Rene,
Thanks for forwarding that last week.
This last note of yours connects somehow with something I am reading in
Valsiner's The Guided Mind that suggests that the language register, unlike
perhaps the other sensory registers, has an priori social order /basis....
from which cog. and emotional experiences, (and disorders) arise.
In a section on the Nature of Language Constraints (p. 272-73), discussing
the mutuality of the person and laguage in the process of thinking and
communicating, he reviews Humboldt (1903)
"a person cannot understand the world outside of his or her own perceptual
experiences. In a similar vein, the person cannot be in any form for which
there is no concept p.386
("aber man kann auch nichts seyn, wovon man gar keinen Begriff hat, wozu
die Form fehlt"),
From which Jaan V. concludes language "sets us specific limits upon the
possible ordering of the subjective experiences of the Geist" (p273)
and it would seem also upon other interpsychological experiences that
socialize us.
pedro
ps.
you will soon see how diverse Spain can be, Basque language seems
impenetrable, which has served a formidable insulating function
historically, for that group (reminds me of the Navahoe lang.)
the gypsy culture somehow survives there too....etc
At 01:45 AM 1/19/00 PST, you wrote:
>Hi Stanton.
>
>This thing you wrote about language register in Javanese is interesting:
>
>>& STYLE IN JAVANESE). Javanese has complex speech levels, where many
>>linguistic forms come in sets that are denotationally synonymous but
>>signal different sorts of social identities and relationships between
>>speaker and addressee/referent. This is not a system for classifying
>>individuals, exactly, but it is a system used to classify individuals in
>>practice -- as higher or lower status than the speaker (eg), or as
>>more/less refined.
>
>I wonder if this system, definitely more elaborate sounding, is analogous to
>Spanish and other languages that signal speaker-addressee relationship using
>more than one form of "you" such as the Spanish tu/usted. Because I´ve been
>paying a lot of attention to this, recently having landed in Spain and
>really needing to understand the subtleties of communication. And I have
>noticed that it seems really flexible and fluid, even this one register
>change between using what the textbooks call (casual) you form (tu) and what
>they call polite you form (usted). My point is the categories are kind of
>porous and multivoiced in everyday practice...for example, I think a parent
>might use "usted" form talking to a child, in the case where the child is
>being disciplined...like somehow a double awareness is created when the real
>relationship between speaker and addressee can be superimposed on a
>particular situation to create a new, richer meaning.
>
>You describe how the categories of linguistic register are changing over
>time in Javanese:
>
>>Errington shows how, over time, forms that are associated with the
>>highest status speakers come to be appropriated by lower status
>>speakers.
>
>I think what I am saying is not to contradict this, by the way. Actually to
>suggest that on the smaller times scale, there may be multi-voicedness of
>meanings...like I realize that the Javanese categories seem to more closely
>reflect social status, according to your description. But I am wondering if
>individuals can move around a little...like for example for irony or
>self-aggrandizement use a form not usual for them. And if so how this
>relates to the trend you describe of gradual shift over time....
>
>Ever fascinated by the minutae of language, and floundering through the
>learning process,
>
>Renee
>______________________________________________________
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>
Pedro R. Portes, Ph.D
Professor of Educational
& Counseling Psychology
(502 852-0630/ fax 0629)
http://www.louisville.edu/~prport01
"Psychosocial strength, ...depends on a total process
which regulates individual life cycles, the sequence of generations,
and the structure of society simultaneously: for all three have
evolved together" p.141 Erik Erikson (1968)
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