[Xmca-l] Re: The Science of Qualitative Research 2ed

[David Kellogg]

Sorry, Martin. I wasn't very clear.

Compare:

a) "Phonology is variable but semantics is invariant."
b) "Phonology is variable but semantics invariant."
c) "Phonology variable, but semantics is invariant."

What is the difference between a) and b)? Nothing, you might say, but if
you say that you are taking the position that grammar varies without any
variation in semantics, which is exactly what Ruqaiya Hasan and William
Labov dispute.

Labov: "Sentences a) and b) are two lexicogrammatical variants of a single
thought. They are both standard English."
Hasan: "Sentences a) and b) are two different lexicogrammatical
realizations of two slightly different thoughts, because a) stresses the
parallelism and therefore asserts that the two propositions are inseparable
but b) does not.

Now consider a) and b) on the one hand and c) on the other. What's the
difference? Well, you might say, a) and b) are standard English, but c) is
not.

Fine. Now, this does suggest that there is a rule of standard English which
says that elision works anaphorically (i.e. referring back). What we see in
Wacquant's data is elision that is cataphoric (i.e. the omission refers
FORWARDS and not back). That's not explained in any of Labov's articles on
AAVE, so far as I know. And that's what interests me in this article,
because I find the business of subjects and objects (e.g. Lukacs vs.
Heidegger) too abstract and unprogrammatic to be resolvable in any useful
way. This seems more like a solution-sized problem. But then, I am a
linguist.

I also think that the issue of whether AAVE is a phonological variant or a
semantic variant is important for education. Vygotsky's account of
education is (to my reading) essentially an account of ontogenetic semantic
variation,and his account of cultural history is essentially an account of
sociogenetic semantic variation. You know that that the question of whether
thinking varies the way that speech does is heavily moralized in a lot of
critical pedagogy; you commented on this in your 2001 book with Mark Tappan.

David Kellogg

Recent Article in *Mind, Culture, and Activity* 24 (4) 'Metaphoric,
Metonymic, Eclectic, or Dialectic? A Commentary on “Neoformation: A
Dialectical Approach to Developmental Change”'

Free e-print available (for a short time only) at

http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YAWPBtmPM8knMCNg6sS6/full


On Sat, Jan 6, 2018 at 7:18 AM, Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net> wrote:

> I’m a bit confused, David. (h) is from the epigraph, in which a boxer is
> describing what it’s like to be *turned into* an object by ‘outsiders,’ who
> judge boxing without knowing it. That's, to say, "they lookin' at it from a
> spectator point of view” (489).  (But notice how the speaker invites the
> audience to tun things around and imagine *being* the critic, the
> spectator, the fans: that's why in (h) it is “we” on the *outside* and “he”
> (the imagined performer) on the *inside.* So *here* there are objects and
> subjects. But in the gym?
>
> Also, I’m not sure why you are focused on the copula? Didn’t Labov
> describe the rules for this in NNE? I be forgetful about that.
>
> In fact, I’m not sure why you focused on the grammar at all. Wacquant’s
> analysis is focused on “tropes.” It’s a weakness of the article that it
> doesn’t describe or illustrate how he went about this analysis, it only
> displays his results. But those are very interesting, I think.
>
> Wacquant is French and white. He proposes in his book (and in the article
> too I believe) that it was a combination of luck, hard work, and being
> French that enabled how to become accepted by the members of the gym. In my
> opinion, this is yet another example of the ‘boundary’ myth in fieldwork:
> the idea that one crosses a frontier and becomes accepted “as a native.”
> It’s clear in some of his data that the boxers displayed awareness of
> Wacquant's difference, and even of the fact that he was a “teacher” who was
> writing a book. But yes, in several respects overcoming the distinction
> between subject and object is indeed an interactional accomplishment, not
> to be sneezed at.
>
> Martin
>
> p.s. Here’s Malinowski passing as one of the natives...
>
> Or the link in case the image doesn’t travel:
> <https://australianmuseum.net.au/uploads/images/32691/
> malinowski%20trobriands%20aa%20aa_big.jpg>
>
> > On Jan 5, 2018, at 4:57 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Take a look at these clauses from Wacquant's data:
> >
> > a) They ignorant. (489)
> > b) Someon tha' their min's thinkin' real low. (495)
> > c) He real tough. (496)
> > d) He been in jail. (496)
> > e) He aggressive; he's quick. (496)
> > f) (Y)ou not going nowhere. (513)
> > g) We lookin' at it 'cause we spectactors an' stuff (489)
> > h) We on the outsi' lookin' in but *he's* insi' lookin out (489)
> >
> > Now, when I started reading this, I decided that the subject/object stuff
> > was a red herring. It's obvious, even in the epigraph, that
> subject/object
> > is a real distinction for the people in this article, so unless the
> author
> > is pulling our legs about trying to reconstruct how people themselves are
> > thinking about "the Sweet Science" and "The Manly Art", the
> subject/object
> > distinction is not only real, it's a central point of this article. Of
> > course, denying the distinction is a point of honor for academics (just
> > like winning prize-fights for boxers). But as soon as your subjects
> > (sorry--I mean your research objects) start saying things like h) you
> know
> > that you can't really do without the distinction after all.
> >
> > So instead I was trying to work out the rule for when "to be" can be
> > deleted in the grammar and when it cannot. Labov has already written a
> lot
> > about this--he says it's phonological (you can delete it whenever you can
> > contract "to be" but not otherwise, so for example you can say "They're
> > ignorant" or "They ignorant" but you can't say "Yeah, it" instead of
> "Yeah,
> > it is"). The problem with this rule is that tells me what I can do, but
> it
> > doesn't explain the variation we see in  e) and h), where the speaker
> > starts with deletion but ends with completion ("He [is--deleted]
> > aggressive; he's quick"). Another problem is that, as Ruqaiya Hasan
> pointed
> > out, it assumes that phonology varies but semantics invariant (because I
> > write in standard English the DELETIONS are late appearing in that last
> > sentence, but in Wacquant's data the NON-DELETIONS appear late.) If
> > semantics were invariant, then Saint Augustine's theory of language in
> the
> > "Confessions" would be all we need to learn a foreign language.
> >
> > My first theory was based on a) through c): it was that when "to be" is
> > ATTRIBUTIVE (that is, when it is used to introduce a nominal attribute in
> > the form of an adjective but not a verbal attribute in the form of an
> > adverb) you can delete it. It's a good theory: it would explain the
> > apparent free variation in e), for example. It would also allow
> > generalization to Chinese and Korean grammar (where adjectives are really
> > verbs and not nominals at all). But as soon as I got to d) and f) it is
> > clear that it won't work. If the speaker is thinking of "been in jail"
> and
> > "not going nowhere" as nominal attributes then the distinction between
> > attributive and non-attributive is a lot less meaningful to them than the
> > difference between subject and object.
> >
> > So my second theory was an extension of Labov's theory. You delete "to
> be"
> > when the emphasis is on the lexical verb elements ("ignorant", "real
> low",
> > "real tough", "jail", "aggressive"). But you supply it for emphasis when
> > you are basically rephrasing for effect ("he's quick", "he's insi'
> lookin'
> > out". This accounts for the data a lot better, as you can see, and it
> > explains why the non-deletions are always late appearing in the clause
> > complex. But it still leaves open the question of why the speaker is
> > non-deleting.
> >
> > At this point it occurred to me that thiis is an instance of speech
> > accomodation--the speaker is switching in the direction of Wacquant's
> > somewhat precious and precise (non-native) use of English, as a way of
> > showing that they respect him. So I deduced that Wacquant is white. Have
> a
> > look:
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lo%C3%AFc_Wacquant
> >
> > Sure enough. It seems to me that overcoming the distinction between
> subject
> > and object is actually an interactional accomplishment, and it's not the
> > least of Wacquant's achievements in this article. But it's not something
> > that any researcher can afford to take for granted when they step into
> the
> > arena.
> >
> >
> >
> > David Kellogg
> >
> > Recent Article in *Mind, Culture, and Activity* 24 (4) 'Metaphoric,
> > Metonymic, Eclectic, or Dialectic? A Commentary on “Neoformation: A
> > Dialectical Approach to Developmental Change”'
> >
> > Free e-print available (for a short time only) at
> >
> > http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YAWPBtmPM8knMCNg6sS6/full
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Jan 5, 2018 at 5:04 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> These are really interesting questions, a really good dialogue on what a
> >> critical non-dualist approach can be. Thanks for the attachment Martin
> >> (which does work in the link you sent last).
> >> Alfredo
> >> ________________________________________
> >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> >> on behalf of Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net>
> >> Sent: 04 January 2018 23:32
> >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Science of Qualitative Research 2ed
> >>
> >> The attachment doesn’t seem to travel well. Here’s a link:
> >>
> >> <https://publicsociology.berkeley.edu/publications/
> producing/wacquant.pdf>
> >>
> >> Martin
> >>
> >>> On Jan 4, 2018, at 5:20 PM, Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> On Jan 4, 2018, at 5:11 PM, Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> I’ve attached the “point of view” article: everyone should have it!
> :)
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
>