[Xmca-l] Re: Ruqaiya Hasan

[Greg Thompson]

David,
Yes, what you say makes very good sense to me.

But perhaps I'm not making as much sense to me, so let me clarify a few
things to myself if no one else.

This will involve some back tracking, a little back pedaling (I wanted to
spell that "peddling" but caught myself - but perhaps there is truth there
too! Ah, words!), and maybe some back stroking (just because it is 100+
degrees here and has been so for the last two weeks!).

First, the back peddling
So I probably shouldn't have mentioned the bit about too easily fitting
data into a theory. I said that with this other author (Van Kleeck) in mind
and without good knowledge of Hasan's (and even Bernstein's) work. Even as
I wrote it, I was already thinking that it probably isn't apropos for their
work. So my apologies for throwing in that red herring. My sense is that
Hasan's work is extremely theoretically rigorous and I really didn't mean
to suggest that it was otherwise (even though I did suggest this).

Next, the back tracking:

Two ideas that I need to revisit: methods for studying contexts, and
whether or not there are other ways to get to cognition - other than
schooling.

First, with regard to the methods for studying contexts of talk and such,
yes, it is true, this is not an easy thing to study. Contexts are entailed
by talk itself and thus are not presupposable. The result is that measuring
them can be difficult. As much art as science.

And yet, as we go through our daily lives, with some not infrequent
exceptions, we generally do very well at figuring out what kinds of
contexts we are "in" in any given moment (whether an argument (heated or
not), a discussion, a practical joke, or a thought experiment). So then,
the question becomes, if we can do it (well enough to "get along" as
Wittgenstein says), then why can't someone studying context do it?

Linguistic anthropologists and sociolinguists have come up with an answer,
and it generally falls under the name of "contextualization." This points
to the process by which contexts are indicated (cf. Gumperz'
"contextualization cues"). Studying contextualization involves a theory of
"enough-ness" - that is to say, that there is enough pointing to a given
context being the most salient that one can reasonably conclude that it is
likely to be the context that is constraining and enabling participants'
acts-in-context. (Michael Silverstein's classic piece on contextualization
- "The Indeterminacy of Contextualization: When is enough enough?" - lays
out this approach - I have a copy in case anyone is interested - just email
me).

What this method lacks in big numbers data, it makes up for in
meaningfulness. I think this is where the large corpus research is lacking.
Large corpus research can show the distribution of different words or
collections of words or grammatical features or whatever and how these
correlate with other easily quantifiable features (e.g., income or wealth
or education or some combination of whatever proxy you would use for
indicating those persons who are "low-income" - and even here you'll get
some who aren't what they seem to be...). But in counting distributions,
you quickly lose meaningfulness. If you are going to do a count of the
distribution of a given word, e.g. "this" in a massive corpus, it is highly
unlikely that you will be able to document each instance of usage and what
it means in that context, much less what that context means! Or, to put it
more positively, what large corpus research lacks in meaningfulness, it
makes up for in representativeness (i.e., we know that the data are highly
representative of the population which they claim to represent, even if we
don't really know what they "mean" for the users).

What I'm saying here is a rather old story that everyone has heard before
and probably in clearer terms than what I have introduced somewhat ad hoc
(representativeness? really?) so I don't want to belabor the point. But I
thought it worth mentioning that I happen to err on the side of being
willing to sacrifice representativeness for meaningfulness (perhaps a
result of a sense of disenchantment with my late capitalist context? or my
whiteness? cf. Paul's emails). I'll choose the scale of a forty five minute
interaction over the scale of 45 million interactions any day. As a result,
I'm willing to lose some of the representativeness. You might say, I prefer
the artfulness of analyzing talk over the science of it. But that's just
me. And a caution, the big money is in the representativeness.

Second, regarding whether or not there are other ways, other than
schooling, to get to the types of capacities that everyone cares about
("cognition" as some describe it), what I am suggesting is simply that
schooling might not be the only way to get to something like "scientific
concepts." [please note that my point was not the Piagetian point that
these capacities naturally unfold in time but rather that it may be the
case that there are other ways of getting there - more Durkheim, and I like
to think, Vygotsky, than Piaget]. I would call these cultural alternatives
to schooling that nonetheless accomplish complex capacities.

Thinking about this in terms of "scientific concepts" is a bit more radical
of a way of thinking about the argument than what I had in mind, but I'll
leave that as a potential to be developed (and maybe others have already
made this case?). What I was thinking about were skills like
meta-linguistic awareness (again I'm more engaged here with the Van Kleeck
article than I am with Hasan or Bernstein; there is a long tradition in
CHAT of finding other cultural ways of doing things that were thought to be
the result of schooling - I have Lave and Wenger in mind here but there are
many others). For example, there are types of talk that can provoke certain
forms of metalinguistic awareness. Teasing is a cultural practice in which
one's words are not what they denote. This can provoke a substantial
reorganization of the child's understanding of what language IS as an
object. If the child encounters this cultural practice enough (and has the
minimal developments in discursive abilities to be able to grasp the sense
of teasing - no, Piaget is not dead!), then one will realize that the word
is not the thing. This is perhaps a more minimal form of metalinguistic
awareness, but it is nonetheless an important accomplishment that can
ground other more complex language usage abilities. And it isn't in
schooling. So perhaps I should have said that I was simply suggesting that
schooling isn't the ONLY way to get to these capacities.

As for my readings of Marx, perhaps the point here is that we run in
different circles (you in the authentic and genuine Marxist circles, me in
the bourgeois Marxist circles!). (circles = contexts?).

Or, perhaps, we just draw our circles differently. I had imagined drawing
the Marxian circle a bit larger than the Marxist circle, and in the former
I had included the likes of Paul Willis whose book Learning to Labour is,
in part, an argument about why there has not yet been a revolution. The
answer he offers is that working class culture has certain limitations that
keep them from penetrating the dominant ideology. Along these lines I
thought that the whole false consciousness, in all its variants - from Marx
on down, was essentially a way of answering the question "why no
revolution?" and perhaps it would be too strong to say that it does this by
laying it at the feet of the proletariat, but it at least seems the case
that the failings of the proletariat have something to do with our
collective failure to realize the revolutionary transformations called for
in Communism. [and yes, there is a robust history by Marxian (again, larger
category) historian scholars who have tried to explain why so many union
members voted for Reagan in the 80's. For another take on this, consider
the book What's the Matter with Kansas? - a popular classic seeking to
invoke false consciousness as the reason why so many poor and working class
people in middle america vote Republican. But maybe this is a pastime of
American Marxians? Again, different circles, whether lived or drawn...].

And with regard to Marx's view of the worker, I don't have my Marx-Engels
reader with me but I seem to recall a number of places in the Economic and
Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 in the sections on alienated/estranged
labor where Marx suggests that the worker is essentially reduced to an
animal - alienated from his species being. I understand that there are
different ways to read this and imagine that you read it quite differently,
but the words (or something to that effect) are there.

But again, I fear that this may be a bit too much red herring for me as
well. Not where I'm writing right now so I fear I'm not up to the task of
extended discussion on the topic.

Enough?

Now on to the back-stroking.. (if only I could find a body of water in this
drought blighted land...).

-greg




On Wed, Jul 1, 2015 at 2:34 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:

> Greg:
>
>
> Consider the following two expressions. They are not made up.
>
>
> b) Brother Barack
>
>
> a) President Obama
>
>
> Toennies would say that the first reflects a Gemeinschaft orientation,
> because :
>
>
> 1. It suggests MECHANICAL unity—all of us are units of an identical type
> (“brothers”).
>
>
> 2. It suggests OUTWARDLY IMPOSED solidarity (“Me against my brother, but me
> and my brother against my cousin, and me, my brother and my cousin against
> the world.”)
>
>
> 3. It suggests that “WE” is more important than “I”; the rules of the
> collective over-rule the choices of the individual, and WHAT you are (a
> brother) is more important than WHO you are.
>
>
> In contrast, the second reflects a Gesellschaft orientation because:
>
>
> 1. It suggests an ORGANIC unity—a president is not a vice-president or
> supreme court justice, or a senator, or a voter, and is not interchangeable
> with any of them.
>
>
> 2. It suggests an INWARDLY-ESTABLISHED interdependence. A president is not
> the president because of some outside threat but instead is an individual
> function that depends on the functioning of the others inside society.
>
>
> 3. It suggests that INDIVIDUAL capacities are more important to this
> hierarchy than common shared capabilities: the president is a unique
> individual, not a brother like any other.
>
>
> The first, Gemeinschaft, orientation is an orientation towards a particular
> code.  Ruqaiya makes some falsifiable predictions about this code
> orientation:
>
>
> 1.  There will be a much higher frequency of exophoric reference (“this”
> and “that” rather than common nouns). This is implicit in forms of
> cooperation that people in a Gemeinschaft use—they are more likely to be
> doing the same things with the same objects at the same time.
>
>
> 2. There will be a simpler structure in nominal groups (Deictics like “the”
> and “a” rather than epithets and classifiers like “splendid” and
> “electric”). This is implicit in the outwardly imposed solidarity, because
> common understandings of common objects imposed by common boundaries do not
> need to be articulated.
>
>
> 3. There will be an implicatory hierarchy. That is, “Brother Barack” will
> have a narrower and more restricted use than “President Obama”.  This is
> implicit in the fact that a) uses a given name while b) uses a family name.
>
>
> Demonstrative examples, by definition, demonstrate some of the hypotheses
> we want to test. So for example “Brother” is more exophoric in its
> reference than “President”:  “Brother” is, as Vygotsky reminds us, a
> factual relationship rather than one which depends on an abstract
> definition. So its meaning lies in everyday contact with similar brothers
> rather than a verbal hierarchy. Similarly, “Brother Barack” has a simpler
> structure than “President Obama”—the first consists of two morphemes
> (“Brother” and “Barack”), while the second consists of at least three
> (‘preside” “!ent”, and “Obama”), and possibly four (“pre~”).  And of course
> “Brother” does not refer to a legalistic hierarchy of concepts while
> “President” does.
>
>
> Nevertheless, all these predictions are falsifiable. Yes, they are
> statements that are made on the basis of a theory (like Vygotsky’s
> experiments, Ruqaiya’s research was always theory driven). Yes, the
> demonstrative examples are chosen to demonstrate them (like Vygotsky’s
> examples, Ruqaiya’s tend to be cherry-picked with the theory in mind). So
> far this is no different from the articles by Lucy and Gaskins and
> Kockelmann that you sent me—the former is based on a theory-driven
> experiment and the latter a cherry-picked example.
>
>
> We don’t have to stay with theory-driven statements and cherry-picked
> examples. We can take a large amount of data and a willing graduate
> student, code the data and find out whether each one is true or false, and
> in fact that’s exactly what Ruqaiya did.
>
>
> I don’t think the same thing is true of this statement, from your last
> post:
>
>
>  “...(B)eware of putting too much about the way people speak into the
> people themselves. It is more often the case that the contexts that people
> habitually encounter call forth certain ways of speaking.”
>
>
> How would we be able to falsify that a particular way of speaking was
> called forth by a context? How could we verify that it was some ideal
> essence of the person himself?
>
>
> I guess I feel the same way when you say that it is problematic to imagine
> that “these ways of speaking limit how (working class people) could
> possibly speak/think.” I agree that it’s problematic, but not for the same
> reason that you do. It’s problematic because it implies that there is some
> infinite potential for speaking and thinking that has nothing to do with
> the way we actually do think and speak. It’s problematic for me because it
> seems to suggest that there is some other way of finding out how someone
> could possibly speak than by the way they speak. What?
>
>
> You say: “It seems a bit too much to argue that pedagogy can actually shape
> consciousness.”
>
>
> That is, of course, precisely the argument that Vygotsky makes in Chapter
> Six of Thinking and Speech. I think it’s actually quite difficult to find
> people in the teaching profession that do not subscribe to this argument in
> one form or another.The argument you are making, that is, that
> consciousness cannot be shaped by teaching and learning, was eventually
> abandoned by even its most ardent defender, Jean Piaget.
>
>
>
> But let us say that you and Piaget are right, and that human consciousness
> is essentially inert to the process of teaching and learning. No, let us go
> further—let’s say that you and Piaget are right, and that human
> consciousness is essentially inert to the way people speak. What exactly is
> this consciousness you speak of,  which cannot be shaped by either class or
> by classrooms or even by language? How might it be accessible?  Certainly
> the ways that consciousness is accessed in the articles you sent me are
> crucially dependent on the use of language, both to access consciousness
> and to assess it.
>
>
> I’m afraid I think there is a much simpler explanation for your unease with
> Bernstein. As you surmise, he’s "Marxian". And as you write:
>
>  “Julie Lindquist takes up, among other things, the Marxian notion that
> working class people don't think counterfactually.”
>
>
> This statement assumes that such a Marxian notion exists to be taken up.
> After a life time spent amongst Marxians of almost every stripe, I can tell
> you that I have never heard this idea put out to be taken up by any of
> them. In fact, I find it pretty hard to understand how any Marxian could
> hold this view, since one of the basic tenets of Marxism is that working
> class people are uniquely capable of socialist consciousness, and of course
> socialist consciousness was counterfactual, even during the twelve years I
> lived in China (the Chinese government in the 1980s did not argue that
> China was a developed socialist society and in fact explicitly said that
> there would be at least a hundred years of pre-socialist development before
> we could speak of true socialism).
>
>
> Similarly:
>
>
> “People on the left see it as evidence of the malicious effects of
> capitalism  (that) working class people have a degraded consciousness and
> that is why they are working class (i.e., because of their degraded
> consciousness, they can't realize the nature of their oppression and/or how
> to rise up against their oppressor, or, most commonly, they don't vote in
> their interests - with the Democratic party).”
>
>
> This assumes that when working class people rise up against their
> oppressors—e.g. when they do not vote for the Democratic Party—they somehow
> cease to be working class. I have never heard any leftist articulate any
> such point of view, and I am fairly sure that it does not exist. Like the
> previous statement, it is a "demonstrative" which contains an assumption
> which is demonstrably incompatible with Marxism, namely that consciousness
> determines being rather than the other way around.
>
>
> Similarly:
>
>
> “Karl Marx ‘saw’ in the working class a degraded and almost sub-human
> consciousness.”
>
>
> This assumes that Marx considered workers not fully human. I have read a
> great deal of Marx’s work (that is what I was doing when I was working in
> South Chicago—I did frequent bars after work, but South Shore was a black
> working class neighborhood then, and although people did consider me weird
> for being red, they considered me a lot weirder for being white). I have
> never seen anything in Marx's work that suggests that he believed workers
> to be subhuman. And, once again, it is very hard to square with Marx’s
> belief that only the working class has both the social power and the
> interests to organize society in a rational and truly human way.
>
>
> Of course, this assumes that "interests" and "consciousness" can be
> causally related. Perhaps that's where you disagree?
>
>
> David Kellogg
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 3:48 AM, Dr. Paul C. Mocombe <
> pmocombe@mocombeian.com
> > wrote:
>
> > Henry... i would love to continue the thread.  If you all have time, I
> > would like you all to listen to this brief talk to get a better
> > understanding of how I view Obama and white supremacy...
> >
> >
> >
> https://m.soundcloud.com/blockreportradio/ezili-danto-speaks-on-haitian-political-history
> >
> >
> >
> > Sent on a Sprint Samsung Galaxy Note® II
> >
> > <div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: HENRY SHONERD <
> > hshonerd@gmail.com> </div><div>Date:07/01/2015  1:34 PM  (GMT-05:00)
> > </div><div>To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <
> xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> > </div><div>Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Ruqaiya Hasan </div><div>
> > </div>David, Greg, Paul, Carol, Larry, et. al.,
> > I am having difficulty staying up with this thread, partly because I need
> > time to digest the posts, partly because the proffered readings take time
> > to digest. But I would encourage you all to keep the thread from going
> off
> > line. Please let it die out where we can all be present.
> >
> > I find it helpful to think of dialog as a negotiation. And it seems to me
> > that much of what is happening with this thread is just that. Also, from
> > looking at a link to Greg’s work, it is also about recognition.
> > Accordingly, the negotiation for recognition of points of view, meanings
> of
> > words, data, and probably much else, is very metalinguistic: talking
> about
> > what we are talking about. I think there is a tension here between
> wanting
> > to make language transparent, that is language that doesn’t call
> attention
> > to itself, and recognizing that for communication to happen at all, there
> > has to be SOME attention to conversational repair, making language an
> > explicit object during conversation. That can come off as effete
> > intellectualism. At the very least, it takes time.
> >
> > But, I don’t think that that tension is present just in working-class
> > bars. Many CHATters mays think this thread has gone on too long, that the
> > juice has been squeezed out of it. The question, also I think, often
> boils
> > down to whether the repair is imposed on the speaker/writer  or the
> > speaker/writergets to repair their own talk. Face is a big deal for all
> of
> > us, which is why I think the recogntition/negotiation issue is always “on
> > stage” (Vygotsky’s term) in dialog. My involvement in this thread is data
> > for me: I took issue with David’s construal of Obama’s Charleson church
> > speech as “heartless”; Paul and David responded with vigor and rigor. I
> > lost a bit of face and cut my losses by (I think) wisely choosing not to
> > take another turn in response. But I want to, I hope, gain a little face
> > back by doing some self-repair right now in this dialog: I had not really
> > listened to Obama’s eulogy, just sound bites. Mea culpa, but, like I
> said,
> > I am trying hard to keep up.I don’t think this is false humility. I have
> > plenty to be humble about. But I want respect and my self-repair, I hope,
> > helps just a little bit to establish my credibility as a serious and
> > credible member of this community. This is important to me.
> >
> > This chat isn’t a working class bar, but it’s still all about working.
> (Or
> > playing, but play is serious stuff.) A researcher interested in using
> > Ruqaiya’s thinking to look at language in the real world would (and
> will, I
> > hope) do the kind of large-scale data collection and analysis that David
> > argues for. Still, I find that the ideas (as I understand them, and I
> > realize that it’s pretty much my own fault if I don't) are already useful
> > to me in understanding and negotiating the world, all of it. I don’t
> always
> > know immediately when a theory is useful in this way, but I stick with
> this
> > chat, well, for the same reason those guys (and they are mostly guys
> > probably) kept going back to that bar in Chicago. Well, maybe not for
> > exactly the same reasons. I’m not drinking right now. But some of you may
> > be. Or something else. Funny that the ethnography was written by a woman
> > (Lindquist). Hmmm….
> > Henry
> >
> > > On Jul 1, 2015, at 9:29 AM, Lplarry <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Greg
> > > Your questioning the assumption that pedagogy "does" or "does not"
> > transform consciousness contrasted with the configuration that it is our
> > interactional habitual turn taking within particular situations
> (contexts)
> > > IS a question I want to highlight.
> > > What do we bring to the "fore" in the concept "there/fore".
> > >
> > > We could focus on the "there"
> > > We could focus on the interval "/" between the "there" and the "fore"
> > > We could focus on the "fore"
> > >
> > > Is where we "focus" habitual within places of situated practices
> > >
> > > Or
> > >
> > > Is where we "focus" emerge within pedogogy/bildung that "trans/forms"
> > consciousness and in THIS shift in consciousness our places of habitual
> > practicing changes??
> > >
> > > I just ordered Lindquist's .
> > >
> > > I will pause here, but draw attention to the root/stem of the word
> > "focus" is "hearth/home"
> > >
> > > So where our focus abides is where we abide.
> > >
> > > Does pedagogy "trans" form "focus" and there/fore carry us to another
> > "home"?
> > > Does "bildung" carry or "trans" form FOCUS?
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: "Greg Thompson" <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
> > > Sent: ‎2015-‎06-‎30 10:58 PM
> > > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Ruqaiya Hasan
> > >
> > > David,
> > > This is helpful for me and my very substantial naivete about Hassan and
> > > Bernstein. I'm going to have to do some tracking down of these sources
> > (you
> > > wouldn't by any chance have PDF's that you could share with me
> offline?),
> > > but I fear that I'm still not understanding the demonstratives that you
> > > offered. In the 10, 11, 12 example that you provided from Hasan, what
> is
> > > the point with regard to elaborated or restricted? (or whatever
> dimension
> > > she sees as relevant? or if no dimensions are relevant, then what would
> > > Hasan have to say about these three examples and what they have to say
> > > about anything? I'm still a little lost. I warned you that I'm slow!).
> > >
> > > Also, I thought I might summarize my concern with an example, also from
> > the
> > > south side of Chicago - but the other south side - the white one. (and
> > yes,
> > > I'm raising some questions about the relevant community we would assign
> > to
> > > the code - I suspect that the south side Chicago codes that you speak
> of
> > is
> > > probably closer to the code spoken in Mississippi than to the south
> side
> > > Chicago code described below).
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://www.amazon.com/Place-Stand-Persuasion-Working-Class-Sociolinguistics/dp/0195140389
> > > In a wonderful ethnography of a white working class bar on the South
> Side
> > > of Chicago conducted while she was working as a bartender, Julie
> > Lindquist
> > > takes up, among other things, the Marxian notion that working class
> > people
> > > don't think counterfactually (and yes, I'm entirely sincere when I say
> > that
> > > this is a wonderful ethnography - fantastically thick description with
> > long
> > > chunks of transcripts of actual conversations at the bar - very nicely
> > > done). In her book, she presents a number of examples of arguments that
> > > broke out in the bar in which people appear to refuse to think
> > > counterfactually.
> > >
> > > Unfortunately, in the material included in the book, she misses an
> > example
> > > in which the patrons do, in fact, employ counterfactuals.
> > >
> > > So that is caution #1 when doing this kind of work, there is a tendency
> > to
> > > miss examples that don't conform to one's theory. This can of course
> > happen
> > > in many different ways and typically for non-nefarious reasons.
> > >
> > > But there is another, perhaps more serious, concern here. It may, in
> > fact,
> > > be the case that you do see fewer counterfactuals in working class
> bars.
> > > Where this gets troubling is when this gets extended to the
> consciousness
> > > of "those" people. People on the political left and right both have a
> > kind
> > > of fascination with this kind of thinking. People on the left see it as
> > > evidence of the malicious effects of capitalism - working class people
> > have
> > > a degraded consciousness and that is why they are working class (i.e.,
> > > because of their degraded consciousness, they can't realize the nature
> of
> > > their oppression and/or how to rise up against their oppressor, or,
> most
> > > commonly, they don't vote in their interests - with the Democratic
> > party).
> > > People on the right see it as evidence that capitalist meritocracy
> works
> > -
> > > working class people have a degraded consciousness and that is why they
> > are
> > > working class. And perhaps it is telling that both Adam Smith and Karl
> > Marx
> > > "saw" in the working class a degraded and almost sub-human
> consciousness.
> > > Of course, it is likely that Marx got much of this insight from Adam
> > Smith
> > > who pointed out that this was a real problem of capitalism and the
> reason
> > > why capitalist nations need universal education (and despite the
> > crassness
> > > of his descriptions of working class people, Smith truly believed that
> > the
> > > "ignorance" and "stupidity" of the person working in the pin factory
> was
> > > the result of the nature of the work itself, not due to any inherent
> > > properties of the working man himself - so his position was actually
> much
> > > closer to Marx's position than to the Republican position today).
> > >
> > > My concern, then, is that this isn't so much a matter as the
> > consciousness
> > > of a people as it is the practical stuff of the interactions that are
> to
> > be
> > > had there. If you are at all familiar with the feeling of a white
> working
> > > class bar on the south side of Chicago, then you will appreciate the
> fact
> > > that that there are things that one does and there are things that one
> > > doesn't do when in such a place. One thing that one (generally) doesn't
> > do
> > > is to speak "like an academic". You're likely to get your ass kicked if
> > you
> > > talk that way. So then you, as a speaker in a working class bar, have
> to
> > > choose (David, I like your idea of "volitional", but would imagine
> > > different timescales of volitionalality, e.g., having multiple
> > repertoires
> > > and being able to choose among them in the moment vs. choosing to learn
> > or
> > > take on a different repertoire over a longer course of time). So, in
> the
> > > bar, do you choose to risk appearing like an effete impudent
> intellectual
> > > snob (David, I assume you recognize these words, and yes, these white
> > > working class folks are largely Republican - Reagan-ites), or do you
> take
> > > up the pose of the self-respecting white working class man who "tells
> it
> > > like it is" (not how it "might be"!)?
> > >
> > > The point is simply to beware of putting too much about the way people
> > > speak into the people themselves. It is more often the case that the
> > > contexts that people habitually encounter call forth certain ways of
> > > speaking. But to say that these ways of speaking limit how they could
> > > possibly speak/think, that seems a bit problematic for me.
> > >
> > > And, without having read the pieces that you sent along David, the
> title
> > of
> > > the book from which the Cloran piece is taken (Pedagogy and the Shaping
> > of
> > > Consciousness) leaves me very anxious about precisely this point. It
> > seems
> > > a bit too much to argue that pedagogy can actually shape consciousness.
> > But
> > > I may well be reading too much into the title. Any further insights
> here
> > > would be much appreciated.
> > >
> > > Best,
> > > greg
> > >
> > > p.s., David, perhaps you have been in this very situation?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 6:10 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > >> Yes, I was trying to keep it short.
> > >>
> > >> The key text is:
> > >>
> > >> Hasan, R. (1973). Code, Register, and Social Dialect. In Bernstein, B.
> > >> (ed.) Class, Codes and Control, Vol. 2: Applied Studies towards a
> > Sociology
> > >> of Language. London: Routledge Kegan Paul.
> > >>
> > >> Also:
> > >>
> > >> Halliday, M.A.K. (1972). Towards a Sociological Semantics. In
> Collected
> > >> Works of M.A.K. Halliday, vol. 3, London: Continuum, pp. 323-354.
> > >>
> > >> The examples I gave were made up especially for you. I am not a native
> > >> speaker of South Chicago English, but I remember thinking that "be"
> > >> insertion is sometimes a sign of counteractuality (as in "They be
> > sayin" as
> > >> opposed to "they said" or "they say"), and so a sign of the
> conditional.
> > >> That is, where North Chicago and Loop English will use "if" and then
> the
> > >> future tense to express conditionality ("If you get that dirty, I'll
> > smack
> > >> you") South Chicago English uses the more direct form, the conjuntion
> > >> "and", and then "be" insertion to suggest the conditional ("Get that
> > dirty
> > >> and I be hit yo up side yo face").  But I don't really know; this is
> > one of
> > >> those situations where we need an authentic speaker and not just a
> > genuine
> > >> one.
> > >>
> > >> Here are Hasan's examples (also made up).
> > >>
> > >> (10) If you climb up that wall you may hurt yourself.
> > >> (11) You climb up that wall and I'll take a stick to you.
> > >> (12) If you climb up that wall you may ruin your nice new shirt. (p.
> 69,
> > >> but that's in my Chinese copy).
> > >>
> > >> Ruqaiya's point is that (10) and (12) differ in meaning but the
> > difference
> > >> doesn't cover the whole clause complex but only the result of the
> > >> condition, whereas in (10) and (11) it covers the whole complex,
> > including
> > >> the way that the condition is worded: this suggests--but of course it
> > >> doesn't prove--a more general, more genetic causation, rather than a
> > merely
> > >> functional one.
> > >>
> > >> I don't think any examples--Ruqaiya's or my own--are meant to be
> > anything
> > >> more than demonstrative, Greg. In order to see real evidence, we need
> > very
> > >> large data bases and some way of looking at significant wordings. This
> > was
> > >> done by Ruqaiya's student:
> > >>
> > >> Cloran, C. (1999) Contexts for learning. In Christie, F. (Ed) Pedagogy
> > and
> > >> the shaping of consciousness: Linguistic and social processes. London:
> > >> Continuum, pp. 31-65.
> > >>
> > >> She compares categories like "action", "commentary", "observation",
> > >> "reflection", "report", "account", "generalization", "plan",
> > "prediction",
> > >> "conjecture" and "recount' (storytelling). The big differences came in
> > >> "generalization" (elaborated code +) and "action" (restricted code +),
> > and
> > >> the differences were statistically highly significant (Mann Whitney
> > test).
> > >>
> > >> David Kellogg
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> On Wed, Jul 1, 2015 at 8:24 AM, Greg Thompson <
> > greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
> > >> wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> David,
> > >>> Thanks for this elaboration (!) of Hasan, Bernstein, and a bit of
> > >> Halliday.
> > >>> Very dense and lots for me to learn. I'm absorbing it as best I
> can...
> > >>>
> > >>> Two clarification that might help me in my understanding:
> > >>>
> > >>> 1. Are your a) and b) actual recorded examples of talk? I found the
> use
> > >> of
> > >>> the habitual be to feel a bit out of place (unless the point was that
> > the
> > >>> parent was going to repeatedly (habitually) be hitting the child
> upside
> > >>> their face).
> > >>>
> > >>> 2. If these are actual examples of talk, could you help me make more
> > >> direct
> > >>> links between what Bernstein/Hasan have to say about these examples
> and
> > >> the
> > >>> examples themselves? I think I'm getting the point about code vs.
> > dialect
> > >>> vs. register but I'm confused about the specific analysis you offer
> > when
> > >>> you write:
> > >>> "Accordingly, in a restricted coding orientation, like b), the
> > >> orientation
> > >>> is to sameness, to objective rules that bind us together in communal
> > >>> solidarity, and therefore not towards individual choices.In an
> > elaborated
> > >>> coding orientation, like a), the orientation is to difference, to
> > >>> individual motivation, and towards interdependence."
> > >>>
> > >>> There is a leap here (perhaps justified) between the examples as I
> read
> > >>> them and the claims about orientation and as a result I wasn't clear
> > how
> > >>> these features were manifest in the examples.
> > >>>
> > >>> Sorry for being so restricted in my reading, and many thanks for your
> > >>> multiple elaborations!
> > >>>
> > >>> -greg
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 3:44 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com
> >
> > >>> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>> Everybody:
> > >>>>
> > >>>> First of all, I appreciate--nay, I share--every moment of Paul's
> rage.
> > >>> And
> > >>>> even some of his incoherence, although I suspect some of it is due
> to
> > >> his
> > >>>> use of a hand-held device. I really should have explained my
> comments
> > >> on
> > >>>> Obama's speech much better. Yes, Henry--I did think it was stupid
> and
> > >>>> heartless. It was stupid in its lack of logic (God makes things
> worse
> > >> so
> > >>>> that we'll make them better) and its lack of irony (we don't deserve
> > >>>> "grace" but God gives it to us anyway--out of the barrel of a
> racist's
> > >>>> gun). It was heartless in its emphasis on healing (forgiveness is
> not
> > >>> only
> > >>>> an impossible but an impudent demand, because the only people who
> have
> > >>> the
> > >>>> right to forgive the killer are dead; what the survivors now need is
> > >>> called
> > >>>> "justice").
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Secondly, I'm really in awe of Greg's exegeses on Bernstein and
> Hymes,
> > >>> and
> > >>>> I don't think it at all beside the point. I am re-reading Ruqaiya's
> > >>>> Collected Works right now, and there is a lot there, all of it
> > >> relevant.
> > >>>> But I want to extract only two points--Ruqaiya's careful distinction
> > >>>> between dialect, register and code, and her rejection of the
> > >> distinction
> > >>>> between competence and performance.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Consider the following pair of sentences, spoken to two six year
> olds:
> > >>>>
> > >>>> a) If you get your new shirt dirty,you'll be sorry.
> > >>>> b) Get dat dirty an I be hit you up side yo face.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> The difference in dialect extends right down from the meaning (the
> > >>>> semantics), to the wording (the lexicogrammar), to the phonology
> (the
> > >>>> "sounding"). It is also, contrary to what people think, mostly
> > >>> volitional:
> > >>>> you can choose to lose your dialect, and many people do. You can
> also
> > >>>> choose to acquire a new one, and when Paul complains about the
> > >>>> inauthenticity of Obama's dialect he is pointing to the fact that it
> > is
> > >>>> voluntary (although I should point out that while Obama was indeed
> > >> raised
> > >>>> in a white family, he was also raised in a state where whites were a
> > >>>> minority). Unlike Paul, I believe the voluntary quality of a dialect
> > >> is a
> > >>>> guarantee of its genuineness (that is, its meaningfulness to the
> > user),
> > >>> and
> > >>>> I am not a big fan of authenticity (since I am mostly a second
> > language
> > >>>> user myself). Authentic dialects have an essentially conventional,
> > >>>> meaningless relationship to the people who are born into them;
> genuine
> > >>>> dialects have a relationship of choice (whether the user is born
> into
> > >> the
> > >>>> dialect and chooses to retain it or the user has to learn it
> > >> deliberately
> > >>>> as an act of identity), and for that reason they are more meaningful
> > >>>> (because for Ruqaiya meaning is always paradigmatic; it implies you
> > >> could
> > >>>> have done or said something else but you didn't). Either way, a
> > dialect
> > >>> is
> > >>>> a distinction of the user, and not of the use.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> The difference in register is much more slight; it does not include
> > the
> > >>>> phonology but it certainly does include the wording. Labov would
> > >>>> concentrate on the non-standard use of the copula (and a lot of his
> > >>>> argument on the complexity of AAVE has to do with the complex rules
> > for
> > >>>> copula insertion and deletion). Halliday would concentrate on other
> > >>> factors
> > >>>> which are less formal: In one case, the newness of the shirt is
> > >> specified
> > >>>> while in the other it is left exotropic (that is, in the here and
> now
> > >>>> rather than encoded eternally in the language). In one case, the
> > >>>> consequence is left somewhat vague: it is quite possible, although
> > >>>> unlikely, that the six year old will not interpret the utterance as
> a
> > >>>> threat, while in the second it is much more specific and concrete.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> But the difference in code orientation is very clear, and my wife,
> who
> > >>> grew
> > >>>> up with the Chinese equivalent of b) in her ears, recognized it
> > >>>> immediately. Bernstein derived coding orientation from the ideas of
> > >>>> Toennies, and in particular his distinction between Gemeinschaft
> > >>>> (community, solidarity, mechanical unity) and Gesellschaft (society,
> > >>>> interdependence, organic unity). In a Gemeinschaft, the emphasis is
> on
> > >>> what
> > >>>> you are not who you are, and in a Gesellschaft the emphasis is on
> your
> > >>>> ineffability and irreplacabitlity. Accordingly, in a restricted
> coding
> > >>>> orientation, like b), the orientation is to sameness, to objective
> > >> rules
> > >>>> that bind us together in communal solidarity, and therefore not
> > towards
> > >>>> individual choices.In an elaborated coding orientation, like a), the
> > >>>> orientation is to difference, to individual motivation, and towards
> > >>>> interdependence. Unlike dialect, it's not a difference in the way it
> > >>> sounds
> > >>>> and it's not restricted to the user: you could easily create
> > elaborated
> > >>>> coding orientations in South Chicago English, and people do. Unlike
> > >>>> register, it's not a difference in the way things are worded and it
> is
> > >>> not
> > >>>> at all a function of particular uses of language. Coding orientation
> > >> is a
> > >>>> pattern of meaning--it's an instance of what Ruqaiya calls semantic
> > >>>> variability, and it is related causally to class.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Hymes accepts Chomsky's distinction between competence and
> > >>> performance--in
> > >>>> fact, he multiplied it times four, because his construct of
> > >>> "communicative
> > >>>> competence" actually includes four categories: whether or not
> > something
> > >>> is
> > >>>> linguistically permissible, whether or not it is sociolinguistically
> > >>>> appropriate, whether or not it is psycholinguistically feasible, and
> > >>>> whether or not it is pragmatically done. But for Ruqaiya, such
> > >>> dichotomies
> > >>>> are dualisms--they imply an ideal competence divorced and actually
> not
> > >>>> available for marriage to material performances: we can never really
> > >>> know,
> > >>>> for example, in an instance of grammatical, sociolinguistic,
> > >>>> psycholinguistic or pragmatic failure, whether the underlying
> > >> competence
> > >>> is
> > >>>> there or not. For Ruqaiya, the only bifurcation--and it is a highly
> > >>>> transient, ever-shifting one--is between the potential and the
> > >> performed.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> David Kellogg
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>> On Wed, Jul 1, 2015 at 5:06 AM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com>
> > >>> wrote:
> > >>>>
> > >>>>> Greg,
> > >>>>> I ‘m waiting on David too! And I would love your question as to
> > >> whether
> > >>>>> Ruqaiya answers your conjecture:
> > >>>>>> “...the efficacy of deployment of a code/style may not be a
> > >> property
> > >>> of
> > >>>>> the code/style or of the speaker but rather of the combination of
> > >>>>> code/style, speaker, and context.”
> > >>>>> I especially like that this issue is raised in the context of an
> > >> actual
> > >>>>> use of code shifting in the public eye. I suspect that Ruqaiya
> would
> > >>>> like a
> > >>>>> theory of grammar that can take on just such a language usage
> event.
> > >>>>> Henry
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>> On Jun 30, 2015, at 9:54 AM, greg.a.thompson@gmail.com wrote:
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> Henry, this raises a question that is similar to the one that
> Hymes
> > >>>>> raises with regard to Bernstein, namely, what is the effect of the
> > >> use
> > >>>> of a
> > >>>>> given code/style?
> > >>>>>> Hymes' concern is that Bernstein assumes that a code is a thing
> > >> that
> > >>>> has
> > >>>>> properties all by itself, outside of the contexts of use.
> > >>>>>> As for obamas eulogy, my sense from listening to the audio was
> that
> > >>> it
> > >>>>> was VERY well received by the audience. Maybe someone has evidence
> to
> > >>> the
> > >>>>> contrary?
> > >>>>>> But this would make an important point that the efficacy of
> > >>> deployment
> > >>>>> of a code/style may not be a property of the code/style or of the
> > >>> speaker
> > >>>>> but rather of the combination of code/style, speaker, and context.
> > >>>>>> Is this ground that is covered by Hasan?
> > >>>>>> David?
> > >>>>>> (And I wouldn't want to take away from that discussion but this
> > >>> should
> > >>>>> help provide more clarity with regard to what exactly she was up
> to).
> > >>>>>> Greg
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> Sent from my iPhone
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> On Jun 30, 2015, at 12:25 AM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com>
> > >>>> wrote:
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> Ouch! Paul blew my cover. And President Obama’s as well.
> > >> Apparently,
> > >>>>> he’s not the code shifter I thought he was and my ear is just not
> > >> good
> > >>>>> enough to hear it. Maybe I didn’t want to hear. I have been so
> > >>>> disappointed
> > >>>>> with what is happening with our political “leadership” in this
> > >>> country, I
> > >>>>> didn’t want to believe the president’s eulogy was one more charade.
> > >>> Maybe
> > >>>>> the amazing Supreme Court decisions last week put me in a state of
> > >>>> euphoria
> > >>>>> and I just didn’t want to come down. But, is there no middle ground
> > >>> where
> > >>>>> Obama is at least seen to be trying, in good faith, to connect with
> > >>> those
> > >>>>> who ARE adequate representatives of African American English
> > >>> Vernacular?
> > >>>>> One might say that Obama learned AAEV as a second dialect and will
> > >>> always
> > >>>>> have a “foreign accent” in it. I am wondering how the audience in
> > >> that
> > >>>> AME
> > >>>>> church in Charleston, especially those who have truly lived the
> > >> “black
> > >>>>> prophetic tradition", felt about Obama’s attempts at code shifting.
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> I hope this post is seen more as an attempt to move the
> discussion
> > >>> of
> > >>>>> issues dear to Ruqaiya, especially code, than as a pol
> > >
> > >
> > > [The entire original message is not included.]
> >
> >
> >
>



-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson