Thank you, Craig. You have opened doors to thinking about grammar and language of which I was unaware. There are so many roads to understanding and interpretation. I think that I should buy your book!
  Best-
  Carol
  
Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
  Carol,
   I think I was speaking very broadly about the influence of critical theory on the typical English major or English department over the past few decades. It has been my experience that people interested in critical theory are not well versed (or interested) in syntax. I know some people who are notable exceptions, but the general tendency is away from direct look at language.
   Probably the key in relation to Chomsky as described below is "Context-free grammars". Generative grammar tries to describe syntax apart from discourse and apart from context. The assumption is that grammar is innately wired into the brain. The mathematics-like formulas you come up with can seem irrelevant to text and to discourse. 
   Much more useful, I think, are cognitive and functional approaches, which see a fundamental interconnectedness among syntax, cognition, and discourse. 
   What a sign signifies is not an entity in the world, but a mental phenomena. Cognitive linguistics takes a more direct approach to that and it considers syntax as a meaningful part of it. (No hard and fast line between the grammar and the lexicon.) Systemic functional grammar looks at  metafunctions as carried out in and through the grammar--representing the world, establishing relations, and building text. It supposes a direct connection, that language has evolved to carry out those purposes. For that reason, it is very useful in textual analysis (fundamentally interpretive.) 
   Structural (formal) grammars don't lend themselves well to critical theory, which may be why the worlds are quite far apart. 

Craig

Carol Morrison wrote:             Craig,
   
  That is very interesting what you said about syntax and form. But aren't their language theories related to syntax as well? Maybe they aren't considered as much in critical theory as you said. I got the following from Wikipedia, so it may or may not be accurate:
   
  "In 1957, Noam Chomsky published Syntactic Structures, in which he developed the idea that each sentence in a language has two levels of representation — a deep structure and a surface structure.[2] [3] The deep structure represented the core semantic relations of a sentence, and was mapped on to the surface structure (which followed the phonological form of the sentence very closely) via transformations. Chomsky believed that there would be considerable similarities between languages' deep structures, and that these structures would reveal properties, common to all languages, which were concealed by their surface structures. However, this was perhaps not the central motivation for introducing deep structure. Transformations had been proposed prior to the development of deep structure as a means of increasing the mathematical and descriptive power of Context-free grammars. Similarly, deep structure was devised largely for technical reasons relating to early semantic
 theory. Chomsky emphasizes the importance of modern formal mathematical devices in the development of grammatical theory:
    
   But the fundamental reason for [the] inadequacy of traditional grammars is a more technical one. Although it was well understood that linguistic processes are in some sense "creative", the technical devices for expressing a system of recursive processes were simply not available until much more recently. In fact, a real understanding of how a language can (in Humboldt's words) "make infinite use of finite means" has developed only within the last thirty years, in the course of studies in the foundations of mathematics.   
   (Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, p. 8 [2])   I have always been very interested in the relationship between mathematics and grammar. Unfortunately, I do not have the math background necessary to pursue further study.
   
  Carol
   
  
--- On Mon, 9/15/08, Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

  From: Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Semiotics
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Monday, September 15, 2008, 10:19 AM


Diane,     For Augustine and for his time, the scriptures were sacred texts. We   also no longer know how to value one text over another. It should be   pointed out, too, that this critical theory tradition seems to have   pulled us further away from syntax. For all the interest in theories   about language, there seems to be little interest in the forms it takes.    Craig    diane skinner wrote:  >  The field of semiotics is fascinating. These studies have become such an  > intricate part of so many disciplines since St Augustine in On  > Christian Doctrine (ca. 395 ) linked the theory of signs to a theory  > of language for the practice of unraveling and interpreting the  > figurative language in the Scriptures. Augustine' s principles, the  > basic elements of signification, were transmitted  > to the modern linguist Ferdinand De Saussure, who coined the term  "semiology."  > Roland Barthes explored the semiology of fashion, advertising,  and  > travel. Claude
 Levi-Strauss studied myths and kinship systems within  > different cultures as a system of signs to be interpreted. Jacques  > Lacan used Saussure to reformulate Freud in linguistic terms. And  > figurative signs "commuted" (to use Jacques Derrida's term)  things  > into signs in a process that may be, for modern theorists,  > interminable--this process of commutation, however, undermines the  > stable referentiality that Augustine sought.  > Ah, full circle--can the world and words really be commensurate?  >  > Diane  >  > To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web  interface at:  >      http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html  > and select "Join or leave the list"  >  > Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/  >  >  >       To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface  at:       http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html  and select "Join or leave the list"    Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/        
    

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