[Xmca-l] Re: keeping eyes open

[David Kellogg]

Zaza--

Dude, I don't really speak Russian either, as Nikolai and Anna will tell
you (we only speak English). In my translation work I spend a lot more time
on Google Translate than I would like, and that's why I burden the list
with the queries you mention from time to time.. But I bet you speak Shona,
or at least understand a little.

So maybe you can help. I'm using this tune from the late great Tuku (Oliver
Mtukudzi) in a class I am giving on sex education in Korea. I've been told
that it doesn't really mention AIDS/HIV explicitly, and I get that--in
fact, that's one of the reasons why I think it's useful for making certain
parallels between pandemics and also discussing HPV and other issues I want
to talk about. But I don't quite understand THIS verse--maybe you can help
me?

Zvinorwadza sei kubhinywa newaugere naye
(Kana uinahwo utachiwana)
Zvinorwadza sei kubhinywa neakabvisa pfuma
(Kana uinahwo utachiwana)
Achiziva unahwo hutachiwana
(Kana uinahwo utachiwana)
Ende uchiziva unahwo hutachiwana
(Kana uinahwo utachiwana)

So "Kana uinahwo utachiwana" means something like "If you get infected".
But what is the reference to being raped by your roommate?

On the subject of this thread. Like voter fraud, racism is a very serious
charge, and the right has successfully made hay out of its seriousness. But
as with voter fraud they have made even more hay out of rendering the
charge unproveable, by removing its class content and rendering it a purely
subjective inclination. This is why, I think (I hope), Arturo and others
tend to raise this sort of thing in private off-list material that is so
much at variance with their public writings that it fairly attracts the
charge of hypocrisy or at least political timidity. After all, if you
really suspect your interlocutor of racism, it's incumbent on you to keep
your mouth and not just your eyes open. But you've got to put money where
your mouth is: you have to provide some evidence (e.g. the paper that
Harshad circulated on the list not too long ago). There are important
scientific issues we need to discuss which are actually not unrelated to
the one that Arturo was reacting to: whether you can accurately judge the
language proficiency of a person by their race or national origin (as I
have done in the second paragraph above). Not unrelated. But not identical
to either, else I would not have written that paragraph.

Here's an example. A dear colleague of mine, who like the vast majority of
people in this country is not white and wouldn't know deficit linguistics
from a surplus, has just written a paper on why Korean children tend to
drop articles (i.e. "a" and "the"). He begins with the Chomskyan premise
that all nouns must, according to universal human grammars which are
hardwired at birth, be realized by "determiner phrases". What that means is
that a noun phrase like "the cat" is not really about a cat--it's about
"the", and the "the" is modified by "cat" (What kind of "the-ness" do you
mean? The cat kind!)

But it's THIS, and not Vygotskyan, Hallidayan, or Bernsteinian
developmentalism, that is deficit linguistics. I won't say it is racist,
because unfortunately that term has lost its scientific content and become
nothing but a thought crime. But I will say that people who speak languages
without articles or languages that emphasize nouns over determiners (e.g.
Korean, Chinese, Russian) are not born with a birth defect (or "null spell
out", as the Chomskyans say).

Does Shona have articles or not? Do you know?

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY0JssD8Hzc__;!!Mih3wA!QePX9kKiZVk8QmwFWMwYJblxjbu3_Pd2XeZXyOV1YZVr6VOrUaRfbuTZlUpgqPtWWiBSSw$ 

David Kellogg
Sangmyung University

New Book with Nikolai Veresov
L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works, Vol. I: The Foundations of Pedology
Translated with Prefatory Notes and Outlines by David Kellogg and Nikolai
Veresov
See free downloadable pdf at:

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007*2F978-981-15-0528-7__;JQ!!Mih3wA!QePX9kKiZVk8QmwFWMwYJblxjbu3_Pd2XeZXyOV1YZVr6VOrUaRfbuTZlUpgqPuZA6tlEA$ 

Forthcoming in 2020:
L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works, Vol. II: The Problem of Age.
Translated with Prefatory Notes and Outlines by Nikolai Veresov and David
Kellogg


On Sat, Nov 28, 2020 at 6:02 PM Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>> P.S. To my best understanding (very minimal, no doubt), the subject
>> matter of Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory is the *development of
>> human higher psychological functions*. (How that is "left," "right," or
>> otherwise is beyond me.)
>>
>
> Political propensities can be discerned across some (adult) developmental
> stages.
>
> Huw
>
>>
>
>
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