are other contexts possible besides their own (and I thought about your question on cultural differences in the interpretation of LOTR too).
no subject
Sartorias, I agree with the distinction you make between plot and story, but I think that one could just as well swap the signifiers "plot" and "story" when defining terms, which is always a problem in discussions like that one.
Also I need to go and re-read Steven Pinker's "The Language Instinct".
The story about the American college sophomores and the Inuit story is interesting. Perhaps the result was also a function of the subjects being members of a particularly inward-looking society? I don't know if the results would have differed significantly if the experiment had been performed somewhere where the society as a whole had more exposure to the outside world. It is unlikely that similar test subjects would have specific knowledge of the Inuit context, but they might be more aware that there are other contexts possible besides their own (and I thought about your question on cultural differences in the interpretation of LOTR too).