[xmca] Names As Histories

The other day at a grad school retreat in the mountains of Kangwando, we were all supposed to get up and introduce ourselves. As often happens, each speaker used the speech of the previous speaker as a kind of template for their own speech, and because the first speaker had recently legally changed her name, we all ended up talking about our names and trying to cram as much as possible of our personal history into explaining the name.
   
  People who had recently chosen their names were at a distinct advantage of course, but we ALL had choices that we chose to highlight (e.g. I have a Jewish first name and a Christian middle name and I never use my middle name. I also do not invert my surname and given name, as Korean academics have to do when they work abroad, and I used this to deliver a potted speech on linguistic imperialism).
   
  On the bus on the way back it struck me that this was a quite interesting metonymy for the way in which children form part of but are nevertheless distinguishable from the social situation of development, because kids are confronted with a ready-made name (and also a ready made pronominal system) but they certainly take their developmental time about acquiring it, and their decisions are never quite completely reducible to the decisions their parents make.
   
  It's with this metonymy in mind I turn to Mike's comments on the draft I sent to Mike and Heidi (and of course everybody else on the list as well--xmca is a party where everybody is invited even if not everybody smokes ganja or reads the Bible). Here's what I said, and here's what Mike said:
   
  ME: The nominative function of language is at first fleeting and even evanescent: the child¡¯s first names are multi-functional and may externally appear little different form ¡°there¡± or ¡°this¡± or ¡°that¡±. But it reflects a fundamentally different social situation of development for the child: whereas previously language consisted of a closed class of repeated words and a potentially infinite variety of situations, it now consists of an open class of varying names, and a closed class of nameable objects. Similarly, the nominative function refracts a fundamentally different neoformation within the child,
   
  MIKE: In the first case, what is the it and where is it located?
   
  ME: Well, I guess the "it" is the nominative function of words. It's the ability of the child to name himself and other objects. To my mind, this has to be distinguished from the INDICATIVE function, because when I use words like "this" or "that" or "da" the word is repeated but the object is changed and when I use words like "David" or "Mr. Kellogg" or "David Jesse Kellogg" (see why I don't use my middle name?) I am changing the word but repeating the object. On the other hand, it also has to be distinguished from the SIGNIFYING function, because I cannot use this name without the object itself actually being right there in the room with me, the way that things have to be there when you talk about them using "this" and "that" and "da" in an indicative way.
   
  MIKE: In the second case I am wondering about what I have missed since I read, above ¡°Vygotsky¡¯s ¡°neoformation¡± represented a psychological structure that was itself a part of a larger sociological structure, the social situation of development. ¡° Seems like SSD is shifting around a lot and I am not tracking well. That may be life. May be a need for closer inspection.
   
  ME: I guess I don't agree that being part of a larger sociological structure means that I am indistinguishable from that structure. My name both links and distinguishes me from the people around me, and in fact it's because those people around me keep shifting that I need more than one name to stay metastable.
   
  For example, I have to go teach the undergrads in a minute, and then tonight I'm going to teach a grad class. I'm wondering if I should use the same name: the undergrads like "Mr. K" but the grads never use anything but "Professor Kellogg.
   
  MIKE: You said "Some of these neoformations receive support from the social situation of development and become permanent " But here SSD seems real outside. "Autonomous¡± speech is ¡°autonomous¡± in one sense, though; it is sui generis, and, receiving no support from the social situation of development, doomed to die."
  This seems real outside too.
   
  ME: Yes, it does seem like the SSD at one point in its history DOES confront the child as an environment. The child has to look for affordances and adapt to it. I think that's where development comes from. For example, my choices of name need to adapt to the class I'm addressing. I can propose, but they're gonna dispose.
   
  I'm a Darwinian that way. But I'm a Russian Darwinian, who believes in survival of the most collaborative as well as survival of the most competitive and who therefore believes in a potentially expandable role for volition.
     
  YOU: .....
   
   
  David Kellogg
  Seoul National University of Education
   

       
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Received on Sun Mar 2 18:36 PST 2008