Wolff-Michael and all,
I think it is really very important to do this analysis in a
developmental (genetic) way, as you started below. You say:
Wolff-Michael Roth wrote:
> "Let's start with a historical reconstruction that ultimately led to
> the emergence of language. At that point we understand language better
> than we do today if we start with the presupposition that language is
> already there. It has not been and is not in the experience of the
> child, for the word to be word, has to be something different from
> Self and object, a separation that only occurs some time during
> development. Even my chicken and other people's dogs make the
> distinction between different sound patterns I produce--when I call
> "Harko," my Harko chicken comes rather than the Red Rocks, and Harko
> "knows" that this means slugs, which "she loves" -- as I take from the
> way she devours them.
From this example and many others, we see that communication exists
prior to humans -- not just any communication, but meaningful
communication, too. That kind of communicative language -- either vocal
or gestural -- is embedded in an activity: You call "Harko" and your
Harko chicken "knows" that she will get slugs. The question is, is this
the same order of meaning as meaning of language on the human level. The
point I am getting at, is that human language becomes a human language
only when it gets "disembodied" from the immediate action. You and I
could talk about your Harko -- even through the Internet -- I have never
seen it, you don't even know me, the only action we are engaged in is
"talking about meaning", and there is no chicken either here or on your
side of the screen. But we make a great meaning and sense to each other
(hopefully :-) ). You could not do that with Harko. In other words, you
could not hold a conversation with Harko, or communicate to Harko
regarding something that is not part of of the immediate situation.
So the question becomes how do we get from the point A (communication on
the level of a chicken) to the point B (human type of communication).
This was a distinction made by Susanne Langer in the "Philosophy in the
New Key" (she used her cat as an example). ( I don't have the book here
at the moment)
She distinguished various types of signification from:
a) indexes -- pointing to something in a situation -- either physically
or with deictic words (this, that, here, there) or both;
b) signs -- embedded in a situation and with invariant "meaning" like: a
lightning "means" there will be a thunder; a sound of a garage door
opening in the evening "means" that my dad arrived home; or more human
made ones: traffic light "green" means "go", red means "stop"; or an
exclamation by someone: "Stop!", or if you sneeze and I say "nazdravlje"
you would immediately "know" what I meant even if you don't speak that
language... The point is that signs are embodied in a situation, they
are unambiguous -- otherwise they either produce anxiety or they stop
having a "meaning";
c) Finally, symbols -- words of a language which, although they are part
of immediate activities, carry more than just the immediate significance.
How do we get from signs (that can be understood by your chicken and my
dog) to symbols -- polysemic vocal and/or bodily gestures which develop
historically both culturally and ontogenetically, i.e. carry along a
historical, cultural sediment of activities and actions, and can grow a
new, emergent significance (mening+sense) at any point?
To solve that, I think, we need to show how object orientation (knowing
the world) starts to interact with the "subject orientation"
(interacting with other people) -- and that is, I think, the point
described by Vygotsky where the practical (sensory motor) intelligence
interacts with the communicative function, in other words, where
language starts to interact with thinking in a totally novel way: to
introduce communication about something that is not immediately present
either in the material moment (physical objects) nor in the
interpersonal moment (actual relationship between the individuals in a
situation).
Thus, I still think that we need to understand the interaction of
language as independent of situation and language as embodied in
situations. In addition, we need to understand how language and language
alone can be used to create situations.
I would create one situation if I ended this posting with: "What do you
think?"
Quite another situation if I ended it with: "How do you explain that?"
all the best
Ana
>
> Eric, where is the conceptual meaning?
>
> Another way of moving away of following linguists in their fallacy of
> considering language and meaning as separate entities--pace
> Vygotsky--is to look at linguistic practices. Let's see how words and
> sentences are produced and reproduced in situation, for purposes, to
> get work done, rather than talk about language "in the abstract".
> Talking about language independent of situations leads us down a blind
> alley, I think.
>
> There is not even "a" language, as Derrida (Monolingualism of the
> Other, 1998) points out. He puts it this way (p.7):
>
> 1. We only ever speak one language.
> 2. We never speak only one language
>
> and then goes on to defend his thesis in this interesting little book.
>
> Michael
>
>
> On 12-Jul-05, at 10:41 AM, ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org wrote:
>
>>
>> Michael;
>>
>> It is my understanding that Vygotsky goes beyond merely stating that
>> meaning is tied to context by distinguishing between syncretic meaning
>> (that which comes from the senses) complex meaning (that which comes
>> from
>> graphic/concrete everyday) and concept (that which is the abstraction of
>> the first two). Once a person then moves to the conceptual meaning of
>> words they are in a better position to be active in new ways.
>>
>> eric
>>
>>
>>
>> Wolff-Michael
>> Roth To:
>> smago@uga.edu, "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
>> <mroth@uvic.ca> <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>> Sent by: cc:
>> xmca-bounces who-is-at web Subject: Re: [xmca]
>> sense and meaning
>> er.ucsd.edu
>>
>>
>> 07/11/2005 11:36
>> PM
>> Please respond
>> to xmca
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I think you can read Vygotsky, Il'enkov, Mikhailov, Heidegger, Marx all
>> in the same way as meaning being associated with practical
>> understanding, whole of activity, and generalized possibilities; sense
>> is personal, associated with the relation of action to activity, and a
>> concrete realization. Heidegger says that words do not HAVE meaning,
>> they ACCRUE to meaning; that is, as Marx, for Heidegger meaning
>> precedes sense, is associated with lived-in situations as a whole,
>> involving not just individuals but collectives. Meaning transcends
>> words--words, or rather utterances, have a sense in a particular
>> activity, and as all actions, have a different sense in a different
>> activity.
>>
>> If you say "I haven't got time" to your colleague asking you whether
>> you want to write a review essay, this is one thing; it is a whole
>> different ball park when you say it to your teacher who is asking you
>> to finish some assignment, or something else of that nature. The sense
>> of the expression is a function of the activity. . .
>>
>> Michael
>>
>>
>>
>> On 11-Jul-05, at 8:36 AM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote:
>>
>>> I tried to work out the sense/meaning tangle a few years ago
>>> in a paper published in the AERA journal Review of
>>> Educational Research. I think it was 2001, the title "If
>>> meaning is constructed, what is it made from?: Toward a
>>> cultural theory of reading." I'm traveling now so don't have
>>> the ms. handy, but I can send it when I return home if I
>>> remember. Peter
>>>
>>> ---- Original message ----
>>>
>>>> Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2005 21:59:12 +0700
>>>> From: Phil Chappell <philchappell@mac.com>
>>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] sense and meaning
>>>> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
>>>
>>> <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>, Mike Cole <mcole@weber.ucsd.edu>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> I'm not sure I can offer much here, Mike, but in the vortex
>>>
>>> of voices,
>>>
>>>> I'd like to add what I understand. Whenever I am confronted
>>>
>>> with the
>>>
>>>> concepts "sense" and "meaning" I immediately attend to the
>>>
>>> notion of
>>>
>>>> thought and context. Being an English speaker and therefore
>>>
>>> only having
>>>
>>>> an approximation of the semantic differences between sense
>>>
>>> and meaning
>>>
>>>> in Vygotsky's writings (meaning (znachenie) and sense
>>>
>>> (smysl)), I ask
>>>
>>>> is "sense" the socio-personal history of the communicative
>>>
>>> use of a
>>>
>>>> lexical item applied to the immediate spheres of human
>>>
>>> activity; and is
>>>
>>>> meaning the most predictable use of the word across social
>>>
>>> contexts?
>>>
>>>> SFL uses a theory of congruency that has come under
>>>
>>> criticism for being
>>>
>>>> deterministic, however if understood within the the genetic
>>>
>>> approach
>>>
>>>> used not only by Vygotsky, but also by SFL'ers (for example
>>>
>>> Jim
>>>
>>>> Martin), it is seen as an informed approach to social
>>>
>>> semiotics - it
>>>
>>>> looks at actual uses of language to make judgements about
>>>
>>> language use
>>>
>>>> in human activity. Sense and meaning can take on much more
>>>
>>> critical
>>>
>>>> applications; for example "sense" - for LSV word meaning in
>>>
>>> the context
>>>
>>>> of speech - can be thought of dynamically in the context of
>>>
>>> ways that
>>>
>>>> people engage with texts and the ways that these
>>>
>>> communicative
>>>
>>>> activities influence the social positions of the
>>>
>>> interactants. Meaning
>>>
>>>> can be thought of as "most expected meanings" in terms of
>>>
>>> those taking
>>>
>>>> a more synoptic view.
>>>>
>>>> Rough thoughts.
>>>>
>>>> Phil
>>>>
>>>> On 09/07/2005, at 9:56 PM, Mike Cole wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> In reading the work of Halliday, Hasan, and Bernstein, I
>>>>
>>> am unclear
>>>
>>>>> about whether their
>>>>> notions of meaning do or do not coincide with Vygotsky's.
>>>>
>>> One form of
>>>
>>>>> this uncertainty is
>>>>> whether and how a distinction between sense and meaning,
>>>>
>>> which is
>>>
>>>>> central to LSV's
>>>>> ideas about language and thought, are viewed from an SFL
>>>>
>>> perspective.
>>>
>>>>> Perhaps its there
>>>>> and I am blinded by my own past history?
>>>>>
>>>>> mike_______________________________________________
>>>>> xmca mailing list
>>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
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>>
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