[Xmca-l] Re: Contrasting 'use-value' & 'value'
Andy Blunden
ablunden@mira.net
Tue Apr 25 19:05:47 PDT 2017
Since you answer my question with a question, I take it that
the answer is "yes."
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://home.mira.net/~andy
http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
On 26/04/2017 11:56 AM, David Kellogg wrote:
> Andy--
>
> Are "life" and "living" two different words, or are they
> two different wordings of the same word?
>
> David Kellogg
> Macquarie University
>
> On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 11:42 AM, Andy Blunden
> <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
> David, after reading this fascinating 2-page narrative
> about Ricoeur and the structuralists out of the blue
> we get the conclusion: "And the power is not in the
> word, but in the wording." Have I missed something? Is
> "wording" ineffable?
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> http://home.mira.net/~andy <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
> <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making>
>
> On 26/04/2017 7:13 AM, David Kellogg wrote:
>
> I remember Paul Ricoeur. He taught at a seminary
> at the University of
> Chicago when I was an undergraduate. I was a
> member of the campus Spartacus
> Youth Club, and it was the only place that would
> allow us a public space
> for meetings. I tried to sell him a copy of "Young
> Spartacus" once: I can't
> remember if he bought it or not. But I remember
> him as a French gentleman,
> personally quite conservative, but not at all put
> off by the presence of
> a screaming red nineteen year old who for
> inexplicable reasons had
> a Parisian accent and spoke the argot of the
> Versailles banlieue. Maybe he
> bought our French paper, Le Bolchevik.
>
> I have been reading a symposium "On Narrative"
> that was going on at UC when
> I was organizing against Milton Friedman's Nobel
> Prize (he was also a
> professor there at the time--he won the prize the
> same year that Saul
> Bellow, another UC professor, did). Ricoeur,
> Derrida, and Hayden White all
> took part.
>
> It was the heyday of structuralism, and Ricoeur's
> contribution is
> interesting because it's quite ANTI-structuralist:
> he points out that the
> effect of structuralism on narrative studies has
> been to de-historicize,
> de-memorize, dehumanize; to convert stories into
> exchange values rather
> than use values. So the elements that Propp
> discovers in Ludmilla and
> Ruslan (and the Firebird and its variants) can
> come in any order. In
> contrast, even the simplest act of repetition is
> historicized, humanized,
> and memorable. A use value and not an exchange value.
>
> Derrida ignores everybody else and embarks on his
> usual verbal
> pyrotechnics, but Hayden White develops Ricoeur's
> idea in a way I think I
> actually used in my "Thinking of Feeling" paper:
> human memory goes through
> stages: medieval annals, Renaissance chronicles,
> and the nineteenth century
> narrative, each of which adds something
> distinctive and makes the
> meta-narrative that they form together into
> something non-reversible and
> developmental. But now I see that the reviewers
> made me remove all that (it
> is just as well: sociogenesis is one story and
> ontogenesis quite another).
>
> Ruqaiya Hasan used to say that there is a certain
> unity imposed on
> experience by language, from "the living of life"
> to the child's first real
> morpho-phoneme. If you take the phrase "the living
> of life" just as an
> example, you can see some of what Ricoeur is
> trying to get at. On the face
> of it, the phrase is redundant: the word "life"
> seems to contain absolutely
> nothing that isn't already there in "living". Yet
> "of life" must mean
> something, otherwise it would not enable us to add
> the specifier "the" to
> "living".
>
> I think Ricoeur would say that "life" is a kind of
> de-historicized,
> de-memorized, de-humanized "living", one that is
> turned from process into
> entity, and made synoptical, like the various
> retellings in different
> orders of the four Gospels. Yes, it's a powerful
> way of speaking, but it is
> powerful the way that sculpture is rather than the
> way that painting is.
> And the power is not in the word, but in the wording.
>
> David Kellogg
> Macquarie University
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 4:31 AM,
> <lpscholar2@gmail.com
> <mailto:lpscholar2@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Mike,
> There is a particular example that occurred
> here when Wolff-Michael
> referenced Ricouer’s 3 volume project
> exploring metaphor and narrativity
> and their common unifying theme existing
> within human temporality
> (finitude).
> Is there an expectation for ‘us’ to go back
> and reference Ricouer’s
> exploration of this relation in depth? Through
> reading and re-reading these
> works of scholarship.
> I myself turned to the preface of Ricouer’s 3
> volume exploration of this
> particular relation, metaphor/narrativity::
> Temporality.
>
> Without human temporality, narrativity and
> metaphor would not exist.
>
> On this listserve there was a glance or nod in
> Ricouer’s direction and
> then???.
>
> This month we are recycling themes which
> already exist in the archive, but
> is this recycling just repetition,, or
> renovation, or innovation?.
>
> Peg’s metaphor of leaving loose threads for
> others to return to expresses
> a temporal sense ability at odds with high
> impact journals.
>
>
> Sent from my Windows 10 phone
>
> From: mike cole
> Sent: April 25, 2017 11:02 AM
> To: Larry Purss
> Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Contrasting
> 'use-value' & 'value'
>
> Right Larry. A lot of high impact journals
> (not all) are deeply
> a-historical.
>
> When my wife and I were writing a textbook, we
> had, with each addition,
> to cut out older refs. To be allow to refer to
> Gesell, Rousseau in a
> serious manner was a constant battle.
>
> But what the heck. In a lot of classes that
> use the textbook, students are
> not required to remember or re-cover material
> from the mid-term on the
> final exam. In a course on development in a
> field that makes a big deal of
> sequence and growth over time. Live for the
> moment, no need to know the
> history of behavior in order to understand it.
>
> Yes, mediation has not gone away, despite its
> claimed ailments and devious
> traps. :-)
>
> mike
>
> On Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 2:00 PM,
> <lpscholar2@gmail.com
> <mailto:lpscholar2@gmail.com>> wrote:
> So... If more than 10 years old makes thinking
> and thought anethema WHAT
> does that say about the scope of thinking of
> high impact journals?
>
> When returning to wording, statement, and
> utterance I hope we also turn
> back to ‘mediation’.
> I have this definition of mediation to
> consider: (carrying across -within
> back/forth) BOTH (giving/receiving) within a
> singular relation
> This is felt differently than mediation:
> (carrying over to the other side)
> which may imply bridges required for joining
> or linking two pre-existing
> sides (first one and then the other).
>
>
> Sent from my Windows 10 phone
>
> From: mike cole
> Sent: April 23, 2017 9:54 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Contrasting 'use-value'
> & 'value'
>
> Hi David et al --
>
> Found my copy of Cole and Scribner! To my
> relief, it appears that somewhere
> along the way there was a misattribution of
> that quote you posted that
> Hasan criticized and that I wanted to disavow
> (but there it was in black
> and white!).
>
> So, apropos, we have a problem of context
> here. If you look at p. 25 of
> Scribner and Cole, you will find that the
> quotation was in a paper by Cole
> and Gay (1972) (A paper on culture and memory
> in the American
> Anthropologist I had did not recall the date
> of. If you go just one
> sentence above the quotation you find the
> following:
>
> *For instance, one anthropologist commented,
> upon hearing about the results
> of our first research in this area (Gay and
> Cole 1967): The reasoning and
> thinking processes of different people in
> different cultures don't differ .
> . . just their values, beliefs, and ways of
> classifying differ [personal
> correspondence ].*
>
>
> We were *contesting *this statement which was
> the anthropological consensus
> at the time. For those interested in our own
> views at the time,
>
> it is best to consult Chapter 8 of that book
> by Cole and Scribner on
> *Culture
> and Thought. *(Its all antiquarian stuff
> anyway. Its now 50 years since the
> first publication of that line of work!
> References more than 10 years old
> are anethema to HIGH IMPACT journals! :-)
> and :-(
>
>
> mike
>
>
> Which takes the discussion back to the
> discussion of wording, stating, and
> uttering.
>
> On Sat, Apr 22, 2017 at 1:39 PM, Wolff-Michael
> Roth <
> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com
> <mailto:wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Julian,
> I suggest reading Rossi-Landi, and Italian
> Marxist scholar, where I have
> taken this:
>
> Like other products of labor, signs,
> words, expressions,
> and messages have use value in
> communication and are subject to exchange,
> distribution, and consumption; the markets
> within which these
> products circulate as commodities are
> linguistic communities (Rossi-
> Landi 1983).
>
> An appreciation of his contributions by
> Cianca Bianchi states: "Through
>
> his
>
> "homological schema",
> material and linguistic production are
> conceived to be the result of a
> single process
> that is particular to human beings and
> that can best be understood in
>
> terms
>
> of work
> and trade. "
>
> Cheers,
>
> Michael
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> --------------------
> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor
> Applied Cognitive Science
> MacLaurin Building A567
> University of Victoria
> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2
> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth
> <http://web.uvic.ca/%7Emroth>
> <http://education2.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/
> <http://education2.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/>>
>
> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics
> <https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/new-
> <https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/new->
> directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-
> mathematics-of-mathematics/>*
>
> On Sat, Apr 22, 2017 at 12:09 PM, Julian
> Williams <
> julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk
> <mailto:julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk>>
> wrote:
>
> Michael
>
> As you were - so we are entirely in
> disagreement, then.
>
> For me the E-V and U-V of a dialogic
> exchange has nothing essentially
>
> to
>
> do with the sensual and super sensual
> moments of the 'word' as per
> Vygotsky. And I don't see at all how
> these really confer 'value' in any
> Marxist sense of the term on
> speech/utterance (etc etc).
>
> I am guessing that we are back with
> analogy of 'commodity' and 'word'
>
> in
>
> dialogue, rather than a holistic
> understanding of discourse in the
> totality of social-economic relations,
> and so we have made no progress
> here.
>
> We can take this up another time perhaps.
>
> Julian
>
>
>
> On 22/04/2017 19:47,
> "xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> on behalf of
> Wolff-Michael Roth"
> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> on behalf of
> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com
> <mailto:wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com>>
> wrote:
>
> Julian,
> E-V and U-V, but not of the kind
> that you are talking about, the
>
> abstract
>
> .
> . . You can look at it like LSV,
> who emphasizes that the word has a
> sensible (material) part and a
> supersensual (ideal) part, not in the
> abstract, but concretely realized
> in every exchange. Michael
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------
>
> ---------------
>
> ------
> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne
> Professor
> Applied Cognitive Science
> MacLaurin Building A567
> University of Victoria
> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2
> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth
> <http://web.uvic.ca/%7Emroth>
> <http://education2.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/
> <http://education2.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/>>
>
> New book: *The Mathematics of
> Mathematics
> <https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/new-
> <https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/new->
>
> directions-in-mat
>
> hematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics-of-mathematics/>*
>
> On Sat, Apr 22, 2017 at 11:38 AM,
> Julian Williams <
> julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk
> <mailto:julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk>>
> wrote:
>
> M.
>
> Um, hang on a minute - I agree
> with everything you said here (I
> think..).
>
> So I suppose this means you
> agree(d) with me; een though I
> thought I
>
> was
>
> challenging your view. I
> thought you were trying to
> find E-V and U-V
>
> in
>
> the dialogue-in-itself, where
> I think it's value has to be
>
> understood
>
> by
>
> the way it is mediated through
> the wider field of
> discourse/practice
> (i.e.
> In its meaning/sense in terms
> of the real exchanges taking
> place in
> practice).
>
> So the point is that one can
> only understand the exchanges
> taking
>
> place
>
> within the wider context- the
> worker exchanges 10 hours of
> labour
>
> for
>
> the
> commodities required to keep
> themselves alive for a day …
> but this
>
> has
>
> to
> be understood within the
> system that allows the
> capitalist to
>
> exploit
>
> those 10 hours for a profit,
> and pay wages that do not
> allow the
>
> worker
>
> to
> purchase the goods they this
> produce (or their
> equivalent)…. There
>
> are
>
> obvious analogies in discourse
> too.
>
> Julian
>
> Ps I see I have raised
> 'mediation' now - oops.
>
>
>
> On 22/04/2017 19:15,
> "xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> on behalf of
> Wolff-Michael Roth"
> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> on behalf of
> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com
> <mailto:wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com>>
> wrote:
>
> Julian,
> My sense is that you are
> referring to macro-issues,
> you need to
>
> stand
>
> back,
> abstract, and look from
> the outside at a system,
> let it unfold in
>
> front of
>
> your eyes.
>
> I am concerned with the
> actual constitution of
> society in
>
> individual
>
> exchanges, actual
> relations between two or
> more people, the
>
> "ensemble"
>
> of
>
> which constitutes society
> (Marx, Vygotsky,
> Leont'ev). I am thus
>
> concerned
>
> with actual exchange
> relations, the kind Marx
> refers to in the
>
> first
>
> 100
>
> pages of das Kapital,
> where he has the tailor
> exchange a coat with
>
> the
>
> weaver receiving two yards
> of cloth . . . The tailor
> exchanges
>
> his/her
>
> cloth with others, like
> the farmer, for 40 bushels
> of grain . . .
>
> In
>
> my
>
> work, I am following them
> around, concerned not with
> "meaning" or
>
> "ideal"
>
> in the abstract but as
> realized in every THIS
> occasion of a social
> relation.
>
> My sense is that the
> differences you point out
> (attempt to) lie
> there---perhaps.
>
> Michael
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------
>
> ---------------
>
> ------
> Wolff-Michael Roth,
> Lansdowne Professor
> Applied Cognitive Science
> MacLaurin Building A567
> University of Victoria
> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2
> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth
> <http://web.uvic.ca/%7Emroth>
> <http://education2.uvic.ca/
>
> faculty/mroth/>
>
> New book: *The Mathematics
> of Mathematics
> <https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/new-
> <https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/new->
>
> directions-in-mat
>
> hematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics-of-mathematics/>*
>
> On Sat, Apr 22, 2017 at
> 10:24 AM, Julian Williams <
> julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk
> <mailto:julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk>>
> wrote:
>
> Michael
>
> Going back many, many
> posts now: almost 24
> hours worth, I think.
>
> When I wrote this:
>
> 'Thus, I suggest, the
> 'exchange/use value' of an
>
> utterance/dialogic
>
> exchange maybe ought
> to be examined in the
> ideological context of
>
> its
>
> relationship with the
> 'whole' of social
> re/production where class
>
> power
>
> becomes visible. I
> don't know how to do
> this, but the argument is
>
> there
>
> in
> Bourdieu: the power
> relations between
> people are part of the
> capital-mediated
> structure of relations
> in a field (including the
>
> field
>
> of
> opinion/discourse),
> and this explains the
> forms of discourse that
> express
> these power
> relationships and help
> to hold powerful
> positions in
>
> place
>
> in
> the field. In this
> view it is not
> possible to identify the
>
> 'value'
>
> of an
>
> utterance or a sign
> outside of this wider
> analysis… and an
>
> analysis
>
> of
>
> the
> particular
> discursive/cultural
> field within its wider
> sociality.'
>
> The sort of thing I
> had in mind was this
>
> 'word/utterance/statement'
>
> of
>
> yours (I care not at
> the moment which of
> these is chosen - in
>
> this
>
> context
> I am not clear it
> matters, though I
> recognise that every
> work was
>
> once
>
> an
> utterance and a speech
> act… and that parsing
> into words is a
>
> relatively
>
> recent cultural artifice):
>
> '…. My personal
> inclination would be
> to take Ricœur as more
> authoritative
> on the subject than
> any or most of us'
> (see below)
>
> I think the 'value'
> (i.e. exchange value)
> of this statement of
>
> yours
>
> in
>
> my
> frame has to be
> understood in the
> context of its
> function/workthe
> academic field (or
> this section of it),
> how power is exerted here
> through
> reference to
> 'authorities' like
> Ricoeur (NB not just
> 'authors'
>
> like
>
> the
>
> rest of us? ), whether
> this is really useful
> in helping the
>
> community to
>
> progress its
> understanding of the
> issue for practical
> purposes
>
> (e.g.
>
> How
>
> many of the readers of
> this post have
> seriously read Ricoeur
>
> enough
>
> to
>
> get
> the point?).
>
> How our community of
> discourse comes to be
> structured so that
>
> power
>
> 'works' like this -
> that is a wider issue
> - and here it does get
>
> hard
>
> for
> us academics to see
> ourselves as we
> perhaps could or should be
>
> seen.
>
> Michael: I hope you
> don't take this cheeky
> affront too
>
> personally:
>
> I
>
> could
> do the same to most of
> the posts that one
> reads on xmca, and
>
> probably
>
> my
> own- I don't mean to
> suggest that they have
> no use-value, and
>
> certainly
>
> not that the
> collective dialogue
> has no use value. Yet
> still… we
>
> should
>
> recognise that there
> is a power game in
> this field of
>
> discourse/opinion,
>
> if we are to
> understand one another
> well. It may even be
> argued
>
> (with
>
> some
> merit?) that a quote
> appealing to Marx - or
> even Ricoeur - has
>
> some
>
> use
>
> as
> well as exchange value
> (or lets say merit) in
> linking ideas to a
>
> body of
>
> previous revolutionary
> work.
>
> Hugs!
>
> Julian
>
>
>
> On 21/04/2017 16:53,
> "xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> on behalf
>
> of
>
> Wolff-Michael Roth"
> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> on behalf
>
> of
>
> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com
> <mailto:wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com>>
> wrote:
>
> Ricœur (1985), in
> *Time and
> Narrative 2*, uses
> the following
>
> distinction
>
> for the purposes
> of theorizing the
> difference between
> narrated
>
> time
>
> and
>
> time of narration.
> Accordingly,
> "narrative posses"
> "the
>
> remarkable
>
> property" "of
> being split into
> utterance
> [*énociation*] and
>
> statement [
>
> *énoncé*]."
> To introduce this
> distinction, it
> suffices to recall
> that the
> configurating
> act presiding
> over emplotment is
> a judicative act,
> involving a "grasping
>
> together."
>
> More
>
> precisely, this
> act belongs to the
> family of reflective
>
> judgments.1
>
> We
>
> have
> been
> led to say
> therefore that to
> narrate a story is
> already to
>
> "reflect
>
> upon"
>
> the event
> narrated. For this
> reason, narrative
> "grasping
> together" carries
>
> with
>
> it
>
> the capacity
> for distancing
> itself from its
> own production and
> in this way
>
> dividing
>
> itself in two. (p. 61)
>
> My personal
> inclination would
> be to take Ricœur
> as more
>
> authoritative
>
> on
>
> the subject than
> any or most of us.
>
> Michael
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------
>
> ---------------
>
> ------
> Wolff-Michael
> Roth, Lansdowne
> Professor
> Applied Cognitive
> Science
> MacLaurin Building
> A567
> University of Victoria
> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2
> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth
> <http://web.uvic.ca/%7Emroth>
> <http://education2.uvic.ca/
>
> faculty/mroth/
>
> New book: *The
> Mathematics of
> Mathematics
> <https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/new-
> <https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/new->
>
> directions-in-mat
>
> hematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics-of-
>
> mathematics/>*
>
> On Thu, Apr 20,
> 2017 at 10:38 PM,
> David Kellogg
>
> <dkellogg60@gmail.com
> <mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com>>
>
> wrote:
>
> I think that
> "statement" is
> too tight, and
> "utterance" is too
>
> loose.
>
> A
>
> statement is
> an
> indicative-declarative
> wording of
> some kind:
>
> we
>
> don't
>
> usually refer
> to commands
> (imperatives),
> questions
> (indicative-interrogatives),
> or
> exclamations
> as "statements"
>
> because
>
> their
> primary
> purpose is not
> to state facts
> (that is, if
> there are
>
> facts,
>
> they
>
> are ancillary,
> and not
> constitutive:
> we can have a
> command, a
>
> question,
>
> or
> an exclamation
> without any
> statement of
> any state of
> affairs,
>
> e.g.
>
> "Look
>
> out!" "Why?"
> "Oh, no!"). So
> "statement" is
> too narrow.
>
> An utterance,
> as Bakhtin
> defines it, is
> simply the
> stretch of
>
> language
>
> we
> find between
> two changes in
> speaker (this
> is why a book is a
>
> single
>
> utterance).
> This is an
> entirely
> descriptive
> unit: if I give
>
> you
>
> a
>
> tape
>
> of
> listening test
> dialogues for
> the Test of
> Proficiency in
>
> Korean,
>
> you
>
> will be
> able to tell
> me exactly how
> many
> utterances
> there are in each
>
> dialogue,
>
> and
> even whether
> the speakers
> are men or
> women, without
>
> understanding
>
> any of
>
> the language.
> As a link
> between
> thinking and
> speech, such a
>
> unit
>
> is
>
> beside
> the point. So
> "utterance" is
> too broad.
>
> And linking
> thinking and
> speech IS the
> point. I think
> you and
>
> Vygotsky
>
> are
> using the word
> "holophrase"
> somewhat
> teleologically,
> like a
>
> fond,
>
> but
>
> expectant,
> grandpa. You
> both think
> that the baby
> who says
>
> "mama"
>
> really
>
> means a
> holophrase
> like "Mama,
> put me in the
> high chair". It's
>
> not
>
> the
>
> case
> that "Mama" is
> a reduction of
> a full
> sentence (like
> "Fine,
>
> thanks,
>
> and
>
> you?"). It's
> more like the
> Ur Wir, or
> "Grandwe", the
> "we" that
> pre-exists
> "me" and "you"
> the way that
> my grandpa
> pre-existed
> me. I am
>
> also
>
> using
>
> the
> word "wording"
> teleologically,
> you notice:
> "Mama" is,
> from the
>
> child's
>
> point of view,
> meaning and
> sounding, but
> not wording at
> all.
>
> But
>
> teleology
> is very useful
> here; indeed,
> I think that
> teleology in
> speech
> ontogenesis
> is a more
> useful
> principle than
> evolution:
> there is, after
>
> all,
>
> a
>
> "complete
> form" right
> there in the
> environment.
>
> The problem
> with Thinking
> and Speech is
> that, unlike
> Capital,
>
> the
>
> author
>
> died in the
> middle of
> writing it,
> and it had to
> be eked out
>
> with
>
> his
>
> old
>
> articles. So
> although
> Chapter One
> and Chapter
> Seven really do
>
> use
>
> wording
> and not word
> as a unit of
> analysis (and
> the "phoneme" is
>
> really
>
> the
>
> morpho-phoneme,
> e.g. a Russian
> case ending,
> something Vygotsky
>
> probably
>
> learned all
> about from his
> old professor
> Trubetskoy and his
>
> classmate at
>
> Moscow
> University
> Jakobson). you
> also have
> Chapter Five,
> which
>
> our
>
> late,
>
> beloved friend
> Paula Towsey
> loved so much.
>
> She had
> reason:
> Chapter Five
> is Vygotsky,
> and so it's
>
> brilliant.
>
> But
>
> it's
> OLD Vygotsky,
> 1928-1929
> Vygotsky (that
> was the year that
>
> Trubetskoy
>
> and
>
> Jakobson left
> Moscow for
> Prague and set
> up the Prague
>
> Linguistic
>
> Circle
>
> which
> eventually
> became
> systemic-functional
> linguistics).
>
> Chapter
>
> 5
>
> is based on
> something from
> the German
> idealist
> psychologists
>
> Reimat
>
> and
>
> Ach, who
> really DID
> believe in
> one-word
> concepts. And
> so we
>
> have
>
> this
>
> weird
> block-like
> model of word
> meaning.
> Vygotsky tries
> to disenchant
>
> and
>
> de-fetishize
> the blocks by
> saying the
> concept is
> really the
>
> process
>
> of
>
> relating the
> word meaning
> to the block,
> but that still
> means
>
> that
>
> a
>
> concept
> is an
> abstraction
> and a
> generalization
> of some block-like
>
> quality.
>
> Chapter Six is
> better,
> because here
> the "model" of
> word
>
> meaning
>
> is a
>
> RELATOR, like
> "because" or
> "although".
> Notice that
> these are
>
> the
>
> kinds
>
> of
> words that
> preliterate
> children do
> not consider
> words. And in
>
> fact
>
> that's
> why Piaget got
> the results he
> did--the kids
> really couldn't
>
> figure
>
> out
>
> what
> he meant when
> he asked them
> to explain
> what the word
> "because"
>
> meant
>
> in
>
> a
> particular
> sentence--they
> assumed he
> wanted to know
> what the
>
> sentence
>
> meant, because
> asking what a
> word like
> "because"
> means in a
>
> sentence
>
> without the
> rest of the
> sentence is
> really a
> little like
>
> asking
>
> if
>
> there
>
> are more white
> flowers or
> more flowers
> in a bouquet
> of red and
>
> white
>
> flowers. But
> suppose (over
> a period of
> some years) we
> give the
>
> kid
>
> the
>
> following
>
> utterances-cum-statement/wordings-cum-wordgroup/wordings-cum-words.
>
> a) A rational,
> designed, and
> planned
> economy is
> possible in
>
> the
>
> USSR.
>
> (Why
> is that,
> Teacher?) Oh,
> it is just
> because all
> the means of
>
> production
>
> belong to the
> workers and
> peasants.
> b) Planned
> economy is
> possible in
> the USSR
> because all the
>
> means
>
> of
>
> production
> belong to the
> workers and
> peasants.
> c) All the
> means of
> production
> belong to the
> workers and
>
> peasants
>
> so
>
> economic
> planning is
> possible in
> the USSR.
> d) Workers and
> peasant's
> ownership of
> the means of
> production
>
> means
>
> socialist
> construction
> is possible.
> e) Public
> ownership of
> production
> enables social
> construction.
> f) the
> proprietary
> preconditions
> of construction
> g) socialist
> property forms
> h) socialist
> property
> i) socialism
>
> By the time
> the child is
> the age when
> children beget
> other
>
> children,
>
> this child
> will see that
> the clause
> wording "all
> the means of
>
> production
>
> belong to the
> workers and
> peasants" has
> become a
> nominal group
>
> wording
>
> "public
> ownership",
> and the
> nominal group
> wording "a
> rational,
>
> designed,
>
> and planned
> economy" has
> become a
> single,
> block-like word
>
> "socialism".
>
> And
> because for
> Vygotsky the
> "internal"
> really means the
>
> psychological,
>
> while
>
>
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