Ana,
Are you talking about the kind of situation that Stephen Pinker
described: the little kid in the back seat of the car who suddenly says
"pink" in response to the sunset. That has always struck me as a
function of communication (not necessarily just linguistic
communication) that is incredibly important and usually ignored in the
"transfer of meaning" model.
My sense is that humans--because we are a social/collective
creature--have a need to establish the existence of common perceptions.
Language is one method of doing that, although language can be used
for other purposes as well.
Dale Cyphert, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Management
University of Northern Iowa
1227 W.27th Street
Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0125
(319) 273-6150
dale.cyphert@uni.edu
Ana Marjanovic-Shane wrote:
> Mike,
> Maybe I take a different position, and maybe not. Here is a more
> concrete explanation of what I mean as "language alone" and "language as
> independent of a situation".
> I am thinking of a possibility to refer to objects actions events that
> are not either present nor part of a joint activity, nor are they in any
> way connected to the actual "situation" of the interacting participants.
> Of course, now we must also define "situation" -- I make a difference
> between a situation in which I communicate about the "immediate",
> present reality -- like in the example with Michael's chicken, and many
> examples with babies. On the other hand, language (and other symbolic
> means) is used to communicate about things/actions/relations/events that
> are not part of the immediate situation, and or to create new
> situations. In a way I am thinking of the use of language which is
> similar to the activity of play: to tell stories, to create figured
> worlds and fictive worlds. Vygotsky described play as a dominance of
> meaning over the object/action -- [a stick is not a stick any more, but
> a "horse"]. Language and all symbolic systems have that same ability --
> to re-describe, to create a different way of seeing, to change the
> immediate situation. In other words, to bring ["polozhit"(Russian)
> "predstaviti" (Serbian)] a totally different ways of seeing and
> "objects" existing only in the narrative into the focus of the
> participants. That does not mean that a root of language is not in the
> processes of joint activity -- on the contrary -- I do think that
> activity is where language starts. My point is that there is one more
> step between communication with signals and communication using symbols.
> What exactly enables signs to detach from the immediate, unmediated
> situation and start to be used in such a way that you can talk about
> past, and future, about fantastic never existing creatures, about
> unknowns and never experienced -- what enables them to become a means of
> deeper exploration and a means of understanding?
> This is how I meant "language as independent of situation" -- obviously
> it is never independent of some.. situation.
> Your example with suddenly using Russian illustrates not only that
> people have to share many situations and activities in order to learn to
> use the same language in a meaningful way -- It also illustrates that
> you are using language to communicate way beyond the "situation" in
> which you and your students are sitting in a classroom. You are actually
> talking about "thoughts" and "ideas" of people long time dead. In order
> to be able to do that -- language not only has to be learned through
> associating the same sounds with the same activities, actions and
> operations, and with same "things". That is a necessary condition -- but
> not sufficient to explain how these associations (of sounds with actual
> actions/operations etc) can transcend actual situations, can be
> transfered to the new situations or used to invent "make believe"
> fantastic worlds that nobody ever experienced.
> But I am not saying that language (or any other symbolic systems) ever
> becomes "independent". I am only trying to say that there is an
> interaction between two very different aspects of language -- one is its
> situatedness, dependence on the context, participants, activities,
> practical reality of a moment. The other is its "abstract", independent
> side -- its capacity to be "bigger" than the moment, to have its
> different histories (cultural, social, group, individual), and to be
> inventive -- used in novel ways (metaphors). These two are in constant
> interaction -- and THAT is where I see the greatest challenge for us to
> understand what is actually going on -- the nature of the interaction
> between the situated aspect of language and its "ideational" aspect.
>
> It is 10 to 2 a.m. in Philadelphia, and I have to get up at 6 a.m.
> Good night.
> (BTW: In context of the whole post I just wrote, the last two lines mean
> something quite different than the actual words they use -- and that is
> this both situated and totally "ideal" side of language).
>
> Ana
>
>
> Mike Cole wrote:
>
>> Anna-- In the following passage:
>>
>> Thus, I still think that we need to understand the interaction of
>> language as independent of situation and language as embodied in
>> situations. In addition, we need to understand how language and language
>> alone can be used to create situations.
>>
>> you seem to be taking a position quite different from that Michael and
>> I (if we
>> are actually taking the same position!) take regarding the possibility
>> of "language as independent of situaiton" and "language alone"
>> creating situations.
>> What does it mean for language to be independent of the situations of
>> use? What does
>> it mean for language alone to create something? When is language ever
>> alone and in what
>> sense(s) (using sense here not in a technical manner). ??
>>
>> Genuinely perplexed in so cal.
>> mike
>>
>> On 7/12/05, *Ana Marjanovic-Shane* <ana@zmajcenter.org
>> <mailto:ana@zmajcenter.org>> wrote:
>>
>> Wolff-Michael and all,
>> I think it is really very important to do this analysis in a
>> developmental (genetic) way, as you started below. You say:
>>
>> Wolff-Michael Roth wrote:
>>
>> > "Let's start with a historical reconstruction that ultimately
>> led to
>> > the emergence of language. At that point we understand language
>> better
>> > than we do today if we start with the presupposition that
>> language is
>> > already there. It has not been and is not in the experience of the
>> > child, for the word to be word, has to be something different from
>> > Self and object, a separation that only occurs some time during
>> > development. Even my chicken and other people's dogs make the
>> > distinction between different sound patterns I produce--when I call
>> > "Harko," my Harko chicken comes rather than the Red Rocks, and Harko
>> > "knows" that this means slugs, which "she loves" -- as I take
>> from the
>> > way she devours them.
>>
>> >From this example and many others, we see that communication exists
>> prior to humans -- not just any communication, but meaningful
>> communication, too. That kind of communicative language -- either
>> vocal
>> or gestural -- is embedded in an activity: You call "Harko" and your
>> Harko chicken "knows" that she will get slugs. The question is, is
>> this
>> the same order of meaning as meaning of language on the human
>> level. The
>> point I am getting at, is that human language becomes a human language
>> only when it gets "disembodied" from the immediate action. You and I
>> could talk about your Harko -- even through the Internet -- I have
>> never
>> seen it, you don't even know me, the only action we are engaged in is
>> "talking about meaning", and there is no chicken either here or on
>> your
>> side of the screen. But we make a great meaning and sense to each
>> other
>> (hopefully :-) ). You could not do that with Harko. In other
>> words, you
>> could not hold a conversation with Harko, or communicate to Harko
>> regarding something that is not part of of the immediate situation.
>> So the question becomes how do we get from the point A
>> (communication on
>> the level of a chicken) to the point B (human type of communication).
>> This was a distinction made by Susanne Langer in the "Philosophy
>> in the
>> New Key" (she used her cat as an example). ( I don't have the book
>> here
>> at the moment)
>> She distinguished various types of signification from:
>> a) indexes -- pointing to something in a situation -- either
>> physically
>> or with deictic words (this, that, here, there) or both;
>> b) signs -- embedded in a situation and with invariant "meaning"
>> like: a
>> lightning "means" there will be a thunder; a sound of a garage door
>> opening in the evening "means" that my dad arrived home; or more human
>> made ones: traffic light "green" means "go", red means "stop"; or an
>> exclamation by someone: "Stop!", or if you sneeze and I say
>> "nazdravlje"
>> you would immediately "know" what I meant even if you don't speak that
>> language... The point is that signs are embodied in a situation, they
>> are unambiguous -- otherwise they either produce anxiety or they stop
>> having a "meaning";
>> c) Finally, symbols -- words of a language which, although they
>> are part
>> of immediate activities, carry more than just the immediate
>> significance.
>>
>> How do we get from signs (that can be understood by your chicken
>> and my
>> dog) to symbols -- polysemic vocal and/or bodily gestures
>> which develop
>> historically both culturally and ontogenetically, i.e. carry along a
>> historical, cultural sediment of activities and actions, and can
>> grow a
>> new, emergent significance (mening+sense) at any point?
>>
>> To solve that, I think, we need to show how object orientation
>> (knowing
>> the world) starts to interact with the "subject orientation"
>> (interacting with other people) -- and that is, I think, the point
>> described by Vygotsky where the practical (sensory motor) intelligence
>> interacts with the communicative function, in other words, where
>> language starts to interact with thinking in a totally novel way: to
>> introduce communication about something that is not immediately
>> present
>> either in the material moment (physical objects) nor in the
>> interpersonal moment (actual relationship between the individuals in a
>> situation).
>>
>> Thus, I still think that we need to understand the interaction of
>> language as independent of situation and language as embodied in
>> situations. In addition, we need to understand how language and
>> language
>> alone can be used to create situations.
>>
>> I would create one situation if I ended this posting with: "What
>> do you
>> think?"
>> Quite another situation if I ended it with: "How do you explain
>> that?"
>>
>> all the best
>> Ana
>>
>> >
>> > Eric, where is the conceptual meaning?
>> >
>> > Another way of moving away of following linguists in their
>> fallacy of
>> > considering language and meaning as separate entities--pace
>> > Vygotsky--is to look at linguistic practices. Let's see how
>> words and
>> > sentences are produced and reproduced in situation, for purposes, to
>> > get work done, rather than talk about language "in the abstract".
>> > Talking about language independent of situations leads us down a
>> blind
>> > alley, I think.
>> >
>> > There is not even "a" language, as Derrida (Monolingualism of the
>> > Other, 1998) points out. He puts it this way ( p.7):
>> >
>> > 1. We only ever speak one language.
>> > 2. We never speak only one language
>> >
>> > and then goes on to defend his thesis in this interesting little
>> book.
>> >
>> > Michael
>> >
>> >
>> > On 12-Jul-05, at 10:41 AM, ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org
>> <mailto:ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org> wrote:
>> >
>> >>
>> >> Michael;
>> >>
>> >> It is my understanding that Vygotsky goes beyond merely stating
>> that
>> >> meaning is tied to context by distinguishing between syncretic
>> meaning
>> >> (that which comes from the senses) complex meaning (that which
>> comes
>> >> from
>> >> graphic/concrete everyday) and concept (that which is the
>> abstraction of
>> >> the first two). Once a person then moves to the conceptual
>> meaning of
>> >> words they are in a better position to be active in new ways.
>> >>
>> >> eric
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Wolff-Michael
>> >> Roth To:
>> >> smago@uga.edu <mailto:smago@uga.edu>, "eXtended Mind,
>> Culture, Activity"
>> >> <mroth@uvic.ca
>> <mailto:mroth@uvic.ca>> <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>> <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>>
>> >> Sent by: cc:
>> >> xmca-bounces who-is-at web Subject: Re: [xmca]
>> >> sense and meaning
>> >> er.ucsd.edu <http://er.ucsd.edu>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> 07/11/2005 11:36
>> >> PM
>> >> Please respond
>> >> to xmca
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> I think you can read Vygotsky, Il'enkov, Mikhailov, Heidegger,
>> Marx all
>> >> in the same way as meaning being associated with practical
>> >> understanding, whole of activity, and generalized
>> possibilities; sense
>> >> is personal, associated with the relation of action to
>> activity, and a
>> >> concrete realization. Heidegger says that words do not HAVE
>> meaning,
>> >> they ACCRUE to meaning; that is, as Marx, for Heidegger meaning
>> >> precedes sense, is associated with lived-in situations as a whole,
>> >> involving not just individuals but collectives. Meaning transcends
>> >> words--words, or rather utterances, have a sense in a particular
>> >> activity, and as all actions, have a different sense in a different
>> >> activity.
>> >>
>> >> If you say "I haven't got time" to your colleague asking you
>> whether
>> >> you want to write a review essay, this is one thing; it is a whole
>> >> different ball park when you say it to your teacher who is
>> asking you
>> >> to finish some assignment, or something else of that
>> nature. The sense
>> >> of the expression is a function of the activity. . .
>> >>
>> >> Michael
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On 11-Jul-05, at 8:36 AM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> I tried to work out the sense/meaning tangle a few years ago
>> >>> in a paper published in the AERA journal Review of
>> >>> Educational Research. I think it was 2001, the title "If
>> >>> meaning is constructed, what is it made from?: Toward a
>> >>> cultural theory of reading." I'm traveling now so don't have
>> >>> the ms. handy, but I can send it when I return home if I
>> >>> remember. Peter
>> >>>
>> >>> ---- Original message ----
>> >>>
>> >>>> Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2005 21:59:12 +0700
>> >>>> From: Phil Chappell <philchappell@mac.com
>> <mailto:philchappell@mac.com>>
>> >>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] sense and meaning
>> >>>> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
>> >>>
>> >>> <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>>, Mike Cole
>> < mcole@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:mcole@weber.ucsd.edu>>
>> >>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> I'm not sure I can offer much here, Mike, but in the vortex
>> >>>
>> >>> of voices,
>> >>>
>> >>>> I'd like to add what I understand. Whenever I am confronted
>> >>>
>> >>> with the
>> >>>
>> >>>> concepts "sense" and "meaning" I immediately attend to the
>> >>>
>> >>> notion of
>> >>>
>> >>>> thought and context. Being an English speaker and therefore
>> >>>
>> >>> only having
>> >>>
>> >>>> an approximation of the semantic differences between sense
>> >>>
>> >>> and meaning
>> >>>
>> >>>> in Vygotsky's writings (meaning (znachenie) and sense
>> >>>
>> >>> (smysl)), I ask
>> >>>
>> >>>> is "sense" the socio-personal history of the communicative
>> >>>
>> >>> use of a
>> >>>
>> >>>> lexical item applied to the immediate spheres of human
>> >>>
>> >>> activity; and is
>> >>>
>> >>>> meaning the most predictable use of the word across social
>> >>>
>> >>> contexts?
>> >>>
>> >>>> SFL uses a theory of congruency that has come under
>> >>>
>> >>> criticism for being
>> >>>
>> >>>> deterministic, however if understood within the the genetic
>> >>>
>> >>> approach
>> >>>
>> >>>> used not only by Vygotsky, but also by SFL'ers (for example
>> >>>
>> >>> Jim
>> >>>
>> >>>> Martin), it is seen as an informed approach to social
>> >>>
>> >>> semiotics - it
>> >>>
>> >>>> looks at actual uses of language to make judgements about
>> >>>
>> >>> language use
>> >>>
>> >>>> in human activity. Sense and meaning can take on much more
>> >>>
>> >>> critical
>> >>>
>> >>>> applications; for example "sense" - for LSV word meaning in
>> >>>
>> >>> the context
>> >>>
>> >>>> of speech - can be thought of dynamically in the context of
>> >>>
>> >>> ways that
>> >>>
>> >>>> people engage with texts and the ways that these
>> >>>
>> >>> communicative
>> >>>
>> >>>> activities influence the social positions of the
>> >>>
>> >>> interactants. Meaning
>> >>>
>> >>>> can be thought of as "most expected meanings" in terms of
>> >>>
>> >>> those taking
>> >>>
>> >>>> a more synoptic view.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Rough thoughts.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Phil
>> >>>>
>> >>>> On 09/07/2005, at 9:56 PM, Mike Cole wrote:
>> >>>>
>> >>>>> In reading the work of Halliday, Hasan, and Bernstein, I
>> >>>>
>> >>> am unclear
>> >>>
>> >>>>> about whether their
>> >>>>> notions of meaning do or do not coincide with Vygotsky's.
>> >>>>
>> >>> One form of
>> >>>
>> >>>>> this uncertainty is
>> >>>>> whether and how a distinction between sense and meaning,
>> >>>>
>> >>> which is
>> >>>
>> >>>>> central to LSV's
>> >>>>> ideas about language and thought, are viewed from an SFL
>> >>>>
>> >>> perspective.
>> >>>
>> >>>>> Perhaps its there
>> >>>>> and I am blinded by my own past history?
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> mike_______________________________________________
>> >>>>> xmca mailing list
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>> >>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>> <http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> _______________________________________________
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