Thursday, 13 February 2014

David Rose Confusing 'Inner Speech' With How The Grammar Construes Projection

At 15:42 on 13/2/14, David Rose wrote to sys-func:
Vygotsky tells that we think in 'inner speech', that develops from children thinking aloud… 'Egocentric speech, splintered off from general social speech, in time leads to inner speech, which serves both autistic and logical thinking.'
Vygotsky rejects the notion that thought is wordless... 'thought is born through words. A word devoid of thought is a dead thing; and a thought unembodied in words remains a shadow.' 
He even outlines the structural characteristics of inner speech... 'With syntax and sound reduced to a minimum, meaning is more than ever in the forefront. Inner speech works with semantics, not phonetics.' 
An SFL interpretation of this could be that inner speech is primarily lexical, less interpersonalised and less textualised than articulated 'social speech'. This seems consistent with my own introspective impressions. Is it with yours? 
Now grammatically, reported ideas are obviously at once wordings and meanings, as are quoted locutions, but the latter quote articulated speech, while the former report inner speech. 
Perhaps when we are consciously writing, we might get the impression that 'a phenomenon of experience is construed first as a meaning and then in turn as a wording', but in spontaneous speech - inner or outer - meanings and wordings are simultaneous (one and the same thing)
Again may I ask if anyone can suggest evidence from the grammar that shows otherwise?

Blogger Comments:

[1] Grammatically, reported ideas are presented as meanings, since how the meanings are actually worded is not presented; whereas quoted locutions are presented as wordings: those used to realise meanings.

[2] On the stratification model, meanings and wordings, semantics and lexicogrammar, are not 'the same thing' but two angles on 'the same thing', differing in terms of level of symbolic abstraction.

David Rose On The Projection Of Meaning And Wording [Augmented]

David Rose wrote to sys-func at 18:17:
What Im asking is for help in seeing blindspots in my own reasoning 
E.g. my interpretation of 'Meaning is construed in the linguistic system as a whole' is that meaning is construed in relations between systemic potentials and instantiated structures at all ranks and strata of the linguistic system
From that perspective, restricting 'meaning' to one stratum and 'wording' to another sounds more like the folk model, as in 'what's that (word) mean?' or 'can you say that (meaning) in other words?' 
Similarly, construing hypotactic ideas as 'meaning' vs paratactic locutions as 'wording' resembles the folk model in which thoughts pre-exist the words that express them
This model is repeated throughout IFG3 section 7.5 on projection, with analogues from the folk model, such as cartoons, as in Fig 7-20. As far as I can see, none of the description of the grammar of projection depends on this model (the description of 'Reporting speech, quoting thought' explicitly contradicts it), but the model appears to have the same status of linguistic fact as the grammatical description
My difficulty is that I can't see the evidence in the grammar that 'in the case of a wording, where a phenomenon of experience is construed first as a meaning and then in turn as a wording'... that 'A wording is, as it were, twice cooked.' (p451) 
Can anyone else?

Blogger Comments:

Blindspot [1] is more in theoretical understanding, than reasoning. In the technical sense, there are no "instantiated structures". Instantiation is a relation between the system of potential and an instance of a system (i.e. actualised feature selections and realisation statements of a system of potential). Axially, a system is paradigmatic, a structure is syntagmatic.  The relation between system and structure is realisation, not instantiation, as explained previously here here and here.

Blindspot [2] is, again, more in theoretical understanding, than reasoning. The theoretical purpose of the stratification hierarchy is to parcel out the complexity of language into different orders of symbolic abstraction.  The strata, as different levels of abstraction, are different angles, or vantage points, on a single phenomenon (language).  They are not, for example, analogous to geological strata; they are not modules.

Blindspot [3] is, again, more in theoretical understanding, than reasoning. As levels of symbolic abstraction, strata are not ordered in time: higher strata do not precede lower strata.  The relation between strata, realisation, as the term 'realise' suggests, is an intensive identifying relation; it is not a temporal circumstantial identifying relation.

Blindspot [4] is as much in reasoning as in theoretical understanding. Halliday and Matthiessen's discussion of 'Reporting Speech, Quoting Thought' (2004: 453-7) does indeed contradict Rose's misreading that the level of projected content, meaning or wording, depends on the mode of projection, hypotactic or paratactic, rather than the level of projection, sensing or saying. This would have led most other readers to question their own grasp of the material.  (In reporting speech, a wording is presented as a meaning (op cit: 453), and in quoting thought, a meaning is presented as a wording (op cit: 456).

Blindspot [5] is more in epistemological understanding, than reasoning. Linguistic 'facts' are the data that are modelled, not the models themselves.  For example, in biology, the Theory of Natural Selection is not a fact; the data of evolution are the facts and the theory is an attempt to account for them.

Blindspot [6] is in theoretical understanding, since Rose follows Martin in confusing stratification with semogenesis, as epitomised by Martin's 'all strata make meaning'. Because Martin (1992) does not understand stratification as levels of symbolic abstraction, he misconstrues strata as 'modules', all of which are strata of meaning, even phonology. Because of this, the distinction between meaning (semantics) and wording (lexicogrammar) is lost to Martin, and so, to Rose.

The notion of wording being 'twice cooked' means that it is at two removes from experience. At one remove, experience is construed as meaning (semanticised), and at two removes, it is reconstrued as wording (grammaticalised). Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 517-8):
Something that is projected as a meaning is still a phenomenon of language – it is what was referred to above as a ‘metaphenomenon’; but it is presented at a different level – semantic, not lexicogrammatical. When something is projected as a meaning it has already been ‘processed’ by the linguistic system – it is a phenomenon of experience that has been construed as a meaning; but processed only once, not twice as in the case of a wording, where a phenomenon of experience is construed first as a meaning and then in turn as a wording. So, for example, the phenomenon of water falling out of the sky may be construed as a meaning, by a mental process of cognition, in (she thought) it was raining; but when the same phenomenon is represented by a verbal process, as in (she said:) ‘it’s raining’, it is the meaning ‘it is raining’ that has been reconstrued to become a wording. A wording is, as it were, twice cooked. This is symbolised in an interesting way by the punctuation system of English, which uses both single and double quotation marks; in principle, single quotation marks stand for a meaning and double quotation marks stand for a wording. We are unconsciously aware that when something has the status of a wording it lies not at one but at two removes from experience; it has undergone two steps in the realisation process. … We have described the process ‘from above’, from the point of view of how experience is first construed as meaning (‘semanticised’) and then as wording (‘grammaticalised’).