Michaels and Others,
I feel very comfortable with your suggestions. I should like to add
some thoughts on the relationship among 'meaning', 'sense' and
'emotion' from the chapter by Vera John-Steiner and Holbrook Mahn in
Learning for Life in the 21st Century.
Gordon
>Making Meaning
>Vygotsky's examination of meaning as central to human consciousness
>has provided the foundation for its extensive study by sociocultural
>theorists (Prawat, 2000; Yaroshevsky & Gurgenidze, 1997). Vygotsky's
>analysis of meaning, in which he approached the hidden, complex,
>affective dimensions of thinking and speech by studying the
>emotional subtext of utterances -- what he referred to as "sense" --
>is also central to his analysis of perezhivanie.
>
>A word's sense is the aggregate of all psychological facts that
>arise in our consciousness as a result of the word. Sense is a
>dynamic, fluid, and complex formation that has several zones that
>vary in their stability. (1934/1987, p. 276)
>
>While meaning is often conceptualized as external and sense as
>internal, there is a social aspect to sense. The individual sense of
>an utterance includes attributes that are shaped by culture and
>appropriated through social interaction. The manner in which
>Vygotsky examined the similarities and distinctions between meaning
>and sense illustrates his methodological approach -- seeking out the
>integrative, dialectical connections among complex, separate, and
>interdependent processes. He concluded, "Meaning is only one of the
>zones of sense, the most stable and precise zone"(1934/1987, p.245).
>
>In his examination of meaning and its interrelationships with
>previous experience and affect, Vygotsky borrowed both from the
>French psychologist, F.Paulhan and from the Russian stage director
>and theoretician, Konstantin Stanislavsky. Stanislavsky searched for
>the sense of words in order to identify the characters' motives
>behind them; he was thus able to help his actors express these
>motives through gesture, intonation, vocal range, and emotional
>tone. Vygotsky's familiarity with and admiration for the work of
>Stanislavsky contributed to his understanding of word sense. He also
>relied on Paulhan's distinction between an individual's sense of a
>word and the more general meaning of a word. Vygotsky used this
>distinction to explain the way an individual uses language to
>capture and appropriate affective aspects of social interaction --
>an important aspect of perezhivanie. This concept was foundational
>for his examination of the relationship between affect and thought.
>
>Michael.
>
>You suggest:
>
>"personal" to situate "sense."
>
>Perhaps that gives us an entry point to understanding meaning, as a
>generalized version of personal sense, that is, the possibilities of
>sense available at the collective level.
>
>Personal sense certainly seems to be what is mean't. (Where personal
>is a synthesis of self-other interactions/experiences). And meaning is
>generalized, embodied in words and other semiotic means. Meaning changes,
but at a cultural-historical, not an ontogenetic or microgenetic time scale..
>We might be able to use this same example to illlustrate the way in which
>meaning, having become generalized (used to mediate activity in many settings)
>is "relatively" stable-- relative to the stabililty of the local
>dynamics of life, at least.
>
>I hope this makes sense. I am somewhat unuzed tothinking in triple
>dialectics, Michael,
>but your summary is plausible to me.
>mike
>
>On 7/22/05, Wolff-Michael Roth <<mailto:mroth@uvic.ca>mroth@uvic.ca> wrote:
>
>hi all,
>When I was reading Peg's lines, MY first question was not about
>linguistic issues but about what people are making in "meaning-making".
>Then after reading Mike's and Gordon's comments, I was further thinking
>about meaning and its relation to sense.
>
>If I understand right, sense is tied to the relation of activity
>(something collectively motivated) and action (something individually
>realized). So sense arises from the dialectic relation of self and
>other, individual and collective. Some writers use the qualifier
>"personal" to situate "sense."
>
>Perhaps that gives us an entry point to understanding meaning, as a
>generalized version of personal sense, that is, the possibilities of
>sense available at the collective level.
>
>Such an approach would allow us to approach meaning in a dialectical
>way, paralleling the individual|collective dialectic, and therefore
>locating it as the dialectic of two other dialectics.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Michael
>
>
>
>
>On 22-Jul-05, at 8:08 AM, Mike Cole wrote:
>
>> Great timing, Gordon. you answered part of my question re Halliday and
>> the
>> equivalent distinction. Thanks!
>> mike
>>
>>
>> On 7/22/05, Gordon Wells <<mailto:gwells@ucsc.edu>gwells@ucsc.edu>
>>wrote: >Gordon, I've often
>> thought along the lines you explore about how it relates
>>> >to Vygotsky's meaning/sense discussion.Maybe it reflects his roots
>>> in
>>> >philology.If so, then maybe we can push it a little further.
>>> >
>>> >Gordon's list of alternatives were: "dynamic/everyday/narrative v.
>>> >synoptic/scientific/paradigmatic modes of meaning-making."When I
>>> see
>>> >"paradigmatic," I look for "syntagmatic."Maybe for Gordon this is
>>> in both
>>> >or either "dynamic" and "synoptic?"
>>> >I understand paradigmatic and syntagmatic as mutually constitutive
>>> not so
>>> >much "versus."So, for example, for linguists (I think whether you
>>> look
>>> >back to Prague School or further to Panini) the copula verb ("to be"
>>> in
>>> >English) as a paradigm (for example: be am is are were been) is
>>> relentlessly
>>> >tied to/emerging with its syntax (I am. She is. etc.).The
>>> syntagmatic
>>> >patterning is not just a methodological frame for the morphological
>>> >paradigm; neither one is necessarily primitive to the other (but
>>> theories of
>>> >language might explore to establish this).Each constitutes the
>>> other.
>>> >
>>> >So, maybe 'meaning' can be understood as the paradigmatic and
>>> 'sense' as the
>>> >syntagmatic of a mutually constitutive set.
>>>
>>> Peg,
>>>
>>> I agree that syntagmatic complements paradigmatic. One way of
>>> interpreting Bruner's narrative/paradigmatic distinction might be
>>> that narrative is concerned with the relations between constituents:
>>> who does what to whom, when and for what reason. Similarly,
>>> Halliday's dynamic/ synoptic distinction might be equated with
>>> narrative/syntagmatic - to some degree!!, while synoptic highlights
>>> the paradigmatic relationship between alternative lexicogrammatical
>>> realizations of the same event, with a focus on grammatical metaphor
>>> through nominalization.
>>>
>>> I think I'm happy with your final paragraph above but I'll give some
>>> more thought to this.
>>>
>>> Gordon
>>> --
>>> Gordon Wells
>>> Dept of
>>>
>>>Education,<http://education.ucsc.edu/faculty/gwells>http://education.ucsc.edu/faculty/gwells
>>> UC Santa Cruz.
>>> <mailto:gwells@ucsc.edu>gwells@ucsc.edu
>>>
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