I am interested to learn that the sense-meaning distinction is so pervasive
in the
CHAT tradition, Michael. I have two questions, one for you, one for SFL
folks.
1. The question for you. You write: 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.
It seems logical to me that from this perspective, words accrue meaning.
That is
very much like LSV insisting the word meanings develop -- not just in
ontogeny but
in cultural history as well. But I am less certain about the idea that
meaning preceeds
sense. In so far as meanings are cultural precipitats that are there when a
child is born,
this seems like it must be true. But how do we reconcile this with the idea,
quite explicitly stated
in Thinking and Speech that "in the beginning was the deed?" Doesn't the
active striving ot the
individual child provide the conditions under which words are experienced
such that the sense
post-meeting is conditioned by, and in some sense preceeded by, sense?
Perhaps the two
directionalities are always simultaneously part of a single contradictory
process?
2. Question for SFL folks. I do not see the sense-meaning distinction
clearly in the readings from
Ruqaiya and Halliday. Maybe its there in Bernstein in some other vocabulary
but I am not sure. What
is your take on the issue?
mike
On 7/11/05, Wolff-Michael Roth <mroth@uvic.ca> wrote:
>
> 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_______________________________________________
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> >>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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