[Xmca-l] Re: Time, Imagination, Metaphor

[Robert Lake]

Hi Annalisa, Henry and anyone else reading this.
First of all thank-you for the link to the piece about
"A Change is Gonna Come". Every now and then I
look for new covers of this song which I never get tired of hearing.
I have to say that Tina Turner's and Al Greene's  versions are quite
powerful and
as you say, evoke the personal as political and vice versa.
How else can students develop agency if that is not true?

Also I agree with you about the limits of technology which
can only mimic algorithms. I think the most important
aspect of Chomsky's work in linguistics is the centrality of imagination
in *creating sentences that have never been uttered before.*
This is in contrast to what someone wrote posted yesterday that
the prevailing theory of language from the 1940's forward was language
is acquired through a set of "habits'.
*Robert Lake*

On Mon, Dec 22, 2014 at 1:26 PM, Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu> wrote:

> Thanks Henry!
>
> Yes, it has to do with setting and placement in time. Language is
> important, but how one says the word and where one says the word and why
> one says the word and even IF one says the word seems to have more
> importance than which word it is or where that word appears in a sentence.
> Yes, I'm referring to context.
>
> Of course this is why I don't think computers will ever be able to speak
> to us in conversations: they don't have bodies and they can only mimic, and
> even if they have sensors on them that can detect place, will they ever be
> able to detect mood or affect? I mean, it seems that we have our own issues
> in addressing the pain of others (the reference to Susan Sontag is
> accidental and intentional). Are we expecting computers to take care of
> that for us? Like the babysitting television set?
>
> So I wondered if there is a way to capture environments and places in a
> descriptive sense (á la Darwin) and to be able to note if there are any
> interesting realities that emerge from that kind of study? In the same way
> we learn something about the nature of movement from Muybridge's work, can
> we learn something about the nature of setting in which locution happens?
>
> What patterns emerge? And how might these patterns be represented
> visually? Can something be learned by going over older studies that would
> offer new insights?
>
> Certainly this relates to power, it relates to the public vs the private,
> it relates to growth and change, but what I hope to preserve when making
> this proposition for a new language, is the unity we feel as human beings
> with our environment, how connectedness is preserved vs how it is
> adulterated.
>
> I echo something that Wittgenstein pondered, regarding the sense of
> feeling perfectly safe.
>
> It is not only the ineffable that is unspoken, but those things that are
> not represented and consequently can escape our notice. Just like the
> horse's hooves up off the ground.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Annalisa
>



-- 

*Robert Lake  Ed.D.*Associate Professor
Social Foundations of Education
Dept. of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading
Georgia Southern University
Secretary/Treasurer-AERA- Paulo Freire Special Interest Group
P. O. Box 8144
Phone: (912) 478-0355
Fax: (912) 478-5382
Statesboro, GA  30460