[Xmca-l] Re: Don't do it

[Martin John Packer]

Rein,

David is building here on Halliday’s analysis of the two fundamental ‘functions’ of language, the ideational and the interpersonal. It is when the child becomes able to combine the two in the same utterance that grammar emerges. (That was not David’s point; I just find it a very interesting idea!)

Martin




On Mar 11, 2017, at 3:27 PM, Rein Raud <rein.raud@tlu.ee<mailto:rein.raud@tlu.ee>> wrote:

David, I was only reacting to what you wrote:

I shall call this form of meaning--for meaning it is--"interpersonal"
meaning, in order to distinguish it from "ideational" meaning. I think that
interpersonal meaning is meaning, but it is meaning which is directed
towards organizing an interaction as the giving or getting of information
or goods and services. Ideational meaning is meaning too, but it is
directed towards the representation (hence, "indication") of human
experience and logic. They're equally meaningful, but they are filled with
different kinds of meanings.

"Ideational" here seems to be what Austin calls "locutionary". "Interpersonal", in turn, seems to be what Austin called "performative" (in the illocutionary and perlocutionary varieties) and indeed you define it as  "directed towards organizing an interaction". Thus I don't think your counter-argument here is wholly legitimate, or perhaps I've missed the point.

Best,

Rein

On Mar 11, 2017, at 22:09 , David Kellogg wrote:

Here I'm talking about the difference between:

a) Don't do it.
b) You are doing it.
c) Are you doing it?

This is not a difference between locutionary, illocutionary, and
perlocutionary force--Austin would say that all of these are locutionary in
their force, because the pragmatic purpose and the resulting event, which
is the giving of linguistic examples and their reception, is the same. And
yet they are different. How so?

They are different in the nature of the commodity which is put at risk. In
a) that commodity is goods and services, while in b) and c) that commodity
is information. This means that in a) language is ancillary--we can often
perform the same "speech act" (to use the behavioristic terminology of
Austin, Searle, and their disciples in pragmatics) using gesticulation,
gesture, "eye language", or just intonation. But in b) and c) the use of
lexicogrammar is central--we cannot successfully exchange propositions
without encoding them lexicogrammatically.

This is not the same difference that Austin is discussing. Austin is not a
linguist, so he wants to transfer meaning from language to context: to
speech roles, to social recognition and to social outcomes. That's simply
not possible in this situation: the meaning of b) and c) lies in the
lexico-grammar and nowhere else. Speech act theory is to linguistics what
behaviorism is to psychology.

David Kellogg
Macquarie University


On Sun, Mar 12, 2017 at 6:33 AM, Rein Raud <rein.raud@tlu.ee<mailto:rein.raud@tlu.ee>> wrote:

These differences have been discussed quite some time ago in J.L.Austin's
"How to Do Things with Words" (1962), from which speech act theory
originated. Austin distinguishes between locutionary (primary semantical)
meaning, illocutionary meaning (what is being meant) and perlocutionary
meaning (any event is being produced by the utterance). Thus when you say
"Do you have some time?" you might mean "Can you spare some time for me?"
and the perlocutionary result of this is that you will actually help me
(because you are in a position where you cannot say "no" to me, f.ex.
because I am your boss). A lot of speech act theory has evolved from this,
notably in the work of Searle. Best to all, Rein Raud

On Mar 11, 2017, at 21:18 , David Kellogg wrote:

Ulvi, Mike...

We started this thread with Ulvi's important remark that there is a
difference between:

"Don't do it."

and

"it is not necessary."

Ulvi said that the difference does not lie in their polarity--they are
both
negative. Nor does it lie in their representational (referential, or
"ideational" meaning). They both refer to "it" and to the advisability of
"it".  Ulvi said that the first was imperative, and the second was not
(the
technical term for the non-imperative form of the second is
"indicative-declarative", as opposed to "indicative-interrogative" which
would be a question).

I shall call this form of meaning--for meaning it is--"interpersonal"
meaning, in order to distinguish it from "ideational" meaning. I think
that
interpersonal meaning is meaning, but it is meaning which is directed
towards organizing an interaction as the giving or getting of information
or goods and services. Ideational meaning is meaning too, but it is
directed towards the representation (hence, "indication") of human
experience and logic. They're equally meaningful, but they are filled
with
different kinds of meanings.

The difference is qualitative, and that is another way of saying that it
is
"revolutionary" (because revolution originally meant turning around axis;
the first political "revolution" was the rather pathetic "turning" of
Latin-speaking civilization from a republican to an imperial form under
Augustus). The difference is between making a proposal and offering a
proposition--i.e. between realizing a potential state and simply
discussing
an actual one.

One of the interesting aspects of Professor Jang's paper is that it is
about adolescents who are in the process of forming concepts, but who are
not there yet. And one way in which an adolescent forms a concept about
the
difficult concept of a social contract, of citizenship, of nationality is
pseudoconceptual: it is based on discussing "actual" perceptual
differences
between races. This might seem irrelevant to current political discourse.
Unfortunately, it isn't.

What does a teacher say to kids who are thinking this way? Do we say
"Don't
do it"? Or is it better to show them that it is not necessary?

David Kellogg
Macquarie University


On Sat, Mar 11, 2017 at 7:58 PM, Ulvi İçil <ulvi.icil@gmail.com<mailto:ulvi.icil@gmail.com>> wrote:

Mike, please corrct me if i wrongly take this meaning that revolutions
causes big numbers of death, death in masses, so we would not prefer
them.

But, what if we sum up all the deaths because of occupatinal murders in
workplaces, deaths from drugs, murders of women and early death because
of
lack of sufficient health care and all the deaths due to the bad
orgsanisation of society under capitalism  and what is more turning of
tens
of millions of children into ignorant and fanatic human beings who are
brought up able to kill anyone on the street etc

Is it not more rational to put en end to this state of human society
rather
than to perpetruate it, allow it to exist.

Unemployment itself 20 % in Turkey.





11 Mar 2017 03:14 tarihinde "mike cole" <mcole@ucsd.edu<mailto:mcole@ucsd.edu>> yazdı:

From my personal web page, Ulvi:

*Apropos Thoughts on Revolutions and Their Causes*

(From C. Dickens, *A Tale of Two Cities*, Ch 15)

Along the Paris streets, the death carts rumble, hollow and harsh.

Six tumbrels carry the day's wine to La Guillotine. All the devouring
and
insatiate monsters imagined since imagination could record itself, are
fused in the one realization, Guillotine. And yet there is not in
France,
with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a
sprig, a peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under conditions more
certain than those that have produced this horror. Crush human humanity
out
of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself
into
the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and
oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit,
according
to its kind.

It is the nature of the fruits sewn by the French Revolution that give
pause for thought. And perhaps accounts for the lack of reply to your
articulately formulated note.

mike



On Wed, Mar 8, 2017 at 1:32 PM, Ulvi İçil <ulvi.icil@gmail.com<mailto:ulvi.icil@gmail.com>> wrote:

If I say

don't do it, it is imperative.

But if I say,

It is not realistic and you do not need it.

It is affirmative and even  though negative, it is again affirmative,
to
demobilize you.

What I mean is Revolution.

Addressed to a married couple with two children.

With 3 thousand Turkish liras in Istanbul in a  rented home of at
least
1000 tl for rent.

1 usd = 4 Turkish liras

Survival economics.

Any prospect?

No.

That simple.

What is socialist revolution?

It is neither an intention nor a wish.

It is simple necessity.