My apologies for not seeing that Edmond had sent this to the whole list
and that I was not replying to him alone. I especially feel bad about the
comment that Bob "feels threatened" by contrary thinking, very much out of
line and not at all intended for a wider audience. I have no business
speculating on his internal state and stating that as if it were a fact.
I also don't believe offering an article as rich and relevant as this
is at all self-promoting.
I hope that doesn't distract from a rich and interesting thread. I
certainly hope a generative perspective can be part of it.
Craig >
Edmond,
> I got about half way through before deciding I had better save the rest
> for later and no doubt read a few times--very rich and interesting,
> and, so far at least, highly compatible with the direction of my own
> thinking.
> Bob is arguing out of a generative perspective (at a time in which many
> are jumping that ship.)He feels threatened by contrary thinking.
> I'm happy to see you quoting Tomasello. "Joint attentional state" is
> very useful and can be extended as a pedagogical (mentoring) metaphor.
> If I remember right, he uses "intention reading" and "pattern finding"
> as important cognitive processes.
> If you take an evolutionary view of language, then it is still very
> much in flux, evolving in some ways out of the pressure of written
> text. Flexibilty as you describe it carries over into this very new (in
> evolutionary terms) context.
> Thanks much for passing this on. I'm wrestling with an overdue article
> and resisting distractions, but this one will get through the filters.
> Would it be OK to pass this on to the list? If it comes through me, it
> may seem less self-promoting. But it will win over its thoughtful
> readers regardless.
>
> Craig
>
>
>>> Craig,
>>
>> I am someone who is now arguing that every communicative utterance
>> partakes
>> of the ambiguity of metaphor. As relevant to the issue of how much
>> 'sharing' of understanding goes on, you might be interested in my
>> account
>> of
>> the origin of language, which contains as an essential element of the
>> theory, the proposal that no speaker can ever share a perfect
>> understanding
>> with a hearer, which entails that no word can ever match thought
>> precisely.
>> My idea derives from the definition the anthropologist Gregory Bateson
>> gives
>> of play.
>>
>> See the website:
>>
>> http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap1401/
>>
>> Edmond
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Brian,
>>> I think that's a very useful clarification. Language and thought can
>>> be
>>> essentially linked without being identical.
>>> I was thinking about the way language allows us to separate a team
>>> from
>>> its members, a picture from its colors and shapes, music from its notes
>>> and rhythms, a road from its path and extent. But it would be hard to
>>> turn around and say that the picture isn't somehow formed by its colors
>>> and shapes, the music by its notes and rhythms, and so on. (Would
>>> context change that? Try putting a picture in a different light.)
>>> Some grammars tend to look at language as a formal system. In a
>>> purely
>>> formal system, with, let's say, machines talking to machines (a
>>> computer talking to a computer), ambiguity would be an unexpected
>>> problem. How could a computer "misunderstand" another computer? Only
>>> metaphorically, by analogy, would that make sense. But when I talk to
>>> another person, I expect the words to be interpreted, and I draw on all
>>> the shared experience, including the shared context of the statement.
>>> There are, in fact, context grounding elements built into the system:
>>> determiners, pronouns, finite auxiliaries, including the modals and
>>> their adjuncts, and so on. In other words, language is built to
>>> facilitate shared human understanding. Much of what it conveys would be
>>> irrelevant to a machine. And shared understanding is a hugely difficult
>>> process, fraught with perils and pitfalls. (What would a computer make
>>> of "peril" and "pitfall"? It has no fear of its own mortality, with the
>>> exception of Hal, of course, in 2001. But do we all share that
>>> reference?)
>>> That doesn't even begin to touch on the problem of deliberate
>>> misleading or holding back. If you waterboard me, will my words more
>>> closely reveal my thoughts?
>>> I think you're right. We can posit a deep link between language and
>>> thought without thinking of them as purely identical. It is hard for me
>>> to imagine human cognition without a shared human experience of the
>>> world. We find our way into that world through language. Our language
>>> evolves to make sense of that changing world.
>>>
>>> Craig
>>>
>>> Bob Yates said,
>>>>
>>>>> we discuss such sentences in a student text. If someone wants, I
>>>>> will
>>>>> discuss it in a further post.
>>>>
>>>> I'd be interested in reading that post, Bob.
>>>>
>>>> Meanwhile, can you clarify what you mean by "completely separate"? To
>>>> me,
>>>> "completely separate" sounds like it means independent, parallel,
>>>> without
>>>> links, even isolated--as if what we say bears no relation to what we
>>>> think. But I'm pretty sure that's not what you mean. Would "linked but
>>>> distinct" be an accurate paraphrase of what you have in mind?
>>>>
>>>> Near the other end of the spectrum, the concept that "language
>>>> structures
>>>> our thinking" has to be distinguished from "language is identical to
>>>> thinking." Perhaps non-human animal thinking exists but is less
>>>> structured
>>>> or differently structured than the thinking of language users. I
>>>> assume
>>>> that the structure of my own thinking would change if I could no
>>>> longer
>>>> form or receive words and sentences in my mind.
>>>>
>>>> Brian
>>>> ________________________________________
>>>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>>>> [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Robert Yates [[log in to unmask]]
>>>> Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 12:45 PM
>>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>>> Subject: Re: Metaphors we don't live by
>>>>
>>>> Colleagues,
>>>>
>>>> I started my first reply on the metaphor string to suggest that there
>>>> is
>>>> an alternative view from the one that language ³structures our
>>>> thinking.²
>>>> I believe that language and thought are completely separate.
>>>>
>>>> (Actually, this is not a very bizarre idea. Imagine that you lost
>>>> your
>>>> ability to say anything. Would you say you are incapable of thought?
>>>> I
>>>> have several cats. They are unable to use language but it is clear
>>>> they
>>>> ³think.² They know that certain sounds mean they will be fed and they
>>>> are learning a quick ³no² means to stop what they are doing.)
>>>>
>>>> I used the example of syntactic ambiguity to question the claim that
>>>> language structures are thinking. If that is the case, then it would
>>>> seem whenever we utter an ambiguous sentence, we are having both
>>>> thoughts at the same time. I donıt think that is the case. I cited
>>>> the
>>>> example of a real headline:
>>>>
>>>> Puberty in girls begins earlier than thought
>>>>
>>>> I just donıt think the writer of that headline had both meanings in
>>>> mind
>>>> when that headline was composed. As best as I can tell from the
>>>> following by Gregg Heacock, that is the implication of the following:
>>>>
>>>> "But, in my relating having, doing, and being to the past, present,
>>>> and
>>>> future and to reality, imagination, and conceptualization is that
>>>> grammar encodes deep thought patterns. Teachers who belittle grammar
>>>> instruction have little idea of how important this discipline is to
>>>> shaping the mind. For language not only translates our thinking, it
>>>> structures our thinking."
>>>>
>>>> ******
>>>>
>>>> Craig Hancock is right about how, in normal conversations, we resolve
>>>> utterance that are ambiguous by reliance on context. He writes:
>>>>
>>>> ³I don't see any reason to infer . . . that language and thought are
>>>> "separate systems." "She was a lightweight" can mean so many things in
>>>> so many contexts. It can be a literal observation about weight or a
>>>> metaphoric observation about power or ability. Any sensible theory of
>>>> language needs to deal with this.²
>>>>
>>>> Descriptions of language deal with how particular utterances can be
>>>> ambiguous, but NO theory about the grammar of language can figure out
>>>> all of the possible contexts for determining the meaning of a
>>>> particular
>>>> utterance. I think the passage above acknowledges that language must
>>>> necessarily be different from thought if context is crucial for
>>>> determining what a speaker means.
>>>>
>>>> Consider the following two exchanges and the ³meaning² of the string
>>>> ³Is
>>>> the Pope Catholic?²
>>>>
>>>> Exchange I
>>>> A visiting Indian student to her American friend: Is the Pope
>>>> Catholic?
>>>>
>>>> Exchange II
>>>> Wife to husband returning home late from work: Would you like a drink?
>>>> Husband: Is the Pope Catholic?
>>>>
>>>> In exchange I, the string ³Is the Pope Catholic² is a real question;
>>>> in
>>>> exchange II, the string means ³yes.² Craig is right that context
>>>> determines these two meanings. That the exact same string of words
>>>> can
>>>> have two separate meanings seems to me that ³language² and ³thought²
>>>> are
>>>> very separate systems. Perhaps, he can provide an example that they
>>>> must be intimately connected.
>>>>
>>>> (For the best explanation I know to understand why those meanings are
>>>> different, see the work of Sperber and Wilson, Relevance Theory, which
>>>> is an elaboration of Paul Griceıs Cooperative Principle.)
>>>>
>>>> This discussion has implications for how we view our studentsı
>>>> writing.
>>>> If we find an ambiguous sentence in a student text or a sentence that
>>>> makes no sense, do we think the studentıs thought is confused or do we
>>>> think the student has not recognized in another context the utterance
>>>> has a different meaning?
>>>>
>>>> This post is long. In a paper by Jim Kenkel and me that will be
>>>> appearing in Written Communication in October, we discuss such
>>>> sentence
>>>> in a student text. If someone wants, I will discuss it in a further
>>>> post.
>>>>
>>>> Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri
>>>>
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