RE: [xmca] last on concepts

[C Barker <C.Barker@mmu.ac.uk>]

Dear Nancy,

I rather like your diagram.

One thing that strikes me is that the top and the bottom planes are where the thinking/ speaking person connects with their social relations: most of our significant motives derive from our social relations, and external speech is addressed (mostly) to others....

Colin Barker

________________________________
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] on behalf of Nancy Mack [nancy.mack@wright.edu]
Sent: 08 May 2011 19:27
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] last on concepts

Hi,
I am not sure if this will come through.
I have attached my diagram of Vygotsky's planes of inner speech.
I imagine thoughts moving around like a pinball machine.

Nancy




----- Original Message -----
From: Steve Gabosch <stevegabosch@me.com>
Date: Saturday, May 7, 2011 12:09 am
Subject: Re: [xmca] last on concepts
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>

> Martin, David,
>
> My computer is in the shop for repairs - a bottle of water got
> away from me - so I have not been able to participate or keep up
> with this discussion, which has an interesting center question -
> how did Vygotsky explain the relationship between word meaning,
> concept, and generalization?
>
> Martin lists the five planes Vygotsky uses to describe the
> complex transformations from word to thought (or thought to
> word).  In Ch 7 sections 7.2 thorugh 7.5 (end) he analyzes the
> five planes in the order from exterior toward the interior - (1)
> the plane of the external aspects of speech, (2) the semantic
> plane, (3) the plane of inner speech, (4) the plane of thought
> itself, and (5) the plane of motivation.
>
> Vygotsky used a memorable metaphor at the end of Ch 7, which
> fits into some of the points both Martin and David make -
> Vygotsky likened thoughts (the fourth plane) to a cloud which
> showers words, and motivation (the fifth plane) to the wind that
> sets the cloud in motion.
>
> A question I've been pondering is: which of these five planes
> correspond to the notions 'word meanings', 'concepts', and
> 'generalizations'?  Martin brings this very question up.
>
> It seems reasonable to eliminate the first and last planes as
> candidates for "planes" within that which the three notions
> represent exist.
>
> Vygotsky makes it very clear that the first plane, the external
> aspects of words, (such as sounds), are quite different from
> word meanings.  Likewise, he differentiates the "first" plane
> from all the "inner" planes of thinking and speech.  He explains
> that the semantic plane is the first of the inner planes (making
> it the second plane overall, going from out to in).
>
> And it also seems reasonable to eliminate the last or fifth
> plane, motivation.  Vygotsky saw motivation as affect and
> volition, and other processes that set the cloud of words into
> motion.
>
> It does not appear that Vygotsky viewed word meaning, concept or
> the generalization as existing on the first or fifth "planes."
>  Do others also see it this way?
>
> This leaves us the second, third and fourth planes (the semantic
> plane, inner speech, thoughts themselves) to sort out how
> Vygotsky conceived them in relationship to the three terms we've
> been pondering - word meanings, concepts and generalizations.
>
> One possibility is that Vygotsky saw these three terms as not
> corresponding to the same planes.  For example, perhaps his use
> of the term 'word meanings' corresponded to processes that occur
> in all three of these planes, but used the terms concepts and
> generalizations to refer to only one or two of the planes.  If
> this is so, we need to find places where he says something like
> this.  This would be a strong argument in favor of
> differentiating 'word meaning' from 'concept' and 'generalization'.
>
> Another possibility is that Vygotsky believed that all three
> terms relate to processes found in all three planes, but do so
> in qualitatively different ways.  If that is the case, we need
> to find places where Vygotsky explains how concepts,
> generalizations and word meanings refer to **different aspects**
> of what he called the (2) semantic plane, (3) inner speech, and
> (4) thoughts themselves.  This would provide an interesting
> argument for differentiating the 'concept' from 'word meaning'.
>
> Still another possibility is that Vygotsky saw the relationships
> between the planes and the processes these terms refer to
> differently depending on the **direction** of the movement
> between thought and word - from out to in (understanding) or
> from in to out (speaking).  Again, evidence would need to be
> found to support this.  If it is indeed found that it was
> Vygotsky's intention, for example, to think of the concept,
> generalization and word meaning as "synonymous" going from
> thought to word, but **not** synonymous when going from word to
> thought ... that would be an interesting twist, wouldn't it?
>
> There are undoubtedly other possible combinations.  I'll mention
> one more - the most obvious, because Vygotsky explicitly says
> this - that he saw the three terms as referring to essentially
> the same process, going both directions, and therefore saw these
> terms, insofar as they are referring to processes taking place
> in "inner" planes (as psychological processes related to verbal
> thinking), as "synonymous."  There is pretty solid evidence for
> this interpretation, but that does not mean we should not
> carefully consider other possibilities, such as the above or others.
>
> ********
>
> I think Martin's point about word meanings are progressively
> "replaced" by sense needs to be closely examined.  Vygotsky
> explains that sense is a particular form of word meaning.  It is
> not the opposite of word meaning, it is not a process that
> replaces word-meaning altogether.  It is an extremely important
> aspect of meaning.  And he does emphasize that sense becomes
> more predominant over external, social meanings as we go further
> inside
> But do we want to say that sense entirely **replaces** social
> meaning in plane 3, inner speech, or thought, plane 4?
>
> Also, the idea that word-meanings altogether completely
> disappear at the level of thought is not one I have so far seen
> Vygotsky suggesting.  Please point me to what I am missing.  He
> uses the example of observing a boy on a street  His point is to
> compare how different his observation is within the third plane
> (inner speech, with details) from the thought plane, which took
> in the scene as a whole.  But is Vygotsky actually saying that
> word meaning - and therefore verbal thinking - disappears
> entirely in the fourth plane, the plane of thought, (or did not
> yet appear in any way), that words are now altogether not at all
> involved in the process of thinking?
>
> Sorry if this message is rambling - I've run out of time on this
> store computer - no time to edit ... LOL
>
> - Steve
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Martin,
>
> On May 06, 2011, at 04:54 PM, David Kellogg
> <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Vygotsky uses the word "moment" a lot, even when he is talking
> about space or logic. For example, he says that there are three
> "moments" in a particular data set in Tool and Sign, even though
> they clearly overlap.
>
> Vygotsky also uses "stage" and "step" a lot, even when he is
> talking about temporally overlapping processes. For example, he
> differentiates the association, the collection, the chain, the
> diffuse complex, and the pseudoconcept as stages of a particular
> step, even though in many of his examples (e.g. his gloss of
> Idelberger and the first words of Charles Darwin's grandson)
> they are superimposed.
>
> In Chapter Seven, Vygotsky uses the rather obvious remark that
> an expression like "the victor at Jena" means the same person as
> "the vanquished of Waterloo" to point out that object reference
> and meaning do not coincide. But what he means is exactly what
> Halliday and Jay Lemke mean: they are in fact simultaneously.
> But they are logically separate.
>
> Now, how does all this work out in PRACTICE? Of course, you are
> right. It all takes time in the real world. I think that's why
> Vygotsky is always distinguishing between the phasal aspects of
> language (in which he includes lexicogrammar and even object
> reference) and the semantic aspects (which are hierarchical and
> choice driven rather than linear and time driven)
>
> David Kellogg
> Seoul National University of Education
> --- On Fri, 5/6/11, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
>
>
> From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
> Subject: Re: [xmca] last on concepts
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Friday, May 6, 2011, 4:24 PM
>
>
> That's an interesting proposal, David. How do you deal, though,
> with the way LSV writes of "the complex flow from the first,
> vaguest moment of the origins of a thought until its final
> completion in a verbal formulation" (#27), and the "motion from
> thought to word and vice versa, from the word to the thought.
> This relation is represented in light of psychological analysis
> as a developing process, which traverses a number of phases and
> stages"; "This flow of thought is accomplished as internal
> motion through a whole series of planes, the passage from
> thoughts in words to words in thought" (#29)?
>
> This sounds to me like passage in time. When he insists that to
> put a thought into words is to transform it, reorganize it, and
> embody it - "In transforming itself into language, the thought
> is reorganized and modified; the idea is not expressed, but
> finalized in the word" (#32) - this sounds to me not merely a
> logical realization, but a temporal process - a "motion from
> thought to speech" (#41).
>
> Indeed, he emphasizes that speech itself necessarily unfolds in
> time because thought has to mark the words of an utterance with
> emphasis in order to make them comprehensible: " it is obvious
> that the speech utterance cannot immediately emerge in its
> entirety" (#45); "Thought impresses logical stress down on the
> words of the phrase, marking in this way the psychological
> predicate, without which any phrase becomes incomprehensible.
> Speaking requires a passage from the internal plane to the
> external, while understanding assumes reverse motion, from the
> external plane of speech to the internal" (#52).
>
> Whereas a Chomskian grammar has all the words of an utterance
> prepared simultaneously, and the fact that they are emitted in
> sequence is merely an artifact of performance (if we had screens
> instead of mouths one could imagine the whole grammatical
> structure being displayed at once), in LSV's account of the
> microgenesis of speaking from thinking the words need to unfold
> in time in order that pacing and emphasis can distinguish what
> he calls the "psychological structure" of the sentence from its
> "grammatical structure" (#35).
>
> Martin
>
> On May 6, 2011, at 3:17 AM, David Kellogg wrote:
>
> > I think that the "five planes" are not modular in the Fodor
> sense. I think they represent non-reducible options rather than
> discrete moments of time or planes in space.
> >
> > When Halliday talks about the "stratification" of gesture into
> language proper, he speaks of three planes: soundings (roughly,
> phonology), wordings (roughly, lexicogrammar), and meanings
> (pragmatics, semantics, thinking).
> >
> > I have some problems with collapsing semantics and pragmatics
> like this. But I have no problem with Halliday's basic argument,
> which is that the relationship between sounding, wording, and
> meaning is not causality: it's REDUNDANCY.
> >
> > It's not the case that a sound 'causes" a word or that a word
> 'causes" a meaning. Instead, the relationship of a sound and a
> word is REALIZED in meaning; it REDOUNDS in an ideal form we
> call meaning.
> >
> > Jay Lemke points out that there is no one to one
> correspondence between any two planes, because if there was the
> existence of that separate plane would be entirely unnecessary.
> That means that a sounding does not correspond to a particular
> wording which in turn corresponds to a specific meaning.
> >
> > What happens instead is that a sounding realizes a particular
> correspondance of wording and meaning. Or, if you like, a
> correspondence of sounding and wording realizes a particular meaning.
> >
> > I think that's why Vygotsky emphasizes, not the kind of "time"
> or "space" dimension we would normally associate with his use of
> planes, but instead that, for instance, a particular motive does
> NOT correspond to a specific thought, but can be differently
> realized in different thoughts, a particular thought does NOT
> correspond to a particular inner speech form, but can be
> differently realized in different inner speech forms, a
> particular inner speech form does NOT correspond to a particular
> word but can be differently realized by different words.
> >
> > It's not that the planes are really separated in either time
> or space; it's that they they are LOGICALLY separated because
> each plane involves some choice and because previous choices
> enter into that plane as a done deal; the process of redundancy
> is now realized in a product. Motive and thought are joined and
> then realized in inner speech, and then motive, thought, and
> inner speech are joined and realized as the word.
> >
> > That's how I understand it, anyway! And that's why it seems
> right to me to see a concept as a historical extension of this
> process. The invention of concepts is the sociocultural
> continuation of the same process of psychological
> stratification, abstraction, and selection that precipitates
> "meaning" out of "sense",and the learning of concepts is the
> reverse movement in psychology.
> >
> > David Kellogg
> > Seoul National University of Education
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >  A word does not stand for a meaning; instead, a meaning it
> stands for "a wording standing for a meaning". A meaning is not
> represented by a
> >
> >  at ANY level, because if there was that  l in the A separate
> comment on the five planes. I
> >
> > --- On Thu, 5/5/11, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
> >
> >
> > From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] last on concepts
> > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > Date: Thursday, May 5, 2011, 7:25 PM
> >
> >
> > This whole concepts thing is still nagging at me, and making
> me grumpy with my students!
> >
> > LSV describes the microgenesis of thinking in two places in
> T&S: chapter 7, and sections 6 and 7 of chapter 6. And he does
> so in apparently completely different ways! Chapter 7 is all
> about movement among the five planes from thought to word or
> vice versa, with concepts not mentioned even once, I believe.
> Chapter 6 is about acts of thought, concepts in relations of
> generality, and words are mentioned in only one or two
> paragraphs, of such grammatical complexity that I am currently
> looking for a native Russian speaker to disambiguate them for me.
> >
> > So what is the relationship between the two passages? The key,
> I believe, is that in both chapters LSV makes the claim that
> thinking is always relating two things (in chapter 7 he writes:
> “all thinking tends to unite one thing and another”; in chapter
> 6 it is: “every thought establishes a link between parts of
> reality, represented [представленным] in some way in
> consciousness”). In chapter 7 it's clear when he says this that
> he's talking about the penultimate plane, that of "thought
> itself." (The five planes are as follows: (1) outer form of the
> word; (2) inner form of the word; (3) inner speech; (4) thought
> itself; (5) motivation.) So it seems to me the way to interpret
> the sections in chapter 6 is that they too are dealing with this
> plane. And that means that concepts operate on the plane of
> thought itself (or that thinking itself operates with concepts),
> at a point where words have "disappeared" or "died," depending
> on ones
> > translation (or not yet been born, if one is moving in the
> opposite direction, from thought to speech).
> >
> > This is more evidence, in my view, that concepts are not word-
> meanings. Natalia asked me in a side message if I did not think
> that words in inner speech have inner form. It's a good and a
> tricky question, and on reviewing the text I would say that I
> think LSV considered inner speech to contain 'inner form,' but
> that this 'meaning' is progressively replaced by sense - which
> can, he argued, become separated from words. By the time we get
> to thought itself words are no longer involved in the processes
> of thinking.
> >
> > Of course, that still leaves a lot of details to be worked out
> about concepts and the relations of generality they form.
> >
> > Martin
> >
> > By the way, there are five difficult paragraphs that I would
> welcome help on. Perhaps the most opaque to me is this one:
> >
> > 316. Если самое значение слова принадлежит к определенному
> типу структуры, то только определенный круг операций становится
> возможным в пределах данной структуры, а другой круг операций
> становится возможным в пределах другой структуры. В развитии
> мышления мы имеем дело с некоторыми очень сложными процессами
> внутреннего характера, изменяющими внутреннюю структуру самой
> ткани мысли. Есть две стороны, с которыми мы всегда сталкиваемся
> в конкретном изучении мышления, и обе имеют первостепенное значение.
> >
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