RE: [xmca] Language, meaning and culture.

["michael" <mglevykh@telus.net>]

Joseph,

Talking about sympathetic resonance, when my wife and I hear a student
and/or a poor professional singer singing "in his/her throat" at a singing
recital, within 10 minutes we both feel some tension in our throats. Of
course, my wife and I are professional voice teachers and vocal coaches
(among many other things). So, when we hear other people sing, we
"understand" (using your expression) their voices through sympathetic
resonance. 

However, my questions are:
1. Why many other people don't experience the same discomfort while
listening to the same "poor" singers?
2. Why neither of us (my wife and/or I) feels the same or similar discomfort
when listening to, let's say, Louis Armstrong's raspy and throaty voice?

Michael


Michael G. Levykh, Ph.D.
-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
Behalf Of Joseph Gilbert
Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 11:35 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Language, meaning and culture.

Michael,
Any and all vocal sounds emanate from and express states of the  
organism. Perhaps this analogy may help to clarify.         If two  
pianos are placed close to each other and the sustain pedal of one is  
held down while a chord is struck and held on the other, the strings  
on the unstruck piano that correspond to the ones that were struck on  
the struck piano will begin vibrating. Like structures cause each  
other to vibrate when either of them vibrates. They resonate with  
each other. This is the same principle that radio tuners work by.  
When we tune a radio to resonate at a certain frequency, it will  
receive signals at that frequency. When one human vibrates, others in  
the vicinity are caused to vibrate in sympathy. We intuitively  
"understand" facial expressions and general body language involving  
posture and motion. We understand vocal utterances in the same way,  
simply by experiencing the affect of them on us.

		Joseph Gilbert

On Aug 3, 2009, at 10:48 AM, michael wrote:

> Hi Joseph,
>
> In your phrase "We feel the affects of our vocal sounds internally,
> intuitively, intimately and with consistency..." what do you mean  
> by vocal
> sounds? Are you talking about prosody and intonation of a meaningful
> discourse, or some separate vocal sounds being detached from a bigger
> (social, cultural, historical) discourse?
>
> Michael G. Levykh, Ph.D.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca- 
> bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> Behalf Of Joseph Gilbert
> Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 10:30 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Language, meaning and culture.
>
> Ivan,
> The culture is established by all the talking people. What percentage
> of the population are deaf? A relatively very small number. It seems,
> they probably take their lead from the group as a whole.   Thanks for
> replying. If you want, I'll send more.
>
> 		Joseph Gilbert
>
>
> On Aug 2, 2009, at 9:48 PM, Ivan Rosero wrote:
>
>> Hello Joseph,
>> I'm trying to follow what you are saying.  How do deaf individuals
>> fit into
>> the ideas you're presenting?
>>
>> Ivan
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 8:54 PM, Joseph Gilbert
>> <joeg4us@roadrunner.com>wrote:
>>
>>> Andy, Thanks for replying.
>>>
>>> It is my understanding that the doctrine among linguists is that
>>> since
>>> different words are used to refer to the same things in different
>>> languages,
>>> there must be no absolute, universal relationship between the
>>> sounds of
>>> words and their "meaning", that meaning being the things to which
>>> they
>>> refer. Therefore, linguists generally hold that the relationship
>>> between
>>> sound and meaning is "arbitrary". If we look at relationship
>>> between sound
>>> and internal emotive state, a new panorama opens up and we see
>>> that there is
>>> a direct and deep relationship between sound a meaning, that
>>> meaning being
>>> the emotive states that vocal sounds emanate from and create. That
>>> we are
>>> affected by the sounds we vocally produce provides us with the raw
>>> material
>>> for a system of assigning meaning to things simply by naming them.
>>> We have
>>> nothing other than the affects on us of our words with which to
>>> collectively
>>> ascertain the affects on us of the things that make up our world.
>>> We feel
>>> the affects of our vocal sounds internally, intuitively,
>>> intimately and with
>>> consistency, and all of us who speak the same language share the
>>> same basic
>>> perception of how we are affected by the things of our world. We
>>> process
>>> this basic consensus world view through the lens of our own unique
>>> self
>>> images.
>>>        One can sense the affect of any vocal sound on one by
>>> vocalizing
>>> that sound repeatedly while sensing what emotive state/feeling
>>> state that
>>> sounds stimulates/suggests. Try the sound of the letter, "R",
>>> "rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr". Or the sound of the letter, "M",
>>> "mmmmmmmmmmmm".  Do
>>> these sounds conjure up/ suggest any particular state of being?
>>> Try the "A"
>>> sound and the the "D" sound. I went through the alphabet, from a
>>> to z when I
>>> first discovered this phenomena and is appeared to me that the
>>> sequence of
>>> sounds represented by our phonetic alphabet tells a story. I'd
>>> like to know
>>> if you discern a story in that sequence. If so, a story of what?
>>>        It may be helpful to note that before the progenitors of we
>>> humans
>>> used vocal sounds as words to refer to things outside of
>>> ourselves, we used
>>> them to convey emotional states to one another as other social and
>>> somewhat
>>> social species do.
>>>
>>>                Joseph Gilbert
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Aug 2, 2009, at 7:59 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:
>>>
>>>  Joseph, welcome to xmca.
>>>>
>>>> I am no linguist Joseph, but I gathered from reading Saussure that
>>>> linguists in his day (100 years ago) did "look for relationships
>>>> between
>>>> sounds and things" because he argued against that idea. But
>>>> surely, no
>>>> linguist has looked at it that way in recent times. Who do you
>>>> have in mind?
>>>> And surely the idea of sounds relating to emotive states is more
>>>> relevant to
>>>> the animal kingdom than culture. Or am I misunderstanding you?
>>>>
>>>> Andy
>>>>
>>>> Joseph Gilbert wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>    Is our intellectual activity driven by a quest for answers to
>>>>> specific
>>>>> questions, or is it more like a game or sport we engage in for
>>>>> the sake of
>>>>> participating in society? What questions do we ask?    I wanted
>>>>> to know why
>>>>> people behave destructively, as they do. I allowed that question
>>>>> to exist
>>>>> for many years until the answer became clear. It related to
>>>>> culture.
>>>>>    When we use words, we are making a statement about whatever
>>>>> things we
>>>>> name. By referring to things vocally, we are, virtually,
>>>>> informing ourselves
>>>>> of the affect/meaning of those things. The sounds we utter
>>>>> correlate to
>>>>> emotive states, which we experience subliminally. Consequently,
>>>>> we associate
>>>>> those emotive-feeling states with the things to which the sounds
>>>>> refer.
>>>>>    Linguists have been looking for relationships between the
>>>>> sounds of
>>>>> words and the things to which they refer, and have been, for the
>>>>> most part,
>>>>> frustrated by that search. Vocal sounds relate primarily to
>>>>> emotive-feeling
>>>>> states, and only secondarily to the things to which our words
>>>>> refer. Are we
>>>>> able to discover to what emotive states each of our vocal sounds
>>>>> refer?
>>>>>    If we would change our human behavior, which is often
>>>>> misidentified as
>>>>> "human nature",  we must address the cultural values, the
>>>>> unquestioned
>>>>> givens by which we perceive our world. These givens, these
>>>>> values, our
>>>>> culture, is a result of our language.
>>>>>    I would like to share more of this with youall if you want to
>>>>> know
>>>>> more.
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> xmca mailing list
>>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------- 
>>>> -
>>>> ----
>>>> Andy Blunden (Erythrós Press and Media) http://
>>>> www.erythrospress.com/
>>>> Orders: http://www.erythrospress.com/store/main.html#books
>>>>
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