File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2002/lyotard.0206, message 38


Date: Sat, 8 Jun 2002 07:49:17 -0700
From: "Gerald M. Swatez" <swatez-AT-earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: No. 18


At 4:49 PM -0400 6/7/02, responding to hugh, mnunes-AT-gpc.edu wrote:
>  > Children learn to speak without knowing syntax as such.
>
>Hmm... you better tell my two year old!
>
>It's actually quite amazing how rule-driven language is. Child speech is
>anything but random.


When my granddaughter Melissa was about two, she would babble on and 
on interminably. Watching her, and hearing her just below the level 
of intelligibility, one could think that she was conversing 
coherently in English. In fact, I was able to engage in long 
conversations with her that were completely vacuous semantically, but 
which *sounded* as though they were syntactically correct. I could 
keep (it) up with her better when I did use nonsense *words*. 
Apparently --this is my unsystematic judgement-- she learned the 
"syntactical rhythm" of English speech long before she mastered 
either the meaning or the specific sounds of words.   (However, we 
must distinguish between "driven by rules" and "describable by 
rules"!)

The same thing occurred with her brother. However, he articulated 
specific words and their meanings at an earlier age than did Melissa, 
so the phenomenon was less dramatic with him.

Watching other youngsters since then, and recalling my own children, 
I've come to believe that children do learn syntax, or the rhythm of 
phrasing, much earlier than they learn semantics. Sounds, rhythm, 
body movements --all seem capable of being imitated without the 
cognitive complexity required by the *semantics* of signification.

I think body language is easier to learn than discursive language, 
and much earlier in life. I think much social meaning (the pragmatics 
of language use --Pierce) is packed into rhythm, gesture --the dance 
of talking.

I'm kinda stuck on distinguishing discourse from these other things. 
(And I recognize the possibility that the *marking* of a phrase or 
set of phrases as within one genre or another might well be done 
non-discursively, e.g., by body language, or by choice of occasion, 
or by diction/enunciation.) And I wonder whether my mind may not be 
stuck in the logos, the family of cognitive phrases; on the other 
hand, the goddess, who speaks ontology, poesis, revelation, is 
irrefutable (Gorgias); isn't her phrasing always marked by some 
non-discursive sign: the aromatic smoke of a psychotropic herb, a 
stage and thick-soled boots, a cross on the wall, or a flag on the 
podium?

Jerry


   

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