Rene,
perhaps the thread can be resurrected if some collective interest remains....
I'm glad you are back from lurking and contributing to the collective
memory making..
The quote was Humboldt in Valsiner's The Guided Mind
and the last quote after that seemed to say it all, so I am really
pleased you found my meaning with the sample word/concepts...
One thing that impressed me in crossing borders ie. my 1st travel to Spain
when Franco was still in power was the pace was so much more quaint,
relaxed prosocial , slower in the sense of people-orientedness then,
and the drastic change in the collective "persona' (oxymoron?) after
entering the E. Common market/Union. In the more recent trips i saw the
word 'estressed" become appropriated and used widely , from the more
economically dev. neighbors
So it seems
as if macro level changes in a culture bring changes in "states" (of being),
e.g., when a tool in incorporated into the activities of a community etc
might generally bring up modifications/expansions in the lexicon.
But it seems that the original individual experience is at stake here. It
precedes the construction of the category. Yet such experience(s) may not
always emerge a priori of such intervening circumstances as an eclipse,
the wheel, car or pc.
In the Spain example and other 1st-3rd world
cases, it seems clear that the developing entities tend to enjoy/have a
frame of reference and lexicon to borrow from the more "developed" entites
who might have gotten there first (time/space again).
So the more interesting angle here seems to be the genetic issue of how
such categories emerge for the "first there" group, how they may emerge
from individual experiences that at some point ascend to collective
categories which in turn facilitate communication/ and description of
oneself and others back at the individual level and so forth.
Like, in the case of androgeny (perhaps easier to deal with than Ach.
motivation), one can see how after the suffrage movement and the gender
equity activity last century, not being in the estremes of the macho-
southern belle continuum became "good", socially valued as a inter-gender
stance.
So, questions arise such as ;
at what (cumulative) point do individual experiences/ideas/observations
become collective enough to break off from the past into the future and
lead to new terms indexing various forms of social relation or state of
being?
E.g.,
Being sexist prior to say 1793, was not regarded as "bad" as now, and many
did not perceive themselves as so given those norms. Positive synonyms
abounded for such behaviors/attitudes. Chivalry - ous etc..
Being androgenous could be risky then.... and many humans surely were so
without knowing that that is what we would call them today.
and on and on, it seems like some developmental principles could be
considered to go beyond the Whorfian extreme (which I read somewhere was
not really his real position) and even go beyond the moderate position
from the last note;
from Hattiangadi, 1987, p172);
> Languages do bring with them world views, categories of thought,....which
exhibit certain embedded ontologies. but they do not imprison
us.....because they come not with one world view but with several, which
compete, and also problems of each world view. When solved, these problems
might yield not only a modified world view but novel concepts..........",,,,,,
One such term I identify with a lot lately and which might make it at the
collective level in late modern society is being "time poor"
so with that category in mind,
Ciao, let's see what happens,
pedro
At 04:05 AM 2/10/00 PST, you wrote:
>Pedro,
>
>Well, I know itīs been some time since we started a little discussion about
>the degree to which language constrains our possiblities for conceptualizing
>self and others. I do want to continue looking at this, mostly because I
>have been thinking about it obsessively lately and because it is a bad habit
>of mine to think about stuff that comes up on this list and lurking instead
>of writing...and since lately thereīs this discussion about participation, I
>am feeling a little guilty about this...:)
>
>So, To recap, you offered this quote (and Iīm sorry I lost the source),
>
>"person cannot be in any form for which there is no concept"
>
>And I responded that I was uncomfortable with this notion, because I think
>it implies that language constrains us with a certan rigidity, kind of like
>the Whorfian linguistic determinism thing that nobody seems to advocate
>anymore but I think itīs still there lurking unspoken in the background...
>
>BUT
>
>Then you responded, intriguingly...
>
>"a considerable chunk of our human consciousness is social and depends on
>cultural activity and products (tools). Hence language, as a socio-bio
>process may indeed be a priori (or co-owned for many of the traits that
>define us). If there is no word for "androgenous" for example, then how do
>I know that I am androgenous, or macho or gay or facist?? But I know what
>you mean. One can be x and know it without language mediation (e.g., hot ,
>cold, hungry but how about "achievement motivated","assertive"??)"
>
>OK. So I think a key here is that language is culturally constructed, not
>the other way around. So that we know we are androgenous whether or not
>there is a word for androgenous. But we have a word for androgenous that is
>in fact quite significant and emotionally charged...itīs not that we donīt
>get to be androgenous in a society whose language has no word for
>androgeny...itīs that we can express that androgeny has a certain
>categorical significace...well, Iīm not just a person who has male and
>female characteristics...Iīm "androgenous" with now all the associations and
>cultural baggage that comes with it. So, yeah, I guess in a way that does
>change how I and others can conceptualize me...
>
>And I really like your question using achievement motivated as an example.
>I think because language changes based on social needs/pressures, I think
>the English language (for one, the one I know) has changed in relatively
>recent times to include such words as "achievement motivated" and "learning
>disabled" I guess you can say that achievement motivation and learning
>disability didnīt exist before these terms came about, anyway I think they
>didnīt, thanks to Ray McDermott and his epiphany-inducing writings to this
>effect. People had certain characteristics that we now use to "diagnose"
>these conditions...but they never had these things because they donīt exist
>as legitimate categories without a word to describe them. OK. I can go
>there.
>
>Well, Pedro, I never before thought about the relationship between two
>apparently contradctory ideas I had in my head...my resistance to thinking
>that language constrains my thinking, and the idea that the existence of
>linguistic categories make things possible to exist. Wow. Thatīs
>interesting. Thanks for the nudge...
>
>Renee (trying really hard not to lurk)
>
>
>
>
>______________________________________________________
>Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>
>
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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