[Xmca-l] Re: sense, meaning and inner aspect of word

[Andy Blunden]

That makes sense to me (pardon the pun). "You" is a good way 
of explaining it.
I *must* study "Marxism and the Philosophy of Language"!
It makes a lot more sense to me that Vygotsky would be 
appropriating Voloshinov than Paulhan or Shpet, quite 
honestly. So, he was "edited out" was he?!

https://www.marxists.org/archive/voloshinov/1929/marxism-language.htm

Andy
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/


David Kellogg wrote:
> The weird thing, Andy, is that Paulhan never said any such thing. 
> Vygotsky's referring to Paulhan's essay "Qu'est-ce que le sens des 
> mots?" where Paulhan, who is a Christian minister and not to be 
> confused with his well known philosopher father, simply takes the 
> banal view that words have connotations as well as denotations. 
> Paulhan becomes extremely distressed when he tries to explain what the 
> denotation of a phrase like "inexpressible in words" is, and gives up. 
> When he tackles the whole question at book length, he uses completely 
> different categories of analysis.
>
> I have always believed, and now I am quite sure, that this section of 
> Thinking and Speech originally referred to Volosinov's distinction 
> between "thema" and "meaning", from "Marxism and the Philosophy of 
> Language". "Thema" is the concrete sense that a word has in a specific 
> situation: it is what "you" means when I use it to refer to Andy 
> Blundent. "Meaning" is all the potential meanings that a word might 
> have, considered abstractly: it is what "you" means in the dictionary, 
> in general, as a potential way of addressing every single or group of 
> humans on earth. All words have both, but some have more of one and 
> others have more of the other (e.g. proper nouns have more Theme and 
> common nouns more meaning; verbs, which are all common verbs in the 
> sense that we don't try to pretend that actions are once-occurent, are 
> more Theme when they are tensed and more Meaning when they are 
> infinitive).
>
> Lucien Seve confirms that Vygotsky was a close reader of Volosinov, 
> particularly in the last few years when both were teaching at Herzen 
> Pedagogical Institute in Leningrad (and both were dying of 
> tuberculosis). Vygotsky's references to Volosinov were all edited out 
> of his works.
>
> David Kellogg
> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
>
> On 27 January 2015 at 14:16, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net 
> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
>     Larry, this question (the meaning of "the inner aspect of a word,
>     its meaning" has come up before, and I think not satisfactorily
>     answered.
>     I did a search on "Thinking and Speech" for all the uses of the
>     word "inner". 283 of the 329 of them are "inner speech" and all
>     the others are referring to mental or psychological, and then
>     there's "inner aspect of a word."
>     The related term is "sense," and in Chapter 7, citing Paulhan
>     apparently with approval, he says:
>
>        "First, in inner speech, we find a predominance of the word’s sense
>        over its meaning. Paulhan significantly advanced the psychological
>        analysis of speech by introducing the distinction between a word’s
>        sense and meaning. A word’s sense is the aggregate of all the
>        psychological facts that arise in our consciousness as a result of
>        the word. Sense is a dynamic, fluid, and complex formation
>     which has
>        several zones that vary in their stability. Meaning is only one of
>        these zones of the sense that the word acquires in the context of
>        speech. It is the most stable, unified, and precise of these
>     zones."
>
>     So a word's sense is the *totality* of "*all* the psychological
>     facts that arise in our consciousness as a result of the word."
>     But meaning (i.e., I suggest, "sense") "is only *one of these
>     zones" of the sense that the word acquires in the context of speech."
>     So the inner aspect of the word is *part* of the totality of the
>     psychological facts that arise as a result of the word.
>     Specifically, it is what we intend, or "the most stable, unified,
>     and precise of these zones," whereas in uttering the word there
>     are all sorts of associated feelings etc., which are not "meant"
>     but are part of the sense nonetheless.
>
>     ?
>
>     Andy
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     *Andy Blunden*
>     http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
>     <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
>
>
>     Larry Purss wrote:
>
>         Henry
>         I am referring to chapter 9 in the book "The Cambridge
>         Companion to
>         Vygotsky"
>         Here is the link to google books
>
>         https://books.google.ca/books?id=pn3S9TEjvUAC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
>         <https://books.google.ca/books?id=pn3S9TEjvUAC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false>
>
>         Henry, what is "inner form" ? The answer to this is very
>         complicated and
>         includes exploring the relation of "sense and meaning"  II
>         would recommend
>         getting the book from a library as every chapter is interesting.
>         Vladimir Zinchenko's chapter I found very informative as
>         Vladimir puts
>         Vygotsky and Shpet into dialogue in a way that offers a close
>         reading of
>         Vygotsky.
>
>         Today Peter sent a page on this same topic. The sentence
>         "in other words, we are dealing with signs that do not only
>         refer to things
>         but also express some MEANING." (Shpet, 1927)
>
>         Inner form is the exploration of the "but also express some
>         meaning"
>
>         There is the external referring to things AND the "internal
>         form" the
>         aspect of sign that expresses the "living form" of word,
>         image, and action.
>
>         As Martin and Mike have mentioned we are exploring the
>         phenomena that
>         emerges from within the "gap" and does involve imaginal processes.
>
>         This is my interpretation of "inner form" but I would invite
>         others to
>         correct my [mis]understanding on the way to more clarity
>         Larry
>
>         On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 9:49 AM, HENRY SHONERD
>         <hshonerd@gmail.com <mailto:hshonerd@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>          
>
>             Larry,
>             Please help me:
>             1) What is “inner form”?
>             2) I can’t find the Zinchenko article in my emails. Was it
>             sent out or a
>             link to it?
>             Thanks for your help.
>             Henry
>                
>
>
>
>