eric--
I wonder...everybody, no matter how mentally disturbed, has to be capable
of some figurative language. I remember once Halliday remarked that "I want
you to stand up" is really an INTERPERSONAL metaphor, because you've got
a command pretending to be a statement, and I asked him if it wasn't true to
say that the whole of language was a phonological metaphor, because we've
got words pretending to be statements, commands, questions, gestures, and so
on.
So I sometimes wonder if the distinction we make between figurative and
non-figurative language is nothing but a formalism, like the distinction
between, say, metaphor and metonymy, or even the distinction between
metaphor and simile. Of course, as you say (and as Rod says) these
formalisms can matter a lot. But they are nevertheless a lot more pervasive
than the overt markings that we have bedecked them with, and so it seems
they must also be found in the language of the mentally disturbed (perhaps
as "literal" statements that are obvioiusly untrue).
Choose the best (that is, the most developmentally
sophisticated) continuation for the following utterance.
Romeo: "Soft! What light from yonder window breaks! ...
a) It is like the east and Juliet is like the sun."
b) It is the east and Juliet is like the sun."
c) It is the east and Julie is the sun."
d) Juliet's eyes are nothing like the sun."
I think Vygotsky would choose d) because a), b), and c) are merely
generalizations from one object to another, while d) combines both
generalization (from one object to another) and abstraction (the isolation
of a single feature, namely Juliet's eyes).
In Chapter Five of Thinking and Speech, Vygotsky points out that the
function of abstraction, which is really a kind of metonymy, is
ontogenetically very ancient. Every time the very young child undergoes a
routine, the child is bound to feel on some level that "this is like that".
But any "perizhvanie", any instance of the "feeling of what happens to you"
is different in an almost infinite number of ways from any other
"perizhvanie". So the belief that "today is just like yesterday" always
involves privileging some features of an experience and discounting others.
This is by no means a mechanical process; we are not talking about a Galton
photograph; on the contrary, it is a most discriminating and subtle
judgment.
I think that ALL of the "complexes" we see in Chapter Five can actually be
seen as just such abstractions from childly activities, although of course
the resulting structure is thought of as a set of concrete experiences and
not a concept.
For example, the "associative complex" is really a meta-object, a set of
objects each of which represents a projection of some different feature of
the nuclear objects (the "brainstorming" "mind-maps" of which elementary
school teachers are so proud are really just associative complexes).
The "collection complex" is, as Vygotsky says, a tool kit abstracted from
practical routines: brushing teeth, getting dressed, having meals, going to
bed.
The "chain complex" seems to me to be abstracted from games such as "tag",
where the loser of a particular bout becomes the "hero" of the next bout.
The "diffuse complex" is, as Vygotsky says, a result of the limitless
diffusion of characteristics we see in imaginative tales.
It's really only the pseudocomplex that is metaphorical rather than
metonymic, because the child's word "stands for" a thinking process that is
quite different, but given the exactly the same name. Of course, it is a
metaphor-in-itself rather than a metaphor-for-others or a
metaphor-for-myself (that is to say, nobody except maybe Vygotsky actually
KNOWS that the child's pseudocomplex is a metaphor for the adult concept).
In order to become a metaphor-for-myself, I have to abstract away all the
features that make the metaphor work and resynthesize them as a concept. But
of course a metaphor for a concept is not a metaphor: it's the concept
itself, for a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
--- On Mon, 11/1/10, ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org <ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org> wrote:
From: ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org <ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Simile, Metaphor and the Graspture of Conscious
Awareness
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Monday, November 1, 2010, 11:45 AM
Hello all:
This is such an interesting stream that has flowed into the different
tributaries of a delta and then joined again as it has emptied into the
vast ocean of communal knowledge.
I do not have the linguistic knowledge to offer much in research based
efforts of understanding the development of metaphorical knowledge. What
I can offer is my observational data of working with severely mentally ill
young adults. Many do not grasp metaphorical speech and can become very
agitated if a person continues on with a metaphor that has not been
understood. This explains why so many people who suffer mental health
issues are unsuccessful in the academic world.
my two cents for a million dollar topic
eric
From: Robert Lake <boblake@georgiasouthern.edu>
To: Vera John-Steiner <vygotsky@unm.edu>, "eXtended Mind, Culture,
Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: 11/01/2010 01:04 PM
Subject: Re: [xmca] Simile, Metaphor and the Graspture of Conscious
Awareness
Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
Hi Vera,
The *Journal of Aesthetic Education* is interested in publishing it and *
Francine** *Smolucha says she is writing it.
RL
On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 1:42 PM, Vera John-Steiner <vygotsky@unm.edu>
wrote:
Hi Robert,
We are looking for reviews and reviewers for Vygotsky and Creativity. Do
you think your publication would be interested and could you think of a
reviewer?
Thanks, Vera
----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Lake" <
boblake@georgiasouthern.edu>
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Friday, October 29, 2010 6:35 AM
Subject: Re: [xmca] Simile, Metaphor and the Graspture of Conscious
Awareness
Thanks for the LSV Citations David as well as this:
*
"But that's the whole point; the emotional substratum of language is
always
there and it never goes away; there is no point of entropy where
thinking
and feeling are completely merged."
*I will be pondering and savoring this all weekend.
RL
On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 8:23 AM, Robert Lake
<boblake@georgiasouthern.edu
wrote:
Thanks for the Citation David!
On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 11:48 PM, David Kellogg
<vaughndogblack@yahoo.com
wrote:
Rod:
Yes, it seems nonaccidental that we say "I feel LIKE my brain is an
erogenous zone" (for example) but we have say "I think THAT my brain
is
an
erogenous zone". The obvious comparison is indirect reported speech
for
feelings (and thus simile) but more direct forms for thoughts and
words
(we
can say "Richard Shweder says, 'my brain is an erogenous zone'").
But Vygotsky considers even the language of the Odyssey to be
"lyrically
colored" and therefore emotional rather than ideational; when Homer
says
"And they lay down by the shelving sea" or "When rosy fingered dawn
touched
the sky" we feel like we know what he means even though we cannot
really
say
that what it is.
Of course, in order to really understand this lyrical coloration, you
need
to be able to read hexameters in ancient Greek. But that's the whole
point;
the emotional substratum of language is always there and it never goes
away;
there is no point of entropy where thinking and feeling are completely
merged.
The photo experiment is described in Volume Four, pp. 193-194, of
Vygotsky's Cllected Works, in a chapter called "Development of Speech
and
Thinking". Here's the key passage.
“(I)f one and the same picture (let us say, the prisoner in jail) is
shown
to a three-year-old, he will say 'a man, another man, a window, a mug,
a
bench', but for a preschool child it would be 'a man is sitting,
another
is
looking out of a window, and a mug is on the bench'. (...) A
five-year-old
establishes a connection between words in a single sentence, and an
eight-year-old uses complex additional sentences. A theoretical
assumption
arises: can the story about the picture describe the child's thinking?
(...)
We will ask two children not to tell a story, but to perform what the
picture shows. It develops that the children's play about the picture
sometimes lasts twenty or thirty minutes, and primarily and most of
all
in
the play those relations are captured that are in the picture. (...)
The
child understands very well that the people are in jail: here the
complex
narration about how the people were caught, how they were taken, that
one
looks out
the window, and that he wants to be free is added. Here a very
complex
narration is added about how the nanny was fined for not having a
ticket
on
the trolley. In a word, we get a typical portrayal of what we see in
the
story of a twelve-year-old. (1997, pp. 193-194)"
We did a whole foreign language replication of this experiment with
using
a video clip (with an added time element) and some second graders and
wrote
it up for MCA, but it was (violently) rejected so we gave up. I still
have a
copy of the paper if you are interested though.
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
--- On Wed, 10/27/10, Rod Parker-Rees <R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk>
wrote:
From: Rod Parker-Rees <R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: [xmca] Simile, Metaphor and the Graspture of Conscious
Awareness
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Wednesday, October 27, 2010, 3:55 AM
Apologies for missing this, David
I suspect that the relationships between affective metaphor and
cognitive
metaphor are as messy and complicated (or rich and intricate) as any
other
form of (imagined) boundary between thinking and feeling.
When we use a simile I think we invite listeners/readers to colour one
concept with features of another, often (though not always) in a
rather
generalised way. When we use a metaphor I think there is more of an
invitation to the listener/reader to haul up associations from the
murk
of
personal experience (what does a hot liquid feel like, what does it
make
me
feel like). I realise as I write this that I am assuming that there is
a
difference between a person's 'own' 'lived-in' associations with
particular
words/concepts and that person's sense of a 'common' or widely shared
set
of
associations (what this can be assumed to mean to other people) -
actually
probably many different sets of 'common' meanings for different
subgroups
of
'other people' (people of my generation, people in my professional
field,
'kids today', people who have adolescent children .....).
To a degree, our sense of how much like another person we are will
depend
on how well that other person is able to find a fit with our own
meanings.
We can manage an academic conversation with a relative stranger but it
won't
feel the same as a conversation with a relative or with someone who
likes
us
enough to bother to remember how we feel about things. For babies it
is
quite easy to differentiate between 'people who like me' and 'people
who
don't know me' because the former engage in a noticeably more
contingent/reciprocal way (they 'like' me both in the sense of caring
about
me and in the sense of adjusting to me) and this is surely a useful
distinction to be able to make. For adults it is more complicated
because
there are so many gradations of liking to keep track of (guided by the
steer
from embarrassment when we get it wrong!) but I still think that most
of
us
are highly skilled in (unconsciously) picking up cues about the degree
to
which someone
is adjusting to us (how much they like us). I also think that our own
awareness of the adjustments we make when we interact with others
forms
an
important part of our knowledge about other people (we can even make
these
adjustments when they are not present so that we can imagine, for
example,
how they would feel about something we are considering suggesting to
them).
I like the word 'graspture' but for me (and for those who like me
enough
to know what I am like!) simile is less 'violent' than metaphor, a
black
and
white diagram of the full colour collision.
I would like to read more about Vygotsky's replication of Stern's
photograph experiment - something I know nothing about - where can I
find
this?
All the best,
Rod
-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
On
Behalf Of David Kellogg
Sent: 15 October 2010 04:55
To: Culture ActivityeXtended Mind
Subject: [xmca] Simile, Metaphor and the Graspture of Conscious
Awareness
Rod:
I agree that there is an AFFECTIVE difference between simile and
metaphor.
Actually, I think that the use of "like" as a preposition is related
to
the
use of "like" as a verb; the prepositional form is an objectified
version
of
the affective affinity we see in the verbal form. I think that the
existence
of these two quite different forms is a good example of the
DIFFERENTIATION
and PARTITIONING that language brings about in affect (the word
"articulation" springs to mind in this context).
So I'm very interested in what you say about the "distancing" effect
of
simile. Do you think grammatical metaphor has the same effect of
distantiation. Does "growth" suggest an objective view when we compare
it
to
"grow", because "growth" does not have an identifiable subject or
object?
Of course, what Lakoff and Johnson are writing about is not affect but
COGNITIVE metaphor. The idea is that underlying a whole range of
linguistic
expressions is some kind of non-verbal IMAGE, e.g. "anger is a hot
liquid",
quite independent of its verbal expression. From that perspective,
there
is
no difference between simile and metaphor, and there is also no
difference
between metonymy and metaphor (because metonymy is simply a special
case
of
a linguistic realization of a cognitive metaphor). All stem from a
completely undifferentiated, unpartitioned, unarticulated mental
equivalence
(I think it's no accident that almost all of Lakoff's and Johnson's
cognitive metaphors can be expressed as mathematical equations,
although
none of them are really reversible the way that equations are: we
cannot
say
that a hot liquid = anger).
Actually, I didn't say that Piaget believed that children are capable
of
reasoning "What kind of thought would I be expressing if I were making
the
acoustic sounds/articulatory gestures that I am now hearing?" Quite
the
contrary. This belief is the core of the "analysis by synthesis" views
of
speech perception, whether they originate in New Haven (Liberman) or
Cambridge, MA (Halle). Piaget holds that the child's thinking does not
achieve the Copernican Revolution of decentration until seven or
eight,
so
Liberman or Halle would have to argue for innate mechanisms that
"think"
in
a decentred way quite against the child's grain.
Vygotsky has no such problem. The child is a social being from birth,
and
it is some time before children actually differentiate themselves from
the
"Ur-wir", the proto-we. It seems to me that this is completely
consistent
with an ontogenetic "analysis by synthesis"; the child understands
because
the child has not really differentiated speaker from hearer. The
occasional
failures of this type of understanding, in fact, play a not
inconsequential
part in the process of the child's differentiation of "I" from "we",
which
is only expressed, not generated, in the child's use of negation.
Vygotsky mentions his replication of the Stern photograph experiment,
where a three year old is given a photo and responds with a list of
the
objects in it ("a man", "another man", "a window", "a mug") and a five
year
old can add processes ("the man is sitting" "the other man is looking
out
the window") but only the twelve year old can tell the story of how
the
men
came to be sitting in prison. When Vygotsky replicates this, he asks
the
children to ROLE PLAY the picture. Since this forces the kids to add
the
element of time, the five year olds come up with a twenty minute role
play
that is fully as complex as the narrative of the twelve year olds.
When Vygotsky does this, he is trying to show that the idea that young
children see pictures as a whole and do not differentiate the life
stories
within it is simply wrong. But in interpreting his result, we risk
falling
into a rather Piagetian analysis, which holds that speech is really an
afterthought and not the cause of the child's thinking, because the
child
is
capable of expressing in action so much more than what he can
articulate
in
differentiated speech. I think this is part of what is bugging Martin.
Two ways of debugging this occur to me. The first is that if we accept
Vygotsky's account that verbal thinking (not all thinking) develops
from
the
"introvolution" of speech, we have to clearly differentiate between
the
child's UNDERSTANDING of speech in the environment (which is semantic,
i.e.
NOT entirely dependent on a phasal, lexicogrammatical, partitioning of
speech) and the child's ability to "articulate" (which is).
The second point is that Vygotsky's definition of speech changes. For
the
very young child, speech includes the child's actions and in fact is
more
about the child's gestures and the child's use of the affordances in
the
environment than about vocabulary and grammar. Early speech is
dominated
by
indication and nomination; signifying comes later.
In the same way, metaphor comes first, because the child has to be
able
to
accept that a gesture can "stand for" an object, and a word can "stand
for"
the idealized relationship between gesture and object. Similes are a
kind
of
violent graspture of the conscious awareness of metaphor. So to speak.
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
--- On Wed, 10/13/10, Rod Parker-Rees <R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk>
wrote:
From: Rod Parker-Rees <R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: [xmca] The "Semantics" of Vowels and Consonants?
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Wednesday, October 13, 2010, 1:08 AM
So many ideas to respond to and so little time!
Isn't it more likely that our associations between 'mmm' and baby
related
concepts may be more to do with the fact that this is one of the first
recognisable sounds produced by babies? Mamas, Moms, mothers and
mummies
all
over the world have reason to like the idea that these first sounds
refer
to
them (fathers are left with papa or dada). But how things may have
begun
is
always only a part of the story - layers upon layers of cultural
associations and connotations are wrapped around the infant word as it
is
used in particular kinds of situations and contexts.
A Carol pointed out, phonemes are category labels rather than names of
'things' - a way of splitting the infinite variations of sound into a
limited number of chunks. After the age of about 9 months we begin to
actively filter our perception of speech sounds to privilege
meaningful
distinctions in the languages used around us so there are probably
many
more
SPEECH sounds than any one of us thinks there are because we think
only
of
the sounds we are still able to discriminate.
Where J.G. differs from David's version of Piaget's view, that 'You
have
to imagine what you would be thinking if you were making the noises
that
you
are hearing', he seems to me to be closer to Reddy's 'second person
perspective' which has been aired here in the past - babies don't have
to
'imagine' or 'think' - they have only to engage or respond.
Also, while there may be some very general, physiological, associative
principles in the affective force of sounds (large, grande, enorme
versus
little, teensy weensy, petit, piccolo for example, and associations
with
'squeak' and 'roar') there is also space for enormous variation in the
effect that words have when they are spoken in different ways by
people
with
different kinds of voice and by people in different moods (you really
can
hear the difference between someone reciting letter of the alphabet
while
smiling or while frowning).
Here's an experiment - download the transcript of Vikram
Ramachandran's
lecture 'Phantoms in the brain' from
http://www.bbc.co.uk/print/radio4/reith2003/lecture1.shtml?print
Read the first paragraph or two before you click on the 'listen'
button
and then compare the experience of your reading and hearing
Ramachandran's
voice (all of the lectures from this series are still well worth
listening
to).
Sounds and words may 'have' some power of signification, whether
because
of their/our physiological properties or because of the layers of
association they have accumulated (some of which may be forgotten by
or
unknown to most of us) but this is a thin, diagrammatic sort of
meaning.
It
is when they are performed by a speaker (or singer) that they can
serve
as
an interface, allowing us to hear through them and engage with/respond
to
the life of another person.
So - apologies for my thin, diagrammatic contribution.
All the best,
Rod
P.S. I still think there is a significant affective distinction
between
the effect of a simile and the effect of a metaphor - a simile
announces
itself while a metaphor can get to you more immediately.
-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
On
Behalf Of David Kellogg
Sent: 13 October 2010 06:58
To: Culture ActivityeXtended Mind
Subject: Re: [xmca] The "Semantics" of Vowels and Consonants?
We can see that J.G. really does believe that vowels and consonants
are
semantic, just as Khlebnikov did. Leonard Bernstein, in his Harvard
Lectures
on the "Semantics of Music" had a very similar theory about "mmm";
associating it with nursing, nipples, and micturation. It's the kind
of
thing that the "perceptionists" that Vygotsky criticizes in
"Psychology
of
Art" believed.
Of course, there is some evidence to support this; we often find that
"milk" and "mammary glands" and "mothers" and "mommas" are associated
with
the first bilabial sounds that babies make: Korean, Chinese, Arabic,
Tibetan
and many other languages can provide us with examples, and it's easy
to
imagine a world where babies are responsible for teaching mothers
Motherese
as an international language. It's our world, more or less.
But there are many languages, including English, where the /m/ sound
is
associated with NEGATIVES: "malady", "malevolent", "malefactor", etc.
Worse,
there are certain "things" or even "emotions" which by their very
nature
cannot be directly expressed in a vowel or a consonant.
Consider the number "zero" or the grammatical category of negation.
It's
really NOT possible (IMpossible, to use an "em") to express something
that
does not exist by something that does exist in a direct, iconic
manner.
Something that exists, exists. It doesn't not exist. The only way for
it
to
mean something that does not exist is indirectly, that is,
symbolically.
We had a related problem in class. The kids are playing a game with
cards,
where they are supposed to ask "Can you swim?" and if the responder
answers
"Yes, I can" (because there is a sign on the back of the card
indicating
"yes") the child is allowed to keep the card.
But the teacher has to begin by explaining what the cards mean. And
the
problem is that the card shows an actual child swimming, not a child
who
"can" swim. So the solution is a process of what Robert Lake would
call
metaphor, of having something stand for something else (e.g. "one
minus
one
EQUALS zero").
T: Look (indicating the card)! She is swimming. She's swimming.
So...she
can swim. Now...(indicating himself). I am not swimming. I'm teaching,
right? BUT...I can swim. Can you swim?
S: Yes.
T: Good. Can she swim? Can he swim? Ask her. Ask him. How many
swimmers
in
this group? How many swimmers in our class?
You can see that the way the teacher handles the problem of presenting
POTENTIAL rather than ACTUAL swimming is to TRANSFER the meaning to
another
situation; to have the card stand for something else.
I guess I would simply call this process semiosis, and that's why I
think
that it is part of language development at every single point, bar
none.
Every form of semiosis, without exception, is a form of metaphor,
because
the creation of a sign is precisely the creation of something that
stands
for something else that is not itself.
BUT...phonemes really do not exist, except as abstractions (in fact, I
think they do not even exist as abstractions except for people who are
literate). They are like the spaces that we IMAGINE we hear (but do
not
actually hear, except in quite special circumstances) between words.
Since
they don't exist, they can stand for other things that don't exist. As
Lear
says, "Nothing will come from nothing". He forgot to add that this
nothing
gives us everything!
Never mind. Let's notice the form of Mike's question. He doesn't ask
whether phonemes exist or not. He simply asks whether one can produce
a
particular sound (the example he gives is only an example; it's the
letter
"em") without there being more than one phoneme "there". Where? In the
mind,
of course.
The simple, snotty answer is YES, because phonemes ONLY have
psychological
reality (and even then only in the minds of literate people, not in
the
minds of illiterates and children).
So there are as many sounds as you think there are: no more and no
less,
and if you go "mmmmmmm" as J.G. suggests and ask how many sounds your
hearer
hears, he or she will probably say "one". We can easily find people
who
will
say the same thing about the letter "em" in almost any first grade
class.
But the complex answer is much more interesting. It seems to me that
consonants DEPEND on vowels in a way that is not reciprocally true.
You
CAN
pronounce the sound "a" without any vowel, and "a" is in fact a word
(and
one of the most common words in our language).
At the morphological level, we see the same non-reciprocal dependency
relation: In the word "reworked", both "re-" and "-ed" depend on
"work"
for
their meaning, but not vice versa. Which can also be seen at the level
of
relative clauses.
In an exchange (which is where I think J.G. really needs to look for
the
emotional fountainhead of his semantic system) we find that we can
have
an
initiate ("Who are you?") without a response, but a response without
an
initiate is not a response at all.
Why? As far as I know, non-human systems of communication (e.g. bird
calls, whale songs, computer coding) do not have this kind of
non-symmetrical dependency at any level at all. It's one word = one
emotion,
more or less like the extremely impoverished view of language that
J.G.
presents in his paper.
It seems to me that non-symmetrical dependency is an essential
resource
for making a very finite group of phenomena potentially stand for a
potentially infinite one (as is polysemy, or as Robert Lake says,
"metaphor").
This super-productivity is what allows human languages to SIGNIFY
rather
than simply SIGNAL. But of course this superproductivity brings with
it
developmental crises, too.
I have one other comment on the "reception by production" theories
that
Joseph Gilbert, Liberman, and Chomsky and Halle are putting forward.
ALL
of
these theories assume a kind of RECIPROCITY, an act of EMPATHY, a
DECENTRATION that Piaget rules out until the child is at least seven
years
old. You have to imagine what you would be thinking if you were making
the
noises that you are hearing. So if Piaget is right, children should
not
be
able to learn to speak until they are seven or eight.
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
--- On Tue, 10/12/10, Joseph Gilbert <joeg4us@roadrunner.com> wrote:
From: Joseph Gilbert <joeg4us@roadrunner.com>
Subject: Re: [xmca] The "Semantics" of Vowels and Consonants?
To: lchcmike@gmail.com, "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Tuesday, October 12, 2010, 9:55 PM
Dear Mike Cole:
The sound of the voiced "M" is mmmmmmmmmm, commonly uttered to express
pleasure, as in the reaction to something good tasting. The name of
the
letter is a peripheral issue.
J.G.
On Oct 12, 2010, at 6:44 PM, mike cole wrote:
David and Joseph.
A question. The alphabetic character, M, may represent a phoneme.
But
can
one say the letter M without there being two phonemes there?
mike
On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 4:26 PM, David Kellogg <
vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>wrote:
I just want to pick up on ONE aspect of this (very long and almost
completely unsourced) document, and try to source it, because it's
a
truism
in our field that none of us can stand alone.
Even if this were not true in an epistemological sense (there is
only
so
much brilliance a lone genius is capable of) it would be absolutey
true
in a
publishing sense (a long document is unpublishable without a long
list
of
references, preferably including all of its potential reviewers).
It's this:
"The vocal sounds express/communicate states of the emotions first
and
foremost, and as an afterthought, so to speak, they are used to
refer
to
things. They communicate emotion by moving the auditory apparatus
of
the
hearer in a manner analogous to the movements of the vocal
apparatus
of
the
speaker, thereby creating in the hearer an emotion analogous to the
emotion
present in the speaker. Just as the touch of the hands conveys the
intent of
the toucher, so the vocal motion of the vocalizer creates in the >>
hearer
an
emotional state analogous to that of the vocalizer."
This is the "reception through production" theory of speech
perception
that
was popular in the 1980s. It does have BIG advantages over passive
theories
of reception that preceded it(for one thing, it's much more
parsimonious;
the same system can be used for receiving speech and for
transmitting
it).
There are really TWO variations of this theory:
a) The "motor" theory, associated with Alvin Liberman and the
Haskins
Laboratories. This theory relies on the idea of "articulatory
gestures". By
recognizing the kinds of "articulatory gestures" required by >>
particular
sounds, the hearer, through an act of empathy with the speaker,
asks
himself/herself "What would I be saying if I were making gestures
like
that
in this situation?"
b) The "analysis by synthesis" theory, associated with Chomsky and
Halle at
MIT. This theory relies on pure unempbodied ACOUSTIC knowledge
rather
than
articulatory gestures. By recognizing the acoustic patterns (see
the
theory
of "distinctive features" laid out in Chomsky and Halle, The Sound
Patterns
of English), the hearer through an act of empathy with the speaker,
asks
himself/herself "What would I be saying if I were making gestures
like
that
in this situation?"
I think that BOTH of these variants of the theory have in common a
recognition that in perception we get a lot more than we hear;
people
do NOT
rely on the stream of vowels and consonants as their sole source of
information. Perception is a supreme act of what Bruner calls
"going
beyond
the information given".
Contrary to this, all theories of perception which are based on an
analogy
with the ALPHABET assume that the stream of vowels and consonants
really
does carry the information (or, as Joseph Gilbert puts it,
emotion).
In Vygotsky's time, this theory was advocated by the brilliant >>
futurist
poet Khlebnikov, who wrote quite extensively on the "emotional >>
valence"
of
particular phonemes, and constructed whole poems on this
association
(e.g.
"Zangezi", which was composed after a long series of experiments on
the
"semantics" of individual phonemes). As you can imagine, they don't
translate very well!
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
--- On Mon, 10/11/10, Joseph Gilbert <joeg4us@roadrunner.com>
wrote:
From: Joseph Gilbert <joeg4us@roadrunner.com>
Subject: Re: [xmca] The Genetic Belly Button and the Functional
Belly
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Monday, October 11, 2010, 11:03 PM
1
Language Creates Culture
Language functions, in human society, as the generator of
culture.
By
the effects on
us of the sounds we utter, we inform ourselves of the effects on us
of
the
things which
make up our world. Since the only sense of the meaning of any thing
is
one
and the same
as the effect on us of the thing, and since we relate to our world
through
our words, language informs us of the meanings of things. This
informing
takes place when we use vocal sounds as words to refer to things.
We exist in a vacuous condition vis-à-vis any objective knowing
the
ultimate meaning of anything. We do not know the ultimate affect on
us
of
anything. If we operated by instinct, our choices would not depend
on
knowing, as our choices do. In this culls context, we are informed
by
the
affects on us of the sounds of our words of the affects on us of
the
things
to which our words refer.
In the vacuum of outer space, a ship can be propelled by the
constant,
subtle force of an ion drive. In the outer space of our
cluelessness
as
to
the meaning of anything, we are informed of that meaning by the
affect
on us
of the sounds of our words.
Spoken language is sound made by the body and used to refer to,
to
signify, things. We must thoroughly understand the basis of
language
in
order to understand anything else about language. Why do we use >>
certain
words to signify certain things? Why are there similarities and
differences
among the various languages in how sound is used to refer to
things?
Is
there a correlation between and among emotional states and vocal
sounds?
These and other questions must be answered if we are to know how
language
works.
We are born into a language-using group and learn the meanings
of
the
things that
make up our world simply by learning our group’s language.
We have a distinct and unique reaction to each vocal sound just
as
we
do to
each facial expression and postural position. All forms of body
language,
postural, facial
and vocal, are expressions of states of our internal goings-on, are
born of
those feeling/emotional states. and recreate these states by
resonant
entrainment.
The languages we humans speak currently are the results of
the
experiential contributions of our ancestors. However they, (our >>
distant
relatives), felt about whatever they had words for, we now feel
again
in the
present moment, when we utter the words they originally uttered.
Therefore
language functions somewhat as a seed: the experience of past
peoples
was
represented in the words they spoke and now, when we voice those >>
words,
we
re-experience what they did.
Language is institutionalized perception. How we, as a society,
perceive our world, is
2
determined by the the affects on us of our vocal sounds, (a form of
body
language), we use to refer to the things that make it up.
Our actions are determined by our perceptions. If we want to >>
change
the
way we act we must change the way we perceive our world. And we can
change
how we perceive our world by changing how we refer to the things
that
constitute our world.
The feelings/emotions of actors on stage and of all of us, are
communicated by our actions. The way someone moves tells us much
about
how
they feel. Our face conveys extensive and subtle information about
our
emotional state. The sounds of our voices carry emotional content.
And,
although we normally are not aware of it, the articulate vocal
sounds,
(the
sounds of our vowels and consonants), are loaded with information
about
our
emotional goings-on. The information that comes from the articulate
sounds
of our words rather than from the emotional overlay we place on
them
due to
our transitory emotional states, is the same no matter what moods
we
may be
experiencing while we speak. That aspect of information conveyance
is
institutionalized/standardized. The tone of voice, cadence, and
volume
dynamics can be unique to each situation without altering the
fundamental
referential communication.
One can experience the effect on ourselves of the various vocal
sounds
by, while in a sensitive, receptive mode, saying those sounds out
loud
and
sensing their effects. I have done that and have, it seems,
discovered
their
meanings. You can do that also. Doing so oneself will give one a
more
complete sense of the effects of vocal utterances than one could
experience
by reading what someone else has written about the effects of the
vocal
sounds on the emotions.
This covert function of language must be brought to light in
order
for
us to be able to understand the importance of recreating culture.
We
must
understand that our behavior, as a society, is fundamentally linked
to
our
culture, which is a result of our language.
We do not objectively know the ultimate meaning of anything and
consequently experience our sense of the meanings of things from
the
effects
on us of our words.
These familiar phrases suggest a perception, perhaps a mystical
perception, of the importance of the spoken word.
The final word.
What’s the word?
In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the
word
was God.
The tongue is the rudder of the soul. It is not what passes
into
our
lips that defiles us but
3
every untoward utterance that proceeds out of our mouths.
Words, as sounds, affect us subliminally, supplying us with a
feeling
for whatever we name. It is that feeling that we experience from
the
sounds
of our words that supplies us with a subliminal consensus for our
world-view.
We cannot realistically expect humans to act in a way >>
contradictory
to
their culture’s bias. Marx’s economic/social theory was used as a
rallying
standard to
enable regime change. After those individuals who had experienced
the
tyranny of the czar had left the scene, the body-politic eventually
rejected
collectivism, (the transplanted economic organ). Russian culture is
fundamentally the same as it was when the roots of its present >>
language
were
established and Russian society naturally reverted to its cultural
default
mode after the revolution. After a short time, the czar was
replaced
by
the
head commissar. Marx held that the economic relationships within
society
create all other human relations. It seems that culture is the
cause
of
the
nature of human relationships within any society.
The Culture
Made
Us
Do It
“The unrecognized
function
of
language”
As an iceberg exists mostly under the surface of the water
which
supports it, the fundamental consequence of language tends to be >>
hidden
under the surface of our awareness. Most crucial human activities
go
on
without awareness, for example, all of the bodily functions. Many
conscious
activities proceed without much deliberate awareness. Once one
knows
well
how to drive a car, much less awareness is needed to operate the
vehicle.
The subconscious mind supports the same kinds of activities as does
the
conscious mind, however with less effort. Anything that can be
automated,
is. Automating essential activities frees the conscious mind to
focus
on
issues about which we feel we need to learn in order to more
effectively
cope, (those issues that require conscious attention until new
behavioral
patterns are in place). There is no need to be aware of processes
that
take
place well enough without attention. It is only when a problem
arises
that
we
humans, in an attempt to solve it, focus our awareness on it. If
we
are
coping well enough without awareness, why be aware? We don’t fix
something
if it doesn’t seem broken. We don’t reinvent our wheel as long as
it’s
rolling. However, upon examination, our human condition appears to
have
been
painfully broken for as long as we can recall, and must be
repaired.
How may
we fix it?
Could it be that our behavior is governed by something that we
cannot
see, something of which we are not cognizant? Is there anything in
our
nature that would preclude such a possibility, the possibility that
our
behavior may be directed by influences not within the purview of
our
everyday consciousness? What could such a force be?
The ability to produce simple vocal sounds made it’s appearance
on
the
scene before our
4
progenitors made words of those sounds. The ability to vocalize
articulately is a prerequisite to the ability to verbalize. Words
appeared
when our ancient ancestors became cognizant of the relatedness of
stimuli to
their own vocal reactions to them. When they began deliberately
using
vocalizations to bring to mind things, they made the transition >>
between
deriving their sense of the meaning of things by direct experience
of
the
things to deriving a sense of the meaning of things by experiencing
the
affects of the sounds of the words for the things. This
supersession
of
the
primal world by the linguistic world was the start of culture.
Being able to talk about things was very advantageous to our
distant
relatives. They could confer and plan. More important, they >>
experienced
a
common sense of the meaning of the things in their world by using
common
symbols with which to refer to them.
Culture was advantageous to our ancestors in the ancient,
pre-industrial environment. Now our technology provides us with the
power to
create and reside in an artificial environment, however one made
according
to the values inherent in our primitive culture. Our culture
provides
us
with marching orders and our technology enables us to march very
forcefully.
Are we marching toward the edge of a precipice?
All action is preceded by a decision to act, be that decision
consciously or subconsciously made. All decisions are based on a
consideration of the consequences of those decisions. These effects
on
us of
the consequences of our actions are the same as and identical with
the
meanings of those actions. How do we know the meanings of things?
How
do we
know the affects on us of any thing? Do we know the effects on us
of
things
directly as a consequence of our direct experience with them or by
indirect
experience with them by using and experiencing the words for those
things?
Language is the factory and culture is the product. Culture is
an
abstraction and language is the physical mechanism from which it
springs.
Language is emotionally evocative sounds used to represent things,
thereby
conveying to us a sense of the affects-on-us/the-meanings-of those
things.
Our sense of our own role in our culture provides us with our
identity
and
therefore with guidance for our behavior. The cultural values,
derived
from
our ancestors’ experiences long ago, as represented in our
language,
are
instilled in us and direct our behavior today. A body continues in
its
state
of motion unless it is acted upon by an outside force. Human
culture
will
remain fundamentally unchanged unless it is deliberately changed;
and
that
will not happen unless we feel the need to do so and know how to do
it.
Culture resides in the subconscious mind. Many others have
spoken
about
the need to change the way we, as a society, think: many have
tried,
by
using means such as meditation, sleep deprivation, psychoactive
substances,
chanting, philosophical inquiry, etc. to accomplish this change and
may
have
been successful to a degree. However, it seems they were not able
to
lastingly infuse into society at large their newfound vision, due
to
not
addressing the status quo at the
5
root/source, which is the culture. Understanding how language >>
functions
makes it possible to change our culture.
How did language arise?
How did language arise? Originally, our progenitors’ vocalizing
only
expressed internal-goings-on/emotion and did not refer to anything
external
to them. It was advantageous to members of the group to be informed
of
the
emotional conditions of other members. Much later, when
consciousness
developed enough for them to see the connectedness of the sounds
uttered to
the things the sounds were uttered in reaction to, they realized
that
they
could bring to mind the thought of the things by uttering their
associated
sounds, (names). The beginning of talking about things was the
start
of
culture,and the talking about things refocused the talkers’
conscious
attention away from the experience of the emotional reactions to
the
sounds
of the words, and toward thoughts related to the things to which
the
words
referred. While they were busy directing their attention to
thoughts
related
to the things to which the words referred, they were being
emotionally
affected by the vocal sounds they were making to form their words.
So,
the
effects of the sounds they were making vocally were experienced
subliminally, while
consciously, they were dealing with the thoughts of the things >>
referred
to
by their words. The affects-on-us/meanings-of things cannot be
proven.
All
they had and all we have to go on are the effects on us of the
things
and
the effects on us of the sounds of the words that represent the >>
things.
While the effects of the things are changeable through time and
somewhat
unique to each individual, the effects on us of the sounds of the
words
are
relatively consistent and universal. Having nothing else to go on,
we
accept
the effects on us of the vocal sounds of words as
revealing/representing the
effects on us of the things referred to by the words. In this way,
culture
is formed and passed to succeeding generations. Our world views
typically
come from the sense of the meaning of things as represented by the
sounds of
our words rather than from the sense of meaning we may gain from
the
direct
experience of the things themselves.
Do vocal sounds, themselves, communicate? When someone utters a
vocal
sound, such as a sigh, a growl, a whimper, a scream, etc., do we
get a
sense
of how they are feeling? If so, they are communicating their >>
condition.
How
does that communication take place? Do we receive information
communicated
in such a manner consciously, subconsciously or by both ways? What
is
the
means by which an emotion can be conveyed by sound? Can emotion, or
anything
else be communicated by the articulate sounds of our vowels and
consonants,
or do only non-articulate vocal sounds convey meaning? If we allow
that
vocal sounds, simply as sounds, communicate, then is it possible
or
likely
that the vocal sounds we use to make words also communicate as well
when
used as words? What would be the effect of using inherently >>
emotionally
meaningful sounds as symbols to represent external things? Would
the
inherent meaning of the sounds affect our perception of the things
represented by the sounds?
6
These considerations may shed light on the issue of the root >>
causes
of
human behavior. Naturally, those who contemplate our condition and
would
improve it if they could, would be attentive to these matters.
All of life’s processes exist as movements. Emotional
conditions
are
patterns of motion. Similar structures, in keeping with the
mechanics
of
resonation, impart, on each other, their movements. Our vocal
apparatuses
facilitate our ability to move with each other.
The vibrations made by the body convey the condition of the
emotional
body to other similar/human emotional bodies, and to some degree,
to
other
animal emotional bodies. The more similar the other body, the more
the
condition is transposed. Humans receive each others’ vocal and
other
body-language communications more readily than other species
receive
human
communication. Similar structures transmit their
resonation/vibration
to
each other more readily than do dissimilar structures.
My quest for understanding of human behavior began long ago.
When
I
was
around the age of six, I became increasingly aware that the
folkways
and
formal institutions of our society were lacking in humanity and
common
sense. I asked myself why this was so. As a child, I attributed the
problem
to people’s personal psychology and it was not until I was in my
late
teens
that I realized that the cause of the problem is our culture. It
was
shortly
after that that I understood how verbal/vocal communication works.
The
cause
of The Problem seemed and seems to be the culture which is created
by
the
relationship between vocal sounds and what they, as words, refer
to.
Some of the reasoning that preceded this realization was first,
that we
are not created evil, but rather simply with survival instincts.
Second,
that if we were able to act sanely/rationally, we would be doing
what
produces the best results for everyone. Third, it must be something
we
learned, some misinformation, that causes us to behave in ways not
in
our
own self-interest. Fourth, when I considered the question of from
where
this
false information came, I identified as the source, the culture. >>
Later,
I
realized that we do not, for sure, know the meaning of anything,
and
that,
as far as we know, the only thing constant and predictable about
any
thing
is its name, (the word-sound we produce in order to bring to
consciousness
whatever thing to which we choose to refer). After a time, I became
aware of
how the different vocal sounds we produce when we speak words, each
create
in us a unique effect and how those effects inform us
subconsciously
of
the affect on us, (the meaning), of the thing itself to which the
word
sounds refer.
At this time, I also learned that the sequence of sounds of the
letters
of our alphabet represents a sequential delineation of
emotional/experiential events. From A to Z, the succession of the
sounds of
the letters of our alphabet is an example of
pattern-projection/recognition,
the pattern, in this case, being the seminal emotional events that
humans
experience during their lives, in chronological order.
7
Emotions happen to us: They seem to come from the “great
mystery”,
God,
or whatever image we may use to portray a place from which strong
and
compelling feelings emanate.
Given, all the vocal sounds that people can make, how would one
arrange
the sounds sequentially and from what archetype, (model), would the
pattern
of that sequence come? Even if the originators of the present
alphabet
deliberately imposed a pattern on their arrangement of the
letter-sounds,
whatever world view that existed in their minds caused them to feel
most
comfortable with the sequence of sounds they chose. The sequence
they
chose
must have been agreeable with the story that was represented in
their
minds
by those sounds in that sequence. If one admits that vocal sounds
affect us,
then how could a story, a sequence of affects, not be told by the
sequence
in which the sounds exist? Whether or not the originators of any
particular
alphabet had a conscious reason for arranging the sounds of that
alphabet in
the sequence in which they appear, subconscious reasons were
influencing
their arrangement none the less. Does this story, told by our
alphabet make sense? Does it seem to be an accurate representation
of
the
main events in a human’s life?
We tend to cling to our culture as if our lives depended on it,
as
a
drowning person might cling to a life preserver. Culture offers an
answer,
-in this case subconsciously apprehended-, to the question, “What
are
the
meanings of things?” Without culture, there tends to be no
consensus
about
what things mean. Language informs us of the meanings of named
things
by the
affects on us of the sounds of our words. Those who use the same
language
experience the same sense of the meanings of the things that make
up
their
worlds. That sense emanates from the deep levels of their
subconscious
and
their final assessment of the meanings of things results from their
processing that deep, culturally caused base sense of meaning
through
the
lens of their perception of their own relationship to the society
in
which
they live.
For the sake of clarity, let us consider, hypothetically, what
the
result/s would be of using meaningful sounds to refer to things.
Would
the
meanings of the sounds spill over into the perceived meanings of
the
things
or would the meanings of the things influence the perceived
meanings
of
the
sounds? Or would neither influence the other or would they
influence
each
other? Which has a stronger meaning-pressure, the sounds we make
with
our
voice or the things which, with the sounds, we name?
The vocal sounds express/communicate states of the emotions
first
and
foremost, and as an afterthought, so to speak, they are used to
refer
to
things. They communicate emotion by moving the auditory apparatus
of
the
hearer in a manner analogous to the movements of the vocal
apparatus
of
the
speaker, thereby creating in the hearer an emotion analogous to the
emotion
present in the speaker. Just as the touch of the hands conveys the
intent of
the toucher, so the vocal motion of the vocalizer creates in the >>
hearer
an
emotional state analogous to that of the vocalizer.
Just as our becoming-human progenitors were gaining
consciousness,
(the
ability to
8
contemplate the consequences of their actions), they were, for the
first
time, using vocal expressions as words to refer to specific things,
not
only
to express immediate emotional goings-on. Since they vocalized
primarily
under duress, their words were expressions born of fear rather than
of
conscious understanding. The mind concentrates on problems, on
issues
that
could potentially be destructive to the perceiver. When this >>
fear-based
thinking bias becomes institutionalized in language, the language
itself is
a source of anxiety. The more we verbalize about any given problem,
the
more
stressed-out we become. This reminds me of an Eskimo method of
killing
a
wolf. They would smear congealed blood on a very sharp knife and
set
it
out,
with the blade pointing upward, where wolves frequented. When a
wolf
licked
the blood, it would bleed and lick its own blood not knowing it was
bleeding
to death. We are wolfish for knowledge and we pursue it by using
our
main thinking tool, our language.
The Unrecognized Role of Language
Culture is the hidden law-of-the-land. We are creatures of >>
culture,
and
its subjects. Our culture originally enhanced our survivability
and,
in a
technologically advanced world, may become the instrument of our
destruction. Our culturally motivated ways of relating to one
another
may
have once been viable, although perhaps immoral, and now, with our
powerful
ability to cause environmental change, are untenable.
”The release of atom power has changed everything except our
way
of
thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of
mankind.
If
only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.” --- Albert
Einstein
I wish to change what is in that “heart”.
The referential function of human language is merely the “tip
of
the
iceberg” of the role of language. Its larger and more profound >>
function
is
unacknowledged: It is spoken language’s informing us of the
meanings
of
all
to which we verbally refer. We are moved in a primal way by the
sounds
we
produce with our voice and, in the absence of any “objective”, >>
absolute
information regarding (the affects on us)/(the meanings of) the
things
of
our world, we accept the affects on us of the vocal sounds of our
words
as
representing the affects on us of the things to which our words
refer.
In
this way, we are informed subliminally, simply by learning our
language, of
the meaning of our world. How else could we, as very young
children,
have
achieved a sense of how we were affected by the numerous things
that
made up
our world?
This matter is of paramount importance because we act in >>
accordance
with how we perceive our world, (with what our world means to us),
and
our
sense of that meaning is derived from the affects upon us of our
words.
Much of human behavior that is commonly attributed to “human
nature”
is
actually motivated by cultural nature, which is created by
language.
9
How and what would our society be if we had a culture which
instilled
in us the values that we would consciously choose to hold?
Presently,
we
simply assimilate the culture in which we are born. Once we
understand
the
mechanism of cultural transmission, we will be able to change our
group
program.
However, it seems that many of us may be too timid to venture
forth
from the false security of our unquestioned and familiar values.
Some
have
expressed to me that language is a product of nature and that to >>
change
it
deliberately would produce an unnatural result, a Frankenstein >>
culture,
the
consequences of which would probably be destructive. To those I >>
suggest
that
we are inherently unable to venture out of the natural realm, as we
are
inextricably woven into the web of nature. Furthermore it is
entirely
correct and wholesome for us, with the goal of improving our
survivability,
to choose to correct our culture at its source. Once we see how we
may
help
ourselves, we would be within our progressive evolutionary
tradition
to
use
all our knowledge to do so.
.
Vocal sounds either communicate as vocal sounds or they do not.
If
we
assume that vocal sounds do not communicate, then language only >>
blindly
and
unintelligently refers to things. If we assume that vocal sounds do
communicate something, as vocal sounds, then language does more
than
merely
refer to things: it also informs us about the things named. Which
is
true?
Do any of us believe that our vocal sounds do not
express/communicate
anything? If we believe that vocal sounds communicate/express
something,
then what is it that they communicate/express? If vocal sounds do
communicate as sounds, do they loose that communicative function
when
incorporated into words or do they continue to be expressive when
used
in
words?
If vocal sounds that constitute words communicate something as
sounds,
then what effect does the sound of a word exert on our perception
of
the
thing to which that word refers?
Many seem to have difficulty accepting the idea that the
primary
meanings of vocal sounds, including the sounds of words, are the
effects
they cause within each of us and not the things to which they refer
when
uttered as words. Another point that aided me in understanding the
function
of language is that we really do not know the meaning of anything
but
rather
behave as though our taken-for-granted assumptions are valid only
because
they have not been held to the light of inquiry. It is only that
which
resides in our subconscious and of which we are not conscious and
consequently do not question, that we act as if we “know” for sure.
Remember
the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland? When asked how he managed
to
coordinate the movements of all those legs, he became aware of the
previously unconscious process of walking and then could not walk.
The
only
sense of the meanings of things that we dependably share with the
others of
our society is
instilled in each of us by the relationship between the sounds of
our
words and the things to which those words refer. Words are the link
between
our autonomic, cultural sense of meaning and the things that make
up
our
world. We give things a familiarity by attaching to them sounds >>
created
by
our body. Our words are related to things because the vocal sounds
of
our
words are related to our reactions to those things. We may not
ordinarily
experience an emotional reaction to the things that
10
make up our world. It is during our seminal moments that we
experience
emotional reactions to things.
What meaning, if any, do things have if we are not affected by
those
things? All meaning is relative. If we were totally unaffected by
something,
would it be meaningful? How would whatever meaning it may have be
perceived?
Clearly, what we want to know about something, (anything), is how
it
affects
us, (what it is?).
After many attempts to share these findings with those in
academia,
their lack of understanding, even more their lack of interest in
understanding the ideas I was putting forth , dampened my impulse
to
reach
out to those whom I previously had thought were most likely to
understand
these findings.
I figured that what I was saying was challenging on a deep
level
to
most, who would otherwise gain a glimpse of it. My discovery, seems
to
threaten the sense of security of those who consciously or
otherwise
treat
their culture as an idol. Some of us, especially those of highly
exercised
intellectual abilities, feel that security is to be had by being
able
to
“explain” the meaning of things. By uttering words, (sounds), about
things,
what meaning is revealed? Doing so may create the illusion of
understanding
by seeming to make the named things familiar. But does it, only
inform
us
with the effect/meaning of the sounds of words, or with the meaning
of
the
things as well? What are the meanings of the things?
It appears that culture is the root of all normal human
behavior.
We
all behave according to our values and assumptions and those derive
from our
culture. Do our academicians know what culture is, how it relates
to
the
people who are instilled with it and how it may be changed?
We are informed subliminally of the meaning of our world by the
language that we speak.
Why is it so difficult for people to understand how language
generates
culture? What is/are the missing piece/s of information that they
need
in
order to grasp that concept?
A better way is possible. We need only the vision of this
better
world,
as an everyday experience, in order for us to act in accord with
it.
The
consciousness of how to act in order to create the world we wish
must
be the
status quo, not the rarity that it now is. This changing of the
status
quo
can be accomplished by changing the culture and changing culture is
accomplished by changing language.
Are we conscious that we are affected by the sounds we make
with
our
voice? We are commonly aware that the quality of singers voices >>
affects
us.
We know that great orators and actors affect us with their delivery
and
vocal character. Everyone’s voice affects us. We are aware of the
affect of
tone of voice but not of the affect of articulated phonemes per se.
11
We have no way of knowing the final meaning of anything. We
might
think
we know what a thing will do to us in the immediate future but what
about
how it will affect us much later? When we become aware of
something,
we
question its meaning and once something is questioned, we never
gain a
sense
of its absolute meaning Only that which remains in the subconscious
we
do
not question. The feelings that well up from our subconscious, in
reaction
to various things, seems to be true absolutely. Our feelings
strongly
affect
our train of thought.
The certainty of the uninformed is typically replaced by the
wonderment
of the “enlightened”.
Our culture/language supplies us with a sense of knowing the
meaning of
all things for which we have a name. This sense of the meaning of
things
helps us to feel secure in the face of an uncertain, threatening >>
world.
We
gain that sense of knowing the meaning of things simply be having
words
for
things. Our subconscious accepts the affects of the sound of the
words
as
being the affects of the things to which the words refer. The
words
stand
for the things we name with them and replace, subliminally, our
perception
of the things referred to with our perception of the words >>
themselves.
The
words are all we have to go on for the sensing of the
meaning/effect
of
the
things.
Having words inform us of the meanings/effects of things seems
to
have
some advantages compared to being informed of the meanings/effects
of
things
by direct perception of the things themselves. All those who use a
particular language have the same basic subliminal sense of the
meanings of
named things and consequently, are able to participate in the group
dynamic
of their society. The words for things stay constant through time
while
how
we are affected directly by things changes. We can share
experience,
knowledge and wisdom with words. Without words, our own personal
experience
would be all we would have and we would not be able to share it.
Words
enable abstract thought and planning.
We think, influenced by the feelings of the sounds of words for
things
and feel as though we were thinking with the perception of the
things
themselves.
Are we conscious that we are affected by the sounds we make
with
our
voice? We are commonly aware that the quality of singers voices >>
affects
us.
We know that great orators and actors affect us with their delivery
and
vocal character. Everyone’s voice affects us. We are aware of the
affect of
tone of voice but not of the affect of articulated phonemes per se.
When we utter vocal sounds that are simply sounds and not
words,
we
may, more easily, experience consciously, the effects of the
sounds,
than
when we speak words. When we speak words, we typically experience
consciously the referential function of the words and not the
affects
on us
of the sounds of the words, while we experience the effects of the
vocal
sounds of words subliminally. Because we experience the one thing,
(the
referential meanings of the words), consciously, and the other
thing,
(the
affects on us of the sounds), subconsciously, we
12
subconsciously interpret the subliminal effects of the vocal sounds
as
being the effects of the things to which the words refer. The
subconscious
mind supplies us with the bottom line of the meaning of whatever it
is
we
are considering because we cannot reason with the subconscious mind
and
we
can with the conscious mind. Whatever we are conscious of, we can
question
and whatever we question becomes uncertain. However we have a
language-based
subconscious reaction to that which the (meaning-of)/(effect-on-us)
is
consciously unknown as long as we have a word for it, and that
subconscious
reaction creates an experience of and hence a sense of knowing the
meaning
of that which, prior to being named, did not seem to be known. The
word,
made of sounds of our body, stands in for the unknown thing, the
thing
separate from our body. In the absence of any objective sense of
the
meanings of things, we rely on our words to provide us with a sense
of
knowing,
because knowing relieves us of the stress of anxiety. We are
driven
into
the perceived safety of our familiar culture, as represented in our
language, by the stress of the fear generated by not knowing. One
must
be
willing to accept the mystery of existence in order to experience,
free
from
the bias of existing culture.
Considering words to be things in and of themselves, (sounds),
and
not
only a means to refer to things, will enable us to examine them for
their
inherent meaning. The primary meaning of a word is not the thing
which
it
represents. It is, rather, the affects on us of it’s sounds. We
consciously
consider the meaning of the word to be the thing to which the word
refers
and we subconsciously experience the meaning of the word as the >>
effects
on
us of its sounds. Because we experience, profoundly and
consistently,
the
effects on us of our human vocal sounds while we experience less
intimately
and less consistently the effects on us of the things to which we
refer
with
words, the emotional effects of the words as sounds overrides the
emotional
effects of the things named, and informs us of the nature of named
things.
In a similar way that explorers laid claim to land in the name
of
the
monarch, we tend to lay claim to that which we name in order to
render
it
seemingly familiar and known.
Everything that we perceive subconsciously creates an emotional
reaction that may be experienced consciously and everything that we
perceive
consciously affects us subconsciously as well. We consciously
perceive
the
sounds of spoken language and we are also affected subconsciously
by
those
same sounds. In the course of verbal communication, we think of the
things
to which our words refer while subconsciously we are emotionally
affected by
the sounds of our words. This simultaneous occurrence of the
thought
of
a
thing and the subconscious experience of the emotion generated by
the
sound
of the word we use to refer to that thing, subliminally informs us
of
the
affect-on-us ,(the-meaning-of), the thing. In this way, we acquire
a
sense
of the affects-on-us, (the-meanings-of), everything for which we
have
a
word. This is important because our actions in relation to the
things
that
make up our world are motivated by our perceptions of the meanings
of
those things. Therefore, if we would change, for the better, our
societies’ behavior, we ought to change our languages.
Since spoken language is crucial in determining the course of
human
events, it would be
13
better if we consciously agreed with the subliminal sense of the
meanings
of things which is instilled in us by our language.
We humans are not doing so well with our relationships with one
another
that we should be complacent regarding the improvement of our
culture.
People have been attempting to address social and economic
challenges
ever since there were people. All the religions were attempts to
provide a
basis for our behavior. Marxism was/is an attempt to remedy social
and
economic inequality and exploitation. “Hippie” communes were
typically
instituted to provide healthy social environments. Organized
politics
and
codified legal systems were/are created, supposedly, to improve our
condition. Why is it unclear whether any of these deliberate social
structures actually made/make our situation better or worse? Could
it
be
that the cause of our malaise is something that is not being >>
recognized
by
those who strive to improve our lot? For how many years, for how
many
centuries and millennium will we try to fix our broken world by
creating
laws, religions, political and economic institutions before we
decide
that
doing so does not deal with the source of the problem? Marx’s
mistake
was
believing that
economics is the foundation upon which all of society’s other
institutions
are based. It seemed reasonable to him that since life is based
upon
the
biological economics of survival, that economics must be the
determining
force in society. He did not see that our culture provides us with
a
sense
of the meaning of all recognized things thereby assuaging the
fear/terror
that naturally arises as a result of our consciousness of our
physical
vulnerability and that we tend to protect and defend that culture
because of
the perceived security which it provides. Once culture is
established,
it
causes the economic and social relationships to be what they are,
and
they
cannot be lastingly changed without changing the culture.
The culture, created by language forms our values which then
strongly
influence the decisions we make consciously and subconsciously.
What
is
culture?
I define culture as the common fundamental values held by the
members
of a society. These values derive from our perception of the
meanings
of,
(the affects on us of), the things that make up our world. “Things”
are
whatever we identify as being distinguishable from other things,
which
include feelings, thoughts, values, people and ideals. The meanings
of
things are one with and the same as the affects on us of those
things.
How
do we acquire our sense of, (the affects on us of)/(the meanings
of),
things? Is it from our own individual experiences with things? Is
it
from
what we say to ourselves and to each other about things? If it were
based on
individual experience, how would we achieve consensus and if we
could,
why
would all cultures not be pretty much the same?
Most would hold that even within a given society our individual
values
are not the same and
14
surely the popular view of what our values are, indicated by a
cursory
survey of our behavior, seems to support that conclusion. When
attempting to
assess the values that underlie behavior we should consider the
influence of
the role that each individual sees themselves as playing within
their
culture. Given the same subliminal, fundamental values, individuals
within
any society tend to behave not only relative to those basic values
but
also
relative to how they perceive themselves, (who they perceive >>
themselves
to
be), within their society.
It seems that the cause of the problem of why we do so many
seemingly
destructive and self-defeating things must be so basic, so
fundamental
as to
escape our awareness. It must be housed in the subconscious mind
since
all
our attempts to address it have been futile. It is that which we
don’t
consciously know that we subconsciously know that sometimes makes
us
wonder
why we do what we do. Our emotional reactions are influenced by
that
which
resides in the subconscious just as they are by that of which we
are
conscious, and often, we create rationales to explain our behavior,
while
the actual reasons for the feelings that motivate us may be other
than
what
we choose to think.
What does every cultural group share within itself that affects
its
members profoundly and without their conscious knowledge? Where are
the
hidden rules, by which we live, to be found? Our culture is an
artifact,
inherited from distant ancestors, formed in an environment vastly
different
than today. Ways of interacting with one another that may have
seemed
to
work then now appear to be dysfunctional. The primary example is
war,
which
before weapons of mutual destruction, was rationalizable by the
victors. But
now, with nuclear weapons, would there be any victors? We still
think
as we
did then but we cannot afford to act today as we may have believed
we
could
then. Our technology has evolved tremendously but our culture has
not.
We
are ill-equipped to cope with the situation our technology has
enabled
us to
create. Furthermore, even if war seemed winnable, wouldn’t we
prefer
peace?
If we admit that vocal sounds inherently affect us, as do
facial
expressions and general body posture, then we may ask how our sense
of
the
meaning of the things which make up our world is affected by using
inherently meaningful symbols to refer to them. What is the
relative
strength of the emotional effects upon us of our symbols compared
to
the
emotional effects of the things to which they refer? Considering
that
the
emotional effects of the things themselves vary with context and is
peculiar
of each of us, and that the emotional effects of the vocal symbols
is
relatively consistent and universal, can we assume that the
meanings
of
the
symbols create the perceived meanings of the things? Is this
relationship
the same or different within the conscious and subconscious minds?
Does
our
conscious or subconscious mind more strongly influence our
behavior?
Are our
behaviors affected by our subconscious minds even when we are
trying
to
do
what we
consciously think we should do?
We either are or are not affected by our vocal utterances. I
see
that
we are. If we were not affected by our vocal utterances, we would
not
vocalize. The whole purpose of vocalizing is
15
communication! And in order to communicate, we must be affected by
that
which we use to communicate.
What, we may ask, is communicated by vocalizing? What is
communicated
when other animals vocalize? It is clear that animals communicate
their
instantaneous emotional states by their vocalizations. How is this
communication accomplished? The vibrating of the body of the >>
vocalizer,
(sender), causes the body of the receiver to vibrate in sympathy.
The
receiver experiences the motions and consequently the emotions of
the
sender. This simple process is the foundation of our vocal
activity,
our
verbal activity, (our language), and our culture. Many of us seem
to
balk at
accepting the idea that our lofty retorical proclamations are
founded
upon
such primal processes. If you are one of these, consider that our
genetic
blueprint is shared, in the majority, by all other vertebrates and
largely
by all other animals. To those who disparage animals, please be
reminded
that the Grand Creator authored ALL of everything, not only us and
those of
whom we
approve.
What are the ingredients that make up the mix of influences
that
determine human behavior? Given that we are intelligent enough to
appreciate
and cherish the truths that are our guiding principles, and given
that
we
are not born self destructive, then for what reason/s did we act as
we
have?
From where does the false information come that motivates much of
our
behavior? “Human nature” does not account for our inhuman actions.
The
cause
of our destructiveness must exist among the things which we learn.
From what ultimate source do we acquire our information
regarding
the
meaning of our world? Our culture is that source.
What have we got to go on in order to achieve a sense of the
meaning of
our world other than the words we speak?
Do we have a benchmark for establishing the meaning of things?
If
everything is relative, what is it relative to? We need not look
further
than ourselves to find that. How could it be otherwise? We look out
from our
eyes and hear with our ears and think that we can objectively >>
determine
the
nature of each and every thing that we examine. However, with our
survival
in the balance, as it inescapably is, how whatever it is that we
examine
relates to our survival determines what it must mean to us. How we
are
affected by the things that constitute our world establishes their
meaning.
The vocal sounds we make express and convey the different emotional
effects
we experience. Our words are made up of these body-sounds.
Therefore,
our
words convey emotional meaning and inform us of the affects on us
of
things
for which we have names.
Language exists in both the conscious and the subconscious. We
are
conscious of the words we speak and of the things to which they
refer,
while
they inform us subconsciously of the effects on us, (the meanings
of),
those
things to which they refer.
Does it matter what things mean? Does it matter what we think
they
mean? Do our actions
16
relative to them depend on what they mean to us? Do we act in >>
relation
to
things according to what they mean to us? How do we know the
ultimate
effect
on us of any thing? Is the effect on us of any thing its meaning?
How
can
any thing mean to us anything other than what its effect on us is?
How
do we
obtain a sense of the meanings of things? Do we get that sense of
the
affects-on-us/ the-meanings-of things directly from our own
experience
with
things or as mediated by language?
Of all forms of body language, (vocalization, facial expression
and
overall body posture), only one of them,vocalization, is commonly
used
to
represent things other than conditions of the emotional body. Our
general
posture is very communicative of our physical-emotional state
without
our
deliberate intent and is sometimes used deliberately to convey the
same.
Facial expression can be more finely communicative of our state of
being/feeling than is general body posture. Vocalization, while
being
profoundly expressive/communicative, is, by civilized people,
ordinarily
exclusively reserved for uttering words. While we are not aware of
the
affect upon ourselves of the phones we utter, we are aware of the
effect
upon ourselves of the emotional embellishments we add to them.
Often,
we
consciously add emotional content to our words in order to
embellish
their
referential meaning. Since we are busy, often consciously,
processing
the
referential meaning of
our words, we are unaware of the emotional impact of the sounds
that
make
them up. Each distinct articulate vocal sound affects us in its own
unique
way. Understanding this is crucial to understanding the workings of
the
culture-creating function of language.
We not only refer to things with our words. More profoundly, we
inform
ourselves of the very meaning of those things simply by using a
word,
(a
vocal sound), to refer to them. This information as to the affects
upon us,
(the meanings of), the things which make up our world, constitutes
our
culture. Culture is information, (in-formation). Since we are not
aware
of
the nature of this information, it exists in our subconscious
minds.
We
act
according to a subconscious program put in place by our language.
If
we
understand how we receive information regarding the meaning or our
world, we
can change that information so that it agrees with what we believe
to
be the
nature of our world. Our culture was passed down, from long ago;
from
before
electronics, before motorized transport and the printing press. If
we
were
to deliberately create our language today, would we create the one
we
currently use? If so or if not, why? Would we know how to create a
language that conveys the meanings of things that are their actual
meanings? If we would know, how would we know? If not, why not?
That which affects us profoundly and constantly must be in
close
proximity. Things right in front of us are often overlooked when we
search
for that which affects us powerfully. We tend to assume that if the
causes
of major difficulties were so close to us, it would be obvious and
we
would
have discovered them by now. Let us reexamine our major influences
to
look
for what causes us to behave as we do.
Our species, is plenty smart enough to understand why our
saints
and
prophets are correct when they exhort us to be “good”. We create
secular
laws that mirror our religious tenants and are
17
sensitive to any critique of our behavior. Our feelings of guilt
seem
to be
well developed. Why then do we act as we do; making war against one
another
and engaging in all kinds of destructive activity?
I have heard many claim that it is simply “human nature” to act
in
destructive ways. Those who believe that, feel that there is
nothing
to
be
done to correct our human malaise other than punishment. Evil ones
must
be
trimmed back, like a noxious and thorny vine. I do not subscribe to
that
depressing idea and know that the truth of the matter is that we >>
humans
are
inherently survival oriented and will learn whatever seems as
though
it
will
further our survival. It is because of our native intelligence
coupled
with
our survival desire that we voluntarily stretch our consciousness
in
order
to glimpse a better way for ourselves to carry on.
What are the forces that influence our behavior? What we
believe
to
be
good and correct does not, it seems, by itself, determine our
actions.
Do we
not fully believe that what seems to be right to us is truly right?
Or
is
there some other influence that informs us of what the world and
all
the
things and concepts and people in it mean to us, something else
that
influences our perception of how we must behave in order to
survive?
Our behavior is related to how we are affected by the things
that
make
up our world. We behave in relation to the various things that fill
our
awareness, according to how they affect our survivability, (how we
PERCEIVE
that they affect our survivability). We perceive the world directly
through
personal contact with it and indirectly through contact with that
which
represents the world to us, (our language). Language represents the
world by
labeling everything about which we speak, with sounds made by our
bodies.
Those vocal sounds are part and parcel of states of our emotions.
Our
preverbal progenitors and our children when young, make vocal
sounds
in
reaction to various environmental stimuli. Those emotive sounds are
intuitively made sense of by all who hear them. We sense the
vocalizations
and they make sense to us. The vocal sounds are made by a body in
an
emotional state and cause that state to be reproduced in the
emotional
body
of the hearer
of those sounds. The sending body vibrates and the receiving body
vibrates
similarly. An emotionally linked vibrational pattern is spread from
the
originator of the vocal sound-vibration to whoever’s auditory >>
apparatus
is
moved by it. The transmittance of the vibrational pattern is the
transmission of the emotion. We are emotionally affected by the
emotions of
others.
Language is an institution, a standardized way we move our
bodies,
specifically our vocal apparatuses, our ears, central nervous
system
and
emotions, in relation to the various things that make up our world.
In
relation to a book, we who speak English, utter the sound, “book”.
In
relation to a book, a Spanish-speaking person utters the sound, “
libro”.
These two different sounds move us in different ways, giving us a
different
experience of that which refers to and represents that object and
consequently, of the thing referred to. The primal meaning of a
word
is
the
effect the sound of it creates within us. The secondary, more
distant
meaning of a word is that to which it refers. The secondary meaning
is
what
we commonly accept as being the one and only meaning. We are
18
generally not aware of the primary meaning, because we are affected
by
the
vocal sounds of our words subliminally and by the secondary,
referential,
meaning of words consciously. Awareness of the primary meanings of
vocal
sounds was superseded by the awareness of the >> secondary,
-referential-,
meaning of vocal sounds used as words.
To understand the functionality, the “nuts and bolts”, of >>
language,
is
to free ourselves of domination by culture, to be the masters of
culture
rather than its subjects. We have been inextricably attached to
culture, for
better or for worse, ever since our use of language began. Now we
can
intentionally create a language/culture that informs us as we would
like to
be informed, of the effects on us, (the meanings of), all the
things
we
name.
Certainly we agree that we are affected by the sounds we utter.
What
then is the
consequence of referring to all the things to which we refer, (all
the
things that make up our conscious world), with inherently
meaningful
sounds?
If we were able to refer to things with “meaningless” symbols, then
all
we
would be conveying is the thought of the thing. When we refer to >>
things
with
inherently meaningful symbols, we are also informing ourselves of
the
meanings of the things to which we are referring. Is there such a
thing
as a
meaningless symbol? Is anything meaningless? In order to perceive
anything,
including a symbol, that symbol must register upon our senses and
in
order
to register upon our senses, the sensed thing must affect us. No >>
effect
on
us, equals no perception by us. Whatever the affect on us is, is
the
fundamental meaning of the sensed thing. When we refer to things,
we
are
primarily being affected by the symbol which we use to do the >>
referring
and
secondarily by the memory, if there is a memory, of the thing to
which
we
are referring. When we refer to something with which we have no >>
direct
experience, we have only the symbol, (word), to affect us and thus
to
inform
us.
If there is a discrete connection between a vocal sound and a
thing,
and a connection likewise between a particular vocal sound and a
specific
effect on the emotions, then there is a connection between the
effect
on us
of the sound and the thing to which that sound, (word), refers.
We are aware that sound has an effect and that the word is
sound
and
that the word has an effect and that the word refers to a thing.
Are
we
aware that, for all intents and purposes, the effect seems to be
the
thing.
How we are affected by a thing, our perception of a thing, is
accepted
subliminally as being the meaning of the thing. Our actions
relative
to
the
things in our world, are related to the perceived meanings of those
things.
We feel the feelings generated by the sounds of our words at
the
same
time as we are deliberately focusing on the things to which the
words
refer.
As a consequence, we associate particular vocal-sound-generated
feelings
with particular things. The thing does not define the feeling.
Rather,
the
feeling defines the thing. The feeling of the word determines what
is
accepted subliminally as the meaning of the thing. The word enables
us
to
experience feelings of the meanings of things not present, and
unknown
by
direct experience. It establishes a sense of
19
consensus which wells up from the subconscious minds among the >>
speakers
of
a given language.
All throughout human history, language has been playing this
role
of
consensus creator based on the information we derive from the
sounds
of
our
words regarding the-affects-on-us/the-meanings-of, the things that
make
up
our worlds. If we would rather live in a culture of our own
creation
than in
just any one in which we happened to be born, we might consider
experimenting with cultural change through language renewal.
I have been asked what I hope to achieve with this information.
My
desire is that we become aware of the forces that affect us so that
we
may
be able to change the circumstances that exist to circumstances
that
we
would prefer.
Because of the inherent shortcomings inherent in existing
languages,
although words can be used in a kindly manner to help get us back
on
track
when we lose our way, they cannot, in and of themselves, guide
anyone
who is
determined to see things in a certain way. Only the willing can be
helped.
How can we help people to be willing?
I observe that culture is the prosthetic subconscious of
society,
that
which we who live in a particular society share with one another
and
have in
common. It has to do with our world-view. Our world view is formed
by
what
things mean to us. How do we obtain our sense of the meaning of our
world?
Do we share t
--
*Robert Lake Ed.D.
*Assistant Professor
Social Foundations of Education
Dept. of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading
Georgia Southern University
P. O. Box 8144
Phone: (912) 478-5125
Fax: (912) 478-5382
Statesboro, GA 30460
*Democracy must be born anew in every generation, and education is its
midwife.*
*-*John Dewey.
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--
*Robert Lake Ed.D.
*Assistant Professor
Social Foundations of Education
Dept. of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading
Georgia Southern University
P. O. Box 8144
Phone: (912) 478-5125
Fax: (912) 478-5382
Statesboro, GA 30460
*Democracy must be born anew in every generation, and education is its
midwife.*
*-*John Dewey.
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
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