Papers from Jakobson's SW (2)

Jakobson, Roman 1985 [1972]. Verbal Communication. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings VII: Contributions to Comparative Mythology. Studies in Linguistics and Philology, 1972-1982. Preface by Linda R. Waugh. Berlin; New York; Amsterdam: Mouton, 81-92.

For all human beings, and only for human beings, language is the vehicle of mental life and communication. It is natural that the study of this explicit and effective instrument, together with the rudiments of mathematics, is among the oldest sciences. (Jakobson 1985 [1972]: 91)

In this sense, nonverbal behaviour is the vehicle of social life, as well as (or, actually, less so a) means of communication. It is also natural that the ancients were very well aware of sermo corporis. The problem here is that we cannot know about earlier people's knowledge about nonverbal communication without the mediation of verbal language. Drawings and cave-paintings tell us very little about actual knowledge. Also, the phrase "explicit and effective instrument", I now realize, may have something to do with Carl Bühler's theory of language as an organon. And what I think Jelena Grigorjeva has done is a simple reversal: that language is not the organon of our "mental life and communication" but that people constitute the organone of language.

In many cases discoveries were made only to be temporarily swept away. This, for instance, the historic attainments of the Schoolmen's linguistic (particularly semantic) theory were dismissed after, as Charles Sanders Peirce used to say, "a barbarous rage against medieval thought broke out". (Jakobson 1985 [1972]: 81)

This is baffling to me. The scholastics are often taunted, but their method of learning - writing commentaries - seems very much like what I'm doing right now. I must look into the scholastics some day, for sure.

The "linguistic philosophy" of the Neo-grammarians was viewed by their champion Karl Brugmann (1849-1919) as an antidote to "the arbitrariness and error to which a crude empiricism is everywhere exposed". This philosophy implied the acceptance of two uniformities, each concerned with successive stages:
(1) the antecedent uniformity and subsequent plurality and (2) a uniform, "exceptionless" mutation from an earlier stage to a later one within any given speech community. Thus the question of likeness and divergence was applied primarily or even solely to the temporal sequence of linguistic phenomena, whereas the coexistence and simultaneous interplay of invariance and variation within any given state of language remained unnoticed. (Jakobson 1985 [1972]: 81-82)

This is possible because language signs can be recorded, written down. The "comparative" study of nonverbal behaviour has become possible only lately. Actually, the differences between the "interaction ecology" of 1970, for example, and that of today have scarcely been studied, to my knowledge, although it would make for an interesting work.

To quote the conclusion of my own survey of Sweet's arduous struggle, each of these spirited trailblazers who ventured to look far ahead "bears a stamp of tragedy on his whole life", owing to the resistance of a conservative milieu and perhaps even more to the ideological tenor of the Victorian era, which impeded the concrete application and further development of daring designs and unwonted approaches. (Jakobson 1985 [1972]: 82)

I think this is one factor which distinguishes Powys from many people of his day. That although he wrote at a Victorian time and was sometimes written off as a "Victorian literary critic" he lived in America for such a long time and "escaped" from society to solitude to write. Thus he wasn't stifled much by der Geist seiner Zeit. Some people just can surpass their own time. Jakobson himself seems like an example of this.

Winteler remained true to the principle of "configurational relativity" (Relativität der Verhältnisse) that had been disclosed in his dissertation with special reference to the sound pattern of language. In particular, his theory required a consistent distinction between the relational invariants and variables within language, respectively termed "essential" and "accidental" properties. According to Winteler's insight, speech sounds cannot be evaluated in isolation but only in their relation to all other sound units of the given language and to the linguistic functions assigned to them in such a manifold. (Jakobson 1985 [1972]: 84)

In nonverbal terms this is very much the equivalent of "context" that Birdwhistell propounded after Malinowsky in his Kinesics and Context. That is, the "meaning" of a gesture, posture or expression without taking account of what preceded it, co-occurred with it and followed it. I happened to think about this at length a few days ago when I saw an interview with the three actors that were the basis for the characters in "the world's best computer game" GTA V. One of them was talking about how they're just like brothers now, and touches another on the back. The other was smiling up to that point but as he was touched, the smile was immediately wiped from his face and replaced with a protruding jaw. Apparently the feeling of brotherhood was not reciprocal.

Einstein, the future proponent of "empathy [Einfühlung] into external experience", obviously felt a spiritual affinity with such an ardent devotee of science as Winteler, who had dared in 1875 to preface his book with the farsighted declaration: "My work in its essence is addressed solely to those who are able to grasp verbal form as a revelation of the human mind that stands to the mind in much more inner and sweeping relations than even the best products of a most consummate literature. Thus the addressees of my work must conceive the inquiry into the latent powers which determine the continual motion of verbal form as a task which, in its interest and relevance, competes with any other field of knowledge." (Jakobson 1985 [1972]: 84)

I appreciate this archaic form of language. If I were to use this form it would go something like: "to grasp bodily behaviour as a revelation of the human emotion that stands to the body in much more inner and sweeping relations than..." But, alas, I wish not to get lost in "embodied cognition".

Whatever level of language we deal with, two integral properties of linguistic structure force us to use strictly relational, topological definitions. First, every single constituent of any linguistic system is built on an opposition of two logical contradictories: the presence of an attribute ("markedness") in contraposition to its absence ("unmarkedness"). The entire network of language displays a hierarchical arrangement that within each level of the system follows the same dichotomous principle of marked terms superposed on the corresponding unmarked terms. And second, the continual, all-embracing, purposeful interplay of invariants and variations proves to be an essential, innermost property of language at each of its levels. (Jakobson 1985 [1972]: 85)

At this point I have to concede that I don't know almost anything about Jakobson's markedness theory. I've only met it in Lotman's Semiotics of Cinema. Curiously, it was Charles Darwin who proposed that something like this should be used to study nonverbal behaviour. One of his three principles was "The principle of antithesis", according to which every "meaningful" expression must also have movement of "a directly opposite nature". (1998 [1872]: 34). And I retain my critical attitude towards all things hierarchical, because it seems rather restrictive. Here I can go on Eric H. Lenneberg's statement that "tree diagrams [hierarchies] can always be converted to Euler-Venn diagrams, but not all Euler-Venn diagrams can be converted into trees." (1969: 134). That is, I think imposing a hierarchy on anything can lead to an unfortunate exclusion of phenomena that might otherwise have been included.

Everything language can and does communicate stands first and foremost in a necessary, intimate connection with meaning and always carries semantic information. (Jakobson 1985 [1972]: 85)

Too general. Language can also be used to say nothing, to evade carrying semantic information, to baffle and confuse instead of inform. That is to say, there is no information without exformation (that which is discarded).

True, various reductionists experiments were conducted in America. At first repeated efforts were made "to analyze linguistic structure without reference to meaning". Some later tests confined the removal of meaning to the study of grammatical structures under such slogans as "Linguistic description minus grammar equals semantics". All these tantative operations were undoubtedly of considerable interest, particularly since they succeeded in providing us with a graphic demonstration of the omnipresent semantic criterion, no matter what level and constituent of language is examined. One can no longer continue to play hide-and-seek with meaning and to evaluate linguistic structures independently of semantic problems. Whatever end of the linguistic spectrum we deal with, from the phonic components of verbal signs to the discourse as a whole, we are compelled to bear in mind that everything in language is endowed with a certain significative and transmissible value. (Jakobson 1985 [1972]: 86)

Here it seems that Martin Joos belongs to that group of researchers, as he tries to banish both semantics and phonetics across the proverbial bridge (both are continuous phenomena that should be done away with to proceed with the study of language design).

Thus in approaching speech sounds we must take into account the fact that they are cardinally different from all other audible phenomena. An astounding discovery of the recent past is that when two sounds are presented simultaneously to both ears, any verbal signals such as words, nonsense syllables and even separate speech sounds are better discerned and identified by the right ear and all other acoustic stimuli such as music and environmental noises are better recognized by the left ear. The phonic components of language owe their particular position in the cortical area, and correspondingly in the aural area, solely to their verbal functions, and henceforth a constant regard for these functions must guide any fruitful study of speech sounds. (Jakobson 1985 [1972]: 86)

It seems that Jakobson was very well aware of the neurophysiology of his time. These were the major discoveries of the late 1960s.

The most plausible explanation of these either totally or nearly universal principles in regard to the admissibility and interconnection of features apparently lies in the internal logic of communication systems that are endowed with a self-regulating and self-steering capacity. (Jakobson 1985 [1972]: 87)

These are obviously cybernetic terms, but I have a hard time imagining how self-regulation and self-steering exactly function in communication systems. Then again the notion of "communication system" itself is notoriously ambiguous: is it the language system or the interaction system? In Jakobson the former seems more probable, but then tow do you self-steer a language?

For the study of verbal communication it is necessary to face the fact that any speech community and any existing verbal code lack uniformity; everyone belongs simultaneously to several speech communities of different extent; he diversifies his code and blends distinct codes. (Jakobson 1985 [1972]: 87)

Indubitably.

The cardinal property of language noted by the initiator of semiotics, Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), namely the translatability of any verbal sign into another, more explicit one, renders an effective service to communication in that in counteracts ambiguities caused by lexical and grammatical homonymy or by the overlapping of elliptic forms. (Jakobson 1985 [1972]: 87)

I'm not at all satisfied with this account of semiosis. I feel as though Jakobson has disregarded Peirce's notion of synechism, according to which "all that exists is continuous". Peirce talks of a continuous process of interpretation of (mainly) thought-signs, not translation of verbal signs. Signs "grow" in the sense that a person can engage in cognition that s/he understands better at a later time. To reduce this beautiful idea into conciseness of verbal signs is doing brutal injustice to Peirce. But that's just my opinion.

In its general meaning any noun is a generic term relating to all members of a class or to all stages of a dynamic whole. The contextual as well as situational application of these characteristics to particulars is a transformation of the widest range. This interplay of universals and particulars, which is often underrated by linguists, has for ages been discussed among logicians and philosophers of language, such as the 12th-century Schoolman John of Salisbury, to whose formula - Nominantur singularia sed universalia significantur ("Particulars are named but universals are signified") - Peirce repeatedly refers. (Jakobson 1985 [1972]: 90)

This makes sense even in Morris's behavioural semiotic: particulars have denotation and universals have signification. This particular horse vs the idea of a unicorn are examples.

When we observe the highly instructive process of a child's gradual advance in the acquisition of language, we see how decisively important the emergence of the subject-predicate sentence is. It liberates speech from the here and now and enables the child to treat events distant in time and space or even fictitious. This capacity, which mechanists sometimes label "displaced speech", is in fact the first affirmation of language's autonomy. Is sign systems other than natural or artificial languages there are no parallels to the formulation of general and particular equational propositions, no capacity for building logical judgments. (Jakobson 1985 [1972]: 90)

Why does this remind me of Lotman and Uspenky's treatment of myths in culture from a year after this text was published?

Inner speech, one's dialogue with oneself, is a powerful superstructure on our verbal intercourse. As the study of language disturbances shows, impairments of inner speech take a conspicuous place among verbal disorders. A lesser dependence on the environmental censorship contributes to the active role of inner speech in the rise and shaping of new ideas. (Jakobson 1985 [1972]: 91)

So by now we have moved on from attributing receiver-less communication to being drunk or pathological and recognize that autocommunication can give rise to qualitatively new information? This development took only up to 19 years.

Written language is an evident fransform of oral speech. All sane human beings talk, but almos thalf of the world's people are totally illiterate, and the actual use of reading and writing is an asset of a scarce minority. Yet even then literacy is a secondary acquisition. Whatever script is employed, as a rule it refers to the spoken word. Along with invariants common to the oral and written language, each of the two systems in its constitution and use shows a number of pertinent peculiarities. In particular, those properties that depend on the spatiality of written texts separate them from the purely temporal structure of oral utterances. The comparative study both of verbal patterns and of their roles in social communication is an urgent task that can no longer be neglected. Many hasty generalizations will be dismissed. Thus, for instance, the role of schooling and continual transmission, far from being confined to the world of letters, is attested as well in oral traditions and rhetorical art. (Jakobson 1985 [1972]: 91)

I wonder how a grammatologist would respond?

In a letter dated March 21, 1955, four weeks before his death, Einstein wrote: "The separation between past, present, and future has only the meaning of an illusion, albeit a tenacious one." (Jakobson 1985 [1972]: 92)

I suspect that these exact words might be behind the rise of countless quasi-Eastern philosophical (New Age?) discourses about how "time is an illusion" without any substantial reference to Einstein's theories.

Jakobson, Roman 1985 [1969]. The Fundamental and Specific Characteristics of Human Language. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings VII: Contributions to Comparative Mythology. Studies in Linguistics and Philology, 1972-1982. Preface by Linda R. Waugh. Berlin; New York; Amsterdam: Mouton, 93-97.

The first stage of the child's initiation to language produces only single-word constructions or, to use a tersel terminology, mere holophrases. Their functions, originally syncretic, - simultaneously emotive, conative, and referential - gradually branch off and give rise to a prevalently or purely referential subclass of holophrastic utterances which are used chiefly or solely to designate and identify certain environmental items. (Jakobson 1985 [1969]: 93)

"Holophrase" is a neat term. They are so frequent in instant chat messages. They are also pushed out of the child's writing when s/he is forced by teachers to construct full sentences. In this way the emotive-conative-referential "Pointless." develops into "That is pointless." to "In my humble opinion, it serves no purpose." etc. In this kind of language ontogeny I can actually see the usefulness of Jakobson's "intralingual translation." Ironically, the teacher may in this example respond to a holophrase with an equally horophrastic interjection: "Full sentence!"

The third and, definitely, the most decisive stage on the path from infancy (infantia = speechlessness) to a command of language generates an aptitude for building independent clauses, syntactical constructions which comprise both an explicit grammatical subject and an explicit grammatical predicate. Any referential holophrase or two-word phrase of both previous stages acted as a verbal appendage to the immediate situation and was correspondingly interpreted and labeled in the centenary scholarly tradition as a "psychological predicate" to an outward, hit et nunc observablel and nonverbalized stimulus. (Jakobson 1985 [1969]: 94)

Neat etymology. Infantia is: mute, speechless; young, little. And again I'm left wondering what he means by "nonverbalized stimulus". The -ized seems to imply that the stimulus (or, before, context) is first verbal and then nonverbal-ized. This is confusing.

The emancipation of verbal symbols from compulsory deictic bond with the hic et nunc enables the speaker to vary the semantic capacity of the same word by using it in its widest, generic sense or in its narrowest, particular application, or in some intermediary extent prompted by the context. (Jakobson 1985 [1969]: 95)

In Morissis terms, the signs with "widest, generic sense" become not only general signs but "universal signs". "Meaning" and "being" are good examples in some the case of the philosopher's language.

The act of pointing at the given non-verbalized situation is complemented or replaced by pointing at the verbal context of one's own or interlocutor's message. (Jakobson 1985 [1969]: 96)

What do you mean???

In animal communication the code is tantamount to the corpus of signals, and neither directional changes in deictic signals nor the gradation of emotional force could be equated with creative freedom, the essence of human language. Hierarchy, the manifold and fundamental principle of any linguistic structure, is alien to animal communication. (Jakobson 1985 [1969]: 96)

Can I presume, then, that hierarchy is alien also to human nonverbal communication? I'm perfectly willing to agree with this. I'm kind of appalled by how he dismisses creative freedom as well in these regards, but it seems that Jakobson just has a habit of downplaying the reach and import of anything non-linguistic. It is also significant that I am not alone in doubting Jakobson's tendency to hierarchialize everything. His 1964 article "On Visual and Auditory Signs" was discussed by zoosemioticians in 1965, and the resulting discussion was published in the 1969 collection Approaches to Animal Communication. Thus, Alexandra Ramsay (1969: 183) writes that the implication of Jakobson's insistence that "acoustic modality is the one most adapted to the notion of hierarchy" is that "only sound should receive scrutiny as a possible forerunner in the search for a linguistic homologue". She also criticizes (1969: 185) the notion that "Any communication event can be seen in terms of a hierarchical model." on the basis that identifying the hierarchical functions of the elements is difficult and somewhat arbitrary. Most significantly:" No operational criterion has been given by which to assign an event unambiguously to a class." (ibid, 186)

The latter is devoid of all those dichotomies which undelrie human language, and lacks, e.g., such oppositions as general and particular, nuclear and transferred, and the four "duplex structures" which are of paramount importance in any exchange of verbal messages. (Jakobson 1985 [1969]: 97)

Again, somewhat circular: the communication means of animals who lack language ... lack the characteristics of language. Hmm... Yeah.

Human language, to quote G. G. Simpson (p. 476) once more, "is absolutely distinct from any system of communication in other animals". It may be added that even the utilization of signals learned by an experimental animal from its trainer differs totally from children's acquirement and use of verbal communication. None the less, despite all the intricacy of questions involved, the genesis of language as the principal event in the metamorphosis of the actulaly prehuman Homo alalus into a true human being, Homo loquens, must undergo a joint interdisciplinary search by linguists, biologists and neurologists, as well as anthropologists and archaeologists. (Jakobson 1985 [1969]: 97)

He ends this article by discussing glottogony or the development of language. Aside from Dennis Fry's 1977. book Homo Loquens, this is the only occasion where I've seen this term being used. Homo alalus is more baffling. I found that Homo alalus is der Sprachlose, meaning aphasic, dumbfounded, dumbstruck, mute, speechless, tongue-tied, tongueless, voicless, unspeakable.

Jakobson, Roman 1985 [1973]. Communication and Society. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings VII: Contributions to Comparative Mythology. Studies in Linguistics and Philology, 1972-1982. Preface by Linda R. Waugh. Berlin; New York; Amsterdam: Mouton, 98-100.

Edward Sapir, the great linguist of our century, characterized communication as the dynamic aspect of human society. There is no society without "a highly intricate network of partial or complete understandings between the members of organizational units of every degree of size and complexity". According to the precise judgment of the same scholar, language, "the most explicit type of communicative behavior", appears to be "the communicative process par excellence in every known society, and it is exceedingly important to observe that whatever may be the shortcomings of a primitive society judged from the vantage point of civilization, its language inevitably forms as sure, complete, and potentially creative an apparatus of referential symbolism as the most sophisticated language that we know of". (Jakobson 1985 [1973]: 98)

Surely there are other dynamic aspects of human society... I can agree that communication is intricate, and a means of mutual understanding. With "explicitness" I recall that some, like Albert Mehrabian, wanted to rename nonverbal communication as "implicit communication". Could this here be the reason? That it's not as explicit as verbal communication? It hinges on awareness, which is more and more teetering on acknowledging the nonverbal as well.

Language is the fundamental but not at all the only system of communication. The science of signs, repeatedly set forth and programmed by philosophers and linguists and labelled semiotics (or semiology) is now rapidly developing and investigates the common features of all sign systems, their interrelation, and their specifics. Of course, language, its structure, and its influence on the other systems of signs are substantial questions of semiotics, but it would be a fallacy to neglect or underestimate all the other systems of human signs and to impose upon them properties characteristic of language but foreign to the other sign systems. (Jakobson 1985 [1973]: 98)

I'm most interested in language's influence on nonverbal behaviour and communication. I propose that concourse one way this occurs. That is, the way we talk about bodily behaviour and it's significance influences our actual bodily behaviour and communication. It has always occurred, but now we are aware of it occurring and how it occurs.

When speaking of language as a communicative tool, one must remember that its primary role, interpersonal communication, which bridges space, is supplemented by a no less important function which may be characterized as intrapersonal communication. The latter gradually develops in children's acquisition of language and creates such important mental procedures as inner speech with its internal dialogues. While interpersonal communication bridges space, intrapersonal communication proves to be the chief vehicle for bridging time. (Jakobson 1985 [1973]: 98)

So this is where this claim comes from. I knew it from Lotman's discussion of autocommunication. It is relevant that both time and space can be bridged in both cases, but these are the primary for both. That is, it is possible to bridge space as well, when communicating with oneself. It is merely a marginal case (e.g. echolocation in some animal species).

Jakobson, Roman 1985 [1967]. Language and Culture. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings VII: Contributions to Comparative Mythology. Studies in Linguistics and Philology, 1972-1982. Preface by Linda R. Waugh. Berlin; New York; Amsterdam: Mouton, 101-112.

If one longs for communication with his fellow man, the first step toward mutual comprehension is ensured. Because what is language? Language is overcoming of isolation in space and time. Language is a struggle against isolationism. And this fight occurs not only within the limits of an ethnic language, where people try to adjust to each other, and to understand each other within the bounds of family, town, or country; a similar striving also takes place on a bilingual or multilingual, international scale. One feels a powerful desire to understand each other. (Jakobson 1985 [1967]: 101)

Here Jakobson prizes the conative function above comprehension of code. I'm starting to think "language" is for him a "universal sign", like "being" is for Heidegger.

Now, what is the problem of language and culture? These two concepts are to be viewed in their interconnection. Then, first and foremost, what should we have in mind: language and culture or language in culture? Can we consider language as a part, as a constituent of culture, or is language something different, separate from culture? I know, many in the audience would like to ask: well, but how would one define culture? (Jakobson 1985 [1967]: 102)

This problem is not random. American linguistics grew out of anthropology, because before the natives could be studied, their languages had to be studied. Also, there were conferences devoted to the interconnection of language and culture already in the 1950s. It might have even grown out of the linguistic problems experienced in the IIWW, just like the study of marine acoustics grew out of the very instrumental need for submarines to distinguish natural sounds from man-made ones.

We may choose a very simple, operational definition, proposed in the instructive book Human Evolution by the biologist Campbell: "Culture is the totality of behavior patterns that are passed between generations by learning, socially determined behavior learned by imitation and instruction." I think, one can agree with this emphasis on imitation and instruction as the basic cultural devices. (Jakobson 1985 [1967]: 102-103)

Quite similar to Lotman's definition of culture. The significant difference is that Lotman replaced "behavior patterns" with sign systems. Heh, Kalevi Kull lisas Vikipeedia Kultuurisemiootika artiklisse uuenenud viite teeside taasavaldatud versioonile niipea kui võimalik.

Of course, language is learned through the medium of language, and the child learns new words by comparing them with other words, by identifying and differentiating the new and previously acquired verbal constituents. According to the precise formula of the great American thinker Charles Sanders Peirce, verbal symbol originates from verbal symbol. Such is the way of language development. (Jakobson 1985 [1967]: 103)

Arrrgh! Omne symbolo de symbolo does not apply to words only!

If we define language as a cultural phenomenon, a very serious question immediately arises. In culture, we deal with the relevant notion of progress. I hardly need to add that any idea of straightforward progress is a bewildering oversimplification. We find most various and whimsical curves, and if we confront, for instance, the poetry of Dante and the pictorial masterpieces of the Italian 14th and 15th centuries with Italy's poetry or art of the recent epochs, we could hardly view the 19th century as thoroughly advanced in comparison wit hworks of the trecento. Many other striking examples could be adduced. (Jakobson 1985 [1967]: 103)

Quite similar to Juri Lotman's theory of sinusoidal development of arts. The difference is that Lotman's sinusoidal waves or steps seemed in proportion while "most various and whimsical curves" is looser (more variegated).

If we venture to translate Albert Einstein's or Bertrand Russell's book into Bushmen or Gilyak languages, this task is perfectly achievable, whatever the grammatical structure of the given vernacular. Only its vocabulary must be enriched and adapted to the needs of a new scientific terminology. However, any new scientific or technical branch requires similar terminological reforms, adjustments, and innovations in languages of our civilization as well. (Jakobson 1985 [1967]: 105)

This is why I don't write about nonverbal behaviour in Estonian - I don't know nearly enough terms that I need to use; and I don't feel comfortable enriching my language irresponsibly. I'm deeply unsatisfied with people who write in Estonian about philosophy, for example, and don't seem to know the most common words, using "konkureerima", "premeerima", and "blameerima" instead of "võistlema", "tasustama," and "süüdistama". And the latter point in this quote seems congenial with a point in the Theses of semiotics of culture, which states something to the effect that the work of the scientist influences the life of the culture.

Now, when taking into account the universally human, and only human, nature of language, we must approach the question of boundaries between culture and language; between cultural adaption and learning on the one hand, and heredity, innateness on the other - briefly, to delimit nurture from nature. Once again, we are faced with one of the most intricate questions of present scholarship. It is necessary to realize and to remember that the absolute boundary which our forebears saw between culture and nature does not exist. Both nature and culture intervene significantly in the behavior of animals, and also in that of human beings. (Jakobson 1985 [1967]: 106)

Nature vs nurture was indeed a prevalent question at the time of t/his writing. Even nonverbal communication research went through the excruciating universalists vs relativists phase of its development. (And some still doubt if universal facial expressions are not an illusion!)

Sometimes, such a quest for an interconnection between language and thought led to narrowly isolationist doctrines, claiming that divergences in linguistic structure predestine peoples to an inevitable failure to understand each other. It might be replied to these fallacies that in any intellectual, ideational, cognitive activities, we are always positively able to overcome the, so to speak, idiomatic character of grammatical structure and to reach a complete mutual comprehensibility. (Jakobson 1985 [1967]: 108)

Again he places the conative function to the highest peg in his hierarchy.

However, beside strictly cognitive activities, there exists, and plays a great role in our life, a set of phenomena which might be labeled "everyday mythology", and which finds its expression in divagations, puns, jokes, chatter, jabber, slips of the tongue, dreams, reverie, superstitions, and, last but not least, in poetry. The grammatical patterning of language plays a significant and autonomous part in these various manifestations of such mythopoeia. (Jakobson 1985 [1967]: 108)

If these are not cognitive activities, are they affective activities?

Of course, if the verbal context or the nonverbalized situation of the given sentence does not supply its translator with sufficient cues, the latter faces certain dilemmas. (Jakobson 1985 [1967]: 110-111)

Here I agree with the attribution of context to the verbal and situation to the nonverbal (these are preferred situations, although many use "nonverbal context" without any hesitance). But I am still baffled why a context can be verbal but the situation has to be nonverbal-ized. "The nonverbalized situation of the given sentence" sounds as if the situation was verbal to begin with and then it was nonverbalized. But how? What does he mean by this?

The outlined difficulties almost come to naught when translating a scientific work written clearly, unambiguously, and with a lucid contextual meanings of all its verbal constituents.
The case of poetic language is quite different. One might even say that a close, faithful translation of poetry is a contradiction in terms. What remains possible is a congenial transposition - a free, creative response of an English poet to a Russian or Japanese author, and vice versa - a performance essentially similar to an artful, ingenious transposition of a poem or novel into a painting, motion-picture, ballet, or a piece of music. (Jakobson 1985 [1967]: 111)

Umberto Eco's The Role of the Reader is actually a case wherein a (seemingly) scientific work has been transposed rather than translated into Estonian - the two books appear as completely different works.

Jakobson, Roman 1985 [1956]. Metalanguage as a Linguistic Problem. In: Rudy, Stephen (ed.), Selected Writings VII: Contributions to Comparative Mythology. Studies in Linguistics and Philology, 1972-1982. Preface by Linda R. Waugh. Berlin; New York; Amsterdam: Mouton, 113-121.

Although we distinguish six basic aspects of language, we could, however, hardly find verbal messages that would fulfill only one function. The diversity lies not in a monopoly of some one of these several functions but in their different hierarchical order. The verbal structure of a message depends primarily on the predominant function. (Jakobson 1985 [1956]: 113)

Here hierarchy actually makes sense in that it is Jakobson's circumlocution for "not (only) a single function is the most important, but others are also important to some extent."

The so-called EMOTIVE or "expressive" function, focused on the ADDRESSER, aims a direct expression of the speaker's attitude toward what he is speaking about. It tends to produce an impression of a certain emotion whether true or feicned; therefore, the term "emotive", launched and advocated by Marty, has proved to be preferable to "emotional". The purely emotive stratum in language is presented by the interjections. (Jakobson 1985 [1956]: 114)

On the one hand this use of "attitude" is in contradiction with Daniel H. Kulp's definition, which relates attitude to value. On the other hand it seems in line with George H. Mead's "conversation of attitude", elaborated by Morris as "communization" and comparable to modern "emotional contagion". If we perform a sebeokian reinterpretation of Mead's terms, then "conversation of gestures" becomes related to "intelligible gestures", and "conversation of attitude" to "emotive gestures." I'm not sure if there's any heuristic value in this, but there it is.

The emotive function, laid bare in the interjections, flavors to some extent all our utterances, on their phonic, grammatical, and lexical level. If we analyze language from the standpoint of the information it carries, we cannot restrict the notion of information to the cognitive, ideational aspect of language. A man, using expressive features to indicate his angry or ironic attitude, conveys ostensible information. (Jakobson 1985 [1956]: 114)

Finally some good sense! Information shouldn't be restricted to the cognitive dimension. There is information in feelings and actions as well.

Orientation toward the ADDRESSEE, the CONATIVE function, finds its purest grammatical expression in the vocative and imperative, which syntactically, morphologically, and often even phonemically deviate from other nominal and verbal categories. Imporative sentences cardinally differ from declarative sentences: the latter are and the former are not liable to a truth test. (Jakobson 1985 [1956]: 114)

To be honest, the conative function remains blurry in this description. It is veiled in too many linguistic terms.

This set for CONTACT, or in B. Malinowski's term PHATIC function, may be displayed by a profuse exchange of ritualized formulas, by entire dialogues with the mere purpaort of prolonging communication. Dorothy Parker caught eloquent examples: "'Well!' she said. 'Well, here we are', he said, 'Eeyop! Here we are.' 'Well! she said. 'Well!' he said, 'well.'" The endeavor to start and sustain communication is typical of talking birds; this the phatic function of language is the only one they share with human beings when conversing with them. It is also the first verbal function acquired by infants; they are prone to communication before being able to send or receive informative communication. (Jakobson 1985 [1956]: 115)

I think Jakobson's interpretation of Malinowsky's term is a bit off. He actually stated that phatic communication is involved in "free, aimless, social intercourse". Phatic communication occurs, for example, when people "gossip quite unconnected with what they are doing". Jakobson makes it seem like it is forced and unpleasant, and vacuous (merely for the keeping open of the channel), while in Malinowsky, it is casual speech that goes along with resting or doing some tedious manual work. In both cases phatic communication is not the sole aim of doing, it is speech that goes along with doing something.
Phatic communication occurs because people desire each other's companionship and, as Malinowsky puts it, "another man's silence is not a reassuring factor, but, on the contrary, something alarming and dangerous". For this reason we "small talk" and exchange, as he term it, "sociabilities". Phatic communication serves to break the silence and "establishes links of fellowship". Thus, it does not purport to prolong communication but to open up communication. It releases social tensions. Anyone who has had the experience of smoking at a dormitory's balcony knows that standing immobile a few feet from another smoker is much more unpleasant than striking up a casual conversation about whatever comes to mind.

Any attempt to reduce the sphere of poetic function to poetry or to confine poetry to poetic function would be a delusive oversimplification. Poetic function is not the sole function of verbal art but only its dominant, determining function, whereas in other verbal activities it acts as a subsidiary, accessory constituent. This function, by promoting the palpability of signs, deepens the fundamental dichotomy of signs and objects. Hence, when dealing with poetic function, linguistics cannot limit itself to the field of poetry. (Jakobson 1985 [1956]: 116)

The poetic function is often confused with a poietic ("to make") function. Irina Avramets was extremely critical of this in Jakobson, sayith that he invented this function from godknowswhat and confused a lot of researchers with it. Indeed it remains ambiguous, what is the poetic function? What is "the message for its own sake"?

"Why do you always say Joan and Margery, yet never Margery and Joan? Do you prefer Joan to her twin sister?" "Not at all, it just sounds smoother." In a sequence of two coordinate names, as far as no rank problems interfere, the precedence of the shorter name suits the speaker, unaccountably for him, as a well-ordered shape of the message. (Jakobson 1985 [1956]: 116)

Here it seems that the poetic function in language is basically, as Avramets touted, the aesthetic function. It is "beauty" that the poetic function enables us to confer on our messages - it makes them more "pleasurable". Paronomasia in a case in point.

Statements of existence or nonexistence in regard to such fictional entities gave rise to lengthy philosophical controversies, but from a linguistic point of view the verb of existence remains elliptic as far as it is not accompanied by a locative modifier: "unicorns do not exist in the fauna of the globe"; "unicorns exist in Greco-Roman and Chinese mythology", "in the tapestry tradition", "in poetry", "in our dreams", etc. Here we observe the linguistic relevance of the notion Universe of Discourse, introduced by A. De Morgan and applied by Peirce: "At one time it may be the physical universe, at another it may be the imaginary 'world' of some play or novel, at another a range of possibilities." (Jakobson 1985 [1956]: 120)

This is one of my favourite notions in Peirce, especially in Eco's interpretation. It sounds somewhat grander than "literary world", for example.

Metalanguage is the vital factor of any verbal development. The interpretation of one linguistic sign through other, in some respects homogeneous, signs of the same language, is a metalingual operation which plays an essential role in child language learning. Observations made during recent decades, in particular by the Russian inquirers A. N. Gvozdev and K. I. Čukovskij, have disclosed what an enormous place talk about language occupies in the verbal behavior of preschool children, who are prone to compare new acquisitions with earlier ones and their own way of speaking with the diverse forms of speech used by the older and younger people surrounding them; the makeup and choice of words and sentences, their sound, shape and meaning, synonymy and homonymy are vividly discussed. A constant recourse to metalanguage is indispensable both for a creative assimilation of the mother tongue and for its final mastery. (Jakobson 1985 [1956]: 120-121)

This activity constitutes a major part in my readings blog. Acquiring terminology and using it correctly ain't easy.

(Suhtlemis)vahendid edukuse tagamisel

Täär, Veikko 2013. Verbaalsed ja mitteverbaalsed vahendid edukuse tagamisel. Ettekanne tööturukonverentsil "Minu edukas ja ettevõtlik tulevik", 17. oktoobril, Tartus, Atlantise konverentsisaalis.

17. oktoobril toimub Atlantise konverentsisaalis tööturukonverents „Minu edukas ja ettevõtlik tulevik“, mis on suunatud kõigile noortele vanuses 15-26 aastat, haridustöötajatele ja noortega tegelejatele, kes soovivad olla teadlikumad tööturu suundumustest ning ettevõtlikkusest.

Otsustasin kohale minna selle pärast:

10.20-11.30 "Verbaalsed ja mitteverbaalsed vahendid edukuse tagamisel." Veikko Täär, koolitaja, näitleja ja ettevõtja

Võtsin seda kui esimest korda kui sain ise pealt kuulata kuidas keegi räägib eksplitsiitselt mitteverbaalsest suhtlemisest. Semiosalongides on seda ääri-veeri näpitud (nt Silvi Tenjese ja Mihkel Kunnuse poolt), aga otseselt pole keegi seda vististi käsitletud. Ja tuutoritekoolituse suhtlemisõpetust ma ei loe asjaks, sest Lea Nagirnaja kogu materjal pärines Allan Pease'i mõttetust raamatust. Veikko Täärilt ootasin kõrgemat pilotaaži, sest ta kasutas korrektset terminit, "mitteverbaalne" (nonverbal) ja on pealekauba näitleja, niiet teemaga lähedalt tuttav. Kokkuvõttes kirjutasin hinnangulehele: "Esitus hea, aga informeeritus kesine. On lugenud populaarteaduslikke raamatuid 'kehakeelest'." Päris mitmel korral ettekande jooksul tundsin vastupandamatut vajadust käsi püsti tõsta ja kommenteerida. Esimesed korrad olid lihtsalt täpsustavad, aga pärast viimast korda, mil ma kasutasin väljendit "väljamõeldud jama", muutsin tema olemise ebalevaks - edaspidi rändas ta pilk minust (ja kogu publikust minu taga, sest istusin teises reas) tuimalt üle. Siiski sain väga palju märkmeid, nii küsimuste kui ka küsitavustega.

Esimese asjana pean nentima oma kahtlusi pealkirja eelduses. Nimelt tundus mulle juba minnes, et kommunikatiivne repertuaar ei taga edu. Hea suhtlemisoskus on kindlasti edukuse komponent, aga garantii ehk tagatisena see ei toimi. Edu on paljuski ka õnnemäng (game of chances). Kahlusi tekitas ka see, kas näitleja saab adekvaatselt õpetada "mitteverbaalseid vahendeid" kasutama, sest implikatsioonid on, et suhtlemisvahendid on õpitavad ja õpetatavad (veel enam, ühe ettekande käigus!) ja noored peaksid oma käitumist manipuleerima, et edu saavutada. Siin tundub olevat vajaka "mitteverbaalsest eetikast", ehk küsitavusest: "Kas on õige mitteverbaalset käitumist õpetada?" Teadupoolest teeb oma käitumise jälgimine ja manipuleerimine selle imelikuks (awkward'iks). Aga sellel teemal tuleb kunagi tulevikus pikemalt ja põhjalikult kirjutada - ma hellitan endiselt lootust, et nonverbal ethics saab asjaks (kiire google-otsing toob esile ühe presentatsiooni, niiet äkki isegi asi areneb!).

Enne asja juurde jõudmist veel paar tähelepanekut. Naisterahvas kes modereeris üritust käskis kohaletulijatel esimese asjana tõusta, ringutada [täitsa okei] ja nelja enda ligiduses (ees, taga, paremal, vasakul) olevate inimeste poole pöörduda, suruda kätt, tutvuda nimedega ja teha üks kompliment [wat?]. Jah, kompliment - mõtle neli võltsviisakust välja! Ma ei olnud tujus, et hakata võõraste inimeste välimust kiitma. Mind jälitab endiselt nooruses õpitud eristus komplimendi ja kiituse vahel. Kompliment on sisutühi ülistus inimese välimusele, kiitus on asjalik imetluseavaldus inimese saavutuse või millegi muu sisuka kohta. Laias laastus: see milline sa oled vs see mida sa oled teinud. Surusin vastutahtsi endast paremale jääva Agnese kätt ja natuke kaugemalt ruttas kätt andma (tõenäoliselt Agnese sõbranna) Roosi, kellega vahetasin ka pärast kohvipausi paar sõna. Märkisin üles ka moderaatori kuldsed selgitussõnad komplimentide asjale: "Eneseavamises on jõudu." Sest see tundus olevat päeva suurim what-the-actual-fuck? ja naisterahvas ise nagu kõndiv eneseabiraamat: pea täis esoteerikat, illusioone ja kassipoegi.

Au pean andma soojendusesitajale, Tiia Teppanile, kes järelevaatamisel osutub Tartu abilinapeaks. Ta rääkis meile oma isiklikest kogemustest suusainstruktorina (oota, kas mingi Tartu linnapea ei olnud mitte suusataja? WTF? Kas Tartu linnavalitsus on mingi suusaklubi poolt okupeeritud?) ja küsis retooriliselt, et mida ta teeb, et kaugele ära uitanud suusatajaid tagasi kutsuda? Keegi ei teadnud vastata (mina tahtsin naljatlevalt pakkuda "kasutad semafoori", aga õnneks ei teinud suud lahti). Vastus oli: ta vilistab, sest see kõlab kaugele, juhatab tähelepanu ja suunda. Ülihea näide strepitatiivsest märguandmisest. Mulle meeldisid ka tema tähelepanekud (mis moderaatorile samas üldse ei meeldinud - see tegi asja magusamaks), et edukusest ja ettevõtlikusest tähtsam on rõõm ja õnn ning selle tegemine mida sa naudid; tegema peaks seda mis on su loomuses ja mis hoiab su tervist ja rahu. Vägagi mõistlik.

Siis juhatas moderaator Veikko Tääri sisse tutvustusega, et ta räägib meile sellest "Millisena näid teistele oma kehalt." Esitan siinkohal Kõige Kohmakama Sõnakasutuse auhinnale kandidaadi, sest see on "vaimult" vaeseim iseloomustus mitteverbaalsele suhtlemisele mida ma olen seni kohanud.

Veikka Täär alustas oma ettekannet pika aruteluga sellest kui tähtis on valimine (seoses praeguste kohalike omavalitsuste valimistega). Vägisi tahtsin küsida, et kas ta ise kandideerib, et nii pikalt on vaja sellest rääkida? Ilmselt oli see rohkem kohalolevatele poliitikutele-suusatajatele (Täär on ise ka suusatajate klubis) suusoojaks. Esimene oluline ülesmärge:

Fortuuna naeratus.

Märkisin üles, sest selle justkui juhusliku väljendi taga on nagunii terve mütoloogia ja ma olen otsustanud ka sellistele asjadele tähelepanu pöörata, sest nad puudutavad serviti käitumise tõlgendamise probeeme (varsti kirjutan rohkem näiteks väljendi "silmad on hinge peegel" ja Piibli seosest). Fortuuna, tuleb välja, on Antiik-Rooma saatusejumalanna ja "naeratamisega" puutub ta kokku nii palju, et keskajal hakati teda kujutama kahenäolisena, just nagu teist Antiik-Rooma jumalust, Jaanust. Kahenäolise Fortuuna üks näopool naeratab ja teine näopool frown'ib. Eesti keeles on isegi "kulmukortsutus" ebamugav sõna. ...Teine näopool kortsutab kulmu.

Kuidas mõjuda hästi?

...Näib olevat ettekande tuumaks. Täpsemalt, kuidas mõjuda hästi kehalt. Oluline on see siinses kontekstis vaid selle tõttu, et "hästi mõjumise" ehk meeldivuse osa on mitteverbaalse suhtlemise uurimises kõige nigelam ja kahtlasem alavaldkond. Hea näide on Albert Mehrabiani (1972) töö, mis on kehalisele käitumisele suunatud vaid pooleldi - rohkem on tegu tollal California ülikoolis populaarse attitude research'iga (a la Fishbein & Ajzen 1975). Need tüübid olid väga kavalad parodeerima suhtlemise uurimise all, rääkides ikkagi suhtumisest (a la mis iganes see oli, 1973). Ehk minu teada ei olnud "hästi mõjumise" uurimine eriti edukas, aga kuna see oli kõmutekitav teema, siis käidi selle lipu all igasugust jama välja.

Mis teeb õnnelikuks?

Vastus on siin muidugi "suhtlemine!" Minu teada teeb õnnelikuks hoopis õnne-väärilisus. Ehk: õnnelikud inimesed peavad ennast õnne vääriliseks. Selline oli vähemalt Brené Brown'i TEDi kõneluse sõnum. Suhtlemine on siiski vaid üks vahend õnne saavutamiseks. Ka üksinduses võib olla õnnelik - nii võime õppida näiteks J. C. Powys'e üksinduse filosoofiast.

1970ndate lõpus hakati kahtlema IQ-s ja hakati rääkima emotsionaalsest intelligentsusest.

Wiki andmetel räägiti näiteks "sotsiaalsest intelligentsusest" juba eelmise sajandi alguses, aga arusaadavalt saavutas see 1970ndate lõpus kliimaksi, sest just sel ajal oli kõik emotsioonidega seotu populaarne. Meelde tuleb näiteks Susan Shott'i (1979) katse määratleda emotsioonide kohta ühiskondlikus elus. Ja see on vaid üks tilk tervest emotsioonide-sotsioloogia merest. Ma pakun, et mingil hetkel sai neil villand abstraktsetest ja vastuseta küsimustest nagu "Kas emotsioon on sotsiaalne konstruktsioon?" ja pöörduti konkreetsete teooriate poole. Ma ei ole kindel, mis "emotsionaalsest intelligentsusest" selles virrvarris sai. Mingil hetkel sai sellest ilmselt "pop psühholoogia", nagu paljudest "meeliköitvatest" teemadest (nagu ka mitteverbaalne suhtlemine) lõpuks alati saab. Tääri point oli selles, et "koolipoisi hinnetega" hea suhtleja saab elus võib-olla paremini hakkama kui viitega "tarkpea". See kõlas nagu enesevabandus.

Millise pildi me endast jätame? Esmamuljet saab jätta ainult ühe korra. Mis te arvate kui palju aega võtab, et esmamulje kujundada?

Siin tegin ennast narriks, tõstsin käe ja vastasin oma teadmiste järgi, et kuni 30 sekundit, aga kui sa kohtud sama inimesega rohkem kui korra, siis see mulje muutub. Nii palju õppisin ma Chris Kleinke (1975) raamatust esmamuljete kohta. Täär väitis, et õige vastus on 7-17 sekundit, rääkis midagi kõhutundest ja implitsiitselt ka Malcolm Gladwelli thin slice teooriast.

Rõõm käib avatult.

Vaid nii palju püüdsin ma kinni jutust, milles segunesid "sümpaatsus", "enesekindlus" ja "temperament" - kõik sellised udused mõisted millega eneseabi (pop psühholoogia) riiul on täidetud, aga mille täpseid määratlusi keegi vist ei tea. Parim selleteemaline väide pärineb ikkagi Anna Jaskolalt (2005), kes ütleb selgesõnaluselt, et enesekindlus on "hinge energia". Sest "hing" ja "energia" on pa-a-a-a-alju selgemad mõisted kui enesekindlus. Taolist võta-üks-udukogum-ja-viska-teist tunnet tundsin ka siis kui Täär väitis, et emotsioonid on tihedalt seotud meie füüsisega. Oscar Wildel on õigus - igasugune kriitika on samaaegselt autobiograafia. Ma tõepoolest ei tea, mida "füüsis" tähistab - kas see on terve keha, mingi osa kehast või aspekt kehast? Sõnastik ütleb, et "anatoomia" ja "liha" on selle sünonüümid. "Füüsiline olemus" tõesti ei aita mind väga. Kas ma võin teha julge hüppe ja pakkuda, et emotsioonid on tihedalt seotud näolihastega? Sel juhul oleks väide vähemalt mingit pidi korrektne. Samasugune keele-probleem tõusis esile kui Täär rääkis Ekmani ja Frieseni (ka siin, siin, siin, siin ja siin, just to name a few) näoilmete-käsitlusest. Ta kasutas sõna "väljenduslaad", millest ma ei ole kuskil midagi kuulnud. Samas see võib olla vaid keeleline erinevus. Minu eelistatud terminid on "emotsiooniväljendus" (emotional expression) ja "kuvamisreegel" (display rule). "Rõõm käib avatult" häiris mind vaid selle pärast, et "avatus" on Pease'i pseudo-psühhoanalüütiline mõiste, mil on emotsioonidega vähe väga vähe, kui üldse midagi, pistmist. "Avatusest" saab kehaväljenduse suhtes rääkida vaid nii palju, et üles tõstetud käsi saab seostada õnnega - vähemalt oskavad sellist seost teha lapsed.

Küsisin kord lastelt: "Kas poisid tohivad nutta?" Vastus oli ühene "Ei!"

Lapsi ei saa selles suhtes usaldada - nad on kergesti mõjutatavad ja "Kas poisid tohivad nutta?" on kallutatud küsimus. Uusimad andmed Frequency of crying'u kohta ütlevad, et mehed nutavad keskmiselt 6-17 korda aastas ja naised keskmiselt 30-64 korda aastas. "Mehed ei nuta" on sotsiaalne konstruktsioon.

Venelased ütlevad eestlaste kohta, et me oleme flegmaatilised.

Tääri selgitusest ei saanud ma aru. "Flegmaatik" on üks neljast temperamendi-tüübist, mis postuleeriti Antiik-meditsiinis ja mida keskajalgi veel arvati paika pidavat. Huumoriteooria on ka ainus instants mil jutt "temperamendist" on õigustatud. Tänapäeva inimene võiks muidugi aru saada, et flegma kui mucous ehk röga, ei ole mitte kuidagi seotud käitumise ja isiksusega. S.t. eestlaste pidamine flegmaatiliseks ei ole mitte kuidagi deep, vaid osutab keskaegsetele arusaamadele.

Teadlased väidavad, et kätlejad jäävad kordades paremini meelde.

Teadlased väidavad ka, et kõik väited mis algavad omistusega "teadlased väidavad" on väljamõeldised. Siin on konkreetselt tegemist Allan Pease'i väljamõeldistega. Just nagu käte rinnale ristamist, ei ole ka käesurumise "meeldivust" keegi kunagi mõõtnud. Tähendab, teadlastel pole sellega mitte midagi pistmist. Allan Pease kirjutas müügimeeste jaoks teiste müügimeeste kohta, tehes valejäreldusi ja liialdusi mille kõigi ümber lükkamine ise võtaks aastakümneid uurimistööd ja sadu lehekülgi lahtikirjutamist. Täär näis aga Pease'i tõsiselt võtvat, sest kui temaga pärast ettekannet vestlema läksin, siis andis ta endast parima, et võimalikult "mehiselt" kätt suruda.

Me oleme kõik energeetilised kogumid. Meil kõigil on oma isiklik ruum...

Just nagu käesurumise "teadlased väidavad" puhul, tõstsin ma siingi (viimast korda) käe ja ütlesin, et ka see on väljamõeldud jama. Ma ei tea kuidas Täär üldse jõudis energeetika ja prokseemika seostamiseni... Või mida ta üldse energeetika all mõistab? Muidugi võib ka inimese puhul rääkida bioenergeetikast, sest metabolism vallandab soojusenergiat, aga sellel ei ole mitte midagi pistmist prokseemikaga. See on üks asi. Prokseemiliste kauguste kuulutamine väljamõeldud jamaks nõuab pikemat eksplitseerimist, sest Edward T. Hall'i prokseemika (nt siin, siin, siin ja siin) oli põhimõtteliselt Heini Hedigeri loomade ruumikasutuse uurimise ühildamine Martin Joos'i kõnestiilide teooriaga. Hoolimata tõigast, et pop psühholoogilised raamatud kubisevad "ruumitsoonide" skeemi lõpututest kordamistest, ei arendanud psühholoogid kes inimese ruumikasutusega tegelesid, seda edasi. "Prokseeme" tegelikult ei leitud.

Mingil hetkel oma ettekande jooksul hakkas Täär kummalise sügava häälega lausuma hüpnotiseerivaid väiteid: "Ta on hea esineja," "Temasugust ei ole varem näinud" ja "Tal on mõnus huumorisoon." Panin kirja küsimuse: Kas see on suggestioon? Sest need näisid ajaliste pausidega ebakõlas tekstiga mida ta muidu ette kandis - ei sobitunud rütmi. Pärast ettekannet temaga mõnest ülevalpool arutletud punktist rääkides küsis ta minult kas ma tean midagi Neurolingvistilisest... Ma ei mäleta, mis tema sõna oli. Ma parandasin teda, et õige sõna on "programmeerimine" ja hakkasin seletama, kuidas Richard Bandler ja John Grinder lõid selle psühholoogiast välja astudes, sest nad arvasid end olevat Gregory Batesoni kujul leidnud ülimehe kelle kõnemustreid mudeldades nad võivad saada võimeliseks teisi inimesi mõjutama ja kuidas nad ei olnud sellega tegelikult väga edukad, sest see ei ole nt terapeudilises praktikas tõhusam kui ükskõik mis muu meetod. Ta vastas midagi stiilis, et tema kogemus on teistsugune.

Kokkuvõttes tundub hinnang õigustatud: "Esitus hea, aga informeeritus kesine. On lugenud populaarteaduslikke raamatuid 'kehakeelest'." Näitlejana võib ta kindlasti hea olla - vähemalt kehaline esitus ettekande ajal tundus hästi sooritatud. Mitteverbaalsetest vahenditest kõnelejana ei ole ta aga parem kui ükskõik milline nõustaja, kes loeb läbi Allan Pease'i väljamõeldud jama, Julius Fast'i väljamõeldud jama, G. I. Nierenbergi ja H. H. Calero väljamõeldud jama, või isegi Elizabeth Kuhnke kokkuvõtte väljamõeldud jamast For Dummies seerias, mis 2010. a sai Eesti keelde tõlgitud. Väljamõeldud jama jääb väljamõeldud jamaks. Kurb tõsiasi on see, et Eesti keeles ei ole häid raamatuid mitteverbaalsest suhtlemisest. Isegi Joe Navarro Kehakeele kiirlugemise kursus endise FBI agendi sulest on suuremalt jaolt anekdootlik - sõna otseses mõttes täis isiklikke anekdoote. Parim mida ma võin soovitada teemast huvitatud inimestele on päris teadlaste ja praktikute 2013. kogumik Nonverbal Communication: Science and Applications, mis on olemas Tartu Ülikooli raamatukogus ja hea otsija leiab PDF-i ka internetist. See esindab vaid ühe koolkonna seisukohti ja on üksjagu visandlik, aga selle poolest äkki uustulijatele sobiv.

Pärast ettekannet Tääriga vesteldes lõpetasin noodil, et kuna ma tegelen selle teemaga ühel või teisel viisil ilmselt kogu oma elu, siis võib juhtuda, et kunagi oleks mõttekas teha hariv telesaade, mis tutvustab eestlastele väljamõeldud jama asemel päris teadust mitteverbaalsest suhtlemisest. Sel juhul oleks hea, kui oleks näitleja/esineja varnast võtta, kes sellest teemast ka hästi huvitatud oleks. See on aga tuleviku muusika. Praegu võin vaid loota, et Veikko Täär liialt ei solvu selle teksti ega tema ettekandele vahele segamise peale. Mitteverbaalne suhtlemine on minu armastus ja ma ei suhtu kerglaselt tüüpidesse kes teda niisama panna tahavad. :D

FLSE.00.246 loeng 13.10.15

FLSE.00.246 Methodology of the Humanities loeng 2013.10.15

The connection between Jakobson and Tartu.

That is one of the topics we are interested in. Silvi Salupere is most adept on this topic and willing to tell us about it.

Jakobson in 1966 [at Kääriku]
"During a visit to the Soviet Union attended the Twelfth International Congress of Psychology, Moscow, August 4-11; the International Seminar on Speech Production and Speech Perception, Pavlov Institute, Leningrad, August 13-16; the Semiotic Seminar at the University of Tartu, Estonia, August 19-25; the Shota Rustaveli Commemoration, University of Tbilisi, Georgia, Sept. 5. Attended the Colloque international de semiologie, Polish Academy of Science, Kazimierz, Sept. 13-18."

A buzy summer.

In 1973, at the proposal of Juri Lotman, a collective formulation of the principles of this field called 'semiotics of culture' was made. To write these Theses was Lotman's idea. The text was compiled when the group gathered in Uspenskij's apartment in Moscow, at Jugo-Zapadnaja. The authors included the core members of the Tartu-Moscow semiotics school - J. M. Lotman, V. V. Ivanov, V. N. Toporov, A. M. Pjatigorskij, and B. A. Uspenskij. Lotman also wanted to include Roman Jakobson, who worked at that time at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but it is not clear whether this message reached him (Ivanov 1994: 488; 1999: 248; Velmezova, Kull 2011: 300). The Theses were written for the 7th International Congress of Slavists that took place in 1973 in Warsaw. The writing process was rather quick - Uspenskij had to take the text to Warsaw. (Salupere, Torop, Kull 2013: 5) [from the reprint of CS Thesis].

A more reliable source than Mihhail Lotman's spoken word at the summer school.

Lotman's obituary to Jakobson was published in Keel ja Kirjandus (approx. 1983)

Might have to check this out some day.

Jakobson was a life-long romanticist in science and he never got old. He remained a river until the end of his life. "I have read medical works where it is said that being gifted is an illness. In Jakobson's case giftedness is a contagious sickness, because everywhere he went he formed a group (a linguistic circle).

One of these was in New York, which surprised me somewhat.

In the 1950s Lotman reoriented to cybernetics.

That's probably how he acquainted with information and communication theories of the day.

[Remo G. comments that] Jakobson tried to unite Saussure and Peirce through the Stoics, but for them the sign wasn't only (or even primarily) a linguistic sign.

I wish I knew more about this.

The Ontogeny of Meaning

Latif, Israil A. 1934. The Physiological Basis of Linguistic Development and of the Ontogeny of Meaning. Part I. Psychological Review 41(1): 55-85.

The behaviour of the new-born human infant, during its waking hours, consists largely of reflex vocalizations and other random movements such as squirmings, writhings, and wrigglings. On account of its important role in the subsequent development of language, infantile crying, although it is regularly connected with other behaviour, has often been singled out for separate investigation. It is only by the artifice of abstraction that we can treat of sounds as if they existed separately from the other bodily manifestations concomitant with them. C. Bühler says, "The first and most striking observation to be noted in the first year is that crying always occurs closely connected with movement. We have, therefore, a unit of behaviour in which the crying is 'the dominant.'" (Latif 1934: 55)

Far from being restricted to Jakobson's poetics, the notion of "dominant" can therefore be applied to behaviour as well, noting that whatever occurs alongside some behaviour is it's dominant. This use must be restricted in some way, though, so that we don't come to conclude that "being annoyed" is the dominant of rolling one's eyes, for example. P.S. The C. Bühler in this instance is not Carl, but Charlotte!

Charlotte Bühler remarks that "All causes of crying in the first four months revert back directly to bodily hurts and needs." And she specially mentions pain (e.g. colic, prick wounds, illness), strong and sudden stimuli (e.g. very bright light, sharp noises, sudden contacts, sudden changes of temperature), abrupt and sudden changes of posture, fatigue, hunger, etc. Margaret G. Blanton gives, as the principal causes, hunger, naxious stimuli, fatigue, and colic. (Latif 1934: 56)

It is noteworthy that these do not cease to purport feelings of discomfort in the adult, but that there are other factors besides these that can make the adult cry.

There is general agreement that along with the development of specific movements, there is a gradual differentiation of acoustic pattern in an infant's cries, according as they are evoked by this or that stimulus. M. G. Blaton writes: "The 'hunger cry' has generally a well marked rhythm, the first syllable of preliminary sound coming on the first part of the first beat, the second or accented syllable on the second part of the first beat, and a quick intake of breath as the third beat. This measure is most often repeated in groups of 5 or 6, each slightly more forceful than the preceding ones until the fourth or fifth, the last one being softer. Thus also will the group be repeated. Each measure is also a trifle higher in pitch than the one preceding." (Latif 1934: 56)

Getting the infant cry down to a science. I was not aware that there are specific distinguishable cries, but it does seem probable.

She further reports that in the two-months old child "habitual crying" may be distinguished from significant crying. The former is characterized by "uniformity, weakness, lack of variation in intensity, and interrupted pauses," and it continues "beyond an immediate need." The accompanying bodily movements, she says, are not strong. (Latif 1934: 57)

Are "insignificant cries" the deceptive attention-seeking cries we have been told about?

To sum up: (I) Infantile crying is only a part of the total infantile behaviour at any given moment.
(2) It is purely reflex in nature; and is due to purely physiological causes. No intention to communicate, on the part of the infant, is involved.
(3) The adult learns to read meanings into the cry of the infant by a process of inference. Inside the child there is only released nervous energy (internal stimulation): from the motor effects of this released energy the adult infers (from his previous experience) this or that about the processes going on in the child's internal organs. A state of contentment and comfort is inferred when the infant's muscles are relaxed, and its body is in an attitude of repose.
(4) In order to interpret the infantile cry accurately it must be taken in conjunction with the entire behaviour of the infant, together with such stimuli as may be playing on it at the moment. (Latif 1934: 58)

I can see why Sebeok's views this text as "unmistakably semiotic."

We come now to a point of importance. It is the question as to what, precisely, in an infant's movements, constitutes 'meaning.' The terms 'meaning,' 'significance,' and 'interpretation' need to be examined more closely. Why is it that a new-born infant's squirmings, writhings, and wrigglings, and even his early vocalizations, seem to be so lacking in significance? As we watch the movements of a very young baby we find ourselves saying that such mere writing is pointless or aimless; the limbs are flexing and unflexing at random; the organism is not doing anything in particular, not doing anything describable. Further observation of the infant, as those movements develop which we do declare to be 'meaningful,' convinces us that 'aim' and 'point' came into the picture precisely when any of the baby's movements are aimed or pointed at its environment. The first change in the behaviour of the infant that gives us the impression that the infant's movements do have a 'meaning,' comes when we can see that they are directed towards (or away from) an outside object. If the child orients itself in any definite way towards a bright light, for instance, we instantly find the child's behaviour to be significant, meaningful. Nor can we easily resist inferring that the child is, to some extent at any rate, 'aware' of that light. (Latif 1934: 58-59)

It seems that the infant's behaviour becomes "meaningful" for us when we can impute some intention to it.

It is this fact of the orientation of organisms towards objects outside of themselves that leads us to find significance in 'topistic' responses, at the lowest biological level. Inasmuch as the sunflower turns towards the sun, its reaction is significant. And the same principle holds in the case of the behaviour of more complex living organisms. (Latif 1934: 59)

And we must keep in mind that intention exists only insofar as it is oriented towards some object. Significance is here intimately tied with goal-orientation and purposiveness.

The first results of the workings of Pavlov's law (of the conditioned reflex) are what Dr. S. T. Box (1917) has called 'reflex-circles.' Let us consider any muscle at a moment when a nervous excitation, seeking some outlet of least resistance, purely fortuitously finds its way into the motor neurone of this muscle. The muscle contracts, - a random movement. But now something happens which is not random. Every muscle has sensory organs embedded within it, its proprioceptors, which are stimulated, probably by mechanical pressure, when the muscle contracts. And so the sensory cells of this muscle (of its tendons also and of the joint involved) are now stimulated and send an excitation along their afferent nerves to the central nervous system. (Latif 1934: 63)

It is probable that something like this is involved in facial expressions as well - e.g. that one has to contract the muscle somehow (e.g. put a pencil between the teeth in case of the lower face) and then receive a sensation of what it's like to contract specific muscles; that is, to learn how to use some very fine muscles.

Therefore by Pavlow's law (or equally by the law of neurobiotaxis) the incomplete excitation will find outlet along the tract just used by the random impulses, that is, will go back to, and will further contract, the very muscle from which it came. Thus the afferent neurones from this muscle will begin to acquire, and after a few repetitions of this process will acquire, a synaptic connection with the motor nerve which goes out to this same muscle. A reflex circle is established. (Latif 1934: 64)

It would probably be embarrassing to use these terms today. Neurobiotaxis is the hypothesis that nerve cells have phylogenetically migrated towards regions of maximum stimulation. The modern neurologist may scoff at this, I don't know.

Of course, this principle is the basis of all onomatopoeia; and indeed Prof. J. M. Baldwin (1895, pp. 130-34) has called it the principle of 'simple imitation.' The reflex circle in factgives ruse to a general law of iteration: A child will repeat any of its own random acts provided that this action (simultaneously) stimulates, howsoever indirectly, any of its own sense-organs (and also of course, that no other reflex steps in to interrupt). (Latif 1934: 64-65)

I think this can be framed as the "nonverbal self-communication" aspect of ontogenesis. Another function of autocommunication uncovered (from the endless list of functions).

Although Baldwin was early in discerning this principle, he did not have the full secret of the reflex-circle, and he unfortunately made use of the hedonic concept, e.g. 'delight,' which in addition to other defects involves the fallacy of enelicomorphism - since this circular activity appears in early infancy. (Latif 1934: 66)

Powys can probably be accused of using a lot of hedonic concepts. Enelicomorphism is adultomorphism by another name (this odd term was proposed by Howard C. Warren after "ενήλικ" in Greek for "mature".

Now it seems to us that awareness of a stimulus is nothing else than this response that is made to it. Certainly the reaction of an organism is the principal if not the sole test of its awareness of any stimulus. Indeed the response to a stimulus is not merely the criterion of bare awareness, for over and above that the nature of the response reveals, in our opinion, what the stimulus has meant to the organism so responding. If, for instance, whenever a loud noise occurs near an infant, it quivers, puckers its lips, pauses in its breathing and then bursts into a loud wail, we can hardly resist concluding that the noise had some very vague 'meaning' for the infant; of the sort that we should call 'a disturbance,' perhaps a disagreeable disturbance. We should conclude this all the more confidently if a loud noise always elicited this same response. For what is it that ever assumes us that another person has caught the meaning, even say, of a word if it is not that the particular word regularly elicits from the person a certain sort of response? If, on the other hand, a loud noise elicits from the infant sometimes laughter, sometimes a languid stirring of its limbs, sometimes screams, and sometimes no response at all, we are bound to conclude that the noise has no definite and settled meaning for it. (Latif 1934: 67-68)

I'm quite sure that awareness of a stimulus is something else than a response that is made to it. Otherwise a person who remains immobile and rigid would as-if have no awareness. But we are talking about the hey-day of behaviorism. From a more agreeable position this falls in line with Charles Morris's definition of signification and the reliability of the interpretation.

And again, "The meaning of an object is our attitude toward that object, our reaction to it." Thus the infant's awareness of the meaning of a stimulus, and its motor response to the stimulus, are identical phenomena - two ways of describing the same process. (Latif 1934: 68)

In this case even the notion of attitude is more welcome than the notion of reaction. The conflation of awareness and response is still detestable, but I have to get over it. Behaviorism wanted to reduce everything to behaviour, so I have to just keep in mind that a response to any given representamina can also be emotional or cognitive, not only energetic.

Concerning primitive language B. Malinowski observes that, "A word means to a native the proper use of the thing for which it stands, exactly as an implement means something when it can be handled and means nothing when no active experience of it is at hand." ... "In all the child's experience, words mean, in so far as they act and not in so far as they make the child understand or apperceive." Again, with Dr. Langfeld, "Words, in short, are conditioned responses to action, and only if we know this action, do we understand their meaning." (Latif 1934: 69)

I'd like to squash this argument and embrace it at the same time. The reference: Langfeld, H. S. 1927. Consciousness and motor response. Psychological Review 34: 8. Squash it because it is absurd that words should incite us to action (I think Wittgenstein or someone made a good argument against this), and embrace it because in case of concourse it does seem that understanding description hinges on experience or imagery of the action described.

An infant's awareness of some meaning does not imply any very precise appreciation. And, as a rule, the earlier meanings of an infant are exceedingly vague. Just as there are many grades of specificity between the random and the coordinate movements of a child, so also there are different degrees of precision in its meanings. Any individual's meanings, during the course of his life, will range from a vague and shadowy awareness to fairly clear and precise cognition. In short, whenever there is a response on the part of the organism to a stimulus, there is always meaning. But not until the response becomes specific can there be precise meaning. The explanation of the absence of precise meaning for an infant is the same as the explanation of his lack of coordinated and specific movements. (Latif 1934: 70)

One can even say, with Saussure, that meanings are vague in the infant because the infant is, by definition, speechless. But even in adults the meanings can be vague and precise. One person unknowledgeable about semiotics tried to write in Postimees about the restrictive nature of writing and his piece was exceedingly vague because he lacked precise terms.

When the stimulus responded to is a word or sentence, it is the response of the hearer which creates the 'meaning.' Wherefore the meanings of words have to be learned, even as the multiplication-table is learned. It is obvious that what logicians call the denotation and connotation of words are both realized in the objective reference of the response, while the 'feeling tone' or emotional value of the word lies in the subjective aspect of the response. (Latif 1934: 71)

This "feeling tone" or emotional value might be paralingual, in which case it is permissible that he was not aware of there being any objective qualities - actual "feeling tones" in sound were synthesized in the 1970s.

1. 1. Perceived (or conceived) location of the object (denotation)
   2. Percetion (or conception) of the properties of the object, what it is, etc. (connotation)
2. Subjective reference, or aspect:

   Attitudes of acceptance, rejection, or other personal intention toward the object: feeling, emotion, evaluation, use.

(Latif 1934: 71-72)

"Where the object is" is denotation and "What the object is" is connotation? This seems quite different from Barthes's semiology.

Empathy, or Einfühlung, was first brought into special prominence by Theodor Lipps, as the essential process underlying 'aesthetic perception.' It has been further studied and discussed largely by students of aesthetics: by K. Groos, Vernon Lee, C. Anstruther-Thompson, H. S. Langfeld, and many others. Aesthetic perception, as Prof. Langfeld has shown, is not a 'mentalistic' state, but a motor or emphatic response of the percipient to the object perceived. Emphatic response is the process through which 'the activities of the perceiving subject' are merged 'with the qualities of the perceived object.' In other words, the percipient re-creates the various contours, lines and configurations of the object of aesthetic perception. But whatever the type of perception, aesthetic or other, the process of perception is the same. Thus, as Prof. Langfeld says, with regard to the perception of movement: "The perception of a movement ... is first identified in the object and not in one's self." (Latif 1934: 72)

I was not at all aware that empathy comes from aesthetics. But then again I didn't know that aesthetics comes from perception. The history of philosophy seems complicated.

The word 'empathy' was coined by the late Prof. Tichener as an English equivalent for Lipps' term Einfühlung. (Latif 1934: 72)

The more you know.

But the various stimuli that excite us are not always immediately present. An infant, for instance, reacts not only to the physically present mother or the nursing-bottle, but it also 'reacts to,' i.e. recreates, these objects even when they are not in sight. But whether the stimulus is present or absent, our reaction to it involves the process of re-creation through emphatic response to (re-creation of) an absent object, the original neuromuscular patterns must have been learned, so that they persist as "neurograms which, even when the original object is absent, will re-create its surface contour." (Latif 1934: 75)

Neurogram is "the postulated medified neural structure resulting from activity and serving to retain whatever has been learned; a neural engram" (Merriam-Webster). Sounds like something like a "mentifact" but in terms of neurons.

We saw at the end of the preceding section, how through the operation of Pavlov's law a tone or a word can serve as a substitute stimulus, a 'symbol,' for the physical object mother; so that in the absence of the mother it will touch off the same responses in the infant. The infant will thus re-create the familiar figure of its absent mother through the mediation of a symbol which stimulates its neurograms. (Latif 1934: 75)

The weirdest definition of a symbol I have yet come across.

The meaning of a word, the response which it stimulates, as mental content and in detachment from the word or symbol itself, is what is called an 'idea' or 'concept.' And thus I believe that all concepts and ideas, in fact all mental contents, are actual motor responses; a part of the response, in each case, being a re-creation by motion of some configuration of objects in the environment - this the objective or cognitive part - and the rest of the response being merely a personal posture or attitude - this the subjective, emotional or affective element of the idea or concept.

(Quoted from E. B. Holt's unpublished paper "On the conceptual affinity of opposites"; Latif 1934: 76)

Wat. No wonder behaviourists were beaten to submission without mercy. This is either sheer stupidity or blind hope in finding motor responses for everything, even cognition.

It is through the intervention of its elders that the general movements and postures of an infant gradually pass into symbolic gestures. A hungry infant, for instance, soon comes to react to the sight of the nursing-bottle by writhing, wriggling and directing its head and eyes towards it - general indication of food-adience. At the creeping stage an infant will creep towards its bottle. This is its direct response to the sight of the nursing-bottle. This response, however, has a 'significance' for the interested mother, inasmuch as she understands it to mean that the infant wants food. The general behaviour of the child may thus be termed a whole-body language, since the attitude and activity of its whole body convey meaning to an onlooker. (Latif 1934: 76)

This was the reason for reading this paper in the first place. Sebeok proposed that the expression "body language" might be a misinterpretation of this notion, "full-body language". What an unfortunate misinterpretation indeed, because today we have identified "body language" with all forms of nonverbal behaviour, while the original term refers only to full-body movements, such as crawling or walking.

But this whole-body language of the infant soon comes to be abbreviated, through the solicitous participation of the mother. As soon as the infant shows a nascent attitude of food-adience, the mother brings the bottle and thus cuts short the adient efforts of the infant. Whenever it stretches out its hand towards an object, the attentive mother is there to put the object in its hand. Suc cooperation on the part of the mother, soon reduces the whole-body language of the infant to mere ('conventional') gesture, in which only a part and that the earliest part of an action is substituted for the entire action. The response of the infant thus becomes merely symptomatic, i.e. symbolic. (Latif 1934: 76-77)

Here I recognize what was termed "cue reduction and fixation" by Carpented, after Hollingsworth's "redente gration". We probably could, after Jakobson, call it metonymization of actions to signs.

The child's understanding of the behaviour of others does not begin with its appreciation of words; it begins with an appreciation of its elders' actions and gestures. As Colonel Mallery writes:

It [the child] learns words only as they are taught, and learns them through the medium of signs which are not expressly taught. Long after familiarity with speech, it consults the gestures and facial expressions of its parents and nurses as if seeking thus to translate or explain their words.

(Latif 1934: 79-80)

That is, verbal language is taught through the medium of nonverbal behaviour.

As vocal language (tonal or verbal) develops, the gesture-language recedes into the background. But not even at the highest levels of vocal communication, do gestures ever entirely disappear. They persist in a more or less vestigial form. For even when a speaker makes no conspicuous gestures, slight movements are always to be detected: movements of the eyes and eye-brows, and of the general facial musculature. In many persons, indeed, the facial musculature exhibits a continuous 'play of emotion,' as it is called. Thus Colonel Mallery writes:

Even among the gesture-hating English, when they are aroused from torpidity of manner, the hands are involuntarily clapped in approbation, rubbed with delight, wrung in distress, raised in astonishment, and waved in triumph. The fingers are snapped for contempt, the forefinger is vibrated to reprove or threaten, and the fist shaken in defiance. The brow in contracted with displeasure, and the eyes winked to show connivance. The shoulders are shrugged to express disbelief or repugnance, the eyebrows elevated with surprise, the lips bitten in vexation and thrust out in sullenness or displeasure, while a higher defree of anger is shown by a stamp of the foot.

(Latif 1934: 81-82)

This quote is attributed to: Mallery, G. 1881. Sign language among the North American indians that is available in the gutenberg project. Immediately following this quote is a discussion of Quintilian (I haven's seen anyone discuss Quintilian thoroughly), so it might be worth checking out some day.

Herbert Spencer believed that intonation is a part of what we have called the 'subjective' aspect of meaning.

All speech is compounded of two elements, the words and the tones in which they are uttered - the signs of ideas and the signs of feelings. While certain articulations express the thought, certain modulations express the more or less of pain or pleasure which the thought gives. Using the word cadence in an unusually extended sense, as comprehending all variations of voice, we may say that cadence is the commentary of the emotions upon the propositions of the intellect. This duality of spoken language, though not formally recognized, is recognized in practice by every one; and every one knows that very often more weight attaches to the tone than to the words. Daily experience supplies cases in which the same sentence of disapproval will be understood as meaning little or meaning much, according to the vocal inflections which accompany it; antd daily experience supplies still more striking cases in which words and tones are in direct contradiction - the first expressing consent, while the last express reluctance; and the last being believed rather than the first.

(Latif 1934: 83-84)

Surprisingly, "modulation" seems closer to Morris's "modors" than do Smith's "vocal modifications". This is from: Spencer, Herbert 1899. Essays scientific, political, and speculative, vol. II: The origin and function of music.

The Semiotic Web

Sebeok, Thomas A. 1975. The Semiotic Web: A Chronicle of Prejudices. Bulletin of Literary Semiotics 2: 1-63.

A particularly wercome feature of Rey's book is its thorough index of forms and concepts. Anyone wishing to dig around seriously among the roots or later divarications of semiotics could do no better than to begin with this vade mecuum, the second volume of which will cover the busy decodes of 20th century semiotics that "really" began with Peirce. (Vol. , of Rey's book should be out by 1976. Very well conceived, it is, in fact, divided into two major sections, the first on foundations, the second dealing with epistemological considerations.) (Sebeok 1975: 3)

...aaaand it's in French.

As Charles Morris implied in his cursory note on "The history of semiotic" (Morris 1971:335-337), would-be historians ought to launch their searches either via the best pertinent secondary sources, such as standard histories of logic (e.g., Bochenski 1956, or Schenk 1973), or of other particular disciplines, such as linguistics (Sebeok 1975b) or medicine (Garrison 1929:884f.); but if their intentions are truly honorable, they must, of course, revert directly to the primary sources themselves, as elegantly expmplified by the "lost" Epicurean treatise of Philodemus (De lacy 1941). (Sebeok 1975: 3)

De Lacy's Philodemus: On methods of inference: a study in ancient empiricism is available on archive.org.

Perversely, however, a veritable orgy of Saussurean exegesis continues to inundate us. (Sebeok 1975: 4)

This was made me chuckle until a second later I realized how sad it is that this statement holds true even in 2013.

If Peirce was the fountainhead of today's semiotics, its most globally influential and revered living giant - yet one whose achievements are already integrated as a peerless episode in the history of the subject - is Charles Morris. His pertinent writings ale all at last readily available in a single volume (Morris 1971), and a veritable multinational industry has sprung up laboring to produce critical explication or analysis of his theory of signs (e.g., Apel 1973, besides Rossi-Landi's latest [1975] article, and a spate of dissertations, among which I found Eakins 1972 and Fiordo 1976 the most useful). Interesting problems waiting to be tackled will certainly focus upon the profound involvement of Morris with George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) (Muller 1973; Kang, to appear), whose social psychology itself has had a manifestly semiotic orientation, palpably resonant in, for example, Erving Goffman's masterful books; and, to the contrary, Morris' surprising intellective independentce from, although eventual terminological and otherwise surface reconciliation with, Peirce (cf. Dewey, and Morris' 1971:444-448 rebuttal). (Sebeok 1975: 6)

There is a rebuttal? Now I do have to read his Writings as soon as possible.

"Nonverbal communication" (Nelson 1975:315f.). It soon dawned on me that this deceptively simple phrase, widely bandied about and incorporated in a large miscellany of book titles (among others, Bosmajian 1971, Davis 1971, Eisenberg and Smith 1971, Hinde 1972, Knapp 1972, Mehrabian 1972, Ruesch and Kees 1956, Scherer 1970, Weitz 1974; see alse the entries under MacKay 1972 and Tavolga 1974), is well-nigh devoid of meaning or, at best, susceptible to so many interpretations as to be nearly useless. Mehrabian (1972:1f.) naively distinguishes a "narrow and more accurate sense," declared to refer "to actions as distinct from speech," i.e., "hand and arm gestures, postures, positions, and various movements of the body or the legs and feet," from a broader but supposedly traditional sense, by which he seemls to mean what Crystal (1969:293) had once labelled "content-free speech," intended to cover, among kindred phenomena, those called by some investigators paralinguistic events. (Sebeok 1975: 9)

That's a pretty exact evaluation. After three years of studying "nonverbal communication" I'm still studying nothing in specific.

The term "nonverbal," or "non-zverbal," is objectionable because it includes for too much, and, moreover, what it does comprehend varies according to each investigator's whim (Harrison, et al., 1972). Also, it wrongly implies the independence, indeed, usually the primacy, in some inplicit synchronic way, of the verbal component in humans. The formula, "communication minus language = nonverbal communication" is clumsily negative, simplistic, and obscurantist. In other words, "It make sno sense to speak of 'verbal communication' and 'nonverbal communication'. There is only communication, a system of behavior patterns by which people are related to one another" (Kendon 1972b:443). In brief, the subject of the holistic field of interaction ethology (alias semiotics), adumbrated in a conference (Amsterdam, August 31 - September 4, 1970), organized by Goffman and me for the Wenner-Gren Foundation (Sherzer 1971). Yet another hare, which I don't care to run with here, lurks in the careless way in which "communication" is confounded with "behavior," especially in the context of the nonverbal. This confidently assumes that all behavior (Scheflen 1972, 2974; Hinde 1974) neatly bifurcates into a kind that communicates and a kind that does not communicate - which is, in fact, a matter of controversy even among animal behaviorists, and hardly helped by the introduction of qualifying weasel words such as "social," "goal-directed," or the like. (Sebeok 1975: 10)

Sebeok figured me out - I AM "clumsily negative, simplistic, and obscurantist". And yet, nonverbal communication is still pursued today, and "interaction ethology" isn't, perhaps because it sounds even clumsier.

One could, of course, as I have done (Sebeok 1972:163ff.), set apart "anthroposemiotic" gestures, i.e., such as are species-specific in man (Efron's category of arbitrarily-coded, hence culture bound, emblems comes immediately to mind; see Ekman and Friesen 1969:63-68), and "zoosemiotic" gestures found in humans, i.e., such devices that we demonstrably share with some other form of animal life (a very nice example being the evolution of laughter and smiling; see Hooff 1972). This distinction is, however, both awkward and hard to maintain in practice. Another difficulty with this term is that its extension fluctuates widely according to the user's predilection; thus, for Ruesch, for example, in his sensitive classificatory scheme, gestures (Ruesch and Kees 1956:37) belong with the numerous "varieties of nonverbal language," one subdivision of which he names "action languages," among which gestures are singled out as only one category in about a dozen. Furthermore, Ruesch follows critchley (1939) in closely tying gestures to speech. (Sebeok 1975: 11)

I actually haven't seen it held by anyone. That is, I haven't met such a creature as anthroposemiotics.

Stokoe (1974:118) cites "motor signs" as "Jakobsan's term... and it is characteristically exact." I think that it is neither. Franz Boas, in his 1941 introduction to Efron's book (1972:10), carried over the word "motor" into the context (although he coupled it with "habits" instead of "signs"), but, to most linguists, the phrase will rather evoke an expression especially propagated by Stetson, "motor phonetics," which he defined as "the study of the siklled movements involved in the process of handling articulatory signals" (1951:6). It is not at all uncommon to find statements to the effect that "In Phonetics, the motor processes are the center of consideration" (Meader and Myskens 1962:20). What all this means is that "motor signs" can be equally of a verbal and a nonverbal character, unless one distinctly specifies what part of the body is at play. (Sebeok 1975: 11)

Stokoe is spot on in this. I haven't met talk of "motor signs" in Jakobson yet, because I've only read four articles, but I was thinking about this immediately after my first seminar on Jakobson: if he does speak of nonverbal communication then he is inclined to call it motor communication, as this is the Soviet term for (body) motion communication.

The expression "body language," perhaps suited for use in Sunday supplements (Davis 1970), became popular in this country through the title of a best seller (Fast 1970) with a conception of unmatched vulgarity, and yet it also recurs as the operative part of the title of a book with, presumably, earnest intentions (Scheflen 1972); (for an early, sophisticated use, in an unmistakably semiotic context, see Latif [1934:76f]). Such kindred labels as "body talk" (Poiret 1970), or "face language" (Whiteside 1974; cf. Mar. 1974) are also found, but more sporadically. These terms clearly imply a phenomenal dualism, postulating a body language opposed to - what? A "mind language"? (I really doubt that this view is in good conformity with the ideas about language as a direct "mirror of mind" that Chomsky imagined in his 1967 Beekman lectures [Chomsky 1972]!) (Sebeok 1975: 12)

"A conception of unmatched vulgarity" - I am amazed how right he is. "Mind language" is just funny. And: Latif, Israil A. 1934. The Physiological Basis of Linguistic Development and of the Ontogeny of Meaning. Psychological Review 41: 55-85, 153-176, 276-264. This is actually available on the web, or, at least the first two parts are. Latif talks of whole-body language in relation with infants. That means that both terms grew out of the study of infants: "body language" from "whole-body language" (Latif) and "nonverbal communication" from "preverbal communication" (Cooley). Also: Poiret, Maude 1970. Body Talk: The Signs of Kinesics. New York: Award Books. Again Sebeok seems to be the only one who has ever made any note of it (this document is the only search result).

In the field under scrutiny here, there is also a plenitude of quasi-classical coinages: "kinesics" (Birdwhistell 1970), "coenetics," with a superabundance of subsidiary terms like "haptics," 'geustics," and "strepitistics" (Wescott 1966:35), "proxemics" (Hall 1968, Watson 1970), "tactesics" (Kauffman 1971), and so forth and so on. Lexical innovations of this ilk may conceivably be of heuristic value;unfortunately, they also tend to map out crazy quils of territory which then compact into exclusivze feeding grounds for budding students, as well as fiercely defended fortalices against strange intruders, bristling with aggression and escalating counter-aggression. The recent history of "kinesics" can be looked at as a case study in territorial behavior or misbehavior, spoiling whatever utility the label may once have enjoyed. Wescott's pullulating vocabulary has totally misfired. (Sebeok 1975: 12)

This is the passage that led me to read this piece. I'm considering looking into the "heuristic value" of these lexical innovations, because they are so often misunderstood and mostly forsaken.

The latest, and is some ways the most attractive , proposal, introduced and, in some measure, developed by Stokoe (1974:118), is "gSign," where g stands for any "gestural manifestation," and sign for "sign-vehicle in a semiotic system." I can think of all sorts of ways of integrating "gSign" into semiotic theory and practice. (Sebeok 1975: 13)

At first sight this does seem attractive, but then I remember that Stokoe was not much interested in other varieties of bodily behaviour, so along with gSign I would have to use fSign ("facial manifestation") pSign ("postural manifestation"), etc.

On June 3, 1974, I proposed, during the First Congress of the International Association for Semiotic Studies, to a convocation of over fifty interested scholars from many countries, a plan - subsequently ratified by the General Assembly - for an Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiotics. This EDS would contain three categories of entries:
I. Articles tracing the history of all terms used in semiotics, with suggestions for standardizing current usage, for, as noted by Nelson (1975:317f.), the editors "will succeed at their task most surely if they clorify all the seemingly exotic equivalences among languages in technical terms, establish primacy or origin within the original context and system and simply list even the hapax legomena or nonce terms." (Sebeok 1975: 13-14)

I've used it to make sense of grammatology (with no remarkable success, I might add). Perhaps I should look into it, or even have it scanned... Also, "nonce" means "(a word or expression) coined for or used on one occasion" in American English, and "kiddy fiddler" in British English. This is whe the hip-hop group named The Nonce didn't do well overseas.

It is heartening to not that so many colleagues feel the need for taking steps to dispel the clouds of obfuscation which have threatened to permanently befog semiotics. We, of all people, must be ever mindful of Peirce's "Ethics of Terminology" (II; 219-226), where he teaches "that the woof and warp of all thought and science is the life inherent in symbols... Yet the scientific and philosophical worlds are infested with pedants and pedagogues who are continually endeavoring to set up a sort of magistrature over thoughts and other symbols. It thus becomes one of the first duties of one who sees what the situation is, energetically to resist everything like arbitrary dictation in scientific affairs, and above all, as to the use of terms and notations. At the same time, a general agreement concerning the use of terms and of notations - not too rigid, yet prevailing, with most of the co-workers in regard to most of the symbols, to such a degree that there shall be some small number of different systems of expression that have to be mastered - is indispensable" (II, 220). (Sebeok 1975: 14-15)

I don't know how to feel about this. I like new terms and old terms and hapax and even spelling errors ("semitoics" amused me for a good half an hour, as I remember). I think new and more exact terms is one way a science advances. And I'd rather agree with Jakobson, that it doesn't matter how you call it, as long as it is understood. That is, even "Ivan Ivanovitch Ivanovsky" will do as a term if everyone is on the same page as to what it signifies.

Whenever I am asked by neophytes desirous of entry how to gain immediate access to semiotics, I direct them to these indispensable twin keys - Morris and Buyssens, each marked by a simplicity of approach, limpidity of style, critical discernment, and captivating devotion to their subject matter. (Sebeok 1975: 15)

I don't wish immediate access to semiotics, but rather these qualities in my writing. Especially "a simplicity of approach", which I am lacking most discernibly.

Let me drive my aversion to bibliographies home, reverting, by way of documentation, to the field of "nonverbal communication," some terminological predicaments of which I mentioned above, in section 2. A respectable scholarly working bibliography, usefully annotated in part, was published by Hayes (1957) although in a hardly accessible rogional journal. Over the ensuing decades, several serious efforts of a similar nature followed, the most carefully wrought among them being Davis' annoted and indexed listing of some 931 titles (1972) (claiming [88] not to duplicate most of the references included by Hayes). The compiler explains the purpose, scope, and criteria for selecting her entries. Yet she nowhere alludes to the fact - which I find shocking - that solely English-language items are to be found in her book. Again, Davis does explicitly tell her readers: "Books and articles on... expressive movement... are cited" (vii). This notwithstanding, one searches in vain for mention of the most important book of the century on this subject, Bühler 1968 - or references to the works of Johann Jakob Engel, Th. Piderit, Guillaume Benjamin Duchenne, Louis Pierre Gratiolet, Wilhelm Wundt (cf. 1973), Ludwig Klages, to name only some contributors to the topic discussed by Bühler. How can any such bibliography omit naming Kleinpaul, whose book (19888, 1972) has, to this day, no peer? Or the Canon Andrea de Jorio's magnificent study (1832) of gesture in ancient art and literature compared with gestures in common use in the Naples of his time? Or Brilliant's examination (1963) of postures found in Roman statuary by reference to the known use of gesture as a code system, as set out in the ancient manuals of rhetoric? (Sebeok 1975: 19)

qcqc "The most important book of the century" on nonverbal communication is: Bühler, Karl 1968 [1933]. Ausdruckstheorie: Das System an der Gesichichte aufgezeigt. Struttgart: Gustav Fischer. It is available in Sebeok's collection. The importance of Johann Jakob Engel, Theodor Piderit, Louis Pierre Gratiolet, Ludwig Klages, and Rudolf Kleinpaul eludes me at the moment, because I haven't read Bühler and probably won't before I have mastered deutch on any level. On the other hand, his 600-page Theory of Language: The representational fuction of language, republished in 2011, is available and seems approcahable.

Bibliographies tend to reflect their compiler's cultural myopia in subtle ways. Those dedicated to nonverbal communication (like most recent general monographic accounts of the subject, including, surprisingly enough, the few - like Scherer 1970 - published abroad) seem tacitly to assume that this is a strikingly American game (or, sometimes, perhaps an Anglo-Saxon one, with Charles Darwin as its ritually cited godhead). Others suffer from a generation gap: they cannot see back beyond the early 1950's. Moreover, there is now a hazy but uneasy association of nonverbal communication studies with the clinical or social trend known as sensitivity training or encounter movements, and their off-shoots (Back 1972), embarrassing skeletons seldom paraded by scientific researchers in public, though obtrusive enough in their bibliographic closets. (Sebeok 1975: 21)

I don't recall anything about sensitivity training as such, but I think there's a trend like this still existent in, for example, the nonverbalists who deal with autism and still cling to the notion of "body language" (out of convenience or sheer ignorance).

As Stankiewicz has recently pointed out, the connection of poetics with semiotics was clearly formulated in 1929, in one of the Theses of the Linguistic Circle of Prague, which proclaimed that "Everything in the work of art and its relation to the outside world... can be discussed in terms of sign and meaning; in this sense aesthetics can be regarded as a part of the modern science of scene, of semiotics" (Stankiewicz 1974:630). (Sebeok 1975: 21)

It would be neat if Powys's discussion of the "poetic element of life" in 1929 disclosed something similar to this. But that's just wishful thinking (I think I'm beginning to get sleep-drunk).

As Morris has insisted, esthetics "becomes in its entirety a subdivision of semiotic," and the approach to it in terms of the theory of signs "is thus not merely significant for art, esthetics, and semiotic, but for the whole program of unified science" (Morris 1971:416, 433). Understanding the esthetic function of sign systems as displayed in the several arts, verbal and pictorial, two-and three-dimesional, pantomimic and choreographic, introversive and extroversive, and ranging in appeal from mass culture, like the comic strip, to more elitist strata, like the opera, thus becomes an essential concern and preoccupation of modern semiotics and in the human context beyond, with a vast, accreting, specialized literature. (Sebeok 1975: 33)

Today we could probably add web design and digital media to this list.