Re: [xmca] FW: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: african fractals

[David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>]

Consider these two (linked but distinct!) examples of "fractal" (that is, self-similar) structure in language, one of which is "unconscious" (that is, the generating algorithm is not known to the generator) and the other of which is "conscious" (that is, the generating algorithm is known to the generator, although of course the generator is not altogether aware of its fractal properties).
 
1) In language, we often find that a given constituent consists of some independent root and one or more dependent "radicals". For example, a syllable like "(b)a" has to have some vowel sound, but a consonant is both optional and not freestanding. A word like "(re)work(ed)" has to have an independent morpheme, but the prefixes and suffixes are optional and cannot stand alone. A word group like "a piece of bread" also consists of a head word plus bits that are neither necessary nor independently very meaningful, and a sentence like "the student who has the most cards will win the game" can be divided into independent free-standing clauses and their dependent clausal constituents.
 
This property does NOT seem to me to be an inherent property of any code. Numbers, for example, do not have it. Besides, there is no obvious reason why the dependent constituents logically HAVE to be optional (we can easily imagine languages where independent constituents are necessary or languages where dependent constituents are not optional). It seems to me to be an inherent property of human language, though, and we can easily imagine that constituents at one level of language are unconsciously modelled on constituents at another level.
 
The usual way linguists think about this is that higher level constituents are modelled on lower level ones, but I always think of it the other way around, that lower level constituents are modelled on higher level ones, because a) I believe that simplicity arises out of complexity in language, rather than vice versa, b) I believe that language is social in its inception and that therefore it is discourse that is differentiated into grammar, and grammar that is differentiated into vocabulary rather than vice versa, and c) conscious control of smaller constituents (e.g. phonemes) is later emerging in both cultural history and ontogenesis than conscious control of larger ones (e.g. utterances). 

2) In a language LESSON, we usually find that the lesson as a whole has three phases, roughly, Getting Attention, Giving Information, and Checking Integration of New and Old Understandings. In a so-called PPP lesson, this corresponds to Presentation, Practice and Production, but in our elementary school English lessons it is usually something like "Look and Listen", "Listen and Repeat", and "Let's Play". 
 
Now, within each phase of the lesson we also find that there are subphases, and we find that these subphases correspond to getting attention (for example, drawing attention to the fact that a new phase of the lesson is beginning), giving information (usually doing an example of some kind so that the kids can see how the new phase is to be tackled) and checking integration (usually letting the kids try the new phase without an immediate adult example to follow). We can even find this structure in exchanges (the famous initiate-respond-evaluate sequence that Mehan documents) and even single utterances, e.g. "Hi! I'm Mr. K. and you?" or "Look! This is an apple. What is it?"
 
But this is clearly NOT an instance of self-assembly or if it is then it's not an instance that is like the first example. The fractal structure of the lesson is quite conscious, and teachers who are interrogated about WHY they structure the lesson that way will give answers that are very much like the answers that African builders and geomancers give; not exactly mathematical but very clearly algorithmic. So what we have here is an instance of conscious fractality. 
 
Which brings me back to the point I was trying to make in our OTHER discussion ("plural discourses"). The replacement of unconscious structure by conscious, planned, deliberate structure is a moment of crisis. 
 
That's what we Jussi really means by an epistemological break, and if we say that Vygotsky didn't have one (or two) we are really saying that he was a bumbler who stumbled into cultural historical psychology quite by accident and never really figured out what he was doing there.
 
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
 
 


      
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca