RE: [xmca] Language, meaning and culture.

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

Thank you, Joseph.
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 5:58 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Language, meaning and culture.

Michael,
By way of explanation: A scream of distress is distressful: A  
soothing croon is soothing.: A lullaby helps to calm a child: A cry  
or alarm is alarming. Why and how is this phenomena what it is?   How  
does a vibrational pattern sent out by one organism create a reaction  
in another? What is an emotional condition? Could it be a pattern of  
energy? Can the vibrational signature of an emotional state cause an  
organism to assume that emotional state when moved according to that  
pattern?
	If there are two conga drums in the same room and someone slaps the

head of one of the drums, another person with their finger tips  
lightly touching the head of the other drum can feel  that drumhead  
move in reaction to the pressure waves sent out by the struck drum.  
The struck drum drives the driven drum. The driven drum does not  
interpret or "understand" the "meaning" of the movement imparted upon  
it by the movement of the struck drum in order to be moved by it. It  
simply assumes a state, a vibrational condition, analogous to that of  
the driving drum. It is this exact way that vocal sounds communicate  
emotional states among humans. Our language is based upon this  
elemental, primal process, just as our very life is based upon the  
chemistry of d.n.a. replication. When we consider questions about  
language, we need to remember its fundamental basis.
	By using our bodies' resonant states to refer to things, we create  
in our minds, a sense of the affects on us, (the meanings of), the  
things that make up our world.
	If you feel willing and ready, I can email youall several pages of  
writings on this subject. It is important to me because I see that  
our behavior is, as a mass, determined by our language through the  
culture which it produces.

		Joseph Gilbert


On Aug 3, 2009, at 12:42 PM, michael wrote:

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