Martin asked: If I lost the ability at around 8 months of
age to make or recognize phonemic distinctions that are irrelevant to
my native language, how on earth can I regain that ability in a
university extension course?
Even though the question was rhetorical, I wondering if there is
something
in it that we should consider in relation to teaching? Does it seem
that
some people have a better "ear" for distinguishing these sound
distinctions,
whether phone or phoneme? And that maybe this so called "ear" is
more a
facet of heightened conscious perception? The question I would like
to ask
is can the development of this ability be mediated in some
individuals or
all individuals? Can it be forced?
-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-
bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
Behalf Of Martin Packer
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 5:32 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Vygotsky and Saussure
David,
It's a very interesting manuscript, for sure.
At the top of page 272 LSV writes that "mastering the structure of the
relation of the phoneme and the phone in one particular case, the
child masters the structure as a whole." Leaving aside the claim made
here, the use of both 'phoneme' and 'phone' here suggests that two
distinct terms were used in the Russian, though how consistently they
were translated I can only guess.
A phone is a sound considered outside language, right? An [x] rather
than an /x/. In a previous life (well, a previous country) I took an
extension course in phonetics. I got the lowest passing grade and I
(like to) think that my poor performance was due to my skepticism over
the IPA. It's a way to describe phones, if I remember correctly:
recognizing and characterizing sounds as they are produced without
reference to any specific language's phonemic system. (Hence the
'I'nternational.)
But how is this possible? If I lost the ability at around 8 months of
age to make or recognize phonemic distinctions that are irrelevant to
my native language, how on earth can I regain that ability in a
university extension course?
(That's a largely rhetorical question.. But feel free to answer it if
you wish.)
Martin
On Jul 28, 2009, at 6:37 PM, David Kellogg wrote:
Martin,
Both Andy and I are very interested in Volume Five, the unfinished
manuscript on Child Development in the Collected Works.
On pp. 272-273 LSV talks about "phones" instead of "phonemes". I
think this is a correct translation, and "phonemes" is an incorrect
one. I don't have the Russian original, though, so I can't be sure.
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
--- On Tue, 7/28/09, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Vygotsky and Saussure
To: ablunden@mira.net, "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
<xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Date: Tuesday, July 28, 2009, 12:03 PM
Andy,
In Problems of Child Development LSV writes that language shatters
the unity of infant and world. Your examples of the painter and
gymnast help us recognize that this rupture cannot be complete or
final. Both are kinds of work in which successful practice depends
on an embodied embeddedness in concrete reality.
But at the same time I think LSV is right to write of rupture, and
of the importance of language. First, he's right to insist that the
child is born embedded, and so he rejects the built-in mind/world
dualism that is presupposed by cognitive science. But, second, he's
right to say that in development this immediacy is disrupted so that
a mind is formed. The preschool age child is a dynamic part of their
situation and responds without pause to its demands. The school age
child, he writes, has lost this spontaneity. Language changes the
child's relationship to the world in large part by picking out
aspects of the situation as a distinct (kind of) 'thing.' It comes
'between' person and world, is an important part of the child's
differentiation from other people, and soon will be the basis for a
division between 'inner' and 'outer' aspects of the child's
personality, dividing her from herself.
A good gymnast or painter finds ways to suspend or overcome or
forget these divisions. But equally an adult without language would
not be able to be a painter or gymnast, even if they could put paint
on canvas or spin on a beam, because 'painter' and 'gymnast' are
positions in a social reality which someone without language would
be unable to adopt.
still dancing
Martin
On Jul 27, 2009, at 11:23 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:
Martin,
We've been round this mulberry bush before, so I suspect David
might agree with you, but I differ.
As I recall, LSV claims that word-meaning is the unit of analaysis
for intelligent speech and therefore the "microcosm" of
consciousness.
So LSV agreed with Marx, as do I, that practice, or artefact
mediated action is the unit of analysis of consciousness.
all linguists of course disagree. But I wonder if a painter would
agree, or a gymnast?
Andy
Martin Packer wrote:
David, ...
meaningful-sound is a concrete phenomenon, located in place and
time. And he promises that we will thereby find the unity of
thinking and speech, of generalization and social interaction, of
thinking and communication, of intellect and affect. In short, of
consciousness.
No? Yes?
Martin
On Jul 25, 2009, at 3:25 PM, David Kellogg wrote:
Martin:
Yes, definitely! If you read pp. 49-50 in the Minick translation
of Thinking and Speech, we get Vygotsky's remarks on Saussure's
phonology in pure form. Of course, he rejects (again and again)
the Saussurean view of semantics; it's nothing but
associationism. But since he rejects associationism on the basis
of its arbitrariness, its lack of an intelligent link, and its
lack of system, he has to reject Saussurean phonemes too, no?
No! As you say, there are two points here for Vygotsky to
appropriate. The first is that the phoneme is part of a gestalt,
specifically, a contrast with some other word (e.g. "back" and
"bag"). But the second is that that gestalt is defined by MEANING
and not by sound.
Here is where Vygosky really parts company, not only with
Saussure and structuralism but also with Gestaltism. For
Saussure, the relationship between phoneme and meaning is
entirely arbitrary; but for Vygotsky it is fully determined by
the social situation of development.
For Gestaltism, the structural relationship is not unique to
language; it's shared with perception. But for Vygotsky the
consciousness that is created by thought is never reducible to
the consciousness that is created by perception.
The question I have is what Saussure would have made of all this.
Saussure was actually quite skeptical about his own system; he
had good reason to instruct his wife and students not to publish
any of his work. And as the article Mike sent around (on the
Mandelshtam poem) makes clear, he had big big problems with
precisely the concepts at issue: the arbitrariness and linearity
of language.
Notice that Vygotsky doesn't really use the word "phonetic" very
much. The word which is usually translated as "phonetic" is
actually "phasal". But in the example Vygotsky gives about the
psychological vs. grammatical predicate/subject, where he talks
about psychological/grammatical gender, and number, and even
tense, it is very clear that for Vygotsky ALL the linear aspects
of language, the aspects which (unlike thought) include TIME in
their compositionality, are to be considered "phasal", not just
phonetics.
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
--- On Fri, 7/24/09, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Intensions in context and speech complexity ;
From 2-?
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Friday, July 24, 2009, 8:03 AM
On Jul 23, 2009, at 2:46 PM, David Kellogg wrote:
I think Vygotsky actually finds the single kernel of truth in
Saussure's course when he argues that a science of phonetics
needs to be founded on MEANING MAKING and not on the physical
description of noises people make with their mouths. However,
his ability to find this kernel in a mountain of structuralist
chaff should not deceive you; he is no uncritical consumer of
Saussureanism.
David,
Coincidentally I was reading yesterday the section in Problems of
Child Psychology (vol 5 of the Collected Works) where Vygotsky
again makes this point. It is evidently Saussurian linguistics
that V is enthusiastic about: he refers to it as phonology and
contrasts it with an older phonetics which focused solely on
articulatory definitions. Phonology has the advantage of seeing
the sounds of language as a system, and so the child never learns
a single sound in isolation but always one sound against the
background of the others. V points out that this is a basic law
of perception: figure/ground, and also that the ground in the
case of oral language is provided by the speech of adults (so the
'ideal' endpoint of development is present and available from the
start, as emphasized in the passage that Lois quoted a few days
ago).
V is critical once again of analyses that divide a phenomenon
into elements and in doing so lose the properties of the whole.
Phonology, he says, has the advantage that in studying the sounds
of a language as a system it doesn't divide it into separate
elements, nor does it lose the central property of language,
namely that it has meaning. V adds that sounds always have
meaning: "the phoneme," he writes "is not just a sound, it is a
sound that has meaning, a sound that has not lost meaning, a
certain unit that has a primary property to a minimal degree,
which belongs to speech as a whole" (271).
V's analysis makes a good deal of sense to me. But my own limited
knowledge of Saussure - guided in part by Roy Harris' writing -
has indeed included the dogma that the sound level of language
carries no meaning. You are saying, I think, that V has a
reasonable reading of Saussure, if not the canonical one. Can you
say more about this way of reading Saussure? V seems to be
suggesting that the child does not learn first sounds, then
words, but always acquires the sounds of language in the context
of the use of words in communicative settings, and this has the
consequece that the sounds would be aquired as aspects of a
meaningful unit. Am I on the right track here?
Martin_______________________________________________
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Martin Packer, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Psychology Department
Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA 15282
(412) 396-4852
www.mathcs.duq.edu/~packer/
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_______________________________________________
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Martin Packer, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Psychology Department
Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA 15282
(412) 396-4852
www.mathcs.duq.edu/~packer/
_______________________________________________
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_______________________________________________
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