Re: AAAL Chicago

Ana M. Shane (pshane who-is-at andromeda.rutgers.edu)
Fri, 5 Apr 1996 01:29:43 -0500

Vera,

Thank you. I'll wait untill you have time to finish the paper. I am very
sorry not to be able to participate or at least attend to the AERA. But I
hope to meet you at some other conference and have time to discuss issues of
mutual interest.

My main interest is creativity development. I studied children's spontaneous
metaphoric utterances and their relationship to play (construction of a
fictive, imaginary world). In my doctoral dissertation ("Metaphor Beyond
Play: Development of Metaphor in Children", U of Penn) I have developed a
new semantic model of meaning construction which is based in Vygotsky's
theory, Bakhtin's philosophy American pragmatic linguistics (E.Ochs, B.
Schieffelin) and some other theories. I have tried to define "meaning" as a
dynamic social action - a gesture - which brings a speaker, a/the
listener(s) and a topic into a unique relationship at any point of a
discourse. Metaphor, and metaphoric meanings depend on the nature of the
relationship between the gesture and the topic. It seems that the
distinction between the "real" and the "fictive" worlds (as perceived by the
participants in a discourse) and the way these worlds relate to each other
is crucial not only for the construction of metaphoric thinking and feeling,
but also in the making of meaning (especially new meanings) in general. This
is why it occured to me that "solo" activity can be viewed as a "pretend
joint activity". This would then be a door to explore what, for lack of a
better word we still call "internalization".

On a more general note: I agree with Gordon Wells that "individual
contributions also issue from the individual's position with respect to
the joint activity, and do not make sense without taking into
consideration the individual's unique life trajectory, including his or
her previous participation in related activities, both similar and
different." This, of course, after we first agree that an "individual" is a
kind of a social system, a particular historically defined "token" of the
social "type" :-). My point was that an organisam becomes a social system
token through being able to pretend that her/his activity is social, even
when it is solo, i.e. being able to create a social world without an
immediate, "real" presence of others.

I know that this all sounds cryptic, but it is difficult to say everything
in a short way.

Ana

_________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Ana Marjanovic-Shane

151 W. Tulpehocken St. Office of Mental Health and
Philadelphia, PA 19144 Mental Retardation
(215) 843-2909 [voice] 1101 Market St. 7th Floor
(215) 843-2288 [fax] Philadelphia, PA 19107
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(215) 685-5581 [fax]
E-mail: pshane who-is-at andromeda.rutgers.edu
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