"Gary... I guess that is the real question: just what IS human
thought?
As participants in a logocentric culture we seem to equate that
with
language; or at least with some sense that there is a pre-
linguist
articulation of ideas that "forms" thoughts, rather like we
"form"
words. If "thinking" is limited to the manipulation of these
discrete
word-like concepts, then language is real close to the "center".
On the other hand, if language/articulated
thought/conceptualization is a
separate thing we do, then it might be 'beside' thinking, or
behind it,
or even very FAR from the center. ... "
Maybe I should resist the temptation on this one, but ... much as
I want to inquire into the non-verbal dimensions of meaning-
making, and the non-typological aspects of every sort of
semiosis, I want to be careful not to return to the old notion
that ideas or thoughts have a domain of their own which is then
somehow imperfectly translated into words, pictures, gestures,
etc. A great deal of the meaning we make is made only in and
through the mobilization of these semiotic resources. That we
also make meaning through the less theorized toplogical
dimensions of semiotic resources, or through the infra-semiotic
potential in all aspects of our being/doing-in-the-world seems
clear and important. But the trick I think is to generalize our
notion of semiosis and its resources, rather than to oppose them
to something else. In the case of visual and gestural semiosis,
the typological is not as supersalient as it is for language, and
this is even true to some degree of _speech_ as opposed to
language. I think it is very, very important how we conceptualize
the relationships between the kinds of meaning-making we can
account for with traditional typological notions of semiosis and
all the rest that is left out. This should be done with
considerable care and sophistication, or we may miss a great
opportunity.
As to how central language is to meaning-making in the broadest
sense (i.e. to meaningful being/doing-in-the-world) I think that
here and now it is very central indeed, and more so perhaps for
people closer to the dominant 'ideal' (middle-class, middle-aged,
eurocultural, masculinized, etc.) -- but that in principle, and
across all varieties of human cultures and social categories, it
need not be as central as it is for us.
Perhaps the most important question is not what else could be central
rather than language, but how else we might integrate other modalities
with language so as to produce a better balanced, and so more useful
total matrix of resources. The beginning of such an understanding
may well lie in more clearly exposing the totality of that matrix
as many different sorts of persons and communities now in fact
deploy it, which may require highlighting the neglected modalities,
but not conceptually opposing them to language. JAY.
JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
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