Notes to the Introduction
James Ashley
Semiotics for another week, this thread will be reserved to share
notes as we are _in the process_ of reading.
James Ashley
Eco refers to Saussure's distinction between 'langue' and 'parole'
from the Course on General Linguistics (1915).
From ChangingMinds.com:
"Langue and parole are more than just 'language and speech' (although
this is a useful quick way of remembering them).
"La langue is the whole system of language that precedes and makes
speech possible. A sign is a basic unit of langue.
"Learning a language, we master the system of grammar, spelling,
syntax and punctuation. These are all elements of langue.
"Langue is a system in that it has a large number of elements whereby
meaning is created in the arrangements of its elements and the
consequent relationships between these arranged elements.
"Parole is the concrete use of the language, the actual utterances. It
is an external manifestation of langue. It is the usage of the system,
but not the system."
I liked this note from the site:
"Marxist Mikhail Bakhtin (1929) criticized the splitting of langue and
parole as separating individuals and society where it matters most, at
the point of production. He developed a 'dialogic' theory of
utterances where language is understood in terms of how it orients the
speaker/writer to the listener/reader. Words are subject to
negotiation, contest and struggle. Language is strongly affected by
social context."
Brady Bowman
universals and their instantiation. To assume the exist of a linguistic
system independent of the set of concrete utterances in that language is a
form of realism about universals (the great grandfather of this way of
thinking is Plato, who believed that outside of time and space and
regardless of whether anything corresponding to them exists, there are
eternal 'ideas' or 'forms' that underlie or cause the things of our
experience). The opposite position would be nominalism, the doctrine
according to which only individuals and singular events really exist, so the
universal categories or 'ideas' or 'forms' are just abstractions made on the
basis of the individuals, abstractions that divide them into groups
according to contingent human needs, points of view, etc.
The interesting problem that arises for linguistic thought from Saussure on
is this. For one, language is a fait social, as Saussure says: It is made
by humans for humans. For another, languages change with time: The English
of today is very different from Shakespeare's English, and will presumably
continue to change. So where is the place for langue as a level or system
of language independent of the set of concrete utterances "in" that
language? Is there any "langue" over and above those utterances for them to
be "in"? But on the other hand, if there is only parole, how is it that
there is a seemingly stable set of rules that every speaker has to conform
to in order even to count as (to be recognizable as) as speaker?
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paul at zenoli.net
> The interesting problem that arises for linguistic thought from
> Saussure on is this. For one, language is a fait social, as
> Saussure says: It is made by humans for humans. For another,
> languages change with time: The English of today is very different
> from Shakespeare's English, and will presumably continue to change.
> So where is the place for langue as a level or system of language
> independent of the set of concrete utterances "in" that language?
> Is there any "langue" over and above those utterances for them to be
> "in"? But on the other hand, if there is only parole, how is it
> that there is a seemingly stable set of rules that every speaker has
> to conform to in order even to count as (to be recognizable as) as
> speaker?
It seems to me that some of this problem evaporates if we relax our need
for 'langue' to be an absolute entity in its own right, and consider it
more as useful concept that emerges from the rules followed by individual
speakers of a language, in a sort of statistical nominalism. An ant
colony is "just" a collection of ants, but some behaviors can be more
usefully discussed on the level of the colony rather than that of an
individual worker. Just as we may be able to usefully describe the
_colony_ as finding efficient paths to food sources, we might use
'langue' when looking at populations of language speakers.
What we are looking at is shared competencies and rules that have been
internalized by individual agents, possibly with mutation and alteration.
Thus, an utterance that is classificed as malformed when compared to the
statistically dominant patterns may still be understandable by most
speakers.
Similarly, as new generations of speakers begin to follow altered rules,
the centroid of langue, such as it may be, shifts likewise. This is
nicely compatible with observed patterns creolization and language
divergence in cases of geographic isolation.
It seems to me that this sort of approach is an attractive one for
universals in general.
Paul
Brady Bowman
what you could call the plasticity of languages, their combined ability to
take on and retain form (i.e. the content of descriptions at the level of
langue) while at the same time undergoing changes of form under relevant
circumstances (such as creolization, geographic isolation and so on). In
fact, to be a living language seems to be to exhibit just this feature of
plasticity. (Catherine Malabou has taken up this concept and written a
couple of interesting texts mixing reflections on neuronal plasticity and
analogous social phenomena.)
Brady
----- Original Message -----
From: "paul at zenoli.net" <pa...@zenoli.net>
To: <semiotics-an...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2010 10:36 PM
Subject: Re: Notes to the Introduction
Ambrose Little
I guess all you guys know each other, but I don't know you. Figured it wouldn't hurt to do a quick intro.
My name's Ambrose Little. My background is I took a bachelor's in European history and minored in humanities. For my day job, I've been making software for a bit more than a decade, initially as a dev then architect and now interaction designer. Apart from work, I've been happily married for 11 years, have one girl and three boys ranging 1-9yrs old, and I'm a lay Dominican, i.e., a Catholic order devoted to prayer and study in the context of community and apostolate. (You might recognize Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great as a couple of the better known Dominicans.)
So I have an ongoing interest in continued philosophical studies, and an interest in designing great software. James and I were at MIX not long ago and started talking about semiotics, among other things, and he ended up suggesting this book club. So here I am. What about you guys?
As for the content...
Well, I did read the intro. :) Not much comment yet.. will see how it develops. I liked his definition of signs as being how we lie (or something like that--don't have the book handy)--very clever!
On the language/speech question, I hope I don't bring down the level of discussion for the more well read in this group. I apologize in advance if it seems that way. :)
I would say that there are any number of models we can use to frame the question. For instance, in addition to ideal vs. real, universal vs. particular, how about substance versus accidents--we use 'language' to speak of the substance of sign generation and usage in communication and 'speech' as the accidental form that substance takes on for any given time/place/person. Or maybe I'm more interested in the process of speech becoming language. Before choosing a model, it might help to identify what value we think we'll get out of deciding on a model, i.e., what the model should do for us/guide us to in these inquiries. Then we could evaluate the models against that goal and choose the one that seems best for that purpose. Because I think it's pretty certain that we could hammer these two concepts into any of these models given enough effort; we could also argue based mostly on our philosophical predispositions and maybe never get anywhere.
Or maybe it's not actually important to pick such a model at this point and just see what unfolds from more specific discussions around Eco's propositions. I'm inclined this way just because if, for no other reason, I'm lazy, and it'll be enough for me to just get through this book and discuss w/ y'all about it. :)
In any case, my main goal is to have fun and maybe learn something I can use. And I think that much is going to happen regardless of how we proceed, so onward!
-a
James Ashley
I find the question of "models" extremely suggestive. Perhaps I am
reading my own pet projects into Eco's Introduction, but I was
fascinated near the end when Eco defines a sign as something that
represents or stands for something else (thus a sign can lie) and then
uses this definition to explain why both economics and cultural theory
(in particular he seems to have Levi-Strauss's cultural anthropology
in mind) can fall under semiotics.
What is interesting is that he seems to mean this in an unusual way.
Normally, in the phil of science, people take a reductionist approach
to this "falling under" notion. Thus minds are reducible to brain
states are reducible to anatomy are reducible to chemistry and
ultimately everything is reducible to physics (i.e. mechanics).
When Eco suggests that both cultural anthropology and economics from
Adam Smith (and especially Marx -- he did write this in the 70's)
onwards -- he specifically uses the terms "replace" and "reduce" -- he
seems not to mean it in the way we talk about reducing all knowledge
to physics, but rather that this is a semiotic act. Semiotics takes
the place of or "stands for" economics, cultural anthropology, etc.
Which lets me say, trivially I think, that any theory of semiotics is
a semiotic act which -- as we know from the introduct -- presupposes
conventions of signs.
The danger here, which Eco seems very aware of, is that semiotics can
become a theory of everything -- the way, say, Marxism or
Psychoanalysis can be. Karl Popper did his Science as Falsifiability
bit in the 60's, so the timing is about right. Eco consequently is
careful to delimit those things which semiotics cannot subsume under
itself: the natural and political boundaries of the field of study for
semiotics.
That said, the huge list he makes of topics that fall under semiotics,
from secret languages to information theory to economics, is
remarkable.
In any case, in reply to you Ambrose -- which is what I was attempting
to do before I lost my way -- I think Eco is making claims about
models in general, and the ground we are walking, I suspect, will be
shifting under us as we forge onwards.
I've read the first chapter once, so far, and find myself needing to
read it at least twice more (good thing it is a short chapter). The
Watergate example appears to be a model or a metaphor for computers
but I get confused about half way through and can't seem to connect it
back to anything I know about computers other than the fact that early
computers used vacuum tubes.
Code vs S-Code? Still trying to work it out. I think in later years
Eco attempts to explain this distinction in terms of Dictionaries vs
Encyclopedias, but I'm not sure. Will check on that.
James
On Apr 13, 1:09 pm, Ambrose Little <ambro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I guess all you guys know each other, but I don't know you. Figured it wouldn't hurt to do a quick intro.
>
> My name's Ambrose Little. My background is I took a bachelor's in European history and minored in humanities. For my day job, I've been making software for a bit more than a decade, initially as a dev then architect and now interaction designer. Apart from work, I've been happily married for 11 years, have one girl and three boys ranging 1-9yrs old, and I'm a lay Dominican, i.e., a Catholic order devoted to prayer and study in the context of community and apostolate. (You might recognize Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great as a couple of the better known Dominicans.)
>
> So I have an ongoing interest in continued philosophical studies, and an interest in designing great software. James and I were at MIX not long ago and started talking about semiotics, among other things, and he ended up suggesting this book club. So here I am. What about you guys?
>
> As for the content...
>
> Well, I did read the intro. :) Not much comment yet.. will see how it develops. I liked his definition of signs as being how we lie (or something like that--don't have the book handy)--very clever!
>
> On the language/speech question, I hope I don't bring down the level of discussion for the more well read in this group. I apologize in advance if it seems that way. :)
>
> I would say that there are any number of models we can use to frame the question. For instance, in addition to ideal vs. real, universal vs. particular, how about substance versus accidents--we use 'language' to speak of the substance of sign generation and usage in communication and 'speech' as the accidental form that substance takes on for any given time/place/person. Or maybe I'm more interested in the process of speech becoming language. Before choosing a model, it might help to identify what value we think we'll get out of deciding on a model, i.e., what the model should do for us/guide us to in these inquiries. Then we could evaluate the models against that goal and choose the one that seems best for that purpose. Because I think it's pretty certain that we could hammer these two concepts into any of these models given enough effort; we could also argue based mostly on our philosophical predispositions and maybe never get anywhere.
>
> Or maybe it's not actually important to pick such a model at this point and just see what unfolds from more specific discussions around Eco's propositions. I'm inclined this way just because if, for no other reason, I'm lazy, and it'll be enough for me to just get through this book and discuss w/ y'all about it. :)
>
> In any case, my main goal is to have fun and maybe learn something I can use. And I think that much is going to happen regardless of how we proceed, so onward!
>
> -a
>
> On Mar 29, 2010, at 3:36 PM, Brady Bowman wrote:
>
>
>
> > Paul's solution is very suggestive; thanks, Paul. It also draws attention to what you could call the plasticity of languages, their combined ability to take on and retain form (i.e. the content of descriptions at the level of langue) while at the same time undergoing changes of form under relevant circumstances (such as creolization, geographic isolation and so on). In fact, to be a living language seems to be to exhibit just this feature of plasticity. (Catherine Malabou has taken up this concept and written a couple of interesting texts mixing reflections on neuronal plasticity and analogous social phenomena.)
>
> > Brady
>
>
> - Show quoted text -
James Ashley
prior post. I'm not sure what semiotic sub-discipline this falls into.
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