[Xmca-l] Re: Language, thought, and Action in the Three Year Old

Tue Mar 23 16:14:20 PDT 2021

Almost exactly three years ago, I had the pleasure of teaching in Greg
Thompson's anthropology field school. It was a delight on every level,
because the trainee anthropologists  that Greg brought with him were mostly
Mormons and had the participant-observation contradiction in their blood.
Some of them had done missions and were trying to negotiate a transition
from doing missionary work to doing scientific research into culture and
history, and others were making exactly the opposite transition, using the
field school to learn language skills and cultural understandings that they
might someday put to use in missionary work. There was also the additional
twist of moving from Brigham Young University in Provo Utah, where they
were in a strange way of-but-not-in American adolescence and young
adulthood to Seoul elementary school classrooms, where they were really
in-but-not-of Korean school age.

I had a rather similar moment at the beginning of each lecture, because
custom required that the trainees thank their God for my presence and for
my teaching, and the interminable prayer always made me feel quite
in-but-not-of the group. Don't get me wrong--they thanked me as well, but
they were devout enough to keep the two forms of gratitude ritualistically
and rigorously separate. There was an additional twist here as well.
Precisely because of the problem that Helena raises--the OUTWARD SIMILARITY
of rote recitation to deeply felt understandings--the Mormons required that
these prayers be spontaneous and unscripted. There was--and there could
be--no fixed formula: like Quakers, Mormons are expected to hold their
peace until the spirit moves them and then say only what they deeply feel
and truly understand. Out of deference to my delightful students, I would
bow my head and even close my eyes, and as a result I soon found myself
analyzing the prayers as a linguistic genre. I found them semantically and
even grammatically quite similar--and sometimes even the phonology ran
parallel, with one prayer pausing exactly where the previous week's prayer
had paused. They were of almost exactly the same length, and took almost
exactly the same rhetorical paths. How to explain the simlarity of
spontaneous, unscripted discourse-without resorting to memorization?

 Let me use writing as an example. Suppose I write a very complete and
thorough reply to what Helena has written. Instead of sending it to the
list, I push delete. The thought which I was writing is still fully formed
in my head, and I can actually verify that this is so by rummaging around
in the trash. I can even change my mind and send it to her off-list to
prove it.  Now suppose that Helena, instead of actually reading what I
wrote, simply copies and pastes it into an e-mail and sends it out to the
whole list--without reading it. She could write a brief introduction saying
that she wrote it under divine inspiration, or drug-induced hallucination,
or in her sleep. But she hasn't read it, so she cannot elaborate, extend,
or enhance the ideas in it.  I think that in one case we have a
psychological meaning without any social expression. In the other we have
the opposite--a social expression without any psychological meaning. They
look quite similar, but as soon as you notice the flora and fauna that
ought by rights to accompany them (i.e. the possibility of explaining or
continuing the thought) you can see that they are as different as the
Arctic environment and the Antarctic. And you can also see that the zone we
inhabit lies somewhere in between.

David Kellogg
Sangmyung University
,

New Article with Song Seon-mi in Early Years:

Un-naming names: Using Vygotsky’s language games and Halliday’s grammar to
study how children learn how names are made and unmade

Some free e-prints available at:

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/2C9HCKGJEYNVEKUGHYKV/full?target=10.1080*09575146.2020.1853682__;Lw!!Mih3wA!RyCQjusRYE4Q6D8PsQkDjxV1AS1aVm6MC9fPl3RiKrGCH9bk77mNrtPl4FL7IfrENspqHw$ 

New book forthcoming in 2021:

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 Wed, Mar 24, 2021 at 5:12 AM Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com>
wrote:

> OK, I am now going to ask dear friends and colleagues on this list to
> think about the following puzzle taken from real life.
>
> I think that all varieties of self-talk can be grouped as such. By
> “self-talk” I mean speech that is sufficently externalized to become
> embodied in words (to distinguish it from intuitions, sensing something,
> vague worrying, the kind of things that go on in our heads but don’t rise
> or condense into words) but at the same time is not addressed to a person
> or persons. (Those could be close, like someone in the same room at the
> same time, or distant, like a reading public or the person to whom a
> message stuffed in a bottle is intended.)
>
> So I would include the busy chatter of the kid on the skiis (it’s not
> aware that its snowsuit is miked) in the same group with an apprentice
> electrician muttering down the sequence of how to assemble a complex
> distribution box (not sure what those are called) and in the same group as
> prayer.  Basically, self-regulation and self-confirmation through speech.
> The key aspect is that the “other” is neither present nor real. The speaker
> speaks, hears what they say, uses it to guide what they will do, and keeps
> going.
>
> (I have had discussions with people who say that they think that prayer is
> necessarily directed at Somone and involves asking for something. I
> disgree; I think it’s just another form of socially condoned
> self-regulatory speech, but that’s another story.)
>
> My question is, if you more or less accept what I’ve said above, what is
> going on when someone is given a prayer to recite? Or an oath to take? Or a
> pledge? Is there a difference between doing it as a group or doing it in
> private?
>
> Thanks — Helena
>
>
> On Mar 21, 2021, at 6:35 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>
> The skiing is not as big news as the self talk and talk with father.
> The total package is worth thinking about. Including the pic with the
> child between two older sibs in a simulated skiing at 12 months.
> Reminds you of the expression, "I learned to ski at the same time I
> learned to walk." A zone of proximal development as a chronotope,
> an old discussion on xmca.
> mike
>
> On Sun, Mar 21, 2021 at 6:10 PM Anthony Barra <anthonymbarra@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Fantastic!  Thanks for sharing, Mike.
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 21, 2021 at 1:20 PM mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> The video of a 3 year old on the ski slope (below) seems worth sharing
>>> in light of the broad interest here on developmental processes
>>> at this point in the lifespan.
>>> CNN is a commercial venture, so there is an ad at the beginning. I
>>> believe its worth the wait, apologies if it is not.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2021/03/20/skiing-toddler-dad-mics-up-british-columbia-orig-kj.cnn/video/playlists/atv-trending-videos/__;!!Mih3wA!RyCQjusRYE4Q6D8PsQkDjxV1AS1aVm6MC9fPl3RiKrGCH9bk77mNrtPl4FL7IfrAYKj-UQ$ 
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2021/03/20/skiing-toddler-dad-mics-up-british-columbia-orig-kj.cnn/video/playlists/atv-trending-videos/__;!!Mih3wA!WptG-yaVZUs-BzaJ59wxEmcw4b6qgdcZ4faiJq3AjLWruwoLG-9ZimQk65uS1WA2n5zagQ$>
>>>
>>> mike
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> I[image: Angelus Novus]
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelus_Novus__;!!Mih3wA!WptG-yaVZUs-BzaJ59wxEmcw4b6qgdcZ4faiJq3AjLWruwoLG-9ZimQk65uS1WDyIkdL3Q$>The
>>> Angel's View of History
>>>
>>> The organism, by its life activities, creates what is outside.  So
>>> organisms create the conditions of their own future
>>> which is different from their past" Richard Lewontin
>>>
>>>
>>> Cultural Praxis Website: https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://culturalpraxis.net__;!!Mih3wA!RyCQjusRYE4Q6D8PsQkDjxV1AS1aVm6MC9fPl3RiKrGCH9bk77mNrtPl4FL7IfrkfvxAHw$ 
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://culturalpraxis.net__;!!Mih3wA!WptG-yaVZUs-BzaJ59wxEmcw4b6qgdcZ4faiJq3AjLWruwoLG-9ZimQk65uS1WBpdqUMuw$>
>>> Re-generating CHAT Website: re-generatingchat.com
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://re-generatingchat.com__;!!Mih3wA!WptG-yaVZUs-BzaJ59wxEmcw4b6qgdcZ4faiJq3AjLWruwoLG-9ZimQk65uS1WBZaJXgdQ$>
>>> Archival resources website: lchc.ucsd.edu.
>>> Narrative history of LCHC:  lchcautobio.ucsd.edu.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
> --
>
> I[image: Angelus Novus]
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelus_Novus__;!!Mih3wA!UTwu73xjDsjsQhQF8T3SeoOrop8noxHhzAe2nnaaiKTrf5odl9yQNXQ-E1HT74zAAziN_g$>The
> Angel's View of History
>
> The organism, by its life activities, creates what is outside.  So
> organisms create the conditions of their own future
> which is different from their past" Richard Lewontin
>
>
> Cultural Praxis Website: https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://culturalpraxis.net__;!!Mih3wA!RyCQjusRYE4Q6D8PsQkDjxV1AS1aVm6MC9fPl3RiKrGCH9bk77mNrtPl4FL7IfrkfvxAHw$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://culturalpraxis.net__;!!Mih3wA!UTwu73xjDsjsQhQF8T3SeoOrop8noxHhzAe2nnaaiKTrf5odl9yQNXQ-E1HT74xqmQHvKQ$>
> Re-generating CHAT Website: re-generatingchat.com
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://re-generatingchat.com__;!!Mih3wA!UTwu73xjDsjsQhQF8T3SeoOrop8noxHhzAe2nnaaiKTrf5odl9yQNXQ-E1HT74y0D0p-iQ$>
> Archival resources website: lchc.ucsd.edu.
> Narrative history of LCHC:  lchcautobio.ucsd.edu.
>
>
>
>
>
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