Re: [xmca] Word Meaning and Concept

[Peter Feigenbaum <pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu>]

David--

I've been listening in on this conversation
from the sidelines, and I have a perspective on the role of inner speech
in conversation that might be of use to you.

Perhaps what's missing here is a distinction
between *developed* speaking and listening in the mature adult, and the
*development* of speaking and listening in the immature child.

In conversation between adults, both
the movement from external to internal (i.e., listening) and the reverse
movement from internal to external (i.e., speaking) involve the use of
inner speech. In the case of listening, inner speech is needed to analyze
and interpret the speech of others; in the case of speaking, inner speech
is needed to plan one's utterances and adapt them to particular audiences.
To be a competent speaker implies also being a competent listener insofar
as speakers take the perspective of their listeners into account when they
formulate utterances.

But young children, who have yet to
master the many pragmatic rules that competent speakers must master, first
must construct the verbal tool of inner speech to help them analyze and
plan speech. It begins as private speech, and its initial functions are
to give voice to *existing* thought. That is, young children use this tool
to put their thoughts into words. Then gradually, children re-shape their
private speech into a tool for consciously regulating their activity and
*directing* their thought. That is, children learn to use speech to *create*
new thoughts out of words--you might say that they put words into thoughts.
Paradoxically, when children first use private speech, they voice the listener
role (i.e., they predicate), but as they transform private speech into
a tool for self-regulation, they then use it to voice the speaker role
(i.e., they topicalize).     

What I am suggesting is that inner speech
is available to competent adult speakers as a tool for both listening and
speaking, whereas for young children, inner speech initially develops only
as a means for thinking (listening); only later does it also become a tool
for speaking.

My two cents--for what they're worth.

~Peter



From:      
 David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>
To:      
 Culture ActivityeXtended
Mind <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date:      
 06/14/2011 12:18 AM
Subject:    
   Re: [xmca] Word
Meaning and Concept
Sent by:    
   xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu

---

Huw:
 
I want to try to use your distinction between time-bearing utterances
and timeless thoughts to clear up a problem I have with Chapter Seven of Thinking
and Speech.
 
Your nudge explains almost perfectly why Volosinov says that "theme" (that
is, sense) is an aspect of an utterance, but "meaning" (that
is, signification) belongs only to individual words. "Dog"
has meaning, but not theme. "Look! There's a dog! (and it's about
to bite you!" has theme, but not (taken as a whole utterance) meaning.
 
Now, I know from Chapter Seven that inner speech is mostly theme/sense.
That explains why it is reduced to predication (just like the external
speech utterance "Look!"). But...Is INNER SPEECH a definite stage
in the transition from thinking to speaking, or is it really ONLY a distinct
moment in the transition from listening (to another person speaking) to
understanding? 
 
On the one hand, Vygotsky says, at the very end of Section Two:"Thinking
printes the mark of a logical accent (that is, utterance stress--DK) on
one of the words of a sentence, putting in relief in this way the
psychological predicate, without which the whole sentence is incomprehensible.
Speaking, therefore, implies a passage from the internal plane to the external
plane, and understanding supposes the inverse movement, from the external
plane of speech to the inner one."
 
On the other hand, Vygotsky says this, in the tenth paragraph
of Section Three:
 
"External speech is a process of transforming thinking into words,
of its materialization, its objectiization. Inner speech is a process in
the opposite direction, which goes from the exterior to the interior, a
process of volatilization of speech into thinking. And it is from this
that we get everything which distinguishes it from the structure of external
speech."
 
THAT makes it sound like inner speech is part of comprehension and not
part of production! But that cannot be right. 

David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education

--- On Mon, 6/13/11, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote:


From: Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Word Meaning and Concept
To: lchcmike@gmail.com, "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Monday, June 13, 2011, 8:21 AM


On 13 June 2011 04:42, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:

> That is to compacted and complicated for me to be able to gloss to
myself,
> David.
> I am struggling with the polysemy of both "meaning" and
"concept" in this
> discussion to make sense of their relationship very well. Ditto sign
and
> symbol, although Huw's
> note about signs and shadows nudged me along. I noted that Anton referred
> in
> a recent note to "tool and sign/symbol" and wondered what
he meant, but was
> too preoccupied to ruminate.
>
> Here is a thought I had while ruminating. Might it be appropriate
to say
> that meaning is a tool of human processes of concept formation ?
>
>
Yes, I think so.

Re nudges, you might like to consider that analog phenomena occurs in
parallel (all at once), whilst the non-analogical aspects of speech and
text
are sequential.  In other words, speech is a serialized description
of a
plan.

Words, word meanings, predicates and propositions serve the function of
(sequential, serialized) description.  Describing is a particular
kind of
action, or activity.  Concepts are used to regulate (coordinate) action.

In this context, I think it would be useful to distinguish word meanings
from sentence meanings, such as the child's utterance of "Dog!",
i.e.
"There's a dog!"

Huw


> mike
>
> PS- There was a fascinating segment on the American Evening TV Program,
60
> minutes, this evening.. A controversy about "The N word"
, the banning of
> Huck Finn, and the success of a book which substitutes the word "slave"
for
> the word "nigger." One proponent of the argument for using
slave was
> teacher
> who is shown in class discussing "the n word", asking her
class, "why do we
> say the N word instead of 'n-i-g-g-e-r' spelling it out?"
>
> Now THERE is an example of the power of the book!! At least I am not
alone
> in my
> confusions about such matters.  :-))
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 11, 2011 at 8:17 PM, David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com
> >wrote:
>
> >  This is Evald Ilyenkov, "The Concept of the Ideal',
in "The Ideal in
> Human
> > Activity", Pacifica, CA: MIA, p. 268:
> >
> > "The meaning of the term 'ideal' in Marx and Hegel is the
same, but the
> > concepts, i.e. the ways of understanding the 'same' meaning are
> profoundly
> > different. After all the word 'concept' in dialectically interpreted
> logic
> > is a synonym for understanding the essence of the' matter, the
essence of
> > phenomena which are only outlined by a given term; it is by no
means a
> > synonym for 'the meaning of the term' which may be formally interpreted
> as
> > the sum total of 'attributes' of the phenomena to which the term
is
> > applied."
> >
> > Ilyenkov then goes on to discuss Marx's cuckoo-like propensity
"not to
> > change the historically formed 'meanings of terms'" but
to propose very
> > different understandings thereof, and thus to change the very
concept.
> >
> > Three questions:
> >
> > a)  In addition to the ONTOGENETIC argument against the
equation of
> meaning
> > and concept (viz. that if meaning were already equivalent to
concept then
> > meaning could not develop into a concept), can't we make a SOCIOGENETIC
> one?
> > Doesn’t this sociogenetic argument explain both the cultural
adaptation
> of
> > concepts over time (e.g. “quantity” into “operator” in math,
“grammar”
> into
> > “discourse” in linguistics) and the cuckoo like exaptation
of other
> people’s
> > terms to express quite different concepts by Marx and by Vygotsky
(e.g.
> > "egocentric", "pseudoconcept", etc.)?
> >
> > b) Viewed sociogenetically, isn't this distinction between conceptual
> > essence and word meaning the same as the distinction between
> signification
> > value and sense value? That is, from the point of view of Johnson's
> > dictionary (or the Kangxi dictionary, or the Port Royal grammar,
or any
> > other state codification of meaning) the state-ratified meaning
of words
> is
> > their essence and the other, vernacular uses are simply senses,
folk
> values,
> > the range of phenomena to which hoi polloi apply the words?
> >
> > b) Isn't the OPPOSITE true when we look at the matter microgenetically?
> > That is, from the point of view of interpersonal meaning making,
the
> essence
> > of the phenomenon to which I apply the term in the given instance
is the
> > self-legitimated, auto-ratified, individually-approved sense
value and
> the
> > signification value is simply the range of conventional meanings,
the
> range
> > of conventional phenomena to which the word is applied and misapplied
by
> > others?
> >
> > David Kellogg
> > Seoul National University of Education
> >
> >
> > __________________________________________
> > _____
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> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >
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