Paul Dillon wrote:
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ken Goodman <kgoodman who-is-at u.arizona.edu>
> To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Thursday, July 15, 1999 11:37 AM
> Subject: Re: schooling in mean times
>
> Ken wrote,
>
> >When a statement is being generated the speaker/writer starts with
> >meaning assigns the appropriate syntactic pattern and wording and
> >finally assigns the spelling or phonology. None of that is really
> >linear, nor is it learned in any linear sense,
> >
>
> I find this statement to be an extremely simplistic description of what
> happens when a statement (which I assume includes phenomena also described
> as utterances and a speech acts) is made.
You can find a much more complete discussion of how readers and writers
construct meaning in several of my writings. Ken Goodman On Reading
(Heineman) is probably the most complete source. In this comment I was
dealing primarily on the issue of how linear language, oral and written,
are. Yes of course every linguistic text exists in some social context-
a speech act or literacy event. That affects every language stratum.
Would it be correct to interpret
> your position to mean that meaning exists independently from syntax and
> "wording?"
Yes, just as thought exists independent of language. Language expresses
meaning and spoken and written texts have meaning potential but meaning
is not in the text. In that sense every reader or listener constructs
his/her own text parallel to the speaker/listeners text.
I've been working for several years with an aphasic man who often knows
what he wants to say but has trouble saying it- particularly in
producing the words and syntax he wants to use.
What is your opinion of the idea that syntax delimits a range of
> meanings? Yes but in producing oral and writen text the syntax is determined from the meaning. In that sense meaning delimits syntax, which is also why wording has to be assigned at the same time as syntax-.
Within comparable social and historical contexts (e.g., urban
> inhabitants of contemporary world metropolises) do speakers of different> languages start with the same ranges of meanings prior to "assigning" the appropriate syntactic pattern? I'm not sure what you mean by the same range of meanings. Each language user can express and understand meanings that fit into schemas built through experience and relfection. Each one of us belongs to social communities and shares in cultures. Halliday refers to language development as learning how to mean- how to express our meanngs to others and understand their meanings. If you are asking issuccessful communication dependent on a considerable amount of shared meaning among participants in a speech act or literacy event the answer is yes. FSor the same reason there can never be perfect communication.
Does your use of the term "wording" cover
> all that is traditionally included in semantics and pragmatics?
I use the term wording as Halliday uses it to mean quite literally the
particular choice of words in the resulting utterance. It took me a
while to understand his concept but now I find it very useful. The words
and their forms are deliberately chosen to express the meaning. No the
words are chosen through use of semantic and pragmatic strategies. The
word patterns are a representation of meaning- they do not embody it.
If yes,
> then are you saying that the speaker starts with a meaning that is prior to
> and independent of the semantics and pragmatics of their language?
The production and comprehension of language is complex and dynamic. In
dealing with semantics and pragmatics, there is no doubt that Whorf was
right to some extent: language represents the social views and values of
the culture and there constrains how we think about the world and
therefore what we are likely to mean. On the other hand humans
individually and socially always have the ability to create new language
to express new meanings. That's one reason why language is continuously
growing and changing. What we call semantics and pragmatics are at least
as much cognitive as linguistic. If we want to use them only to describe
linguistic phenomena then , yes meaning precedes its expression in
language.
>
> The real problem I have is my inability to grasp what you might be referring
> to as the "meaning" that is inserted into the vehicle of syntax and wording
Here I suspect your choice of the terms "inserted" and "vehicle" does in
fact represent a very different view than mine. I believe that
appropriate syntax and wording (what Halliday calls the lexicogrammar)
are assigned in the process of producing linguistic texts. We don't
insert meaning in syntax and wording. Rather we represent meaning in the
syntax and wording. In doing so we draw on our knowledge of the world
and of language: syntax, semantics, phonology. orthography etc.
> ? If it isn't already linguistic meaning, how does the speaker evaluate the
> appropriateness of one or another syntactical, semantical, or pragmatic
> possiblity prior to the act of assignation? Not prior to- but during the generation of the text. Language users do not run through all possibilities and selct the best fit. Rather in the process of generating the text their choice of patterns and wording is constrained by what meaning they intend.
If it doesn't already exist as
> language, and therefor not require any act of assignation, how is it
> possible for the speaker to assign it? Here I'm at a loss to understand your meaning unless you meaan that thought and language are identical and the only meaning is linguistic. For me language is a social and personal invention used to represent meaning.
>
> As far as phonology goes, how many of us normally make any phonological acts
> of assignation, let alone even notice, so as to be able to select, the
> phonological variants of our own speech (i.e, as in accents)?
The answer is we do it all the time, every time we speak. Again our
phonology is constrained by the phonemes of the dialect(s) we speak but
we cannot speak without choosing sound sequences we use.
In those
> cases where we do, it seems that we have already understood linguistically
> the contextual differences that convey differences in meaning, but these are
> often supra-linguistic; e.g., to connote membership in a group or a class or
> feign provenience, all of which could not be reduced to anything resembling
> a propositional meaning or even closed system of propositional meanings by
> most speakers, if any at all.
You've lost me here. Yes the phonological assignments follow the
determination of the syntax and wording. And the phonology itself has
built in constraints- what follows what for example.
>
> I have a hard time understanding the possibility of any meaning independent
> of language in which it is expressed, although it does seem all natural
> languages weave together existentially grounded and embodied fields of
> differences, such as "values" (as in Spencer-Brown) or root metaphors
> (Lakoff).
I hope I've made my position clear.
Ken
>
> Paul Dillon
--
Kenneth S. Goodman, Professor, Language, Reading & Culture
504 College of Education, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
fax 520 7456895 phone 520 6217868
These are mean times- and in the mean time
We need to Learn to Live Under Water