Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 16:22:41 -0700
From: Judy <jaw-AT-earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: openings onto the preface


>
>
>9) Although silence, body language and other symbolic behavior convey
>messages, most communications are in words combined into phrases and
>sentences. (In the French language, a sentence is a phrase).


In therapist training, a professor once cited a study that found that 
90+% of communication was nonverbal (this was while we were being 
taught to "attend to nonverbal communication").  Of course, there is 
a lot of nonverbal, or extra-verbal, communication in words.  The 
choice of one word rather than the other is not itself a word, for 
example.  Tone of voice (which also occurs in writing as well as 
speaking, coldness, warmth, etc.) is not a word, but can make all the 
difference.  I'd like to see how that study was designed, how things 
were operationalized.  Anyway, the study aside, intuitively I think 
there is something to that belief, and something that really caught 
my attention in the Differend was "silence is a phrase."  That is an 
important matter to tackle in the approach to talking about 
discourse, a matter no one talks about.  A silence about silence. 
The deafening silences.  In some cultures, silence seems to be used 
more in communication than in others. In some families it's used 
more, and in some, less.



>One chapter of Le Differend, "Genre, Norm", is about
>Genres of Discourse and rules for linking.


That was the easiest to read chapter for me, I'm not sure why.  I was 
more familiar with the terms and the grammar compared to many other 
chapters.
e.g. "...Everything is political if politics is the possibility of 
the differend on the occasion of the slightest linkage. Politics is 
not everything, though, if by that one believes it to be the genre 
that contains all the genres.  It is not a genre..." p.139

>
>In summary, for Lyotard, a speech act or utterance is a Presentation.
>It consists of :Phrases and presupposses: Addressor Addressee Referent
>Sense Phrase Universes, Phrase types, Phrase Regimens Genres of Discourse,
>Genre types, and rules for linking.
>
>regards,
>Hugh
>

Thanks Hugh, these points are helpful, and the summary is both 
comprehensive and succinct, nice trick.
Judy
--