Re: Thought, language, and ...

vera p john-steiner (vygotsky who-is-at unm.edu)
Wed, 8 May 1996 21:59:22 -0600 (MDT)

Jay and Dale,
I think I was trying to do what Jay recommands in my cognitive pluralism
piece in MCA, vol 2, number 1. Let me know if you agree somewhat, not at
all, etc.
Vera
On Mon, 6 May 1996, Jay Lemke wrote:

>
> Dale wrote:
>
> "Gary... I guess that is the real question: just what IS human
> thought?
> As participants in a logocentric culture we seem to equate that
> with
> language; or at least with some sense that there is a pre-
> linguist
> articulation of ideas that "forms" thoughts, rather like we
> "form"
> words. If "thinking" is limited to the manipulation of these
> discrete
> word-like concepts, then language is real close to the "center".
> On the other hand, if language/articulated
> thought/conceptualization is a
> separate thing we do, then it might be 'beside' thinking, or
> behind it,
> or even very FAR from the center. ... "
>
> Maybe I should resist the temptation on this one, but ... much as
> I want to inquire into the non-verbal dimensions of meaning-
> making, and the non-typological aspects of every sort of
> semiosis, I want to be careful not to return to the old notion
> that ideas or thoughts have a domain of their own which is then
> somehow imperfectly translated into words, pictures, gestures,
> etc. A great deal of the meaning we make is made only in and
> through the mobilization of these semiotic resources. That we
> also make meaning through the less theorized toplogical
> dimensions of semiotic resources, or through the infra-semiotic
> potential in all aspects of our being/doing-in-the-world seems
> clear and important. But the trick I think is to generalize our
> notion of semiosis and its resources, rather than to oppose them
> to something else. In the case of visual and gestural semiosis,
> the typological is not as supersalient as it is for language, and
> this is even true to some degree of _speech_ as opposed to
> language. I think it is very, very important how we conceptualize
> the relationships between the kinds of meaning-making we can
> account for with traditional typological notions of semiosis and
> all the rest that is left out. This should be done with
> considerable care and sophistication, or we may miss a great
> opportunity.
>
> As to how central language is to meaning-making in the broadest
> sense (i.e. to meaningful being/doing-in-the-world) I think that
> here and now it is very central indeed, and more so perhaps for
> people closer to the dominant 'ideal' (middle-class, middle-aged,
> eurocultural, masculinized, etc.) -- but that in principle, and
> across all varieties of human cultures and social categories, it
> need not be as central as it is for us.
>
>
> Perhaps the most important question is not what else could be central
> rather than language, but how else we might integrate other modalities
> with language so as to produce a better balanced, and so more useful
> total matrix of resources. The beginning of such an understanding
> may well lie in more clearly exposing the totality of that matrix
> as many different sorts of persons and communities now in fact
> deploy it, which may require highlighting the neglected modalities,
> but not conceptually opposing them to language. JAY.
>
>
> JAY LEMKE.
> City University of New York.
> BITNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM
> INTERNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
>
>

---------------------------------
Vera P. John-Steiner
Department of Linguistics
Humanities Bldg. 526
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131
(505) 277-6353 or 277-4324
Internet: vygotsky who-is-at triton.unm.edu
---------------------------------