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These files are maintained strictly for historical reference, research, and recordkeeping purposes, and the content has not been altered or updated since archiving. Content on this site may not meet current digital accessibility standards. If you require an alternative, accessible format of any information found on this site, please contact Bruce Jones, bjones@ucsd.edu to request an accommodation.
"... for the child the word is for some time more a characteristic of the thing than a symbol for it. As we have seen, the child masters the *external structure* earlier than the *internal structure*. He first masters the external structure - word-thing. Only later does this become a symbolic structure. ... There was always a prior stage of 'naive psychology', a stage of mastering the *external structure* of the sign. It was only later, in operating with the sign, that the child was led to its *proper functional use*. The child who views the word as a characteristic of the thing alongside its other characteristics is at precisely this stage in speech development."My reading "external structure" is still objective reference, but "objective reference" is still itself at an early stage of development. "Internal structure" is yet to appear.
After waking up in the middle of the night this mornign, I started thinking about the relation between linguistics (the various categories that Jay has explained for us) and concepts. Couldn't sleep of course. I see that concept is not a linguistic category. It's going to take me a little while to put this down but a few problems are gradually dawning on my oggled and confused old mind. I will post something shortly.
Andy Steve Gabosch wrote:
Andy, I've found an equivalent to your quote on p 118 of Vol 1, in Ch 4.4 (last full paragraph). Also, in Ch 3, passages on p 94-95 make some of these points. Where does the quote you cite appear?I'd like to learn more about how Frege viewed object relatedness and how it compares to Vygotsky's view.Your reference to what seems to be a description of Vygotsky's view of the "external structure" of the word as referring to objects got my attention. I may be misunderstanding you. In the quote you provide, Vygotsky is not talking about the nature of the word but how the young child thinks and speaks. In Vygotsky's view, the young child is able to apply the principle of object relatedness, but does not yet differentiate either word meaning from the object or the meaning of the word from its sound form.As for what Vygotsky referred to as the "external aspects" of the spoken word, he was talking about things like the word's sound form. He considered a word's object relatedness to be an "internal" semantic function (in unity with the signifying function), not part of its "external" aspect. It can take some close reading and re-reading to keep all this straight!Here are some quotes I happen to have copied out from LSV CW Vol 1 on some of these questions:1. The distinction between meaning and object relatedness was very important in Vygotsky's conception of word meaning." ... in what is commonly called word meaning, we must distinguish two features. These are the meaning of the expression in the true sense of the word and its function as a name which relates to a particular object, that is, its object relatedness." Vol 1 p 1522. This distinction played a key role in Vygotsky's analysis of how children thought, including his description of pseudoconcepts, the predominate form of complexive thinking."The child's word may correspond with the adult's in object relatedness, but not in meaning." p 1533. The external, auditory aspect of speech is distinct from the inner, semantic aspect.“Though they form a unity, the inner, meaningful, semantic aspect of speech is associated with different laws of movement than its external, auditory aspect. The unity of speech is complex, not homogeneous.” p 2504. Vygotsky viewed the semantic structure of a word as a unity of object relatedness and meaning, which he saw as different kinds of entities. (One graphic way to conceive the difference is to think of object relatedness as pointing and naming, and meaning or signifying as grasping.)"In our analysis of the word's semantic structure, we distinguished between its object relatedness and its meaning. We tried to show that the two do not coincide. In functional terms, this caused us to differentiate the word's indicative and nominative function from its signifying function." p 254-55&6. These next two quotes repeat the point Vygotsky made in the quote Andy provided, that the young child considers a word to be a property of the object it refers to. The child does not initially differentiate between word meaning and object. Vygotsky believed the child also does not initially differentiate between word-meanings and word-sounds."The child does not initially differentiate between word meaning and the object nor between the meaning and the sound form of the word. In development, this differentiation occurs in accordance with the development of generalization." p 255"Initially, we have only object relatedness in the structure of the word. The word's function is exclusively indicative and nominative. Meaning independent of object relatedness, signification independent of the indication and naming of the object, arises later ..." p 255- Steve On Apr 14, 2011, at 6:51 AM, Andy Blunden wrote:Martin, looking more closely at the internal/external structure in T&S IV:"We believe that this view comes closest to the truth. The data on children’s language (supported by anthropological data) strongly suggest that for a long time the word is to the child a property, rather than the symbol, of the object; that the child grasps the external structure word-object earlier than the inner symbolic structure. We choose this “middle” hypothesis among the several offered’ because we find it hard to believe, on the basis of available data, that a child of eighteen months to two years is able to “discover” the symbolic function of speech. This occurs later, and not suddenly but gradually, through a series of “molecular” changes. The hypothesis we prefer fits in with the general pattern of development in mastering signs which we outlined in the preceding section. Even in a child of school age, the functional use of a new sign is preceded by a period of mastering the external structure of the sign. Correspondingly, only in the process of operating with words first conceived as properties of objects does the child discover and consolidate their function as signs."**It seems clear to me that "external structure" of the word is the set of objects that it refers to, more or less the reference in Frege's categorisation, and the "internal structure" is the word's symbolic functioning, which of course has nothing to do with specific objects, more or less the sense in Frege's categorisation. This is consistent with the child forming pseudoconcepts.Thank you for these stimuli Andy Martin Packer wrote:In five of the eight chapters (counting the preface) of T&S, LSV introduces a distinction that he insists is important if we are to correctly understand how speech has psychological consequences. In each case the distinction seems different, and his terminology varies accordingly: we have word meaning, inner aspect, external and internal structure, sense and reference, sense and signification. I've summarized these below, ordered by chapter, and cited the Russian where it is available to me. I have also suggested some possible sources for these distinctions. Any help figuring this out further would be greatly appreciated!Martin =============Preface (1934?): the meanings of words “word meanings [значения слов] develop in children”Chapter 1 (1933-34): Inner aspect of the word [внутренней стороне слова] “what is such unit, which cannot be further resolved and in which the properties are inherently contained in verbal thinking as whole? To us it seems that this unit can be found in the internal aspect of the word [внутренней стороне слова], in its meaning [значении.].”von Humboldt? Shpet? Chapter 2 (1932): none Chapter 3 (1932?): noneChapter 4 (1929): external structure [внешней структурой] and internal structure [внутренней внутренней]“the child, as we saw, grasps the external structure earlier than the internal one; the child seizes the external structure: word-thing, which only later becomes a symbolic structure.” [ребенок, как мы видели, раньше овладевает внешней структурой, чем внутренней. Он овладевает внешней структурой: слово — вещь, которая уже после становится структурой символической.]Chapter 5 (1931): sense and reference“The first thing that we can learn from contemporary linguistics is that, according to Peterson, it is essential to distinguish between the meaning of a word or expression and its objective reference, i.e. the objects which this word or expression indicates.” [Первое, что мы узнаем из современного языкознания, это то, что необходимо отличать, по выражению Петерсона, значение слова или выражения от предметного отнесения, т.е. от тех предметов, на которые данное слово или выражение указывает.]“So contemporary linguistics does make a distinction between the meaning and the objective reference of words.” [Таким образом, современное языкознание различает значение и предметную отнесенность слова]Gottleib Frege? Edmund Husserl? Chapter 6 (1934): none Chapter 7: (1933-34): sense [смыслом ] and signification [значением]“The first of these is the predominant sense of the word over its meaning in speech inner. Paulhan rendered a great service to the psychological analysis of speech by introducing the distinction between the meaning of the word and its meaning.” [Мы могли в наших исследованиях установить три такие основные особенности, внутренне связанные между собой и образующие своеобразие смысловой стороны внутренней речи. Полан оказал большую услугу психологическому анализу речи тем, что ввел различие между смыслом слова и его значением.]Paulhan? __________________________________________ _____ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Andy Blunden*Joint Editor MCA: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=g932564744Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/ Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857 MIA: http://www.marxists.org __________________________________________ _____ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca__________________________________________ _____ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Andy Blunden*Joint Editor MCA: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=g932564744
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/ Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857 MIA: http://www.marxists.org __________________________________________ _____ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca