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[xmca] intonation and meaning

Forgive me for changing the subject line, but we're never going to find this thread years from now when the issue comes up yet again under a heading like "plus times minus"!
I recall reading VN Voloshinov, who was a close collaborator of Bakhtin, and B. himself on a similar issue, using of course examples from their native Russian. One point was that through intonation (plus context, plus cultural background knowledge and dispositions) a word can mean an awful lot of different things, if not anything at all. Some examples were of expletives, and some nice literary ones from Dostoevsky. But this was not taken as a feature of Russian, language or culture, but of discourse itself.
Contrary to one of our common cultural ideologies about language, words as such do not "have meanings". They have distributions of usage in relation to one another and to various situations, which one can interpret as meaning-potentials or probabilities of being used for one meaning or another in different situations. Situations are rather endlessly variable, but many of them are similar and do seem to recur because of the way our societies are built. So there is some stability and predictability. Humor, and creative usage in poetry, among other practices, play with and against our sense of these probabilities. And so do such phenomena as irony, sarcasm, and wit.
We always have to interpretively construct some narrower range of likely meanings-in-context for any word (or phrase, or even sentence) from the wider range of available possibilities. Just how we do this, and how the texts we construct or the utterances we produce provide clues to help in the interpretive process is a fascinating study (discourse or text semantics). it is a complex, perhaps truly emergent, process juggling a bottom-up element (the meaning-potentials of words, phrases, etc.) with a top-down element (contexts, intertexts, whole texts or conversations, episodes, ... sentences, phrases, etc.) to produce what may even sometimes be unpredictable meanings-made.
All languages do this. it is one of the wonders of language- communication (though really language never operates alone, there are always other semiotics and practices and types of context also in play). Culturally, some cultures and subcultures emphasize language "play" -- going somewhat against the obvious or most probable interpretations as in jokes, wit, irony, etc. -- more than others. Some cultures value this more than others. It might even be true that cultures where there are oppressive conditions mitigating against more direct forms of expression (e.g. Jews living with anti-semitism, African-Americans under racism, Soviet-era dissidents or just ordinary KGB-fearing people) are more likely to develop in this direction.
A very interesting question is the more specific one of the role of intonation in modifying the probabilities of interpretation of the underlying lexical words. This may vary across languages as such. I don't know if there are comparative studies. Discourse intonation theory exists, but is not too well developed, I would say. (For Englsh, key work by Halliday and later David Brasil, and some still later things on radio voices, including I think some work by Theo van Leeuwen?) It is really hard to train your ear to hear what the acoustic intonation actually is vs. what you think it has to be. Note that this applies normally to the intonational contour across a whole utterance, and not word by word (except for one-word utterances). And it is not the same as word-level tone as in Chinese or Swedish, though it has to take that into account across longer stretches.
Many effects we can produce in English, and presumably from our examples in Russian or Yiddish, can also be produced with shifts in vocabulary or grammar, or perhaps the ordering of phrases in time. Or also by other vocal inflections, such as extending the length of vowels or clipping consonants or palatalization, or rhythm changes, rather than pitch variation. I don't know whether some languages may emphasize some of these devices more than others, but it seems likely. Do very intonationally complex tone languages (where word and phrase level intonations change core meaning) like Cantonese prefer non- intonational means for expressing irony or indicating that something is meant to be taken humorously? 

JAY.

BTW, I love the Yeah, yeah or Yeah, right! example.

Jay Lemke
Professor
Educational Studies
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
www.umich.edu/~jaylemke




On May 2, 2009, at 10:38 PM, Michael Glassman wrote:


Eugene,
I still wonder if sense through intonation is more tied to cultural capital more than language. One might for instance think (and observe) that English in and of itself doesn't make itself susceptible the this type of communication through intonation. Then you watch a few episodes of Monty Python and you realize how many meanings the word "What" has. Just as an example, it is hard to imagine anybody who has not actually heard the phrase understand the meaning of "One never expects the Spanish Inquisition" - and yet it is a touchstone for an entire generation. You use the phrase as a way of communicating very complex ideas and common ties in a single sentence, but somebody who is not from a particular population would have no idea what it means. Is there something in the English language that makes this unique and possible? 

Michael

________________________________

From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Eugene Matusov
Sent: Sat 5/2/2009 3:07 PM
To: 'eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity'
Cc: backontrack@wwscholars.org; 'Zoi Philippakos'; 'PIG'
Subject: RE: [xmca] a minus times a plus



Dear Michael, Tony, and everybody-
I agree with Michael that probably any language allows intonational ambiguity and disruption of the semantic structure and affordance. However, since Russian has much more freedom of the word order than, let's say, English does, -- for example, in Russian, question is raised entirely by intonation rather than by re-ordering words, like in English, -- arguably intonation is more powerful for making meaning in Russian than in English (more research is needed).
Also, as Tony seems to suggest, reliance on intonational meaning making through the intonation-semantics contradiction is very popular in Jewish culture both in Russia and in the US (and, probably, elsewhere). Let me share a typical Russian-Jewish joke supporting this claim. Before the President Reagan arrived to Russia in the 1980s to meet with Gorbachov for the first time, Jewish refusniks were called to KGB where they were told, "Reagan has requested to see you. If he asks you about immigration, you must reply, 'President Reagan, we don't go!' [??????, ?? ?? ????!] If you say anything else, you will go to GULAG. Jews, is it clear for you?!" When the Soviet Jewish refusniks met the President Reagan who demanded this meeting, they replied to him with an extreme surprise intonation, "President Reagan, we don't go?! [??????, ?? ?? ?????!]"
So, the nature of a language and a culture can increase affordances of ambivalent, carnivalistic use of intonation. 



What do you think?



Eugene
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca- bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Michael Glassman 
Sent: Saturday, May 02, 2009 2:36 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: RE: [xmca] a minus times a plus
But his monologues are for the most part in English - at least these days. He is the progeny of an interesting group called Borscht Belt comedians (the Borscht Belt was a string of hotels up in the Catskills a few hours outside of New York City). 



________________________________

From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Tony Whitson
Sent: Sat 5/2/2009 2:13 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: RE: [xmca] a minus times a plus

According to Wikipedia, "Jackie Mason" was born Yacov Moshe Maza (for
what it's worth).

On Sat, 2 May 2009, Michael Glassman wrote:



Eugene,
I would argue that the intonation is not so much related to language as it is to culture - in essence a part of cultural capital that can be found in Russia, but in a number of other places around the world with a number of different languages. You use the example,
-?? (da-da) is a good translation from Mogenbesser's Jewish English, "Yeah, yeah" in Russian. As you, probably, know, Russian is very intonation-based language - almost any word might have the opposite meaning with the right intonation. Like for example, "Have you my taken my book?" "I need your book badly!" ("?? ?? ???? ??? ??????» -- «????? ??? ????? ???? ?????!») - it is difficult to translate this Russian exchange into English because the response has the intonation indicating the opposite meaning that its formal semantics suggests. One Russian (Soviet) poet commented that Russian language does not support «?????» (i.e., report to a secret police).
But anybody who has listened to Jackie Mason, not such a good human being but a pretty good comedian, has heard him using the type of intonation you are discussing brilliantly in English - so brilliantly you would wonder how it could work in any other language - but of course it could. I'm sure the same intonation, or maybe different types of intonations expressing meaning but especially sense, could be used in almost any language as long as the speaker was comfortable with it. What is interesting about the use of this type of intonation is when somebody uses it - at least in English - I can make a pretty good guess about where they grew up in the United States. Some people who are really good at this can even limit it to general neighborhoods - and you immediately recognize certain cultural qualities about that individual and it cuts through a lot of other information. On the other end of the spectrum somebody could use the intonation perfectly in Columbus Ohio and individuals would just understand the remark based on the more straight forward understanding (and might consider you a little alien for using the intonation). What also might suggest the intonation being part of cultural capital rather than the language itself is the fact the I think it is often time used as a form of intimacy, kidding, or making fun in a non- maliscious way. 

Michael



________________________________

From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Eugene Matusov
Sent: Sat 5/2/2009 1:31 PM
To: mcole@weber.ucsd.edu
Cc: backontrack@wwscholars.org; 'Zoi Philippakos'; 'eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity'; 'PIG' 
Subject: RE: [xmca] a minus times a plus



Dear Mike and everybody-
You wrote, "another example of binary logic which is anti-human". I wonder what makes this logic anti-human is not necessary that it is binary, but maybe the fact that it strives to be the universal, unconditional, disembodied, and decontextualized. I think that limited and situated binary relations can be humane. As you nicely put it before, the universal answer to any problem is, "it depends" ;-) The big problem, of course, what it depends on... (I always say to my grad students that the answer for the latter question will be addressed in a future Advanced Grad Sociocultural Seminar that I never teach J) 

??
-?? (da-da) is a good translation from Mogenbesser's Jewish English, "Yeah, yeah" in Russian. As you, probably, know, Russian is very intonation-based language - almost any word might have the opposite meaning with the right intonation. Like for example, "Have you my taken my book?" "I need your book badly!" ("?? ?? ???? ??? ??????» -- «????? ??? ????? ???? ?????!») - it is difficult to translate this Russian exchange into English because the response has the intonation indicating the opposite meaning that its formal semantics suggests. One Russian (Soviet) poet commented that Russian language does not support «?????» (i.e., report to a secret police).
Ed made an interesting and thought-provoking point, "Social relations don't give rise to mathematics, but mathematics seems to give, perspectivally, a rise to social relations." I think that in general, it is a chicken-egg problem but I suspect that social relations have priority over math. So, Ed, we have a respectful disagreement, indeed. The reason for my suspicion is that usually, although not always, social relations have a priority over everything else. For example, it seems that historical emergency of geometry was a result of a certain development of private property on land and conflicts associated with it. Certain (but not all!) mathematical questions could emerge only within certain social relations. One of these vivid examples can be mathematical division. I'm always amazed how difficult for Western kids to understand fractional division leading to a number bigger that divided. For example, 2 divided by ½ becomes 4. Western understanding of fair sharing almost exclusively as splitting the whole on equal but smaller parts (private property) makes very difficult to consider a possibility for collective sharing in which the more people share the more value the whole has. We have a PIG Lab of Internationally Recognize Excellence - the more people use it, the more valuable it becomes (to a point of course, ;-). By collective sharing, ten PIGgies virtually have 10 labs! Or 1 divided on 1/10 is 10. I think this fractional division reflects collective sharing (and collective fairness) in contrast to whole number division based on private property sharing (and private property fairness). It is interesting to study this question empirically.... 



What do you think?



Eugene
PS I know that everyone in this XMCA discussion who replies to my messages gets bounced message from the PIG email list (no connection to the swine flu!). I try to resend your messages to the my PIGgy colleagues. 



---------------------

Eugene Matusov, Ph.D.

Professor of Education

School of Education

University of Delaware

Newark, DE 19716, USA



email: ematusov@udel.edu

fax: 1-(302)-831-4110
website: http://ematusov.soe.udel.edu <http://ematusov.soe.udel.edu/ > <http://ematusov.soe.udel.edu/> <http://ematusov.soe.udel.edu/> 

publications: http://ematusov.soe.udel.edu/vita/publications.htm
Dialogic Pedagogy Forum: http://diaped.soe.udel.edu <http://diaped.soe.udel.edu/ > <http://diaped.soe.udel.edu/> <http://diaped.soe.udel.edu/> 

---------------------







From: Mike Cole [mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, May 01, 2009 10:01 PM
To: Eugene Matusov
Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity; backontrack@wwscholars.org; Zoi Philippakos; PIG 
Subject: Re: [xmca] a minus times a plus
That it works to think that the enemy of your enemy is your friend is another example 
of binary logic which is anti-human. Shit happens a lot, Eugene.
Your yeah yeah example is in the increasingly long and equally interesting trail of emails on 
this thread.

da da
?
zhanchit?
mike
On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 4:38 PM, Eugene Matusov <ematusov@udel.edu> wrote: 

Dear Mike--

You wrote,
And for sure, Eugene, it is a cardinal error to believe that the enemy 
of
your enemy is your friend. Maybe, maybe
not. Like all laws of social science, it all depends.
Actually, it worked rather well during the WWII for the Allies (US- UK) and the USSR. Their cooperation in opposition to the Nazi Germany was governed by the Arabic wisdom "an enemy of your enemy is your friend." It can be 
powerful indeed but as you said it is not universal.
As to the natural language and the formal logic (math), in natural language (+1)*(+1)=-1, according to famous anecdote, "The most celebrated [Sidney] Morgenbesser anecdote involved visiting Oxford philosopher J. L. Austin, who noted that it was peculiar that although there are many languages in which a double negative makes a positive, no example existed where two positives expressed a negative. In a dismissive voice, Morgenbesser replied from the 
audience, 'Yeah, yeah.'"

Take care,

Eugene



-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu ] 


On Behalf Of Mike Cole
Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 8:38 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity



Cc: backontrack@wwscholars.org; Zoi Philippakos; PIG
Subject: Re: [xmca] a minus times a plus




Eugene, the mixture of plus and minus was the focus of my inquiry.
Natural
language understanding
of double negatives solves that problem for 2 numbers, beyond which I 
assume
natural language needs
a notation system to keep track.

So far Jerry Balzano's mirror explanation seems like it has the best
chance
with my grand daughter (in
part because i can actually imagine creating the demonstration that
lines up
intuition and notation). I
have not had time to read all of the notes in this thread owing to
heavy
teaching and extra lecture schedule
and a rash of recommendation letters out of season (which I will accept 
as a
sub for swine flu). But
simply in scanning could I make a plea for socio-CULTURAL
constructivism? If
we do not keep what is
essential to human forms of human sociality in the discussion, we might 
as
well be talking about bonobos
who, at least, know enough to make love not war.
And for sure, Eugene, it is a cardinal error to believe that the enemy 
of
your enemy is your friend. Maybe, maybe
not. Like all laws of social science, it all depends.

mike


On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 1:44 PM, Eugene Matusov <ematusov@udel.edu>
wrote:


Dear everybody--

In response to Mike's profound inquiry of why a minus times a minus

is a

plus, I was thinking that it is a mathematical model of the Arabic

wisdom

that "an enemy of my enemy is my friend." Of course, the latter is

not
always true -- we have plenty of examples when enemy of our enemy is 
still
our enemy (or just indifferent) and, thus, for these types of social 
relations, the mathematical model of (-1) x (-1) =1 does not work.

Just

consider, for an example, the relations among the US, Al-Qaida, and

Saddam

Hussein.

The issue for me is why the Western civilization prioritizes (and

then

mathematizes) social relations described in the Arabic wisdom. One

answer

is
because "the real world" works according to these social relations

(i.e.,

the social relations is just an example of the truth out there). An
alternative explanation is that the Western civilization can afford

and

might be even benefit from imposing these social relations on "the

real

world" that by itself is indifferent to any social relations (and

thus

mathematical models). Any other explanations?

What do you think?

Eugene





-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-

bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]

On Behalf Of Ng Foo Keong



Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 12:23 PM
To: ablunden@mira.net; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] a minus times a plus
Is Mathematics _merely_ socially constructed, or is there something 
deeper and inevitable?

I think this deserves a new thread, but I couldn't manage to start

one.

Let me try to draw out and assemble the line of discussion that

spun

off from the "a minus times a plus" thread.

In her inaugural post to xcma, Anna Sfard about talked "rules
of the mathematical game" among other things.

Then Jay Lemke said:-

...
I think it's important, however, to see, as Anna emphasizes,
that there is a certain "arbitrariness" involved in this, or
if you like it better: a freedom of choice. Yes, it's
structure-and-agency all over again! Structure determines that
some things fit into bigger pictures and some don't, but
agency is always at work deciding which pictures, which kind
of fit, which structures, etc. And behind that values, and
culture, and how we feel about things.


-----
Then I (Ng Foo Keong) said:-


regarding structure and agency, arbitrariness:-
i think now it's time for me to pop this question that has been
bugging me for some time.  i am convinced that mathematics is
socially constructured, but i am not so convinced that

mathematics

is _merely_ socially constructured.  if we vary across cultures
and different human activities, we might find different ways
in which patterns and structure can be expressed and yet we might
find commonalities / analogies.  the question i am asking is:
is maths just a ball game determined by some group of nerds who
happen to be in power and dominate the discourse, or is there

some

invariant, something deeper in maths that can transcend and unite
language, culture, activity .... ?


Foo Keong,
NIE, Singapore

-----
Then Ed Wall said:-


Ng Foo Keong
As regards your question about mathematics being socially
constructed, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by
mathematics or what kind of evidence would convince you it

wasn't.

Suppose I said that there was evidence for innate subtizing.



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Tony Whitson
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NEWARK  DE  19716

twhitson@udel.edu
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"those who fail to reread
 are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
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