[Xmca-l] Re: the genetic roots of thought and speech

[HENRY SHONERD]

 A conjecture, proposal and prediction:
Gesture as a metaphor, a unit of analysis, for all modalities of human symbolizing. 
A suggestion:
Consider forwarding your thoughts on listserv-wide posts to significant XMCA others before calling out to the whole listserv with a collaborative analysis. This would slow things down, but deepen, the dialog. Let there be eddies in the flow, so to speak.
Henry


> On Dec 23, 2014, at 6:14 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
> 
> I always thought that Vygotsky took speech as the archetype of language, and consequently, when he chose the spoken word as his germ cell/unit of analysis, the spoken word was taken as the archetype for the written word or the manual sign. Personally, I don't see any basis for a significant differentiation between any spoken language and ASL, AUSLAN or NSL, except that the spoken language is logically and historically prior to Sign Language. And despite what Vygotsky says about gestures and knots, I think he saw it that way too.
> 
> Andy
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> 
> 
> mike cole wrote:
>> Francine. I am uncertain of how to interpret the following thought in this
>> note:
>> 
>> My reading of Vygotsky is that only speech vocalizations that fuse with
>> thought
>> (based on sensori-motor experience) can produce 'word' meanings that are
>> internalized
>> as the inner speech that creates higher mental functions (consciously
>> regulated
>> thought processes).
>> 
>> Do you mean that Vygotsky erred in this conclusion? Clearly the Dean of our
>> division of social sciences i capable of higher psychological functions.
>> Following Vera and many others I really like a multi-modality meaning
>> making interpretation of LSV, but I am an amateur in figuring out issues of
>> language. Which is why I depend upon all of you!  :-)
>> mike
>> 
>> 
>> On Tue, Dec 23, 2014 at 4:59 PM, larry smolucha <lsmolucha@hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>  
>>> Message from Francine:
>>> 
>>> This reminds me of a debate that I had with Greg Thompson over a year ago
>>> about hearing impaired people  who do not have speech
>>> but use hand sign language. Hand sign language is a sensori-motor semiotic
>>> systems that communicates thoughts to others. This is a semiotic fusion
>>> that
>>> does not involve speech. Dance is another sensori-motor fusion with thought
>>> (which is itself based on sensori-motor experience). Visual symbols systems
>>> are another.
>>> 
>>> My reading of Vygotsky is that only speech vocalizations that fuse with
>>> thought
>>> (based on sensori-motor experience) can produce 'word' meanings that are
>>> internalized
>>> as the inner speech that creates higher mental functions (consciously
>>> regulated
>>> thought processes).
>>> 
>>>    
>>>> Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 09:54:14 -0800
>>>> From: lpscholar2@gmail.com
>>>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l]  the genetic roots of thought and speech
>>>> 
>>>> Francine asked us to re-read Chapter 4 "the Genetic Roots' of Thought and
>>>> Speech.
>>>> This paragraph was critical
>>>> 
>>>> "we are forced to conclude that FUSION of thought and speech, in adults
>>>>      
>>> as
>>>    
>>>> well as in children, is a phenomenon limited to a CIRCUMSCRIBED area.
>>>> Nonverbal thought and nonintellectual speech do NOT participate in THIS
>>>> FUSION and are affected indirectly by the processes of verbal thought"
>>>> [Vygotsky, page 48]
>>>> 
>>>> Reading this opens for me the question of all the other functions of
>>>>      
>>> speech
>>>    
>>>> in the adult that are not directly influenced by thought and all the
>>>> functions of thought that are not affected by speech.
>>>> In particular are there forms of *imaging* that are thoughts but not
>>>> functioning in speech. Do these paths of image and thought also develop
>>>>      
>>> and
>>>    
>>>> fuse?
>>>> 
>>>> All the functions that Vygotsky explores in the primates and in children
>>>> PRIOR to the reciprocal interweaving of thought and language continue to
>>>> function in adults. For example the sounds of speech as offering "release
>>>> from tension or anxiety" or the sounds as ways of *connecting* and
>>>> *bonding*.
>>>> It seems that to privilege the fusion of thought and language as dominant
>>>> modes of designing places/spaces [such as the third space] makes the
>>>>      
>>> other
>>>    
>>>> functions [speech alone] [thought alone] nondominant modes when the
>>>> necessity for connection may be prior to and dominant when reflecting on
>>>> the fused mode of thought and language as a partial unity.
>>>> In other words, the unit of analysis is the relation of thought alone AND
>>>> speech alone AND image alone AND all their actual fusions as other
>>>>      
>>> partial
>>>    
>>>> modes.
>>>> This as a multi-modal understanding.
>>>> I hope this is the right length
>>>> Larry
>>>>      
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>  
>