Yosuke YANASE on TEFL and general affairs

Some excerpts from the Website "multi-competence" by Vivian Cook

2011-11-29T20:06:00.005+09:00

It's not that I've never heard the term, but I somehow failed to notice the significance of "multi-competence." But as I was preparing for a presentation on a symposium on translation, I've come across the term and decided to have a quick Google search. Boy, what have I been missing!

"Multi-competence" is an important concept for issues in English Language Teaching in Japan, including translation, the use of L1, and the goal of ELT. Ministry of Education (MEXT) in Japan will soon implement the course of study, with which it discourages the use of L1 (Japanese) in English classes in senior high schools. It is not a total ban of the L1 use, but it is likely that English lessons may be deemed commendable by inspectors and bureaucrats if only Japanese is not heard there. (I've seen too many examples of thoughtless categorical judgment for educational matters by by inspectors and bureaucrats.)

MEXT seems to believe that the virtual ban of L1 use in English lessons will benefit Japanese students of various levels for their English proficiency and other academic capabilities. Together with many teachers in classroom, I wonder.

I wonder 1) whether their English proficiency will in fact rise, and 2) whether English proficiency (as understood as the ability separated from Japanese language ability) is the only aim of public school education in Japan.

The concept of "multi-competence" proposed by Vivian Cook helps to clarify the above issues. As I regret I haven't paid enough attention to it, I urge Japanese readers in particular to examine the concept.

Vivian Cook himself provides a wonderful Web site on the concept.

Multi-competence
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/SLA/Multicompetence/index.htm

Below are some excerpts from the site that I find particularly relevant to the above issues. (Bibliographical links are added by me. For the complete bibliographical information, go to the original web page whose URL is indicated at the end of the excerpt.)

First, let's confirm the definition of "multi-competence."

Multi-competence definition

The term 'multi-competence' was originally defined as 'the compound state of a mind with two grammars' (Cook, 1991); in the context of that paper, ‘grammar’ was used in the Chomskyan sense of the total knowledge of language in the mind (the I-language) leading some people to infer wrongly that multi-competence was restricted to syntax. So multi-competence is now usually said to be ‘the knowledge of more than one language in the same mind’ (Cook, 1994). Multi-competence thus presents a view of second language acquisition (SLA) based on the second language (L2) user as a whole person rather than on the monolingual native speaker.
(Emphasis added)
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/Writings/Papers/MCentry.htm

To paraphrase in my own way, multi-competence refers to the ability embodied in an L2 user where her L1 and L2 are inseparably integrated in her mind and body.

Multi-competence reminds me of plurilingual and pluricultural competence in Common European Framework of References in Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (CEFR). Below is the definition provided on p. 168, at the beginning of Chapter 8 of the document:

Plurilingual and pluricultural competence refers to the ability to use languages for the purposes of communication and to take part in intercultural interaction, where a person, viewed as a social agent has proficiency, of varying degrees, in several languages and experience of several cultures. This is not seen as the superposition or juxtaposition of distinct competences, but rather as the existence of a complex or even composite competence on which the user may draw.
http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Source/Framework_EN.pdf

As I stated in my blog article ("Where is Self, and what is it?" No, it's rather "How is Self?": Luhmann's theory of autopoiesis), the above definitions of plurilingual and pluricultural competence suggests that multiple languages within a single person are blended into a new competence that is either different her old L1 or her targeted (but never attainable) native competence of L2. This is like H₂O that exhibits unique features that its original elements, two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom, never show when they are separated.

Multi-competence shares this notion of a new competence. It refuses to measure the competence of an L2 user against the competence of a monolingual native speaker.

Despite its acceptance of interlanguage, much SLA research has continued to measure L2 users against native speakers. Inevitably what L2 users do is seen as a mistake whenever it fails to conform to the language of monolingual native speakers and the L2 users’ level of language proficiency is seen as deficient rather than different: It’s all right if your English accent proclaims you come from Newcastle upon Tyne but not from Paris. This native speaker comparison lurks behind such typical statements as: “Unfortunately, language mastery is not often the outcome of SLA” (Larsen Freeman & Long, 1991, p. 153); or “The lack of general guaranteed success is the most striking characteristic of adult foreign language learning” (Bley-Vroman, 1989, p. 42). It is possible to measure ducks in terms of swans. But when everything has to satisfy the swan criteria, the unique qualities of ducks will always elude the observer, just as black English, working-class English and women’s language were once seen as pale shadows of a ‘true’ variety. Uniquely bilingual functions of language like codeswitching and translation will never show up in a native speaker model; unique grammatical forms of L2 users like the rules of the Basic Variety (Klein & Perdue, 1997) will appear just as mistakes.(Emphasis added)
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/Writings/Papers/MCentry.htm

A Japanese user of English speaks English not necessarily deficiently but rather differently from monolingual native speakers of English. We may argue that she's rather more capable in bilingual translation and code-switching than monolingual speakers.

However, SLA and ELT have been treating L2 users as somebody incomplete: someone whose knowledge of the target language is never as perfect as a native speaker's; someone who is a perpetual learner, thus L2 learners. With the different-but-not-necessarily-deficient view, the concept of multi-competence calls for the use of the term L2 users instead of L2 learners.

But what term should be used to describe people who are multicompetent? People who acquire their first language are not regarded as L1 learners for the rest of their lives. Why should people who know more than one language be treated differently? Calling people L2 learners seemed to confirm their subordinate status. Hence the more neutral term ‘L2 user’ was introduced. ‘L2 user’ refers to people who know and use a second language at any level; multi-competence is not restricted to high-level balanced bilinguals but concerns the mind of any user of a second language at any level of achievement. ‘L2 learner’ is reserved for people who have no everyday use of the second language, say children in foreign language classrooms. Of course L2 users may also be L2 learners at different times of life or indeed times of day - an L2 learner of English in London who steps out of the classroom immediately become an L2 user of English.
(Emphasis added)
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/Writings/Papers/MCentry.htm

When the knowledge of two languages is integrated in a person of multi-competence (or plurilingual and pluricultural competence), the two knowledge systems influence each other and both change; Just as L2 use is influenced by L1 ('transfer'), L1 use will be influenced by L2 ('reverse transfer'). On top of that, the entire cognition changes. Evidence abounds.

A vast amount of SLA research has looked at the effects of the first language on the second, labelled ‘transfer’ or ‘crosslinguistic influence’, still a favorite topic for dissertations exploring yet more first languages or novel aspects of language. By looking at the whole learner’s mind, multi-competence opened up reverse transfer from the second language to the first and other forms of transfer (Jarvis & Pavlenko, 2009). A new research question was then: Do you still speak your first language like a monolingual native speaker when you know another language?
...
In virtually every aspect of language studied, L2 users have turned out to be different from monolinguals.
...
Rather than enumerate further examples, the reader is referred to Cook (2003), which was devoted to this issue.

More than language has changed in the L2 user’s mind. Learning another language helps with learning to read the first language (Yelland et al, 1993), with metalinguistic awareness (Bialystok, 2001), and with the ability to write essays in the first language (Kecskes & Papp, 2000). Knowing another language delays the onset of Alzheimer’s disease (Bialystok, Craik, Klein & Viswanathan, 2004), leads to greater density of connections in the corpus callosum area that connects left and right hemispheres of the brain (Coggins et al, 2004), and develops the areas of the brain responsible for control (Green, 2010.). All of these support the proposition that the L2 user is a distinct kind of person from a monolingual.
(Emphasis added)
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/Writings/Papers/MCentry.htm

This notion of multi-competence, supported by empirical evidence, has great implications for language teaching. The next is some excerpts from the section of "Multi-competence and language teaching." We now have new ideas about the goals of foreign language teaching (the native speaker is not the goal), the use of L1 (L1 is not a problem but a resource in L2 learning), and the ideal teacher (the native speaker has no learning experience of the L2).

Multi-competence and language teaching

The multi-competence idea has important implications for language teaching, which has often seen its task as making students as like native speakers as possible. Multi-competence is now starting to be utilized in books on SLA and language teaching such as Cook (2008), Ortega (2009) and Scott (2009).

- Goals of language teaching. Multi-competence takes the goal of language teaching as producing a successful L2 user, not an imitation native speaker. It thus aligns with the English as Lingua Franca (ELF) movement (Seidlhofer, 2004) rather than with the Common European Framework of Reference (Council of Europe, 2001), which seems to use the native rather than the L2 user as a touchstone.

- The language teaching classroom. The multi-competence perspective does not see any virtue in making the students use only the second language in the classroom since this denies the very existence of the first language in their minds. It advocates principled use of the second language when classroom goals can be achieved more efficiently by its use (Cook, 1999).

- Native speaker language teachers. A non-native speaker teacher (NNST) is an L2 user who has acquired another language; a native speaker teacher (NST) is not. Hence the NNST can present a role model for the students, has learnt the language by a similar route to the students and can codeswitch to the students’ own language when necessary. The NST’s only substantive advantage may be a greater facility in the target language, but as a native speaker not as an L2 user. Recent attitudes are conveyed in Llurda (2005).
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/Writings/Papers/MCentry.htm

On a different web page (Multi-competence: Black Hole or Wormhole?), Cook further examines the implications that multi-competence has for language teaching.

The ban of L1 use in L2 classroom started more than one century ago with the reformist idea that L2 should be learned just like a baby acquires L1. This idea was a response to centuries-old practice of the Grammar Translation Method. It successfully introduced the Direct Method, which correctly emphasized the oral aspect of language learning, but it was based upon a totally false assumption that L2 learners are (to be) like a baby acquiring L1. It disregards not only the critical period of L1 users but also the cognitive maturity of L2 learners whose knowledge of L1 is perfect and unerasable.

Consequently, conflict started between the reform-minded authorities and teachers. Teachers, who know the reality of L2 learning better than the authorities, have resisted the ban of L1 in L2 classrooms. But it is the authorities that possesses much more political power, and teachers were stigmatized (and sometimes penalized) when they used L1 so that students learn L2 better. L1 knowledge in L2 users is undeniably real. It's better to make the best use of the reality than to pretend to deny it. It's high-time to abandon the reformist idea of the L1/L2 separation, which is more than one century old.

Over time the implications of the multi-competence approach for language teaching have become clearer. One aspect was the use of the first language in the classroom. The traditional view of language teaching going back to the late 19th century had insisted that the L2 was learnt in isolation from the L1: the model was always of complete separation. Hence, despite their other differences, teaching methods from the Direct Method to the audiolingual method to task-based learning were united in ignoring the first language already present in all the learners’ minds invisibly in the classroom.

Yet, despite the official advice from the authorities to minimise L1 use, teachers continued to make use of it while teaching, while harbouring feelings of guilt, as Macaro (1997) documents. If there are many possible relationships between the two languages as well as separation, if the L2 interlanguage is indissolubly wedded to the L1 in most L2 learners’ and users’ minds, separation is a misguided commonsense view of second language acquisition rather than something to be imposed upon all learners. Cook (2001) called for a rational evaluation of the ways in which the L1 could be used in the classroom, such as providing a short-cut for giving instructions and explanations where the cost of the L2 is too great, building up the inter-linked L1 and L2 knowledge in the students’ minds, carrying out learning tasks through collaborative dialogue with fellow-students and developing L2 activities such as code-switching for later real-life use.
(Emphasis added)
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/Writings/Papers/SLRF.htm

Our reality is that L2 users cannot ever be L1 native speakers, and they don't have to be. L1 native speakers are not the ideal state of L2 users or the best teachers for them.

This leads into the fundamental issues of the purpose of language teaching and of the target that the learner is aiming at (Cook, t.a., a). The crucial point is basing the target on what learners are going to be, L2 users, not on what they can never be, monolingual native speakers of the L2. L2 users have distinctive uses for language such as translating and code-switching: they can do more with language than any monolingual. While some L2 users may need to speak to native speakers of the L2, they rarely need to pass as natives, even though this may still be a personal goal for many. For languages like English and French, however, the need is often to speak to fellow L2 users: English is a useful lingua franca for much of the globe. Sometimes indeed speakers of the same L1 may choose to use an L2 to each other, as happens with Arabic-speaking businessmen communicating in English e-mails between countries. Language teaching goals, teaching methods and coursebooks need to look at the achievable goal of creating L2 users. Hence, as the papers in Llurda (2005) attest, the day of the native speaker teacher may be over; the NS teacher is not a good model of an L2 user who has got there by the same route that the students will take and ceteri paribus does not have the appropriate experience or insight into the students’ situation; ‘in the new rapidly emerging climate native speakers may be identified as part of the problem rather than the source of a solution’ (Graddol, 2006, p.114). Further discussion of multi-competence in language teaching will be found in Cook (t.a. a; b).
(Emphasis added)
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/Writings/Papers/SLRF.htm

Inspectors and bureaucrats of MEXT, Japan, who still seems to have the old reformist idea and insist that English lessons should be conducted (almost) entirely in English need to examine this concept of multi-competence carefully to see whether their policy is realistic and effective. Those in power must be responsible for their commands.

For busy people, though, the paper below may be the best resource to examine the issue.

Using the First Language in the Classroom
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/Writings/Papers/L1inClass.htm

The summary provided by Cook is as follows:

This paper argues for the re-examination of the time-honoured view that the first language should be avoided in the classroom by teachers and students. The justifications for this rest on a doubtful analogy with first language acquisition, on a questionable compartmentalisation of the two languages in the mind and on the aim of maximising the second language exposure of the students, laudable but not incompatible with use of the first language. The L1 has already been used in alternating language methods and in methods that actively create links between L1 and L2, such as the New Concurrent Method, Community Language Learning and Dodson's Bilingual Method. Treating the L1 as a classroom resource opens up ways of employing the L1, for the teacher to convey meaning and explain grammar and to organise the class, and for the students to use as part of their collaborative learning and of their individual strategy use. The first language can be a useful element in creating authentic L2 users rather than something to be shunned at all costs.
(Emphasis added)
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/Writings/Papers/L1inClass.htm

Of particular importance is the section of 'The argument from language compartmentalisation' (in 'Reasons for avoiding the L1 in the classroom'), where Cook counter-argues against the language compartmentalization and suggests that L1 should be regarded as a mediating resource for L2 learning.

Yet the two languages are inter-woven in the L2 user’s mind in vocabulary (Beauvillain & Grainger, 1987), in syntax (Cook, 1994), in phonology (Obler, 1982) and in prag-matics (Locastro, 1987). L2 users are more flexible in their ways of thinking and are less governed by cultural stereo-types (Cook, 1997b). The L2 meanings do not exist separately from the L1 meanings in the learner's mind, regardless of whether they are part of the same vocabulary store or parts of different stores mediated by a single conceptual system (Cook, 1997b). A L2 is not just adding rooms to your house by building on an extension at the back: it is rebuilding all the internal walls. Trying to put languages in separate compartments in the mind is doomed to failure since they are connected in many ways.

...

The L1 plays an integral role in L2 learning as well as L2 use. Teachers using group-work have often lamented the tendency for students to use their L1. Vygotskyan-style research has, however, documented how this forms a valuable part of learning as a social enterprise and of the 'scaffolding' support that the learners need to build up the L2: 'L1 is used as a powerful tool of semiotic mediation between learners … and within individuals…' (Anton & DiCamilla, 1998, p.415). Surveys of students' strategies show the importance of this L1 use, for example the 73% of students who 'ask classmates for meaning' (Schmitt, 1997). The theory of cultural learning sees collaborative dialogue as the essent-ial means by which human beings learn (Tomasello 1999). We learn by trying to see the world from the viewpoint of others.

As Stern (1992, p.282) puts it, ‘The L1-L2 connection is an indisputable fact of life’. Keeping the languages visibly separate in language teaching is contradicted by the invisible processes in the students’ minds. Language teaching that works with this fact of life is more likely to be successful than teaching that works against it. Many likely L2 goals for students involve mediation between two languages rather than staying entirely in the L2. Students trained in coordinate bilingualism will, for instance, find it difficult to carry out the jobs of interpreters, business negotiators or travel representatives. Nor indeed can a separate L2 achieve the internal goals of language teaching; if the aim of learning a language is to improve the students’ minds cognitively, emotionally or socially, the L2 had better not be insulated from the rest of the mind.
(Emphasis added)
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/Writings/Papers/L1inClass.htm

As I wrote in my recent Japanese blog article, many Japanese students write a sentence like "I if become soccer player is play hard," which is apparently a direct translation of the counterpart Japanese sentence (「ボクは(I) もし（if) サッカー選手(soccer play) になったら(is) 一生懸命プレーする(play hard)」）。

Arguing that L2 learners can wipe out the infuluence of their L1 knowledge if teachers kept using English for a few hours a week is sheer nonsense. Teachers should rather take advantage of the common knowledge of L1 to learn the new L2 grammar. Too much unnecessary use of L1 is of course not advisable, but abondoing the effective use of L1 is only counter-effective. I expect that 1) with poor guidance only provided in English, many students will fail to achieve English proficiency and that 2) they will entirely miss opportunities to gain cross-linguistic and cross-cultural understanding that they need in global competition for uniqueness.

If inspectors and bureaucrats of MEXT believe that they are reforming ELT of Japan by forcing teachers to use as much English and as little Japanese as possible in classroom, they should wonder whether they're changing ELT for better or for worse. Their reformist idea, a century old one, is not factual.

Keynes

"It is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil."

"The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones."

P. Duff & S. Talmy (2011) Language Socialization Approaches to Second Language Acquisition

2011-10-21T20:06:00.001+09:00

[This is one of the articles compiled for a class for my graduate students in the autumn/winter semester in 2011/2012.]

Patricia A. Duff & Steven Talmy (2011) "Language Socialization Approaches to Second Language Acquisition" in Dwight Atkinson (ed) Alternative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition (Routledge) [Paperback, Kindle Edition ] (pp. 95-116)

p. 95

Q: How are language socialization approaches different from cognitivist SLA studies?

Q: Can you define and give examples of the following concepts: culture, social knowledge, ideologies, epistemologies, identities and subjectivities, affect, and sociolinguistic routines?

p. 96

Q: What do the authors mean when they say "language is fundamentally redefined from a language socialization perspective"?

p. 97

Q: How can language learners/users be viewed as "sociohistoricall, socioculturally, and sociopolitically situated individual with multiple subjectivities and identities"?

Q: What is the major difference between L1 socialization and L2 socialization?

Q: What are "agency, contingency, unpredictablity, and multidirectionality in terms of learners and their language learning trajectories"?

p. 98

Q: Explain the bidirectional (and multidirectional) relationship between new members and old members of a community in the reproduction of existing L2 cultural and communicative practices.

Q: How can "unanticipated outcomes" arise in L2 socialization processes?

Q: What does ethnography investigate?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnography

Japanese students may refer to my book guide page on qualitative researches.
http://ha2.seikyou.ne.jp/home/yanase/qualitative.html

Here is another guide of mine to qualitative researches written in Japanese.
http://yanaseyosuke.blogspot.com/2007/09/110.html

p. 99

Q: Give your examples to the four types of data resources.

Q: What is the focus group as a research method?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_group

Q: What is the stimulated recall as a research method?
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1502138?seq=1

p. 100

Q: Why does language socialization research often pay more attention to the interactional and linguistic processes than to outcomes?

Q: What is the criticism by Schecter and Bayley when they say that language socialization researches are "more restricted and deterministic" and "static, bounded and relatively unidirectional"?

p. 102

Q: What are the difference between language socialization as topic and language socialization as method?

Q: Why do the authors believe the calling for "gold standards" may be premature and overly restrictive?

p. 103

Q: How do the authors compare the paradigmatic debate within language socialization researches with the debate in the mid-1990s among cognitivist SLA researchers?

Q: What are the three differences between cognitivist SLA and L2 socialization research (Read the first paragraph of the section of "Supporting Findings").

p. 104

Q: What would Ortega's (2009) access and participation probably mean?
Ortega (2009) Understanding Second Language Acquisition Trans-Atlantic Publications, Inc.

Q: How is ethnomethodology here different from ethnography that appeared before?
Here's a quick answer.

Both ethnography and ethnomethodology are terms found in the sociological and anthropological fields of study and can refer to methods of research. Ethnography a method of research, while ethnomethodology is a subdivision of sociology that focuses on the way that human beings in different societies construct their social orders.

Ethnography
Ethnography is used primarily in cultural anthropology and is the preferred method used to study human beings' ways of life due to its unobtrusive nature. It enables anthropologists and sociologists study the link between behavior and culture and how this changes over time. An ethnography is highly detailed description of social life in a small number of cases.

Ethnomethodology
Ethnomethodology is an alternative approach introduced by Harold Garfinkel to sociological inquiry. Ethnomethodology concerns itself with the everyday methods employed by people by drawing from the shared knowledge and reasoning of the society to respond to their environment. It seeks to describe the methods used in the production of social order.

Method of Research
A major difference between the two terms is that ethnography has a structured method of research while ethnomethology doesn't. The collection of information by ethnographers is conducted through a process called "participant observation," in which researches immerse themselves as much as possible in the daily life of the culture being studied. Details of their observations are recorded from the "native's point(s) of view" without the researcher imposing his own cultural interpretations to the data, according to the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Anthropology department. In contrast, ethnomethology doesn't have any formal research methods.

Field of Research
Another major difference is that ethnomethology is a field of research, unlike ethnography. Ethnomethology is the study of methodology, the way people make decisions and act and the methods they use to create a social order. Ethnography is not a field of research but a methodology used in other sociological fields. For example, an ethnomethologist would incorporate ethnography used by sociologists to study other cultures.

http://www.ehow.com/info_8578392_difference-between-ethnography-ethnomethodology.html

Q: How is language socialization different from Conversational Analysis (CA) in terms of its theory of learning?

Q: How are language socialization studies different form identity theories?
Post-structural feminism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-structural_feminism
Third-wave feminism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-wave_feminism

p. 109

Q: The authors say that power in language socialization "is not a fixed or assured attribute of those who are older, more experienced, and so on, but can also be demonstrated by novices who contest practices or demonstrate expertise or understanding lacking in their mentors." Explain what they mean by using the concepts of contingency and multidirectionality.

Contingency

1.dependence on chance or on the fulfillment of a condition; uncertainty; fortuitousness: Nothing was left to contingency.
2.a contingent event; a chance, accident, or possibility conditional on something uncertain: He was prepared for every contingency.
3.something incidental to a thing.

p. 110

Q: What do you think of the authors' assessment of Complexity Theory?

Q: How is language socialization different from neo-Vygotskian sociocultural theory and related sociocognitive and ecological accounts of learning?

Teaching grammar in close relation to logic and rhetoric

2011-10-01T18:59:00.006+09:00

[This short article is in association with the web event [みんなで英語教育] 第２回「英文法指導」まとめ.]

The trivium

One of the contentions I made in the Keio Symposium on Pedagogical Grammar was that pedagogical grammar should not be taught or tested for its own sake; pedagogical grammar only serves its purpose when it helps learners acquire and use the target language.

I'll elaborate on the contention today and argue that grammar should be taught in close relation to logic and rhetoric. In short, we should respect the old wisdom of the trivium.

The trivium is defined by Sister Miriam Joseph, the author of The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric as follows: (Thanks again, Wikipedia. You're a hero for lazy writers!)

Logic is the art of thinking; grammar, the art of inventing symbols and combining them to express thought; and rhetoric, the art of communicating thought from one mind to another, the adaptation of language to circumstance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trivium_(education)

Grammatical but unintelligent writing

As a Japanese college teacher in the department of English Language Teaching who has to teach students to write academic papers (or indeed reasonable essays in general) both in Japanese and in English, I often find teaching of logic and rhetoric far more important than teaching of grammar.

My students are reasonably educated in high school and their knowledge is not bad at all in English grammar (not to mention Japanese grammar). But what surprises me is that they are often not good in the use of logic and rhetoric even when they write in Japanese. Their thoughts are sometimes not consistent or coherent, and not expressed communicatively. Their logic sometimes does not extend a sentence; They often place their focal point in a wrong place of a sentence or paragraph. Those writings take much more time to comprehend and convey far less information than good writings do. These grammatical but unintelligible writings really confuse and irritate me. (I hope this essay of mine is not irritating you right now).

But when I tell my students that their essay doesn't make sense or is only clumsily written, some don't understand the point; Others understand but get frustrated because they don't know how they can improve. It seems that grammar is the only criterion in their writing. Those students who avoid studying mathematics and science to the limit of their legitimate curriculum proudly say that they hate logic. There are even some students who have never heard the word rhetoric.

This is why I make the undergraduate students in my seminar class read a number of Japanese books on the use of logic and rhetoric in (academic) essays. (ゼミ開始にあたって読んでおくべき本・論文 http://yanaseyosuke.blogspot.com/2010/01/blog-post_26.html)

I also spend almost an entire semester in the graduate course to teach them to read, write and think academically by using The Craft of Research by W. Booth, G. Colomb and J. Williams.

But honestly, I believe the above Japanese books are for senior high school students and The Craft of Research is for undergraduate students. I'm fairly sure that young students are quite capable of understanding these books. So when I was asked to teach a writing class due to the shortage of the staff member a couple of months ago, I chose without much hesitation Style: The Basic of clarity and Grace as the textbook for the freshmen. I'd like to dispel concerns of some teachers who believe that a book on English that deals with logic and rhetoric is "too difficult" for undergraduate students.

So here is my contention: logic and rhetoric should be and can be taught earlier in the Japanese education system.

From the whole to the parts

I expect at this point a roar of teachers complaining that even if they can teach logic and rhetoric in earlier stages they simply have no time to teach them in addition to grammar. In fact, one of the arguments that I frequently hear or read about pedagogical grammar is that we need to select and reduce grammar items to teach.

This objection is quite right on a modern assumption; Descartes, for example, wrote about four principles of the modern approach in Discourse on the Method as follows. (Thanks again, W!)

"The first was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt.

The second, to divide each of the difficulties under examination into as many parts as possible, and as might be necessary for its adequate solution.

The third, to conduct my thoughts in such order that, by commencing with objects the simplest and easiest to know, I might ascend by little and little, and, as it were, step by step, to the knowledge of the more complex; assigning in thought a certain order even to those objects which in their own nature do not stand in a relation of antecedence and sequence.

And the last, in every case to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so general, that I might be assured that nothing was omitted."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_on_the_Method#Part_II:_the_principal_rules_of_the_Method_which_the_Author_has_discovered

The modern times have witnessed that this method of Self-evidence, Partition, Accumulation and Enumeration works, particularly in science and technology. Yet, it doesn't (and shouldn't) suggest that this modern method should be the universal method.

In teaching, we often rely on the modern method. We start from the analytically partitioned parts that are to be self-evident to students, accumulate them comprehensively, and then we declare that teaching is complete. But we know from experience that this approach doesn't often work, particularly where students are to learn a very complex system of knowledge and skills involving various factors. (Foreign language learning is a prime example).

But teachers have an excuse: whether or not students have mastered the targeted complex whole is up to the individual students. Students who haven't mastered must have been lazy or less-intelligent, for the teaching approach was right: what else can you expect in the modern times other than self-evidence, analysis, synthesis and enumeration!

But we may cast some of our distrust from our students to our approach. There are non-modern teaching/learning cultures, where, with their own shortcomings, a complex system of knowledge and skills are successfully learned.

Although it is common to quote Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP) in this context, I'm inclined to take a case of learning in Japanese martial arts (my favorite subject). But that is going to be a very long story, beginning from an account explaining how modern Japanese martial arts as most people know them are different from traditional ones, and continuing to histories of individual martial arts and of modern Japan in general. I don't think I'm sufficiently qualified to write on this subject in detail, so suffice it here to say that in some traditional teaching/learning approaches learners start from the whole to the parts. To be a bit more specific, learners start from the whole and occasionally go to parts as the teacher (or the experienced member of the group) deems necessary: learners never stay away from the whole and as they analyze some parts their whole develops into a higher stage.

This is quite different from the modern approach, where students start from the separated parts and (supposedly) reaches to the complex whole in the end. If the modern learning approach is characterized as analytical, the non-modern (pre-modern and/or post-modern) approach may be characterized as integrative. Being integrative does not mean being non-analytical or anti-analytical, though. The non-modern approach encourages occasional analysis of parts when appropriate, but the whole is never partitioned out: the whole is always more than the total sum of the parts, as Gestalt psychology says, and learners are always embedded in the whole.

When logic and rhetoric were taught together with grammar

So, my counter-objection is that teachers may not have enough time to teach logic and rhetoric because of their commitment, conscious or otherwise, to the modern approach. If we never leave the whole from the beginning to the end, and teach language integratively, with grammar, logic and rhetoric dealt with in their close mutual relationship -- probably in the spirit of the trivium --, then we may have sufficient time to teach logic and rhetoric.

The price of this trivium approach would be that grammar teaching becomes not as complete and systematic as the modern approach demands; neither does teaching of logic and rhetoric. As grammar, logic and rhetoric are taught in specific contexts (when their importance is obvious), some items may not have opportunities to be taught; students may not have the complete pictures of grammar, logic and rhetoric.

However, whenever I hear students (and sometimes teachers) say that what they usually mean by "studying English" is to do the vocabulary check (memorizing a list of one-to-one correspondence between English and Japanese words) and finishing the workbook of sentence grammar (answering quizzes on grammar of context-less sentences), I believe the price above is quite negligible, for those students (and teachers) whose main concern is the vocabulary check and the grammar workbook can hardly use English communicatively. At best, they can clumsily combine bits and pieces they know to produce grammatical sentences that are irritatingly hard to understand. If this is the case, as I believe it is, we may look back and restore the old wisdom of learning cultures. (And who has the complete pictures of grammar, logic and rhetoric in the first place?)

In the Keio Symposium where a lot of discussions, formal and informal, on pedagogical grammar took place, I heard many episodes of Japanese professors in the old days teaching many things at the same time in an undifferentiated manner. For example, one professor used Macbeth to teach syntax and pragmatics. Studying English literature was not really differentiated from studying linguistics, and syntax and pragmatics were not taught separately. Many claimed that these old professors may not have known the specialized technical notions that current studies have developed but they knew English better than we do. (As is often the case with recalling old episodes, there may be a bit of exaggeration here, but I understand the point.)

To borrow the way of thinking from martial arts, nothing is good unless it works. Martial artists may say whatever they want to say, but unless their skills are effective, it is no good. The same principle of pragmatism applies to pedagogy: teachers and pedagogists may say whatever they want to say, but unless learners learn what they are taught, it is no good.

We should be critical about the modern analysis-synthesis approach of grammatical language teaching. But that doesn't mean to abandon grammar teaching. On the contrary, it means that teaching of grammar should be integrated with teaching of logic and rhetoric.

Integrative teaching of grammar, logic, and rhetoric may have been already meant when Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) or Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) was advocated. As I'm not interested in methodological arguments in language teaching because many terms are only ill-defined, I don't know (or care) if CLT or TBLT has successfully revived the trivium (again, "CLT" or "TBLT" is too general and vague for rigorous discussion and our practice of language teaching is too complex for rigorous discussion). But my point is to pay due attention again to logic and rhetoric in language teaching. Grammar is of use only when the thought is logical and expressed effectively.

P.S.

Interest in rhetoric, as you know, resurged after the publication of Metaphors We Live By. Rhetoric and logic seem to be more related than we previously thought. I'd like to continue to develop my theoretical understanding of rhetoric, but at the same time, I'm interested in specific language uses of rhetoric as are exemplified in such a book as Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric.

J. Williams & G. Colomb (2010) Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace

2011-09-25T21:30:00.007+09:00

[This article is for the students of my writing class (14:35-16:05, Fridays from October 7, 2011 - February 10, 2012, at K102. Note: A special class will be held on Tuesday January 10, 2012 (14:35-16:05, K102). There will be no class on December 23 or January 13.]

By way of greeting, allow me to explain the cost of college education.

授業に対して国立大学教員が有している金銭的責任

http://yanaseyosuke.blogspot.com/2010/10/blog-post.html

Before you obtain the textbook, you're advised to read my Japanese essays on writing.

George Gopen & Judith Swan
The Science of Scientific Writing
http://www.eigokyoikunews.com/columns/y_yanase/2009/11/

george_gopen_judith_swan_the_s.html

文法・機能構造に関する日英語比較のための基礎的ノート
― 「は」の文法的・機能的転移を中心に ―
http://yanaseyosuke.blogspot.com/2010/06/blog-post_29.html

Read the following essay as well. It explains why I chose the textbook we'll use in this class.

Teaching grammar in close relation to logic and rhetoric
http://yosukeyanase.blogspot.com/2011/10/teaching-grammar-in-close-relation-to.html

There are a number of good books on writing available in Japanese.

http://www.eigokyoikunews.com/columns/y_yanase/archives.html

You may want to refer to the page below occasionally as you struggle to write academically.

英語教育の哲学的探究：教育
http://ha2.seikyou.ne.jp/home/yanase/education.html

You may also remind yourself of the importance of English proficiency on the web.

英語教師のためのコンピュータ入門 (2011年度)

http://yanaseyosuke.blogspot.com/2011/09/2011_24.html

***

Textbook

Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace
(4th Edition) [Paperback]

by Joseph M. Williams and Gregory G. Colomb
Longman, 2010.

Williams and Colomb are two of the authors of The Craft of Research, the textbook I always recommend to my students. Read their interview.

PREFACE

p. X

Task (T): Read out first paragraph of the section of "PRINCIPLES, NOT PRESCRIPTIONS".

Question (Q): Why is slow writing important?

Q: Are you to write slowly when you draft as well?

Lesson 1
Understanding Style

Note: Because Chapter 1 is an introduction, you don't have much writing tasks. Patience please for those of you who may want to complain about this as the class is a writing class; you'll have plenty of writing tasks in the following tasks.

p. 1

Q: What do the authors want to show by the first example sentence?

p. 2

Q: What are bureaucratese, legalese, academese? What do the authors think about these language use?

T: Read out the two example paragraphs.

Q: What is the self-contradiction that George Orwell made?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell

p. 3

T: Read out the third example paragraph (from the New York Times).

Q: How does the writer for the New York Times convey the tone of sarcasm?

T: Read out the last two example paragraphs. Compare the two and discuss the difference. (Please remember that you often find it difficult to study not from the lack of intelligence on your side but from the lack of editing skills on the side of the writer).

p. 4

Q: What does Michael Crichton say? Do you agree with him?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton

Q: Do you share the sense of inhibition of the second paragraph of the section?

Q: What is the meaning of the next quotation?

Our own writing always seems clearer to us than to our readers, because we read into it what we want them to get out of it..And so instead of revising our writing to meet our readers' needs, we send it off the moment it meets ours. (p. 4)

Note: "read into"

(tr, preposition) to discern in or infer from a statement (meanings not intended by the speaker or writer)
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/read+into

p. 5

Q: Why is it important to put your thoughts on the page? (Please remember the importance when you write a thesis in the near future.)

Q: How are writing (for the first time) and rewriting different?

p. 6

T: Elaborate the next quotation.

So use what you find here not as rules to impose on every sentence as you draft it, but as principles to help you identify sentences that might give our readers a problem, and then to revise them.

Note:

A principle internally motivates you to do the things that seem good and right. People develop principles by living with people with principles and seeing the real benefits of such a life.

A rule externally compels you, through force, threat or punishment, to do the things someone else has deemed good or right. People follow or break rules.
http://www.sandradodd.com/rules

Because this class is about principles not about rules, I never mean to be too prescriptive. You are ALWAYS encouraged to ask questions or raise objections.

Q: Would you agree with the authors when they say "no one learns to write well by rule, especially those who cannot see or feel or think." (p.6)?

p. 7

Q: What is the meaning of the next quotation? Elaborate the idea.

Essentially style resembles good manners. It comes of endeavouring to understand others, of thinking for them rather yourself -- or thinking, that is, with the heart as well as the head.
-- Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch

Note: "On Style" by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch is available:
http://www.bartleby.com/190/12.html

Lesson 2
Actions

Download the writing tasks from here.
http://www.box.net/shared/8gq6pga6fuqn0f8uvmlm
(password is necessary)

p. 8

Q: What are the differences between 1a and 1b? State specifically.

p. 9

T: Explain "the most general principle for clear sentences" by using 2a.

p. 10

Q: What is the common characteristic of verbs used in 2a?

p. 11

T: Read out 3a and 3b and feel the difference.

The video below is for fun (There's a 10 second advertisement first.)

Q: After you felt something, compare 3a and 3b to discuss the differences.

T: Compare the length of subjects in 3a and 3b and discuss its implications.

T: Compare 4a and 4b and state the difference.

p. 13

Q: What is nominalization?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalization

p. 14

T: Explain the procedure of Diagnose-Analyze-Rewrite with your own words.

p. 15

Q: What is the "empty verb"?

pp. 15-16

T: Explain the five common patterns with your own words.

p. 16

Q: What is the common feature among the first three common patterns?

pp. 17-18

T: Explain the four happy consequences with your own words.

pp. 18-19

T: Explain the four cases of useful nominalizations with your own words.

p. 19

Q: Why is nominalization of the verb not recommended in "She impressed me when she admitted her guilt."

T: Discuss the implications of Hamlet's remark: "Suit the action to the word, the word to the action." (Hamlet, 3.2)

Lesson 3
Characters

Download the writing tasks from here.
http://www.box.net/shared/ixjlvtmlt7ruo6rxelc2
(password is necessary)

p. 20

Q: Why do most readers find 1a easier to read than to read 1b?

p. 21

Q: What is the difference between subject and character?
You may want to refer to this account:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject_(grammar)#Definitions_of_subject

Q: Why is 1c difficult to read?

Q: Why is the sentence "There was fear that there would be a recommendation for a budget reduction" not a good sentence?

p. 22

T: Explain the procedures 1 to 3 in your own words.

p. 23

T: Compare the two sentences about theology carefully and specify the changes made in the second sentence.

Q: Think of possible interpretations of the ambiguous sentence: "A decision was made in favor of doing a study of disagreements."

p. 24

T: What are the problems of the choice of pronouns in the second example?

T: Compare the first and the third examples. Which is easier for you to read, and why?

p. 25

Q: Why is the nominalization "studies" in the first example considered OK?
Q: What are, then, the problems of the nominalizations in the second example?

T: Compare the second and the third examples carefully and discuss the differences (and the effects they make).

p. 26

T: Summarize the argument of the first paragraph.

Q: What are "virtual characters" in the box?

Q: What does the box say about the cases where "the hidden characters are 'people in general'"?

Q: Do you often worry about the choice of subject when you write in Japanese?

pp. 26 - 27

T: Explain the difference between Active and Passive in your own words.

Q: What is the authors' unique definition of a passive sentence? [Note: Since their definition is rather idiosyncratic, you don't have to worry too much about this. But you have to understand what they mean.]

p. 28

T: Elaborate Point 1 in your own words.

pp. 28-29

T: Carefully compare the first example on p. 28 and the second one on p. 29 and explain Point 2 in your own words.

p. 29

T: Compare the three examples and explain Point 3 in your own words.

Regarding Points 2 and 3, read the following short Japanese article:
http://yanaseyosuke.blogspot.com/2011/03/1994.html

p. 30

Q: What do the two examples at the bottom of the page demonstrate?

p. 31

Q: With what type of verb do academic authors use the first person? Why is that?

Q: What is "metadiscourse"?
http://grammar.about.com/od/mo/g/metadiscourseterm.htm

Cf. What is "discourse," in the first place?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse

Or "meta"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta

Q: What is the point of using metadiscourse?

Q: With what type of verb do academic authors NOT use the first person? Why is that?

p. 32

Q: What are the implied subject and the explicit subject of the sentence: "To determine the effect, preparations of the devices were added."

Q: The following sentences are examples of dangling modifiers. Explain what they are.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/597/01/

Turning the corner, a handsome school building appeared.

Having finished the assignment, the TV was turned on.

Without knowing his name, it was difficult to introduce him.

To improve his results, the experiment was done again.

IMPORTANT: The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University is one of the best online resources available for writing in English. Bookmark the site on your browsers.

The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/

p. 33

Q: Summarize the description of the box.

Q: What are problems of a long compound noun phrase such as "childhood thought disorder misdiagnosis"?

Q: What is the authors' opinion of the claim by some grammarians that we should never modify one noun with another?

p. 34

Q: Why is "thought disorders" lumped together in the first example.

Q: What do you think of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's remark.

Whatever if translatable in other and simpler words of the same language, without loss of sense or dignity, is bad.

Lesson 4
Cohesion and Coherence

Download the writing tasks from here.
http://www.box.net/shared/icj036vjh50i52otfrgl
(password is necessary)

pp. 35-36

T: The authors say that while 1a seems "choppy" 1b "hang together better." Compare 1a and 1b carefully and pick up expressions that support their contention.

Q: What is cohesion according to the author?

Q: What is coherence according to the author?

Cf. Cohesion is usually defined in linguistics as follows:

Cohesion is the grammatical and lexical relationship within a text or sentence. Cohesion can be defined as the links that hold a text together and give it meaning. It is related to the broader concept of coherence

There are two main types of cohesion: grammatical, referring to the structural content, and lexical, referring to the language content of the piece. A cohesive text is created in many different ways. In Cohesion in English, M.A.K. Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan identify five general categories of cohesive devices that create coherence in texts: reference, ellipsis, substitution, lexical cohesion, and conjunction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohesion_(linguistics)

Despite the difference between the definition by the author and the above one, it remains the same that coherence is a broader notion than cohesion.

Later, the authors define cohesion as "the sense of flow" (p. 36) and coherence as "the sense of the whole" (p. 40). These may be better definitions (or at least, simpler ones).

p. 37

T: Compare 1a and 1b in terms of the "sense of flow."

p. 38

T: Explain what the box says.

T: Explain Point 1.

p. 39

Q: Although the insertion of "Astronomers have reported" seems to contradict Point 1, the authors say that it is perfectly OK. Why?

T: Explain Point 2. (This is a very important point in writing, which is very often neglected by EFL learners!)

T: Explain what the paragraph above the box say. (Remember the saying, "The problem of a writer is that she knows about the subject too much.")

Q: What does the box say?

p. 40

T: Read the first paragraph and the following two indented parts and explain how coherence is different from cohesion.

Q: What does the example (that begins with "Sayner, Wisconsin...") demonstrate? (As a teacher, I often read a passage like this one. Such a passage is perfectly OK if it is spoken at a party, but does not make an academic paper.)

p. 41

Q: What is wrong with the first definition of subject?

Q: What is wrong with the second definition? Explain by using the four examples that follow.

p. 42

Q: Read the first example and why it feels "choppy."

T: Explain the procedures of Diagnose-Analyze-Rewrite.

p. 43

Q: What is throat-clearing?

Q: What is the problem of throat-clearing?

Lesson 5
Emphasis

Download the writing tasks from here.
http://www.box.net/shared/28zvfa3m976jyzz9y8c0
(password is necessary)

p. 45

T: What do you think is the most important part of the most important sentence of the first paragraph?

pp. 45-46

T: Describe how you feel as you read 1a and 1b respectively.

Q: Which do you like better, 2a or 2b? Why?

Note: Section of "Complex Meaning" (pp. 46-48) is to be omitted in the class because there are too many technical terms for EFL students. Personally, though, I recommend that you read through without using a dictionary.

p. 48

Q: What is the end of a sentence for? Pick up two items from the box.

T: Summarize the argument of the box.

p. 49

Q: What is the psychological subject? How is it from the grammatical subject?

Q: What is the stress here?

T: Compare the two sentences about global warming and describe the difference of the effects that they produce.

p. 50

T: Compare 1a and 1b and state which you think is the passage that blames the American president.

T: Elaborate this principle: Just as we look to the first few words for point of view, we look to the last few words for special emphasis.

p. 51

T: Explain the three tactical revisions.

T: Explain the six syntactic devices to emphasize the right words.

p. 52

Q: Isn't the expression "There are" rather empty? What function does it serve?

Q: Do you feel any difference between the two examples of Point 3 (What shift)?

p. 53

Q: Point 6 is really a "fine" point. Do you get the point?

p. 54

Q: Why do we think that 1b focuses more on two topics than 1a (on the previous page)?

T: Elaborate this principle: Put key words in the stress position of the first sentence of a passage to emphasize the ideas that organize the rest of it.

p. 55

T: Compare 1c and 1b and specify the differences.

p. 56

Q: Again, what is the difference between characters and themes?

T: Explain the meaning of the old German proverb "Begenning and end shake hands with one another" by relating it to the box.

Lesson 6
Concision

Download the writing tasks from here.
http://www.box.net/shared/g1r5cvn8ohrcx4bpumae
(password is necessary)

p. 57

Q: Why does the first example sound redundant? Explain specifically.

Q: The second example is concise. But are there not any points in the use of the expressions taken away from the first example?

pp. 58-63

T: Explain the six principles.

Q: Do you know anyone that uses those listed verbs that are used "as uncousciously as we clear throats"?

Q: What are the doubled words?

p. 60

T: The last four lines of this page expresses what a principle (as opposed to a rule) is about. Explain.

p. 61

NOTE

Please do not overgeneralize that those expressions on this page and others are always redundant and bad. There are some cases when a writer deliberately uses these expressions to make a special effect.

If you're sure that something is written by an experienced writer, you should assume that any expressions she used must have some purpose. This assumption is to be abondoned, though, when you are reading what is written by an unskilled.

Relevance Theory formalizes the principle of communication:

The core of the theory is the “communicative principle of relevance”, which states that by the act of making an utterance the speaker is conveying that what they have said is worth listening to, i.e. it will provide "cognitive effects" worthy of the processing effort required to find the meaning. In this way, every ostensive act of communication (that is the lexical "clues" that are explicitly conveyed when we speak/write) will look something like this:

1. The speaker purposefully gives a clue to the hearer, ("ostensifies"), as to what she wishes to communicate - that is a clue to her intention.

2. The hearer infers the intention from the clue and the context-mediated information. The hearer must interpret the clue, taking into account the context, and surmise what the speaker intended to communicate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relevance_theory

Q: Why is the affirmative more direct than the negative?

p. 62

T: Compare the next two sentences: "Do not translate a negative into an affirmative if you want to emphasize the negative" and "Keep a negative sentence if you want to emphasize the negative." Which is more emphatic?

p. 63

T: Learn the skill of deleting from the example. It'll be useful when you tweet.

Q: Again, what is metadiscourse?

p. 64

Q: Why do you think are the authors negative about metadiscourse that attributes your ideas to a source?

p. 65

Q: Do the authors suggest that we eliminate metadiscourse that announces your topic entirely?

Q: What is the hedge?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedge_(linguistics)

p. 66

Q: What does the first example ("There seems to be some ...) demonstrate?

Q: What does the second example ("This evidence proves ...) demonstrate?

Q: What is the function of a verb like suggest or indicate in an academic writing?

Q: The last example was written by Watson and Crick. What do you think about their expression? (You may compare their paragraph with the revised one on the next page.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watson_and_Crick

p. 67

Q: What is the intensifier?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intensifier

Q: What is "the most common intensifier" according to the authors?

Q: What are the effects of the intensifiers used in the last example?

p. 68

Q: What is the opinion of the authors about the last example (with many uses of intensifiers) on the last page? Would you agree? (Please remamber that this book is not about rules but about principles.)

T: Summarize what the box says.

Q: What is the message of John Wesley?

I write for those who judge of books, not by the quantity, but by the quality of them: who ask not how long, but how good they are. I spare both my reader's time and my own, by couching my sense in as few words as I can.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

B. Norton & C. McKinney (2011) An Identity Approach to Second Language Acquisiton

2011-09-24T20:51:00.001+09:00

[This is one of the articles compiled for a class for my graduate students in the autumn/winter semester in 2011/2012.]

Bonny Norton & Carolyn McKinney (2011) An Identity Approach to Second Language Acquisition in Dwight Atkinson (ed) Alternative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition (Routledge) [Paperback,Kindle Edition ] (pp. 73-94)

Note: This article has much to share with Chapter 6 of Pennycook (2001) Critical Applied Linguistics: A Critical Introduction. Routledge. [Paperback, Kindle Edition]

You may want to read my note for Chapter 6
http://yosukeyanase.blogspot.com/2009/01/ch-6-of-prof-pennycooks-calx.html

It may be better, though, to read the following page to understand keywords including Postcolonialism, Postmodernism, Poststructrualism, and Foucault.
http://yosukeyanase.blogspot.com/2008/09/keywords-for-prof-alastair-pennycooks_7031.html

See the index page as well.
http://yosukeyanase.blogspot.com/2010_10_01_archive.html

p. 73

Q: Summarize the first paragraph.

Q: What do the authors mean when they say "In this view, every time learners speak, they are negotiating and renegotiating a sense of self in relation to the larger social world, and reorganizing that relationship in multiple dimensions of their lives (p. 73)"?

p. 74

Q: Can you paraphrase Norton's three characteristics of identity: the multiple, non-unitary nature of identity; identity as a site of struggle; and identity as changing over time. Compare these characteristics with those that you associate with the concept of identity.

Q: What is psychometircs?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychometrics

Q: What are instrumental motivation and integrative motivation (Gardner and Lambert)?

Q: What do you think of the following observations by Ushioda (Ushioda 2011)?

Simplifying somewhat, it is probably true to say that the study of language motivation over the past 40 years or so has been shaped by two successive though overlapping research traditions ? North American social psychology, and cognitive motivational psychology. Both traditions share a common root in psychometric approaches to the measurement of individual traits or differences. This means that they deploy measurement techniques and statistical procedures that make certain assumptions about the normal distribution of particular traits in a given population.

Ushioda (2011) "A Person-in-Context Relational View of Emergent Motivation, Self and Identity" in Dornyei, Zoltan; Ushioda, Ema (2011). Motivation, Language Identity and the L2 Self (Kindle Locations 4717-4721). Channel View Publications. Kindle Edition.

Let us consider, first of all, the role of context in models of motivation developed in the Gardnerian social-psychological tradition. In this connection, it is worth noting that, although we call it ‘social’ psychology, the focus in social psychology is on the individual (as social being), rather than on the social or cultural collective (as in sociology). As Dornyei (1999) points out, Gardner and Lambert’s (1972) original social-psychological model of L2 learning is essentially a theory of individual, rather than socially or culturally motivation; and social and cultural factors are reflected only through the individual’s attitudes, measured through self-report instruments. Although the influence of the socio-cultural environment is implicit in this and later versions of the model, in the form of ‘cultural beliefs’ in the social milieu which are assumed to shape an individual’s attitudes (Gardner, 1985: 146-147), the model sustains the basic Cartesian dualism between the mental and material worlds, between the inner life of the individual and the surrounding culture and society.

Ushioda (2011) "A Person-in-Context Relational View of Emergent Motivation, Self and Identity" in Dornyei, Zoltan; Ushioda, Ema (2011). Motivation, Language Identity and the L2 Self (Second Language Acquisition) (Kindle Locations 4741-4749). Channel View Publications. Kindle Edition.

p. 75

Q: What is investment (Norton Peirce, 1995)?

Social Identity, Investment, and Language Learning
Author: Peirce, Bonny Norton
Source: TESOL Quarterly, Volume 29, Number 1, Spring 1995 , pp. 9-31(23)
Publisher: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL)

Abstract:
The author argues that second language acquisition (SLA) theorists have struggled to conceptualize the relationship between the language learner and the social world because they have not developed a comprehensive theory of social identity which integrates the language learner and the language learning context. She also maintains that SLA theorists have not adequately addressed how relations of power affect interaction between language learners and target language speakers. Using data collected in Canada from January to December 1991 from diaries, questionnaires, individual and group interviews, and home visits, the author illustrates how and under what conditions the immigrant women in her study created, responded to, and sometimes resisted opportunities to speak English. Drawing on her data analysis as well as her reading in social theory, the author argues that current conceptions of the individual in SLA theory need to be reconceptualized, and she draws on the poststructuralist conception of social identity as multiple, a site of struggle, and subject to change to explain the findings from her study. Further, she argues for a conception of investment rather than motivation to capture the complex relationship of language learners to the target language and their sometimes ambivalent desire to speak it. The notion of investment conceives of the language learner, not as ahistorical and unidimensional, but as having a complex social history and multiple desires. The article includes a discussion of the implications of the study for classroom teaching and current theories of communicative competence.
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tesol/tq/1995/00000029/00000001/art00002
(Download the paper (password will be requested))

Q: What is cultural capital? How is it different from economic, social and symbolic capitals?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_capital

Q: What did "silence" mean in Duff (2002)?

Q: How is investment different from instrumental motivation?

p. 76

Q: What could happen if a learner is "a highly motivated language learner, but may nevertheless have little investment in the language practice" (p. 76)? Do you think you've observed such cases?

Q: What are the imagined communities?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagined_communities

Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New Edition)

Q: The authors argue: "These imagined communities are no less real than the ones in which learners have daily engagement and might even have a stronger impact on their identities and investments." (p. 76). Would you agree? Recall different types of persons you know and see if this observation applies to each one of them.

p. 77

Q: How the poststructuralist view of language different from structuralist view of language?

You can find some information on poststructulalism here
http://yosukeyanase.blogspot.com/2008/09/keywords-for-prof-alastair-pennycooks_7031.html
and on structuralism here
http://yosukeyanase.blogspot.com/2008/09/keywords-for-prof-alastair-pennycooks_7031.html.

Q: Summarize the last paragraph on Bakhtin.

p. 78

Q: What did Bourdieu mean when he said "speech always owes a major part of its value to the value of the person who utters it" (1977, p. 652)? Would modern linguists agree with him?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Bourdieu

Q: What are the implications of Bakhtin and Bourdiew on SLA theories?

p. 79

Q: What is the Foucauldian notion of subjectivity?

Foucault analyzes the discursive and practical conditions for the existence of truth and discursive meaning. To show the principles of production of truth and discursive meaning in various discursive formations, he details how truth claims emerge during various epochs on the basis of what was actually said and written during these periods. He particularly describes the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, and the 20th century. He strives to avoid all interpretation and to depart from the goals of hermeneutics. This does not mean that Foucault denounces truth and discursive meaning, but just that truth and discursive meaning depend on the historical discursive and practical means of truth and meaning production. For instance, although they were radically different during Enlightenment as opposed to Modernity, there were indeed discursive meaning, truth and correct treatment of madness during both epochs (Madness and Civilization). This posture allows Foucault to denounce a priori concepts of the nature of the human subject and focus on the role of discursive practices in constituting subjectivity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault#The_Archaeology_of_Knowledge

Below are my blog articles on Foucault and other related topics.

M・フーコー著、中村雄二郎訳『知の考古学』河出書房新社
http://yanaseyosuke.blogspot.com/2008/10/m.html
佐藤俊樹・友枝敏雄(編)(2006)『言説分析の可能性』東信堂
http://yanaseyosuke.blogspot.com/2008/11/2006.html
コミュニケーション･言説の社会性･権力性･歴史性についての関連記事リスト
http://yanaseyosuke.blogspot.com/2009/10/blog-post_06.html

Q: What is to "de-essentialize and deconstruct identity categories such as race and gender"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_politics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_essentialism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction
ヴィヴィアン・バー著、田中一彦訳『社会的構築主義への招待』川島書店
http://yanaseyosuke.blogspot.com/2008/09/blog-post_28.html

Q: What are Legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) and situated learning?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimate_peripheral_participation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situated_learning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_practice
Cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duality_(CoPs)

p. 81

Q: Elaborate the last paragraph.

p. 82

Q: What is the first assumption that the identity approach shares with such studies as qualitative approach, critical ethnography, feminist psotstructuralist theory, sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology? Explain.

Q: What is the second assumption?

Q: What is the third assumption?

Q: What does Pennycook (2007, p. 39) mean?

p. 83

Q: Would you agree with Pavlenko (2001b, p. 167)?

p. 87

Q: What is the difference between the identity approach different and the sociocognitive approach?

Q: What is the difference between the identity approach and the sociocultural theory (SCT) approach?

Q: What is the difference between the identity approach and the conversational analysis (CA)? (What is an emic understanding?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emic_and_etic

Q: Q: What is the difference between the identity approach and the language socialization approach?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(philosophy)

p. 88

Q: Do you think our identities are affected by the development of Information Communication Technology (ICT)?

p. 89

Q: Elaborate the last paragraph.

Q: Finally, what is your sense of identity? How would you describe your identity (or identities)?

You may want to read other works by Bonny Norton.

Identity and Language Learning

Critical Pedagogies and Language Learning

Researcher Identity, Narrative Inquiry, and Language Teaching Research
Authors: Norton, Bonny; Early, Margaret
Source: TESOL Quarterly, Volume 45, Number 3, September 2011 , pp. 415-439(25)
Publisher: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL)

Abstract:
Whereas there has been much research on language and identity with respect to learners, teachers, and teacher educators, there has been little focus on the identity of the researcher, an important stakeholder in language education. Our research therefore addresses the following question: To what extent can narrative inquiry illuminate the ways in which researcher identity is negotiated in language teaching research? To address this question, we draw on a digital literacy study in multilingual Uganda to narrate how we engaged in our own storytelling, and the process by which we invited teachers to share their experiences of teaching through the medium of English as an additional language in a poorly resourced rural school. Central themes were our attempts to reduce power differentials between researchers and teachers, and our desire to increase teacher investment (Norton, 2000) in our collaborative research project. Drawing on numerous small stories (Bamberg, 2004; Georgakopoulou, 2006), we argue that several researcher identities were realized, including international guest, collaborative team member, teacher, and teacher educator. Our article supports the case that small stories enrich traditional narrative inquiry, both theoretically and methodologically, and make visible the complex ways in which researcher identity impacts research, not only in language teaching, but in education more broadly.
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tesol/tq/2011/00000045/00000003/art00002
(Download (password will be required))

***

If you're interested, please read my essays as well.

"Where is Self, and what is it?" No, it's rather "How is Self?": Luhmann's theory of autopoiesis.
http://yosukeyanase.blogspot.com/2011/08/where-is-self-and-what-is-it-no-its.html

A summary of Damasio’s “Self Comes to Mind”
http://yosukeyanase.blogspot.com/2011/09/summary-of-damasios-self-comes-to-mind.html

Hayao Miyazaki's video for "On Your Mark" by Chage and Aska

2011-09-20T09:33:00.003+09:00

A life is born. Whether biological or imaginary. And you cherish the life. That's, I guess, what this video is about.

On Your Mark 投稿者 _Nessim_

The video depicts three versions of reality of an angel girl seen by protagonists, two policemen in the anti-terrorist squad. The squad breaks into the tower occupied by cultists. They exchange fires and the squad controls the situation. As the two men searches in the area together with other members of the squad, one of them checks a dead body of a young women and sees her face.

After that, the two find a winged girl, who only looks like an angel, lying on the floor chained and unconscious. The scene suddenly changes and the two are with the angel girl, driving an open car in the open field. As they drive, they encourage the girl to fly, who opens her wings and begins to fly in the sky where she probably belongs -- or so goes the first version of reality.

The scene of the video suddenly goes back to the scene where the angel girl is found. The two hold her carefully and offer something to drink. As she sips, they feel deep delight. But she is soon taken away, shielded completely, by the authorities wearing radiation suits.

The next scene depicts the two drinking in a bar. There is a sudden flashback of the image of the angel girl, and they decide to risk their career to rescue her. After preparation, they intrude into the laboratory where the angel girl is captured and take her away to escape in an armored vehicle. They are soon chased by police hovercrafts. The highway road is destroyed, and the vehicle falls. As they fall, one of the man tries to release his hands from the hands of the angel girl to let her fly alone and survive, but she refuses and the three fall down further, probably to the ground, completely dead -- or so goes the second version of reality.

The scene goes back to the vehicle on the highway. The vehicle falls as the highway is destroyed. But this time, the vehicle hovers with jet engines and they somehow escape. They take an open car, go through a long tunnel, ignoring warning signs that say "Survival Not Guaranteed" or "Extreme Danger, and finally find themselves in the open field, the forbidden area presumably because of radiation emitted before this episode. They enjoy driving for a while and the angel girl is ready to fly. One of the men winks at her and the other kisses the hand of the girl. She hovers, begins to fly, and goes up into the blue sky, higher and higher -- or so goes the third version of reality.

The video stops there, and the audience are not exactly sure what really happened. Probably the third version must be the reality, for it is the last one we saw. But it's not a good reason. The second version, the falling to the ground, may be the reality, and the third version could be a fantasy that one of the two men (or both two) had as they fall, wishing the reality as he wanted.

But this second version could be a daydream that one of the two had as they drank in the bar. The two may have just let her go to an institution.

Or did they really meet the angel girl? The first version of reality, finding the angel girl and releasing her immediately in the blue sky, could be an entire delusion. The fact could only be that one of them just saw the face of a dead woman lying on the floor. He may just have had the delusion to deny the brutal fact of mass slaughter that he just witnessed. There may not have been any angle girl. She may not have been there at all.

Who knows? The audience are clueless.

But who cares? (Or do you?)

We see the reality as we see it. That's how we live. The angel girl may have been a real life, or just an illusion. But does it matter? The two protagonists saw the girl, touched her, helped her and saw her smile -- or they imagined that way. That's what they needed. They needed a life, another life, biological or otherwise, to care for. If only you have one life besides your own that you care about so much, your life is blessed. If we meet such a life, if only for a short time, you may call your life a happy one.

Or so goes my interpretation -- my reality -- of the video Hayao Miyazaki provides.

Long live the angel.

http://abemasato.com/memo/ghibli/onyourmark/

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Your_Mark

Amazon.com: Studio Ghibli Presents the Great Collection - 18 Movies From Hayao Miyazaki

Amazon.co.jp: ジブリがいっぱいSPECIALショートショート

D. Larsen-Freeman (2011) A Complexity Approach to Second Language Development / Acquisition

2011-09-15T22:51:00.009+09:00

[This is one of the articles compiled for a class for my graduate students in the autumn/winter semester in 2011/2012.]

D. Larsen-Freeman (2011) A Complexity Approach to Second Language Development / Acquisition in Dwight Atkinson (ed) Alternative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition (Routledge) [Paperback,Kindle Edition ] (pp. 48-72)

Note: As my theoretical background in complexity theory is Niklas Luhmann's systems theory, I'll occasionally use his framework to examine this article by Larsen-Freeman. I also have to add that my description below is selective, for I cannot cover varieties of papers she quoted.

pp. 48-49

Q: Larsen-Freeman is extremely critical about experimental designs.

Experimental designs attempted to control for all factors except the one hypothesized as causal. Not only was such research of suspect ecological validity, it also rested on the questionable assumption that a single factor caused some effect. To me this denied the commonsense understanding that SLA processes were complex, situated, and likely multivariate. Then, too, aggregating findings across studies seemed impossible, given differences in how and where data were collected. (pp. 48-49)

Do you think this criticism is a valid one against epidemiology?

Q: Larsen-Freeman talks about "different levels of ecological scale":

In sum, I conclude that language, its use, and its acquisition are mutually constitutive, simply occurring at different levels of ecological scale -- individual through speech community -- and timescale. (p. 49)

Do you think we should distinguish different levels when we examine language acquisition and language use, as Luhmann, for example, distinguishes a psychic system (an individual mind) and a social system (an interaction, organization or society that is constituted by communication)?

Here's a definition of system in a Luhmannean way.

system (System). Luhmann is particularly interested in autopoietic and operationally-closed systems (see entry above). Such systems can be biological (cells, the immune system), psychic (the mind), or social (the economy, politics). As a social theorist, Luhmann focuses largely on social systems. Social systems consist of communication, not of people (see entry for “society” above). Within the social system as a whole there are numerous “subsystems” such as the mass media, the economy, and politics. These subsystems are function systems because they all have their specific function within society. The concept of the system is relative to the concept of an environment (see entry above). A system

Moeller, Hans-Georg (2011-04-15). Luhmann Explained: From Souls to Systems (Ideas Explained) (p. 226). Open Court. Kindle Edition.

Take a look at how Luhmann conceives different systems.

From Luhmann (1995) Social Systems Stanford University Press. p.2

p. 50

Q: How is Ludwig von Bertalanffy's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory#General_systems_research_and_systems_inquiryGeneral System Theory different from cybernetics?

The term cybernetics derives from a Greek word which meant steersman, and which is the origin of English words such as "govern". Cybernetics is the study of feedback and derived concepts such as communication and control in living organisms, machines and organisations. Its focus is how anything (digital, mechanical or biological) processes information, reacts to information, and changes or can be changed to better accomplish the first two tasks.

The terms "systems theory" and "cybernetics" have been widely used as synonyms. Some authors use the term cybernetic systems to denote a proper subset of the class of general systems, namely those systems that include feedback loops.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory#Cybernetics

Q: How are a complex system and a complex adaptive system different? Read the following definitions.

A complex system is a system composed of interconnected parts that as a whole exhibit one or more properties (behavior among the possible properties) not obvious from the properties of the individual parts.

A system’s complexity may be of one of two forms: disorganized complexity and organized complexity. In essence, disorganized complexity is a matter of a very large number of parts, and organized complexity is a matter of the subject system (quite possibly with only a limited number of parts) exhibiting emergent properties.

Examples of complex systems for which complexity models have been developed include ant colonies, human economies and social structures, climate, nervous systems, cells and living things, including human beings, as well as modern energy or telecommunication infrastructures. Indeed, many systems of interest to humans are complex systems.

Complex systems are studied by many areas of natural science, mathematics, and social science. Fields that specialize in the interdisciplinary study of complex systems include systems theory, complexity theory, systems ecology, and cybernetics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system

John H. Holland "Cas [complex adaptive systems] are systems that have a large numbers of components, often called agents, that interact and adapt or learn."

Holland, John H.; (2006). "Studying Complex Adaptive Systems." Journal of Systems Science and Complexity 19 (1): 1-8. http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/41486
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_systems#Definitions

p. 51

Self-organization and autopoiesis are often treated as synonyms. What could be the difference if we are to differentiate them?

Self-organization is the process where a structure or pattern appears in a system without a central authority or external element imposing it through planning. This globally coherent pattern appears from the local interaction of the elements that make up the system, thus the organization is achieved in a way that is parallel (all the elements act at the same time) and distributed (no element is a central coordinator).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organization

Autopoiesis was originally presented as a system description that was said to define and explain the nature of living systems. A canonical example of an autopoietic system is the biological cell. The eukaryotic cell, for example, is made of various biochemical components such as nucleic acids and proteins, and is organized into bounded structures such as the cell nucleus, various organelles, a cell membrane and cytoskeleton. These structures, based on an external flow of molecules and energy, produce the components which, in turn, continue to maintain the organized bounded structure that gives rise to these components.

An autopoietic system is to be contrasted with an allopoietic system, such as a car factory, which uses raw materials (components) to generate a car (an organized structure) which is something other than itself (the factory).

Though others have often used the term as a synonym for self-organization, Maturana himself stated he would "never use the notion of self-organization, because it cannot be the case... it is impossible. That is, if the organization of a thing changes, the thing changes."^[3] Moreover, an autopoietic system is autonomous and operationally closed, in the sense that there are sufficient processes within it to maintain the whole. Autopoietic systems are "structurally coupled" with their medium, embedded in a dynamic of changes that can be recalled as sensory-motor coupling. This continuous dynamic is considered as a rudimentary form of knowledge or cognition and can be observed throughout life-forms.

An application of the concept to sociology can be found in Niklas Luhmann's Systems Theory, which was subsequently adapted by Bob Jessop in his studies of the capitalist state system. Marjatta Maula adapted the concept of autopoiesis in a business context.

[3]Maturana, H. (1987). Everything is said by an observer. In Gaia, a Way of Knowing, edited by W. Thompson, Lindisfarne Press, Great Barrington, MA, pp. 65-82, p. 71.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopoiesis#Meaning

Q: Luhmann says that "autopoietic systems are operationally closed." Does this operational closure mean that autopoietic systems are closed systems (in the strict sense in physics)?

operation (Operation). Operations are what systems consist of; operating is what systems do. Different types of systems consist of different types of operations. Psychic systems, for instance, think and feel, whereas living systems consist of biological operations, and social systems communicate. Your mind consists of the thoughts you think and the emotions you feel. Legal communication consists of what is said in the courtroom and what is written in legal documents. Autopoietic systems are operationally closed. No other system can interfere in their operations. They can only continue their operations by themselves. No one, for instance, can think or feel for you; there is no immediate external interference possible. The same is true, according to Luhmann, for social systems. You can only continue economic communication by further economic communication. You can only buy something by spending money, not by watching a commercial on TV or by making a political speech. Operational closure goes along with cognitive openness. By being operationally closed and differentiated from its environment, a system can have cognition of its environment. Once a system has reached operational closure, it can observe the environment in its own terms. Once the legal system has closed itself operationally, it can observe everything as being either legal or illegal.

Moeller, Hans-Georg (2011-04-15). Luhmann Explained: From Souls to Systems (Ideas Explained) (p. 223). Open Court. Kindle Edition.

The term closed system has different meanings in different contexts.

In physics

Main article: Thermodynamic system

In thermodynamics, a closed system can exchange energy (as heat or work), but not matter, with its surroundings. In contrast, an isolated system cannot exchange any of heat, work, or matter with the surroundings, while an open system can exchange all of heat, work and matter. For a simple system, with only one type of particle (atom or molecule), a closed system amounts to a constant number of particles. However, for systems which are undergoing a chemical reaction, there may be all sorts of molecules being generated and destroyed by the reaction process. In this case, the fact that the system is closed is expressed by stating that the total number of each elemental atom is conserved, no matter what kind of molecule it may be a part of.

Q: Prigogine is known for the concept of a dissipative system. How is the system related to self-organization?

A dissipative system is a thermodynamically open system which is operating out of, and often far from, thermodynamic equilibrium in an environment with which it exchanges energy and matter.

A dissipative structure is a dissipative system that has a dynamical regime that is in some sense in a reproducible steady state. This reproducible steady state may be reached by natural evolution of the system, by artifice, or by a combination of these two.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissipative_structures

p. 52

Q: What is a chaotic system? What does the chaos theory say about determinism?

Chaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, with applications in several disciplines including physics, economics, biology, and philosophy. Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, an effect which is popularly referred to as the butterfly effect. Small differences in initial conditions (such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield widely diverging outcomes for chaotic systems, rendering long-term prediction impossible in general. This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future behavior is fully determined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved. In other words, the deterministic nature of these systems does not make them predictable. This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos.

Chaotic behavior can be observed in many natural systems, such as the weather. Explanation of such behavior may be sought through analysis of a chaotic mathematical model, or through analytical techniques such as recurrence plots and Poincare maps.

Q: What is a nonlinear system? How is this related to a chaotic system?

In mathematics, a nonlinear system is a system which is not linear, that is, a system which does not satisfy the superposition principle, or whose output is not directly proportional to its input. Less technically, a nonlinear system is any problem where the variable(s) to be solved for cannot be written as a linear combination of independent components.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-linear

Q: What is emergence?

In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence is central to the theories of integrative levels and of complex systems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

Q: How is emergence related to spontaneous order or self-organization?

Spontaneous order, also known as "self-organization", is the spontaneous emergence of order out of seeming chaos. It is a process found in physical, biological, and social networks, as well as economics, though the term "self-organization" is more often used for physical and biological processes, while "spontaneous order" is typically used to describe the emergence of various kinds of social orders from a combination of self-interested individuals who are not intentionally trying to create order through planning. The evolution of life on Earth, language, the Internet and a free market economy have all been proposed as examples of systems which evolved through spontaneous order. Naturalists often point to the inherent "watch-like" precision of uncultivated ecosystems and to the universe itself as ultimate examples of this phenomenon.

Spontaneous orders are to be distinguished from organizations. Spontaneous orders are distinguished by being scale-free networks, while organizations are hierarchical networks. Further, organizations can be and often are a part of spontaneous social orders, but the reverse is not true. Further, organizations have someone who created the organization and controls it, more or less, while spontaneous orders are created, controlled, and controllable by none.

Spontaneous order is also used as a synonym for any emergent behavior of which self-interested spontaneous order is just an instance.

Q: Larsen-Freeman defines complex systems as follows:

In sum, complexity theory seeks to explain complex, dynamic, open, adaptive, self-organizing, nonlinear systems. [Emphasis added by me] (p. 52)

She further says:

Language, its use, its evolution, its development, its learning, and its teaching are arguably complex systems. Thus, complexity theory offers a way to unite all these phenomena. [Emphasis added by me] (p. 52)

Do you think these phenomena are of open systems?

Do you think these phenomena can, or should, be united in explanation? [In my opinion, language and language use are entirely different because the former can be, according to Chomskyan understanding, quite individual, whereas the latter involves language users in plural in a particular context; the evolution of language and the development of language are very different, first,in timescale and, second, in the number of humans involved; learning and teaching are related (the latter is dependent on the former) but categorically different. Given these differences, I wonder whether these are to be united in explanation.]

Q: Would you agree with Larsen-Freeman when she says "No longer must we decontextualize, segregate, idealize, and atemporalize language (Larsen-Freeman, 2008)"? Read the following remark by a generative linguist.

I should state right away, to avoid bitter disappointments in my readers, that we will treat language (and other cognitive capacities of ours, like music, mathematics, vision, etc.) as a natural object, fit for scientific inquiry. We will not focus on all the ways in which we use language (and the rest of our minds) in daily interactions with others. Instead we will focus on our unconscious knowledge of language, that which gives us the ability to form an infinite range of expressions, and at the same time exclude countless other ways of expressing ourselves. This focus of investigation turns out to be the only way to make progress. If you know a little bit about the history of the more established sciences (physics, chemistry, biology), this should not surprise you. The way science progresses is by first acknowledging the complexity of the world, and immediately admitting the futility of attempts to provide a full description of it. Once humbled by this recognition of the vastness of the problem, the best way forward for the scientist is to extract a small corner of the problem, make a few simplifying assumptions, and attempt to gain some understanding of that small part of the world.

Cedric Boeckx (2009) Language in Cognition: Uncovering Mental Structures and the Rules Behind Them (p. xii). Wiley-Blackwell. Kindle Edition.

p. 53

Michael Tomasello has his official homepage, which contains a lot of downloadable papers.

http://email.eva.mpg.de/~tomas/

Larsen-Freeman cites Tomasellos's Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition on p. 53.

Below are some excerpts from Chapter 1 of the book. The first is the part where Tomasello expresses that Skinner vs. Chomsky paradigm (Read Chomsky's A Review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior)is to be overcome with two general findings in recent congnitive sciences. Tomasello argues that children can get from 'here' (= the poverty of stimulus) to 'there' (= language acquisition) without the help of universal grammar.

But much has happened in the last two decades in developmental psychology, linguistics, and cognitive science which suggests a re-evaluation of the situation, that is, which suggests that children can get from here to there, and that they can do it without the aid of any hypothesized universal grammar. There are two fundamental points: (1) children have at their disposal much more powerful learning mechanisms than simple association and blind induction; and (2) there exist plausible and rigorous theories of language that characterize adult linguistic competence in much more child-friendly terms than does generative grammar-which makes the endpoint of language acquisition seem much closer.

Michael Tomasello. Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition (p. 3). Kindle Edition.

The points (1) and (2) are explained as follows:

The first point is that modern developmental psychologists and cognitive scientists no longer think of children's learning as isolated association-making and induction, but rather they think of it as integrated with other cognitive and social-cognitive skills-in ways that Skinner and the Behaviorists (and Chomskv in his critiques) could never have envisaged. Two sets of such skills are of particular importance for language acquisition. The first set comprises various skills of intention-reading (theory of mind, broadly conceived).

Michael Tomasello. Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition (p. 3). Kindle Edition.

The other main set of skills is those involved in various kinds of pattern-finding-categorization, broadly defined.

Michael Tomasello. Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition (p. 4). Kindle Edition.

Thus, Tomasello proposes a theory of language acquisition without nativism: usage-based theory.

But in recent years a new view of language and human linguistic competence has begun to emerge. This view is represented by a group of theories most often called cognitive-functional linguistics but sometimes also called usage-based linguistics to emphasize their central processing tenet that language structure emerges from language use (e.g., Langacker, 1987a, 1991, 2000; Croft, 1991, 2001; Goldberg, 1995; Givon, 1995; Bybee, 1985, 1995, 2002; see Tomasello, 1998a, in press, and Barlow and Kemmer, 2000, for similar approaches). Usage-based theories hold that the essence of language is its symbolic dimension, with grammar being derivative. The ability to communicate with conspecifics symbolically (conventionally, intersubjectively) is a species-specific biological adaptation. But, in contrast to generative grammar and other formal approaches, in usage-based approaches the grammatical dimension of language is a product of a set of historical and ontogenetic processes referred to collectively as grammaticalization. When human beings use symbols to communicate with one another, stringing them together into sequences, patterns of use emerge and become consolidated into grammatical constructions-for example, the English passive construction, noun phrase construction, or -ed past tense construction. As opposed to conceiving linguistic rules as algebraic procedures for combining words and morphemes that do not themselves contribute to meaning, this approach conceives linguistic constructions as themselves meaningful linguistic symbols-since they are nothing other than the patterns in which meaningful linguistic symbols are used in communication (for example, the passive construction is used to communicate about an entity to which something happens).
Michael Tomasello. Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition (p. 5). Kindle Edition.

Q: What would be the implications of Tomasello's argument for language teachers? Discuss.

Below is his essay on the New York Times in 2008. You may see his emphasis on social aspects of human cognition.

You might think that human beings at least enjoy the advantage of being more generally intelligent. To test this idea, my colleagues and I recently administered an array of cognitive tests ? the equivalent of nonverbal I.Q. tests ? to adult chimpanzees and orangutans (two of our closest primate relatives) and to 2-year-old human children. As it turned out, the children were not more skillful overall. They performed about the same as the apes on the tests that measured how well they understood the physical world of space, quantities and causality. The children performed better only on tests that measured social skills: social learning, communicating and reading the intentions of others.

But such social gifts make all the difference. Imagine a child born alone on a desert island and somehow magically kept alive. What would this child’s cognitive skills look like as an adult ? with no one to teach her, no one to imitate, no pre-existing tools, no spoken or written language? She would certainly possess basic skills for dealing with the physical world, but they would not be particularly impressive. She would not invent for herself English, or Arabic numerals, or metal knives, or money. These are the products of collective cognition; they were created by human beings, in effect, putting their heads together.
Tomasello, M. (2008). How are humans unique? New York Times Magazine, May 25, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/magazine/25wwln-essay-t.html?8br

Take a look at his other books as well.

The Amazon page of Michael Tomasello

p. 55

Larsen-Freeman mentions Mihail Bakhtin.

Q: Read the following sections of Wikipedia. Explain his concepts such as unfinalizability, others, polyphony, heteroglossia, dialogism.

Problems of Dostoyevsky’s Poetics: polyphony and unfinalizability

The Dialogic Imagination: Chronotope, Heteroglossia

Q: What is fractal? Would you agree with Larsen-Freeman when she says "language is fractal"? (Larsen-Freeman, 1997)? (What is recursion?)

p. 56

Q: What is connectionism?

p. 57

Larsen-Freeman quotes Ema Ushioda in Motivation, Language Identity and the L2 Self.
Here's the extended quotation from my Kindle version.

Let me summarise then what I mean by a person-in-context relational view of motivation. I mean a focus on real persons, rather than on learners as theoretical abstractions; a focus on the agency of the individual person as a thinking, feeling human being, with an identity, a personality, a unique history and background, a person with goals, motives and intentions; a focus on the interaction between this self-reflective intentional agent, and the fluid and complex system of social relations, activities, experiences and multiple micro- and macro-contexts in which the person is embedded, moves, and is inherently part of. My argument is that we need to take a relational (rather than linear) view of these multiple contextual elements, and view motivation as an organic process that emerges through the complex system of interrelations.

Ushioda (2011) "A Person-in-Context Relational View of Emergent Motivation, Self and Identity" in Dornyei, Zoltan; Ushioda, Ema (2011-09-09). Motivation, Language Identity and the L2 Self (Second Language Acquisition) (Kindle Locations 4815-4820) [presumably p.218 in the print version]. Channel View Publications. Kindle Edition.

Ushioda continues to argue about the issue of self-reflectivity (or self-reference)

As they point out (Sealey & Carter, 2004: 205), it is a distinctive characteristic of human beings that we have reflexivity that is, we have the ability, through self-consciousness, to attain a degree of objectivity towards ourselves in the world, and to make decisions among a range of possible choices, rather than simply be determined by the world and our instincts (or, we might add, by our componentised subpersonal parts).

Ushioda (2011) "A Person-in-Context Relational View of Emergent Motivation, Self and Identity" in Dornyei, Zoltan; Ushioda, Ema (2011-09-09). Motivation, Language Identity and the L2 Self (Second Language Acquisition) (Kindle Locations 4848-4851). Channel View Publications. Kindle Edition.

Q: Do you think Larsen-Freeman's version of Complexity Theory sufficiently deals with self-reflexivity (or self-reference)?

p. 58

Q: Larsen-Freeman introduces criticism against her version of Complexity theory. What do you think of the criticism?

Some have criticized the extension of complexity theory -- a theory originating in the natural sciences -- to human endeavors such as language acquisition. They have pointed out that self-organization may not be inevitable in human processes due to agency and volition, which can override any inevitablity characterristic of naturally occuring complex systems. (p. 58)

Compare the notion of agency and volition above and the notions held by neuroscientists below.

David Eagleman (The Brain on Trial. The Atlantic)

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2011/07/the-brain-on-trial/8520/

Benjamin Libet (my summary)

http://yosukeyanase.blogspot.com/2010/08/mind-time-by-benjamin-libet-and-some.html

(Or read the metaphor of a boy on an elephant.)

Varela, Thompson, and Rosch (1991) The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. I still remember the excitement when I read this book about 20 years ago. There is a Japanese translation as well.

p. 61

Gregory Bateson is a great thinker. I never pretend I undersand him well: This is why I want to read his books again and again.

Q: What is retrodiction?

p. 63

Q: What is contingency?

p. 66

Q: What is your opinion of the quotation from Cilliers (2008, p. 48)? Read the section of radical constructivism in the article of constructivist episitemology and discuss.

p. 67

Larsen-Freeman quotes Kramsch (2009, p. 247):

Complexity theory, which originated in the physical sciences, has been used as a productive metaphor in SLA to stress the relativity of self and other, the need to consider events on more than one timescale and to take into account the fractal nature and unfinalizability of events.

Q: What do you think of the expression "a productive metaphor"?

Larsen-Freeman herself concludes this article as follows.

Above all, complexity theory argues for epistemological modesty. To understand L2 development more completely, we must resist the arrogance of certainty and premature closure (Larsen-Freeman, 2002b). Indeed, complexity theory "should ... be seen not as aiming at a new 'synthetic theory' of complexity of any kind, but a cross-disciplinary field of research and a meeting place for dialogue" (Emmeche, 1997, in Cilliers, 2001, p. 137).

Q: What do you think of this concluding remark?

Here are other works by Larsen-Freeman on complexity.

Complex Systems and Applied Linguistics

Language as a Complex Adaptive System

J.P. Lantolf (2011) The Sociocultural Approach to Second Language Acquisition

2011-09-13T22:03:00.001+09:00

[This is one of the articles compiled for a class for my graduate students in the autumn/winter semester in 2011/2012.]

J.P. Lantolf (2011) "The Sociocultural Approach to Second Language Acquisition" in Dwight Atkinson (ed) Alternative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition (Routledge) [Paperback, Kindle Edition ] (pp. 24 -47)

p. 24

Overview

Take a look at the explanation of "cultural mediation" in Wikipedia.

Vygotsky investigated child development and how this was guided by the role of culture and interpersonal communication. Vygotsky observed how higher mental functions developed through social interactions with significant people in a child's life, particularly parents, but also other adults. Through these interactions, a child came to learn the habits of mind of her/his culture, including speech patterns, written language, and other symbolic knowledge through which the child derives meaning and affects a child's construction of his or her knowledge. This key premise of Vygotskian psychology is often referred to as "cultural mediation". The specific knowledge gained by a child through these interactions also represented the shared knowledge of a culture. This process is known as internalization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_mediation

Q: Can you explain the meaning of "focus on if and how learners develop the ability to use the new language to mediate (i.e., regulate or control) their mental and communicative activity." (p. 24)

Theoretical Principle(s)

Q: What are the functions of "psychological tools such as language, signs, and symbols" (pp. 24-25)

p. 25

Q: Why is children's early appropriation of language implicit?

Q: What is the effect of schooling?

p. 26

Research Methods

Q: What is the genetic method of Vygotsky?

p. 27

Q: What was the experiment that "suggests that children gradually develop the ability, first, to use external mediation and, later, to internalize it."? (p. 27)

Supporting Findings

Mediation as Self-Regulation

Q: What can you conclude from the observation of the intermediate speakers who often use the progressive aspect and of the other speakers who use the past past tense to create a coherent narrative on the same picture?

p. 28

Q: What is the finding of Centeno-Cortes and Jimenez-Jimenez (2004). Have you experienced a similar phenomenon?

p. 29

Zone of Proximal Development

Q: What is the significance of 'play' for children? Explain in therms of the concept of one of Proximal Development (ZPD)Z.

p. 30

Dynamic Assessment

Q: What is dynamic assessment (DA)? How is it different from the conventioal assessment? Why does it have to be so different?

Read the explanation of DA in Wikipedia.

Vygotsky's term Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) relates to the gap between what the child can learn unaided, and what he or she can learn with the help of an adult or a more capable peer. According to Vygotsky, it is impossible to understand a child's potential intellectual development using a one-way assessment.

Dynamic assessment is an interactive approach to psychological or psychoeducational assessment that embeds intervention within the assessment procedure. Most typically, there is a pretest then an intervention and then a posttest. This allows the assessor to determine the response of the client or student to the intervention. There are a number of different dynamic assessment procedures that have a wide variety of content domains.

One purpose of dynamic assessment is to determine if a student has the potential to learn a new skill.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_assessment

p. 32

Concept-based Mediation

Q: Mediation through concept is the second form of mediation central to SCT after mediation as self-regulation. What are the spontaneous (i.e., every day) concepts and scientific concepts? Can you pick up some examples of everyday concepts and scientific concepts concerning language and language education?

p. 33

Thinking for Speaking (TFS)

Q: What are the contentions of McNeill (2005)? Read the description of the book Gesture and Thought available on Amazon as well.

Gesturing is such an integral yet unconscious part of communication that we are mostly oblivious to it. But if you observe anyone in conversation, you are likely to see his or her fingers, hands, and arms in some form of spontaneous motion. Why? David McNeill, a pioneer in the ongoing study of the relationship between gesture and language, set about answering this question over twenty-five years ago. In Gesture and Thought he brings together years of this research, arguing that gesturing, an act which has been popularly understood as an accessory to speech, is actually a dialectical and integral component of language.

Gesture and Thought expands on McNeill’s acclaimed classic Hand and Mind. While that earlier work demonstrated what gestures reveal about thought, here gestures are shown to be active participants in both speaking and thinking. Expanding on an approach introduced by Lev Vygotsky in the 1930s, McNeill posits that gestures are key ingredients in an “imagery-language dialectic” that fuels both speech and thought. Gestures are both the “imagery” and components of “language.” The smallest element of this dialectic is the “growth point,” an “idea unit” of an utterance at its beginning psychological stage. Utilizing several innovative experiments he created and administered with subjects spanning several different age, gender, language, and neurological groups, McNeill shows how growth points organize themselves into utterances and extend to discourse at the moment of speaking.

An ambitious project in the ongoing study of the relationship of human communication and thought, Gesture and Thought is a work of such consequence that it will influence all subsequent theory on the subject.

Amazon page

Michael Corballis, the author of The Recursive Mind: The Origins of Human Language, Thought, and Civilization wrote From Hand to Mouth: The Origins of Language in which he argued that language evolved from a gestrual system to the spoken word.

It is often said that speech is what distinguishes us from other animals. But are we all talk? What if language was bequeathed to us not by word of mouth, but as a hand-me-down?

The notion that language evolved not from animal cries but from manual and facial gestures--that, for most of human history, actions have spoken louder than words--has been around since Condillac. But never before has anyone developed a full-fledged theory of how, why, and with what effects language evolved from a gestural system to the spoken word. Marshaling far-flung evidence from anthropology, animal behavior, neurology, molecular biology, anatomy, linguistics, and evolutionary psychology, Michael Corballis makes the case that language developed, with the emergence of Homo sapiens, from primate gestures to a true signed language, complete with grammar and syntax and at best punctuated with grunts and other vocalizations. While vocal utterance played an increasingly important complementary role, autonomous speech did not appear until about 50,000 years ago--much later than generally believed.

Bringing in significant new evidence to bolster what has been a minority view, Corballis goes beyond earlier supporters of a gestural theory by suggesting why speech eventually (but not completely!) supplanted gesture. He then uses this milestone to account for the artistic explosion and demographic triumph of the particular group of Homo sapiens from whom we are descended. And he asserts that speech, like written language, was a cultural invention and not a biological fait accompli.

Writing with wit and eloquence, Corballis makes nimble reference to literature, mythology, natural history, sports, and contemporary politics as he explains in fascinating detail what we now know about such varied subjects as early hominid evolution, modern signed languages, and the causes of left-handedness. From Hand to Mouth will have scholars and laymen alike talking--and sometimes gesturing--for years to come.

Amazon page

Whether ghe gestural theory is true or not, it is worthwhile to give a serious thought to gestures in language use.

Q: Is Japanese closer to English or Spanish? According to Talmy, English "highlight manner of motion encoded in verbs (e.g., skip, trudge, sidle, scamper, creep), with path of motion marked in a satellite phrase (e.g., though the swamp, up the ladder, down the stairs)(p. 33), while Spanish "highlight path of motion encoded in verbs (e.g., salir "to exit", entrar "to enter," subir "to get into" as with a car), with manner encoded (if at all) in an adverb or participle." (p. 34)

p. 34

Q: What is the observation in McNeill (2005) of English speakers and speakers of Spanish-like languages in terms of gesture?

Q: On what findings did Negueruela et al. (2004) contend that L2 speakers continue to rely on their L1 to mediate TFS activity?

p. 35

Q: What is the point of Vygotsky's quotation?

Q: What is praxis? How is it different from practice as in the phrase 'theory to practice'?

p.36

Scientific versus Everyday Knowledge

Q: What is scientific knowledge? What is its power?

p. 37

Q: What is the claim of The Universal Acquisition Hypothesis (UAH)?

Q: What does Pradis (2009) say in Declarative and Procedural Determinants of Second Languages? Relate her contentio to Vygotsky's argument.

p. 38

Concept-based Instruction (CBI)

Q: Can you exemplify Piotr Gal'perin's Systemic-Theoretical Instruction: explanation -> materialization (a Schema for the orienting basis of action (SCOBA) -> communication -> verbalization -> internalization? [Personally, I find this process exactly the same as my style of learning by teaching.]

p. 39

Q: What do you think about the comments by students (the first two in particular)?

p. 41

Figure 1.1 is highly intriguing. But because I have no knowledge of Chinese, I have to skip this section.

Future Directions

Q: Which of the four future directions are you the most attracted by, and why?

p. 42

Conclusion

Q: How is SCT-L2 different from VanPattern (2010) who claims that SLA research cannot speak to the day-to-day issues that confront teachers but can help them understand acquisition and thus inform instruction by offering insight into what the learning problems are?

p. 43

Q: What is your opinion about the last paragraph?

By this time, you may be interested in reading Latolf's books.

Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning

Sociocultural Theory and the Genesis of Second Language Development
(Review by Peter I. De Costa that appeared in Applied Linguistics

Dwight Atkinson (2011) Alternative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition

2011-09-13T21:51:00.003+09:00

I may have little to say about this book if Rod Ellis and Clarie Kramsch already said as follows on the back cover of the book.

In recent years there has been growing recognition that the acquisition of a second language is very much a social as well as a cognitive affair. This volume brings together a collection of articles documenting the various theories and methodologies for investigating L2 acquisition as a social phenomenon. As such it is an essential purchase for anyone interested in SLA.

Rod Ellis, University of Auckland, New Zealand

This book should be an essential resource for graduate seminars in SLA. It is a unique testimony to the vibrancy of the field and to the astonishing complexity of the SLA experience.

Claire Kramsch, University of California, Berkeley, USA

Or read what its publisher, Routledge, says.

This volume presents six alternative approaches to studying second language acquisition ? 'alternative' in the sense that they contrast with and/or complement the cognitivism pervading the field. All six approaches ? sociocultural, complexity theory, conversation-analytic, identity, language socialization, and sociocognitive ? are described according to the same set of six headings, allowing for direct comparison across approaches.

Each chapter is authored by leading advocates for the approach described: James Lantolf for the sociocultural approach; Diane Larsen-Freeman for the complexity theory approach; Gabriele Kasper and Johannes Wagner for the conversation-analytic approach; Bonny Norton and Carolyn McKinney for the identity approach; Patricia Duff and Steven Talmy for the language socialization approach and Dwight Atkinson for the sociocognitive approach.

Introductory and commentary chapters round out this volume. The editor’s introduction describes the significance of alternative approaches to SLA studies given its strongly cognitivist orientation. Lourdes Ortega’s commentary considers the six approaches from an 'enlightened traditional' perspective on SLA studies ? a viewpoint which is cognitivist in orientation but broad enough to give serious and balanced consideration to alternative approaches.

This volume is essential reading in the field of second language acquisition.

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415549257/

Edited by Dwight Atkinson, this book successfully invites indeed the best contributors in each field of what is here modestly called as "alternative approaches."

On reading the book, I decided to use it as the text book for my graduate seminar in the autumn/winter semester in 2011/2012.

Alternative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition [Paperback]

Alternative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition [Kindle Edition]

Below and in the articles to come, you'll find my supplementary material for reading the book. Along with my graduate students, you're kindly invited to explore the issues explained in this book.

***

Introduction by Dwight Atkinson

p. iv

Q: What are the implications of Nietzsche’s quotation, “One person is always wrong, but with two truth begins”?

p. xi

Q: Is this book an attempt to eliminate cognitivism from SLA? (Cognitivism is to be explained later in Introduction)

Q: Is this book a praise of “letting all the flowers bloom”? If not, what is this book about?

pp. 1-2

Q: Compare the excerpt from Cook & Seidlhofer, 1995 (p. 1), that from Long 1997 and that Doughty & Long 2003 (both on p. 2).

Here's Steven Pinker's 2 minutes video: The Cognitive Revolution

Q: What is “cognitive science” (Doughty & Long 2003) in the first place? Read the two excerpts below from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and explain the central idea of cognitive science by yourself (and also, if possible, the limit of the idea).

3. Representation and Computation

The central hypothesis of cognitive science is that thinking can best be understood in terms of representational structures in the mind and computational procedures that operate on those structures. While there is much disagreement about the nature of the representations and computations that constitute thinking, the central hypothesis is general enough to encompass the current range of thinking in cognitive science, including connectionist theories which model thinking using artificial neural networks.

Most work in cognitive science assumes that the mind has mental representations analogous to computer data structures, and computational procedures similar to computational algorithms. Cognitive theorists have proposed that the mind contains such mental representations as logical propositions, rules, concepts, images, and analogies, and that it uses mental procedures such as deduction, search, matching, rotating, and retrieval. The dominant mind-computer analogy in cognitive science has taken on a novel twist from the use of another analog, the brain.

Connectionists have proposed novel ideas about representation and computation that use neurons and their connections as inspirations for data structures, and neuron firing and spreading activation as inspirations for algorithms. Cognitive science then works with a complex 3-way analogy among the mind, the brain, and computers. Mind, brain, and computation can each be used to suggest new ideas about the others. There is no single computational model of mind, since different kinds of computers and programming approaches suggest different ways in which the mind might work. The computers that most of us work with today are serial processors, performing one instruction at a time, but the brain and some recently developed computers are parallel processors, capable of doing many operations at once.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cognitive-science/#RepCom

5.2 Critique of Cognitive Science

The claim that human minds work by representation and computation is an empirical conjecture and might be wrong. Although the computational-representational approach to cognitive science has been successful in explaining many aspects of human problem solving, learning, and language use, some philosophical critics such as Hubert Dreyfus (1992) and John Searle (1992) have claimed that this approach is fundamentally mistaken. Critics of cognitive science have offered such challenges as:

The emotion challenge: Cognitive science neglects the important role of emotions in human thinking.
The consciousness challenge: Cognitive science ignores the importance of consciousness in human thinking.
The world challenge: Cognitive science disregards the significant role of physical environments in human thinking.
The body challenge: Cognitive science neglects the contribution of embodiment to human thought and action.
The social challenge: Human thought is inherently social in ways that cognitive science ignores.
The dynamical systems challenge: The mind is a dynamical system, not a computational system.
The mathematics challenge: Mathematical results show that human thinking cannot be computational in the standard sense, so the brain must operate differently, perhaps as a quantum computer.

Thagard (2005) argues that all these challenges can best be met by expanding and supplementing the computational-representational approach, not by abandoning it.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cognitive-science/#CriCogSci

p. 3

Q: What is the brief definition of “cognitive science” provided by the author?

p. 4

Q: Explain or paraphrase the following concepts: 1) Mind as computer; 2) Representationalism; 3) Learning as abstract knowledge acquisition; 4) Centrality of language, and language as code.

p. 5

Q: What is “Scientism”? You may want to read for further information the explanation provide by Prof. Martin Ryder below.

Scientism is a philosophical position that exalts the methods of the natural sciences above all other modes of human inquiry. Scientism embraces only empiricism and reason to explain phenomena of any dimension, whether physical, social, cultural, or psychological. Drawing from the general empiricism of The Enlightenment, scientism is most closely associated with the positivism of August Comte (1798-1857) who held an extreme view of empiricism, insisting that true knowledge of the world arises only from perceptual experience. Comte criticized ungrounded speculations about phenomena that cannot be directly encountered by proper observation, analysis and experiment. Such a doctrinaire stance associated with science leads to an abuse of reason that transforms a rational philosophy of science into an irrational dogma (Hayek, 1952). It is this ideological dimension that we associate with the term scientism. Today the term is used with pejorative intent to dismiss substantive arguments that appeal to scientific authority in contexts where science might not apply. This over commitment to science can be seen in epistemological distortions and abuse of public policy. …

http://carbon.ucdenver.edu/~mryder/scientism_este.html

Cf. You may be interested in Wallerstein’s European Universalism: The Rhetoric of Power, where he sees Universal Values Against Barbarism, Essentialist Particularism, and Scientific Universalism (Scientism) in a sequence.

http://www.amazon.com/European-Universalism-Rhetoric-Immanuel-Wallerstein/dp/1595580611

https://sites.google.com/a/syr.edu/reading-ranger/reading-notes/wallersteinimmanueleuropeanuniversalismandtherhetoricofpower

Q: How can “substance dualism” be related to “functionalism”? You may want to read the explanations of “substance,” “dualism,” and “functionalism” below.

“Substance,” according to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has two meanings. The “substance” in the textbook is used with the first meaning below.

There could be said to be two rather different ways of characterizing the philosophical concept of substance. The first is the more generic. The philosophical term ‘substance’ corresponds to the Greek ousia, which means ‘being’, transmitted via the Latin substantia, which means ‘something that stands under or grounds things’. According to the generic sense, therefore, the substances in a given philosophical system are those things which, according to that system, are the foundational or fundamental entities of reality. Thus, for an atomist, atoms are the substances, for they are the basic things from which everything is constructed. In David Hume's system, impressions and ideas are the substances, for the same reason. In a slightly different way, Forms are Plato's substances, for everything derives its existence from Forms. In this sense of ‘substance’ any realist philosophical system acknowledges the existence of substances. Probably the only theories which do not would be those forms of logical positivism or pragmatism which treat ontology as a matter of convention. According to such theories, there are no real facts about what is ontologically basic, and so nothing is objectively substance.

The second use of the concept is more specific. According to this, substances are a particular kind of basic entity, and some philosophical theories acknowledge them and others do not. On this use, Hume's impressions and ideas are not substances, even though they are the building blocks of?what constitutes ‘being’ for?his world. According to this usage, it is a live issue whether the fundamental entities are substances or something else, such as events, or properties located at space-times. This conception of substance derives from the intuitive notion of individual thing or object, which contrast mainly with properties and events. The issue is how we are to understand the notion of an object, and whether, in the light of the correct understanding, it remains a basic notion, or one that must be characterized in more fundamental terms. Whether, for example, an object can be thought of as nothing more than a bundle of properties, or a series of events.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/substance/

“Dualism”
The term ‘dualism’ has a variety of uses in the history of thought. In general, the idea is that, for some particular domain, there are two fundamental kinds or categories of things or principles. In theology, for example a ‘dualist’ is someone who believes that Good and Evil ? or God and the Devil ? are independent and more or less equal forces in the world. Dualism contrasts with monism, which is the theory that there is only one fundamental kind, category of thing or principle; and, rather less commonly, with pluralism, which is the view that there are many kinds or categories. In the philosophy of mind, dualism is the theory that the mental and the physical ? or mind and body or mind and brain ? are, in some sense, radically different kinds of thing. Because common sense tells us that there are physical bodies, and because there is intellectual pressure towards producing a unified view of the world, one could say that materialist monism is the ‘default option’. Discussion about dualism, therefore, tends to start from the assumption of the reality of the physical world, and then to consider arguments for why the mind cannot be treated as simply part of that world.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/

“Functionalism”
Functionalism in the philosophy of mind is the doctrine that what makes something a mental state of a particular type does not depend on its internal constitution, but rather on the way it functions, or the role it plays, in the system of which it is a part. This doctrine is rooted in Aristotle's conception of the soul, and has antecedents in Hobbes's conception of the mind as a “calculating machine”, but it has become fully articulated (and popularly endorsed) only in the last third of the 20th century.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/functionalism/

Q: What is “subject-object” dualism? (This is not a difficult question!)

Q: What is “methodological solipsism”? Read the two general definitions below and define it by yourself.

Reductionism
1. the theory that every complex phenomenon, especially in biology or psychology, can be explained by analyzing the simplest, most basic physical mechanisms that are in operation during the phenomenon.
2. the practice of simplifying a complex idea, issue, condition, or the like, especially to the point of minimizing, obscuring, or distorting it.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/reductionism

Solipsism
1 [Philosophy] the theory that only the self exists, or can be proved to exist.
2.extreme preoccupation with and indulgence of one's feelings, desires, etc.; egoistic self-absorption.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/solipsism

Q: What is the idea suggested by the term “aggregatism”? Explain the idea by using the expression “average human being[s]”.

p. 6

Q: Explain the idea of “decompostionality” by using the episode of Humpty Dumpty.

pp. 6-7

Q: Read the quotation from Descartes (1637 /1960) and explain the unshakable foundation that he thought he found.

Q: Explain Descartes’s dualism that you can identify in the quotation.

Q: Summarize the four implications that the author of this chapter extends from Descartes’s argument.

p. 8

Q: Explain the American behaviorism in the first half of the 20th century.

pp. 8-9

Q: What is the “cognitive revolution”? You may want to read a short review paper: The cognitive revolution: a historical perspective by George A. Miller:

http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~rit/geo/Miller.pdf

Q: Explain the four contributions Chomsky made.

p. 10

Q: Can the American behaviorism be sustained in the quotation (Brown and Bellugi, 1964 / 1970, p. 91). If not, why?

Q: What is the idea of “learners as active hypothesis-testers”?

p. 11

Q: What did Corder problematize in his 1967 paper?

Q: What is the “built-in syllabus”?

p. 12

Q: What did Dulay and Burt hypothesize about SLA? Do you find any connection between the hypothesis and Chomsky’s claim?

p. 13

Q: In what sense is Krashen cognitivist?

Q: How did Schmidt come up with his noticing hypothesis?

p. 14

Q: Is Schmidt’s noticing hypothesis Chomskyean?

Q: Explain what the author means when he suggests that Schmidt returned to Descartes.

p. 15

Q: Do Doughty and Long neglect the social aspect of SLA altogether? If not, how do they see it?

p. 16

Q: What do you think about the quotation from Doughty and Long (2003, p. 866)?

[More articles are to follow to cover the rest of the book]

My response to Takashi Matsui concerning the Keio symposium on Pedagogical Grammar

2011-09-13T09:47:00.003+09:00

Takashi Matsui, one of the official commentators at the Keio Symposium on Pedagogical Grammar (see the hashtag "#keiopg" on Twitter) repeats his questions to the panelists (including me as the modulator) in the latest article on his blog.

Here is my translation of his questions.

1 When did you, as a learner, feel that you embodied the 'system of English grammar' or 'mechanism of English'?

Was the system/mechanism the whole of what you had learned? Was it condensed, compressed or crystallized? Or did you feel something inexplicable that was larger than the whole?

2 While the notion of 'pedagogical grammar' often connotes a reductive description of the entire 'whole' of English grammar (with different degrees of simplification), the notion of Lexical Approach advocated by Michael Lewis (1993) (“language consists of grammaticalised lexis---not lexicalised grammar.”) suggests a piecemeal approach. I believe the approach is an anti-thesis to our conventional idea of pedagogical grammar in the sense that it regards the conventional pedagogical grammar as a 'useless whole' and claims itself as 'useful accumulation of pieces'. What's your opinion?

3 Relating to the two questions above, what's your opinion about the 'minimal essentials', 'selection of learning materials' or 'sequence of learning/instruction'?

[Please go to http://d.hatena.ne.jp/tmrowing/20110912 to read the original in Japanese.

I believe I have touched upon these issues in my remarks at the symposium or in my blog articles before it, but I didn't answer his questions directly in the way he framed. So, here's my answer.

1' I may not share the assumption of the first question that I felt I have embodied the 'system or mechanism' of English. I certainly felt on various occasion the 'hang' (or 'knack') of using English as a foreign language, but I'm not exactly sure whether it was the systematic whole as you suggest in the second paragraph of the first question. There are two episodes, though, that show the senses of progress that I felt in my language learning: dreaming at night in English and beginning to find a 'voice' in the print, as I wrote in "'Feeling' of language as a sign of autopoiesis".

2' The contrast between the 'systematic whole' of traditional grammar versus the 'ad hoc pieces' of (very flexible) pedagogical grammar is one of the issues that I find the most interesting in the symposium arguments. As an act of communication (cf My summary of Swan, Michael (1994) "Design Criteria for Pedagogic Language Rules"), (meta)linguistic account of pedagogical grammar should be particularized to the needs of a particular learner and hence be ad hoc. However, an inconsistent series of 'convenient fictions' as provisional accounts of pedagogical grammar (Please read my summary of Leech, Geoffrey N. (1994) “Students’ Grammar -- Teachers’ Grammar -- Learners’ Grammar”) would only lead to the confusion of the learner. The systematic approach and the ad hoc approach must complement each other. So I believe the lexical approach is quite effective, but it should be supplemented by some systematic account of English grammar.

3' The third question is indeed related to the second question in particular, and I believe the 'minimal essentials', 'selection of learning materials' or 'sequence of learning/instruction' must be specifically designed and implemented. (After all, it is what teaching is all about.) It should be added, though, that there should be more than one type of essentials, selections, or sequences in English teaching. An ex-bureaucrat of the Ministry of Education, Japan, commented after the symposium that the primary reason of dropping the subject of 'English Grammar' from the high school curriculum was to deregulate grammatical teaching (well, at least, this is what he said.) Pedagogical grammar descriptions should compete with each other to better satisfy the needs of various learners at different stages of language development and with different motivations for language acquisition. I do not have my own version of pedagogical grammar, and all I've been doing so far is writing a comment like this one.

I thank again Matsui-sensei for his direct question style. This is one of the things Japanese linguistic culture needs.

Swan, Michael (1994) "Design Criteria for Pedagogic Language Rules"

2011-09-12T19:17:00.002+09:00

Swan, Michael (1994) "Design Criteria for Pedagogic Language Rules" is another paper I quickly read after the Pedagogical Grammar Symposium at Keio University. However, I did not find the paper very informative or enlightening. Yet, it is important to share the knowledge that I'm supposed to have when discussing pedagoic(al) grammar.

'Pedagogic rules' and 'pedagogic grammar'

The following definition by Swan seems obvious, but I'd like to call your attention to the parts that I italicized.

By 'pedagogic rules' I mean rules which are designed to help foreign-language learners understand particular aspects of the languages they are studying (whether these rules are addressed directly to the learners, or to teachers and materials writers who are expected to pass on the rules to the learners in one form or another, is immaterial). I shall refer to a collection of such rules, unoriginally, as a 'pedagogic grammar'. (p. 45)

The italicized part suggests that pedagogic(al) grammar -- hereafter 'pedagogical grammar' for my expressions-- is learner-specific: it should be designed for a particular type of learners, on a particular stage of language development, with a particular linguistic background, of a particular cognitive capabilities and so on. In this sense, writing or explaining pedagogical grammar is nothing but an instance of language use, a linguistic communication. Using metalinguistic descriptions of the target/object language to learners must be thought of, and refined as, an act of linguistic communication.

Going back to Swan's paper, he lists six criteria of pedagogical grammar. But as he says, the first three criteria are general conditions that apply to any kind of rules (they are, in fact, unattainable ideals in pedagogical grammar in my opinion).

General criteria of rules: truth, demarcation, and clarity.

The following three are general criteria, which are, I guess, self-explanatory.

(a) Truth: Rules should be true. (p. 46)

(b) Demarcation: A rule⁽¹⁾ should show clearly what are the limits on the use of a given form. (p. 47)

(c) Clarity: Rules should be clear. (p. 48)

Note (1): Although what Swan actually says is "A pedagogic rule" , I deleted "pedagogic" here because these three criteria are, as Swan himself says, "relevant to any kind of rule." (p. 46)

Three criteria for pedagogical grammar

Swan lists simplicity, conceptual parsimony, and relevance as criteria for pedagogic grammar.

(d) Simplicity: A pedagogic rule should be simple. There is inevitably some trade-off with truth and/or clarity. (p. 48)

(e) Conceptual parsimony: An explanation must make use of the conceptual framework available to the learner. It may be necessary to add to this. If so, one should aim for minimum intervention. (p. 50)

(f) Relevance⁽²⁾: A rule should answer the question (and only the question) that the student's English is 'asking'.

Note (2): Swan's "relevance" is quite different from the notion of "relevance" in Relevance Theory.

As simplification in pedagogical grammar descriptions is one of our main topics from the previous article, I'll quote Swan on this topic.

The first quotation endorses our proposition that simplification is necessary in pedagogical grammar.

One of the things that distinguish pedagogic rules sharply from general-purpose descriptive rules is the requirement that they be simple. The truth is of no value if it cannot be understood, and since ordinary language learners tend to have limited prior knowledge and are not usually natural grammarians, some degree of simplification is nearly always necessary. (p. 49)

The second quotation reminds us that descriptions of pedagogical grammar, or using them in a teacher's explanation, is also an act of communication.

Whether or not a particular simplification is valid depends ultimately on who it is addressed to, how much they already know, how much they are capable of taking in, and what value they and their teachers place on complete accuracy. (p. 50)

A use of pedagogical grammar, as an act of communication, is to achieve its perlocutionary act. Having learners understand the illocutionary act (i.e., the teacher is trying to teach the students grammar) is too obvious and not enough (The locutionary act of having learners comprehend the literal meaning of grammatical descriptions including technical terms is not enough, either). The perlocutionary act that the teacher intends is enabling learners to make use of the grammatical rules she is trying to embody in them. In order to achieve the goal, the teacher must do her best in her linguistic communication: achieving the optimal relevance in the sense of Relevance Theory.

As Sperber and Wilson integrated the four Gricean maxims into one: Relevance, I believe we can, and should in terms of Occams' razor, integrate the above six criteria into Relevance, as I argued in "Two EFL pedagogical grammar books by Akira TAJINO and Goro TAJIRI"). In a language classroom, the target/object language is not the only language that is used communicatively. So is the metalanguage of pedagogical grammar.

Swan, Michael (1994) "Design Criteria for Pedagogic Language Rules" In Bygate, Martin, Tonkyn, Alan and Williams, Eddie (eds.) Grammar and the Language Teacher. New York: Prentice Hall. pp. 45-55.

Leech, Geoffrey N. (1994) “Students’ Grammar -- Teachers’ Grammar -- Learners’ Grammar”

2011-09-12T15:18:00.003+09:00

Leech, Geoffrey N. (1994) “Students’ Grammar -- Teachers’ Grammar -- Learners’ Grammar” is one of the papers I should have (re)read before the Keio Symposium on Pedagogical Grammar (Please check tweets with the hashtag "#keiopg." Almost all tweets are in Japanese, though.) I thank commentators on Twitter who suggested these articles. Below is my quick summary of the paper.

Teachers' Grammar in between Academic Grammar and Grammar for Learners

As the first paper of a book based the BAAL conference on 'Grammar for the Second Language Classroom' in 1991 (p. 7), Leech first distinguishes 'teachers' grammar' from both 'academic grammar (for university students)' and 'grammar for learners'. In between 'academic grammar' that is supposed to be 'theoretical and descriptive' and 'grammar for learners' that is to be 'practical, selective, sequenced, task-oriented, etc.' (p. 17), 'teachers' grammar', Leech argues, is to provide teachers with a 'mature communicative knowledge' of grammar (p. 18). Leech gives five items of what a teacher is ideally required to do with this knowledge.

(a) Grammar as a communicative system: be capable of putting across a sense of how grammar interacts with the lexicon as a communicative system (both 'communicativeness' and 'system' will need independent attention;

(b) Analysing learners' grammatical difficulties: be able to analyse the grammatical problems that learners encounter;

(c) Evaluating the use of grammar: have the ability and confidence to evaluate the use of grammar, especially by learners, against criteria of accuracy, appropriateness and expressiveness;

(d) Contrastive grammar: be aware of the contrastive relations between native language and foreign language;

(e) Process of simplification: understand and implement the process of simplification by which overt knowledge of grammar can best be presented to learners at different stages of learning. (pp. 18-22)

The symposium dealt with these items ((b) and (e) in particular; (a) and (c) as shared assumptions; and (e) as a future task), but failed to make an explicit distinction between teachers' grammar and learners' grammar by using an general term pedagogical grammar. I regret as the modulator that we failed to explicitly make this distinction that was in fact shared by most of the panelists.

Learners' grammar as a 'convenient fiction'

The point (d), processes of simplification, was particularly discussed in the symposium, with a nice phrase by Yukio Otsu 「優しいウソ」(a convenient fiction). Teachers are justified to provide learners with simplified account of grammar, considering the limited cognitive capacities of students, but on the other hand, those 'convenient fictions,' when given thoughtlessly, may just confuses learners.

Leech also said as follows:

Simplification is necessarily in conflict with telling the whole truth about the language: by simplifying we indulge to some extent in fiction, by either overgeneralisation or undergeneralisation. (p. 21)

However, 'convenient fictions' are generally used in school education, for they're necessary as instructional scaffolding or "a ladder to be thrown away". Teachers are to use (and even create) convenient fictions in the form of 'rules of thumb' carefully and systematically.

'Fuzzy' view of grammar does not say that grammar is chaotic or haphazard.

Leech theoretically justifies 'rules of thumb' in grammar by introducing the notion of 'fuzziness' in prototype theory. Yet, after showing a brief analysis of 'the 's genitive and the of construction', he concludes that the notion of prototype is not all-sufficient, as there sometimes is a fairly clear-cut distinction. Teachers do not have a free hand to to create whatever convenient fictions as they like. As pedagogical grammar, the rules of thumb provided as 'convenient fictions' must avoid inviting unnecessary confusion in learners.

As Masashi Kubono said in the symposium, teachers should avoid 'convenient fictions' whenever they can; teachers are to provide 'truth' as much as possible. Education, after all, is an intellectual challenge.

***

Leech, Geoffrey N. (1994). “Students’ Grammar -- Teachers’ Grammar -- Learners’ Grammar.” In Bygate, Martin, Tonkyn, Alan and Williams, Eddie (eds.). (1994). Grammar and the Language Teacher. New York: Prentice Hall. pp. 17-30.

'Feeling' of language as a sign of autopoiesis

2011-09-07T21:37:00.003+09:00

1 I was a speech synthesizer of English with good deciphering functions

English, my foreign language, was only a code for me for many years. Even after I became a university student, it wasn't really "felt" by me. Before I enter university, I had little experience of using English in real communication. More than that, I rarely heard a voice of a native speaker of English. English texts were read aloud by teachers or students, both Japanese, but usually what we heard was 'sounds' (that were to be recognized, more or less, as English) rather than human voices with real feelings. In fact, when a teacher brought a tape recorder to class one day in my high school days, I just didn't see why he brought such a gadget in an English class. The teacher played a recorded voice of a native speaker of English for one minute or so, saying that it should be a 'good experience' for us. It was the only time I heard a voice of a native speaker of English in my high school days. It is not that we had no tape recorders in Japan in those days, though (I was born in 1963). It was just that teachers and students believed that English classes were only for developing deciphering skills for college entrance examinations.

By the time I went to university, I was able to read English texts to the extent I was able to correctly answer questions in tests (texts we read included those by Bertrand Russell or Somerset Maugham, for example). But when I was reading a text, I only heard in my mind sounds of the words decoded by me for processing. I was a good decoder of English, both for sounds and meaning. I produced sounds of the words like a speech synthesizer so that I could process them for meaning.

So when I was assigned a role in an English play (The Deep Blue Sea, as it was) in a language learning group (English Speaking Society: ESS), I really didn't know what to do. The director asked me to say the lines with emotions, but I never knew how I could express emotions in English. Fortunately, one kind English gentleman (Professor of philosophy, in fact) recorded his vocal reading of the entire play and I just tried to imitate his voice from a tape recorder.

As university and ESS gave me opportunities to use English for communicative purposes, I gradually began to 'feel' English. One episode I recall clearly was when I had a dream in English for the first time. In the dream, I was reading aloud a book written in English. I didn't exactly remember the meaning, but I recall the emotions and passions that I felt as I found I was reading the book in the dream.

Another episode was the realization, a gradual one, that I was beginning to hear a human voice as I read an English text by myself. What I heard was not the artificially synthesized sounds as it had been, but a voice of the writer or narrator of the text as I imagined. From the text, a voice 'emerged' with (what I regarded as) real feelings. The voice that I heard (i.e. I produced in my mind) had natural expressions. I can't recall the exact moment when I heard such a voice for the first time, but it was indeed impressive, and if I'm to name an interesting experience in my language learning history, I wouldn't fail to mention this episode.

2 Six stages of development of an L2 learner

After I read Damasio's Self Comes to Mind recently, some concepts are clearer for me. The concepts include those of emotions, feelings, mind and self. (Please refer to my previous article: A summary of Damasio’s “Self Comes to Mind”). In this current article, I use these concepts and argue that feeling of language is an important sign of autopoietic foreign language learning, and hence an L2 self creation.

Let's review the concepts briefly.

Emotions are automatic actions (or reactions) initiated by the body when it is affected by some stimulus or perturbation from its environment (there are, though, also emotions that arise from earlier emotions within the same body system -- internal emotions triggered by internal emotions). The body initiates them with its physiological structure it inherited from evolution before its birth and constructed from collective culture and from personal learning after birth. The structure is best fit for the survival of the body (the most important value for any living system), and more emotions (both in terms of volumes and kinds) arise from the stimulus or perturbation that is more important for the survival. Yet, there are varieties of emotions, some of which may not seem to be not directly related to the survival in the literal sense.

Feelings are the perception of the emotions (We see a self-referential relation here). When emotions in the body are particularly felt by (or within) itself, they become feelings. So, expressions like emotional feelings or feeling of emotions are used interchangeably with feeling. (Feeling is ambiguous because it can be either a noun or a gerund; A feeling as a noun is a perception of a particular emotion, whereas feeling as a gerund is perception of various emotions in general.)

A mind can be a completely nonconscious cognitive mechanism, as in the case of a simple life system. In humans, some cognition is mapped on the neural networks to become images, self-referential representations of the cognition. Images are sensed in consciousness, and in it, become usable for recalling the past and simulating the future.

The conscious mind possesses not just primordial feeling, the very basic sense of its own being, but also some sense of subjectivity and agency: the awareness of objects in the world, of the material me that are affected by the objects, and of the self-referential I that senses them.

The conscious mind is a self; protoself when it only has the primordial feeling, and core self when it senses subjectivity and agency as well. An extended mind with the use of language is called autobiographical self, as it has the sense of its own identity that extends from the past to the future imaginable.

With these concepts, we may formulate developmental stages of an L2 learner ('L2' here is a general term that both refers to a foreign language and a second language in the strict sense. However, my arguments are mostly based upon foreign language learners, as my primary interest is Japanese learners of English as a foreign language.)

(1) Protoself as a newborn

(2) Core self as a pre-linguistic child

(3) L1 autobiographical self (= L1 self)

(4) L1 self with L2 protoself

(5) L1 self with L2 core self

(6) L1 self with L2 autobiographical self

A baby will quickly develop from (1) (a protoself) to (2) (a core self) and begins to acquire L1 to become (3) (an L1 autobiographical self), where she finds (or rather constructs) her identity with L1.

Our interest lies in later stages from (4) to (6). (4) (an L1 self with L2 protoself) emerges probably in the first few hours (or even minutes) of foreign language learning, when a learner just listens to and, if possible, try to imitate foreign sounds without really understanding what she is doing.

As learning progresses, the learner, being mostly an L1 self with only a protoself for L2, begins to have a sense of subjectivity and agency in L2 as well. She begins to feel herself in or under her use of L2. She is not just a parrot to reproduce or echo what she hears. Although very clumsily, she somehow tries to control her L2, and she is here on the stage of L1 self with L2 core self. She also begins to feel that she possesses her L2 self as one of her own resources (ownership, another feature of core self.) She feels her L2 self, still not full-fledged, possessing the sense of subjectivity, agency and ownership.

As a learner further learns and uses a foreign language, English in our argument, she becomes more capable of expressing about persons or things around her from her perspective. What she says in English is an expression of the relationship between persons or things around herself and herself. 'Self-expression' is a term that is usually used for describing oneself, but in a sense, all you say is a self-expression, for any utterance in communication is always related to yourself (A sentence in syntax is not). Using L2 for communicative purposes is to express a view from your standpoint with an L2 as the medium for that expression. She may of course choose to relate to nothing but herself. She can describe what she recalls as her past or what she foresees as her future. She is now on the stage of (6): L1 self with L2 autobiographical self. She is now capable of expressing her world in two languages, not to the equal degree or in the same manner, but she has a dual self, two language selves in unity. (Please read my essay "Where is Self, and what is it?" No, it's rather "How is Self?": Luhmann's theory of autopoiesis.)

3 'Feeling' in autopoiesis

In the development from (4) to (5), and then (6), I believe a learner often senses feelings in L2. I argue that feeling is an important index that indicates the transformation of herself: autopoiesis. (Autopoiesis is a self-referential self-reproduction. A self produces a new self using (only) itself as resources. )

On stage (4) (L1 self with L2 protoself), a learner has only a weak L2 self (protoself) because she typically finds herself only listening to or tying to reproduce foreign sounds that are not clearly meaningful to her. As these sounds are not substantially related to herself, she may not initiate much emotion with that language use. Her sense of self mainly derives from her L1 self.

As she develops into stage (5) (L1 self with L2 core self), a learner finds herself firmly in L2 use; her sense of subjectivity in L2 is a sign that she feels her being in or under her use of L2; her sense of agency is an indication that she feels doing something on her own in L2; her sense of ownership is a recognition that she feels possessing herself as an L2 self. All these things she feels -- being, doing something, and possessing herself, all in L2 -- must be based on emotions, (re)actions of the body, because after all these are what she feels: feeling is the perception of nothing but emotions, according to our understanding along with Damasio.

When a learner feels something in L2 use, some emotions must be there in her, which are an index of her being involved in the L2 use. If it is not a matter or life or death, something vital must happen in order for emotions to arise, and then for feelings to be perceived. So if nothing is felt in language use, it suggests that a learner's self is not really involved. If something is felt, on the other hand, it is an index that reveals that a learner's self, a new L2 self, is emerging in autopoiesis. Something in herself is expressed in emotions and she feels the emotions. That feeling is a sign of creating a new self, for something new is found in herself. With the use of L2 she transforms her old self into a new self. Feeling is a sign of autopoiesis. (We're deeply committed in radical constructivism here.)

You cannot feel anything unless some part of yourself is involved. If, on the other hand, you ever feel something, it means that you're relating to yourself that is related to whatever is around you -- and this relation manifests itself as emotions. If you're relating to yourself related with something else, you, as conscious mind, find that you're relating to yourself related with something else -- and that finding takes the form of feelings. This finding, or awareness, is a second-order observation, which is a creation of a new you, autopoiesis

In my early days of learning English as a foreign language, I found English as a code rather than a language. I was able to process it, but didn't feel much in it. I argue now that not much of myself was involved in the use then. That is probably why I did not hear a human voice with proper expressions coming from the text I was reading. In the text, I didn't really find much of myself, which should be the basis of any feeling of emotions. As I didn't find myself, the text in front of me had nothing to strike itself against to produce emotions in me. There was not much emotion, hence I didn't feel much as I read the text. Without much emotional feeling in me, the text in front of me had no way to produce an expressive voice from itself in relation to me. (The same text, if it is related to a native speaker, would have produced a very personal voice).

Of course, as I understood the cognitive meaning of the text, cognitive part of myself must have been involved. And cognitive part of myself and affective part are not really distinguishable clearly (in fact, all cognition must be based on emotions as the basis of our being). So, it's not that I did not feel anything whatsoever; If so, I wouldn't have started to use English communicatively in those or later days.

Language learning as learning to use a language for communication is a construction of L2 self. One definite sign of the construction is feeling something in language use, for, in the autopoietic construction of L2 self, feeling shows that some part of yourself (related to something else) is being related to you -- with emotions--, and also that you find the you (as yourself) with that relation -- with feelings--. The you that finds the yourself with the relation is the new you. And if the new you is constructed and found through L2, the new you is an L2 self. You are creating a new L2 self, and that is language learning.

Next time you learn or teach a language, see if you or your students are feeling anything. If not, you may be dealing with a code, not a human language.

Postscript

I'm still in the process of learning (to use) English as a foreign language. What I write in this medium, a much less satisfactory one than my first language, Japanese, is always, seen from the standpoint of myself as L1 self, a failure. But this failure, or to be more exact, finding this failure with emotional feelings is a sign of my development as an L2 user. As I feel something while I write in English, some part of me must be being transformed and I must be feeling this transformation (or some result of this transformation). This feeling of emotions may not be expressible in language, either in English or in Japanese, as the emotions are related to myself (related to something else) at a deep level. The emotions are implicit, although the feeling of them are somewhat less implicit, or explicit in comparison. Feeling the sense of failure, as well as feeling the sense of success or whatever, is a sign of my transformation as a language learner. I'd better feel something, if I ever want to learn to use a language for communicative purposes.

After all, all is said by Bruce Lee: Don't think; Feel.

:-)

A summary of Damasio’s “Self Comes to Mind”

2011-09-04T20:02:00.006+09:00

Below is my summary of Antonio Damasio's Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain. Part of my motivation to write a summary is to think about pedagogical grammar, the topic of the Keio University symposium on September 10, 2011. However, the summary below is not meant for that topic alone, but for the general issue of consciousness.

1 Let's not overestimate or underestimate consciousness

Consciousness is often overestimated in the modern times. We may find a source for that in the Bible, because science, one important feature of the modern times, has been established by appropriating the God's view; Humans have learned to see the world as if God viewed it. Humans in the modern times, at least many educated ones, have their secularized version of God in their cognition.

Genesis 1: 27 says: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them". Modern humans, much under the influence of Western civilization, have their own image in the image of a secularized God: omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. Omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence are the modern ideal of science and technology. It is not surprising, I'd argue, if many of us think of ourselves along this line.

Our sense of ourselves are made in the arena of consciousness. "We" are often conscious we. This is probably part of the reason why Freud's unconsciousness shocked many Europeans. The neuroscience's discovery of nonconsciousness, deeper than unconsciousness and undetectable by consciousness, has still been shocking us, inviting ethical and legal discussions. Yet, when unaffected by these findings, our ordinary concept of ourselves is that we, the conscious being, are, in our own world of cognition and action, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent: We believe (or want to believe) that we know ourselves, control ourselves and our consciousness is present everywhere in ourselves.

A simple failure in dieting tells us otherwise. We don't know ourselves or control ourselves, at least completely; our consciousness does not cover ourselves entirely. We need a better understanding of ourselves, our consciousness of course included. We should stop overestimating the power of consciousness.

Here's Damasio explaining his agenda. He is against the modern tradition of viewing consciousness predominantly.

I am reversing the narrative sequence of the traditional account of consciousness by having covert knowledge of life management precede the conscious experience of any such knowledge. (p. 35)

But at the same time, we should avoid underestimating consciousness. That is why reading a book like Antonio Damasio's Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain constitutes an important part of education in modern (or post-modern) times.

1.1 Neuron

Because our cognition and action are largely constituted by the brain, we need to understand its basic constituent: neurons. Neurons are a special type of cells in that they "produce electrochemical signals capable of changing the state of other cells (p. 37)." Neurons, a part of the body themselves, represents the body.

In the elaborate brains of complex creatures, however, networks of neurons eventually come to mimic the structure of parts of the body to which they belong. They end up representing the state of the body, literally mapping the body for which they work and constituting a sort of virtual surrogate of it, a neural double. (p. 38)

In other words, neurons are about the body (p. 39), and this "aboutness", or representational capacity, makes the body a "natural topic of the mind" (p. 89). Damasio further suggests:

as far as the brain is concerned, the body proper is more than just any object: it is the central object of brain mapping, the very first focus of its attentions. (p. 92)

The body needs to the central topic of the brain indeed, for our most important task, survival, depends upon maintaining the homeostasis of the body, and for that purpose the brain needs information about the body (Homeostasis can be maintained in a brainless life system, but such a system cannot cope with an irregular change that requires special care). Given its significance, neurons' information of the body "could ever have been translated into a minded, conscious will." (p. 39) We had consciousness for a better chance of survival in our evolution.

1.2 Mind, body and objects

In addition to the central topic, the body, the brain of course has other important topics that are significant for its survival: objects in the outside world. The brain should recognize them and hopefully keep the memory of them. But the memory is not just an 'objective' snapshot; it is (indeed must be) related to us, the body and the brain.

The organism (the body and its brain) interacts with objects, and the brain reacts to the interaction. Rather than making a record of an entity’s structure, the brain actually records the multiple consequences of the organism’s interactions with the entity. (p. 132)

Damasio continues:

What we normally refer to as the memory of an object is the composite memory of the sensory and motor activities related to the interaction between the organism and the object during a certain period of time. (p. 133)

Our memories are not 'objective' ("not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased" Random House Dictionary).

Our memories are prejudiced, in the full sense of the term, by our past history and beliefs. Perfectly faithful memory is a myth, applicable only to trivial objects. The notion that the brain ever holds anything like an isolated “memory of the object” seems untenable. The brain holds a memory of what went on during an interaction, and the interaction importantly includes our own past, and often the past of our biological species and of our culture. (p. 133)

So, what we consciously sense is not just about things (objects in the world) or ourselves (the body), but the interactions between the objects, the body and the brain. Consciousness is not a mirror of the world. It is about its being with itself and other things.

Here we have one definition of consciousness.

consciousness is a state of mind in which there is knowledge of one’s own existence and of the existence of surroundings. Consciousness is a state of mind -- if there is no mind there is no consciousness; consciousness is a particular state of mind, enriched by a sense of the particular organism in which a mind is operating; and the state of mind includes knowledge to the effect that the said existence is situated, that there are objects and events surrounding it. Consciousness is a state of mind with a self process added to it.

The interaction between the body and the objects causes some changes in the body, and those changes are represented in neurons in the brain (p. 91). But what is the point of the representation? One, which we confirmed, is that conscious awareness of the significant changes in the body is advantageous for survival, particularly for irregular changes. Another point is the memory. Representation allows a past event, which is gone now, to be recorded in the brain. By having a brain with the representational capacity, humans ceased to be an animal of just 'here and now'. They learned to use the information of the past for a present purpose. They became a historical being, with its time extended from 'now' to remembered pasts.
But representation can extend our time into the other direction: future. The other advantage of the representation is that it can be rearranged so that the brain can simulate a possible move in the future.

the brain can simulate, within somatosensing regions, certain body states, as if they were occurring; and because our perception of any body state is rooted in the body maps of the somatosensing regions, we perceive the body state as actually occurring even if it is not. (pp. 101-102).

By this simulation, we can rehearse not a possible course of actions and avoid the risk of the actual trial and error. (Please read my essay "Prospective Consciousness" if you're interested). Damasio argues that the mirror neurons is another type of simulation using the representational capacity of the brain.

So-called mirror neurons are, in effect, the ultimate as-if body device. The network in which those neurons are embedded achieves conceptually what I hypothesized as the as-if body loop system: the simulation, in the brain’s body maps, of a body state that is not actually taking place in the organism. (p. 103)

The brain that is both embodied in the body and embedded in the surrounding world can represent itself (i.e., the interaction between the world, the body and itself). It can use the representation for recalling the past experience and for simulating possible future scenarios.

1.3 A first stage and a second stage as a self-reference of the first

Damasio further elaborates the issues of consciousness by introducing the concepts of disposition and image, of emotion and feeling, of mind and self, among other concepts. I try to summarize these concepts below, but the way I understand the concepts is that these pair concepts are not mutually exclusive or complementary; they are pairs of one and another, the latter being a self-reference of the former.

The first item (disposition, emotion, or mind) is a stage onto which the second item is self-referentially augmented. The first item is not replaced by the second, but rather, supplemented. But it is not just an addition of a distinct unit. The second item is the result of a self-reference (or reentry, if you prefer) of the first item: Image is a self-reference of disposition; feeling is a self-reference of emotion; and self is a self-reference of mind.

So I give my version of summary of the concepts of disposition/image, emotion/feeling and mind/self in the frame work of self-reference.

2 Disposition and image

We have image as a self-reference of disposition. Let's start from explaining disposition.

2.1 Implicit disposition

Humans were not conscious beings for a long time before they became conscious (Read my summary of Julian Jayne's argument, if you like.) Early humans acted largely on their implicit memories. Humans acted in some way or another for survival and they did not exactly know what they were doing. They acted upon dispositions.

Our memories of things, of properties of things, of people and places, of events and relationships, of skills, of life-management processes -- in short all of our memories, inherited from evolution and available at birth or acquired through learning thereafter -- exist in our brains in dispositional form, waiting to become explicit images or actions. Our knowledge base is implicit, encrypted, and unconscious. (p. 144)

Just like other animals learn to go away from a hit, for example, early humans learned to move away from a hit. The learning was a very simple one of disposition.

What was needed was a detection of the hit, a command device, and the ability to move. That’s all. What seems to have been represented by these brain ensembles is not maps but rather dispositions, know-how formulas that code for something like this: if hit from one side, move in the opposite direction for X number of seconds, regardless of the object hitting you or of where you are. (p. 134).

Damasio states that dispositions are non-linguistic or pre-linguistic. They are not represented linguistically or explicitly. They are rather a prerequisite for linguistic expressions in the first place.

Dispositions are not words; they are abstract records of potentialities. The basis for the enactment of words or signs also exists as dispositions before they come to life in the form of images and actions, as in the production of speech or sign language. The rules with which we put words and signs together, the grammar of a language, are also held as dispositions. (p. 144)

[By the way, pedagogical grammar, one of my current academic interests, is a linguistic device to help learners produce their target language. Uncritical assumption of pedagogical grammar would be that the meta-language in pedagogical grammar of the object language (i.e. the target language) would contribute to the production of the object/target language. However, if the above quotation is correct, the contribution should not be a direct one. It is dispositions, not meta-language, that produces the target language. I'd like to give more thought on this issue on another occasion. ]

2.2 Image as a general term for mental representation

As humans became conscious (and also linguistic) --the exact origin of consciousness and language is another big issue --, they began to represent their learned dispositions. Damasio calls the representations maps.

when the possibility of maps arose, organisms were able to go beyond formulaic responses and respond instead on the basis of the richer information now available in the maps. The quality of management improved accordingly. (p. 135)

Maps are not a replacement of dispositions. Maps (and their images -- I'll explain about the terminology soon) are representation based upon disposition (hence self-reference). In modern humans like us, both dispositions and maps are in operation.

The fascinating fact, then, is that the brain did not discard its true and tried device (dispositions) in favor of the new invention (maps and their images). (p. 135)

Maps, as representation of disposition, tells the brain, the owner of disposition, information about itself for better uses of dispositions.

When the brain makes maps, it informs itself. The information contained in the maps can be used nonconsciously to guide motor behavior efficaciously, a most desirable consequence considering that survival depends on taking the right action. (p. 63)

The evolution does not stop here. Maps, neural representations, turn into images, mental representations, enabling the brain to use them consciously. Immediately after the quotation above, Damasio continues:

But when brains make maps, they are also creating images, the main currency of our minds. Ultimately consciousness allows us to experience maps as images, to manipulate those images, and to apply reasoning to them. (p. 63)

Images, according to Damasio, are the principal media of mind.

images are the main currency of our minds, and that the term refers to patterns of all sensory modalities, not just visual, and to abstract as well as concrete patterns. (p. 160)

In terminology, some people, including Damasio himself in the past, may feel it necessary to distinguish maps and images.

A brief note on terminology: I used to be strict about using the term image only as a synonym of mental pattern or mental image, and the term neural pattern or map to refer to a pattern of activity in the brain as distinct from the mind. (p. 64-65)

However, for someone who stands on physicalism, the employment of two terms, one for the mental and the other for the neural (or physiological), is just aspect dualism.

I was simply indulging in aspect dualism and discussing the way things appear, on their experiential surface. But, of course, so did my friend Spinoza, the standard-bearer for monism, the very opposite of dualism.

But why complicate matters, for myself and for the reader, by using separate terms to refer to two things that I believe to be equivalent? Throughout this book, I use the terms image, map, and neural pattern almost interchangeably. (p. 55)

So we also use the term image for the representation in the brain, both neural and mental. What we experience is mapped in neurons, and what is mapped become images in our consciousness.

A spectacular consequence of the brain’s incessant and dynamic mapping is the mind. The mapped patterns constitute what we, conscious creatures, have come to know as sights, sounds, touches, smells, tastes, pains, pleasures, and the like--in brief, images. (p. 70)

To go back again to the contrast of disposition and image, the former is implicit and the latter is explicit. As perceived representations, images are explicit and we have easy access to and manipulation of them, whereas dispositions are mostly undetected by our consciousness.

The contents exhibited in the image space are explicit, while the contents of the dispositional space are implicit. We can access the contents of images, if we are conscious, but we never access the contents of dispositions directly. Of necessity, the contents of dispositions are always unconscious. They exist in encrypted and dormant form. (p. 143)

3 Emotion and feeling

The second pair of concepts in the self-referential relation is that of emotion and feeling. Let's start from the fundamental one, emotion.

3.1 Emotion

In my understanding, what Damasio means by emotion in contrast with feeling is true with what the word suggests etymologically: emotion derives from motion.

[A linguistic note for Japanese readers: A translation of emotion is 「情動」 and this expresses the meaning of motion nicely with the character 「動」. A translation of feeling ('feeling of emotion', actually, as I'll turn to soon) is 「感情」 and this neatly captures of the sense of 'feeling of emotion' (「感-情」as the feeling (感） of e-motoion (情-動)）. Incidentally, when a Japanese speaker directly senses an emotion, she experiences 「感-動」(feel-ing the e-motion). An interesting match with Damasionian terminology. ]

Emotion is from a motion, or a reaction in the body when something happens to us. It starts from a very basic biological reaction for survival, the most important value for a life.

A discussion of emotions entails an investigation of the extremely varied devices of life regulation available in brains but inspired by principles and goals that anteceded brains and that, by and large, operate automatically and somewhat blindly, until they begin to be known to conscious minds in the form of feelings. Emotions are the dutiful executors and servants of the value principle, the most intelligent offspring yet of biological value. (p. 108)

What happens to us is of course not just a physical matter; A physical event almost always accompanies our cognitive event. So emotion affects us cognitively as well .

Emotions are complex, largely automated programs of actions concocted by evolution. The actions are complemented by a cognitive program that includes certain ideas and modes of cognition, but the world of emotions is largely one of actions carried out in our bodies, from facial expressions and postures to changes in viscera and internal milieu. (p. 109)

[Note: 'Reaction' is an 'action' to a "previous condition" (Collins English Dictionary). I believe the "actions" in the above quotation is interchangeable with "reaction". ]

3.2 Feeling

Emotion as a (re)action is felt when it is conspicuous; This is when feeling (as 'feeling of emotion' or 'emotional feeling') starts.

Feelings of emotion, on the other hand, are composite perceptions of what happens in our body and mind when we are emoting. As far as the body is concerned, feelings are images of actions rather than actions themselves; the world of feelings is one of perceptions executed in brain maps. (p. 109)

Here is how Damasio explains the distinction between emotion and feeling.

While emotions are actions accompanied by ideas and certain modes of thinking, emotional feelings are mostly perceptions of what our bodies do during the emoting, along with perceptions of our state of mind during that same period of time. In simple organisms capable of behavior but without a mind process, emotions can be alive and well, but states of emotional feeling may not necessarily follow. (p. 110)

Because feeling is a perception of (and in) our mind/body being, feeling also includes the feeling of our being in a most fundamental way. The fundamental feeling is called by Damasio priomordial feeling, that becomes the basis of our sense of being and subjectivity.

the feeling of what happens is not the whole story. There is some deeper feeling to be guessed and then found in the depths of the conscious mind. It is the feeling that my own body exists, and it is present, independently of any object with which it interacts, as a rock-solid, wordless affirmation that I am alive. This fundamental feeling, which I had not deemed necessary to note in earlier approaches to this problem, I now introduce as a critical element of the self process. I call it primordial feeling, and I note that it has a definite quality, a valence, somewhere along the pleasure-to-pain range. (p. 185)

So fundamental are primordial feelins that Damasio argues that all feelings of emotions are extensions of the primordial feelings.

All feelings of emotion are variations of the ongoing primordial feelings. All feelings caused by the interaction of objects with the organism are variations of the ongoing primordial feelings. Primordial feelings and their emotional variations generate an observant chorus that accompanies all other images going on in the mind. (p. 193)

Feelings, from the primordial to the extended, make a firm ground of the sense of being, subjectivity, ownership of the feelings, personhood, agency, personal identity and so on. To talk about these, we have to introduce the notion of self, which is a product of a self-reference of mind.

4 Mind and self

4.1 Consciousness in realtion to mind and self

So I explain mind and self in this section. But how are they related to consciousness. Are they different or not? Let's start from clarifying the relationship between mind and consciousness.

Mind as a functional mechanism of congnition and action needs not to be conscious, as is clear in the case of simpler life systems. We know about our mind only after we have consciousness.

Mind is a most natural result of evolution, and it is largely nonconscious, internal, and unrevealed. It comes to be known thanks to the narrow window of consciousness. (p. 177)

The functions of mind is perceived in consciousness, but in that conscious awareness, we find something that senses the functions of mind. The process of that finding is to be called self. Self is something emerges internally. It is not clear or distinct as an entity in the outside world, but it is there in mind.

Consciousness offers a direct experience of mind, but the broker of the experience is a self, which is an internal and imperfectly constructed informer rather than an external, reliable observer. (p. 177)

(We may say that self is an internal process of observing ourselves -- please read my previous essay "Where is Self, and what is it?" No, it's rather "How is Self?": Luhmann's theory of autopoiesis").

We may say consciousness and self come almost at the same time to mind. And then self develops in some stages according to the degree of consciousness involved.

Below is Damasio's hypothesis of the construction of self, divided into two parts. The first part is about the construction of self in a general sense: Self is a process that takes place in a conscious mind where it finds itself.

The hypothesis comes in two parts. The first specifies that the brain constructs consciousness by generating a self process within an awake mind. The essence of the self is a focusing of the mind on the material organism that it inhabits. Wakefulness and mind are indispensable components of consciousness, but the self is the distinctive element. (p. 181)

In the second part of his hypothesis, Damasio introduces three stages of self: protoself, core self, and autobiographical self:

The simplest stage emerges from the part of the brain that stands for the organism (the protoself) and consists of a gathering of images that describe relatively stable aspects of the body and generate spontaneous feelings of the living body (primordial feelings). The second stage results from establishing a relationship between the organism (as represented by the protoself) and any part of the brain that represents an object-to-be-known. The result is the core self. The third stage allows multiple objects, previously recorded as lived experience or as anticipated future, to interact with the protoself and produce an abundance of core self pulses. The result is the autobiographical self. (p. 181).

Let's take a closer look of these three types of self in the following three sub-sections.

4.2 Protoself

Protoself is mostly related to the primordial feelings.

The protoself is the stepping-stone required for the construction of the core self. It is an integrated collection of separate neural patterns that map, moment by moment, the most stable aspects of the organism’s physical structure. The protoself maps are distinctive in that they generate not merely body images but also felt body images. These primordial feelings of the body are spontaneously present in the normal awake brain. (p. 191)

Protoself that is felt leaves in us something undeniable, that must be there at all time as long as we are we.

The protoself is a collection of maps that remains connected interactively with its source, a deep root that cannot be alienated. (p. 200)

4.3 Core self

Core self is a development of protoself, with core consciousness , that provides personhood, firmer senses of being than primordial feelings.

The minimal-scope kind I call core consciousness, the sense of the here and now, unencumbered by much past and by little or no future. It revolves around a core self and is about personhood but not necessarily identity. (p. 168)

Core self, although it is only about here and now -- that is why it is not identity yet --, begins to deal with things around itself consciously, and that consciousness about the dealing gives core self subjectivity and a sense of a protagonist, for without subjectivity or a sense of a protagonist it is not easy to make sense of things in the world perceived or acted upon by something, that is core self.

In thinking about a strategy to construct the self, it is appropriate to start with the requirements for the core self. The brain needs to introduce into the mind something that was not present before, namely, a protagonist. Once a protagonist is available in the midst of other mind contents, and once that protagonist is coherently linked to some of the current mind contents, subjectivity begins to inhere in the process. (p. 201)

Core self with subjectivity and a sense of a protagonist provides a sharper sense of cognition, which we usually call attention.

Changes in the protoself inaugurate the momentary creation of the core self and initiate a chain of events. The first event in the chain is a transformation in the primordial feeling that results in a “feeling of knowing the object,” a feeling that differentiates the object from other objects of the moment. The second event in the chain is a consequence of the feeling of knowing. It is a generation of “saliency” for the engaging object, a process generally subsumed by the term attention, a drawing in of processing resources toward one particular object more than others. The core self, then, is created by linking the modified protoself to the object that caused the modification, an object that has now been hallmarked by feeling and enhanced by attention. (p. 203)

This must indeed be core self, or a 'self in its simple version', for on this level of conscious self, we acquire perspective, ownership, and agency on top of primordial feelings.

In brief, while plunging into the depths of the conscious mind, I discover that it is a composite of different images. One set of those images describes the objects in consciousness. Other images describe me, and the me includes: (1) the perspective in which the objects are being mapped (the fact that my mind has a standpoint of viewing, touching, hearing, and so on, and that the standpoint is my body); (2) the feeling that the objects are being represented in a mind belonging to me and to no one else (ownership); (3) the feeling that I have agency relative to the objects and that the actions being carried out by my body are commanded by my mind; and (4) primordial feelings, which signify the existence of my living body independently of how objects engage it or not. The aggregate of elements (1) through (4) constitutes a self in its simple version. When the images of the self aggregate are folded together with the images of nonself objects, the result is a conscious mind. (pp. 185-186)

However, this basic core self, argues Damasio, does not have to be linguistic yet.

Core consciousness does not require language and must have preceded language, obviously in nonhuman species but also in humans. (p. 172)

Damasio calls the self that involves language autobiographical self.

4.4 Autobiographical self

With language, as a useful medium, memory and reasoning are enhanced. With this enhancement, narratives become possible, giving a core self a still firmer sense of a protagonist, that is an autobiological self.

In brains endowed with abundant memory, language, and reasoning, narratives with this same simple origin and contour are enriched and allowed to display even more knowledge, thus producing a well-defined protagonist, an autobiographical self. Inferences can be added, and actual interpretations of the proceedings can be produced. (p. 204)

Autobiographical self, with its narrative autobiographical consiousness, extends itself from 'here and now' to the past and the future imaginable. This extended self is what we usually refer to as identity.

The big-scope kind I call extended or autobiographical consciousness, given that it manifests itself most powerfully when a substantial part of one’s life comes into play and both the lived past and the anticipated future dominate the proceedings. It is about both personhood and identity. (p. 185-186)

We have reached now to what we know as ourselves. We have started from a noncounsious mind with only dispositions and emotions. When that noncousious mind begins to have images of dispositions and feelings of emotions, it establishes itself self-referentially to make itself a conscious mind. A conscious mind posesses primordial feelings and hence becomes a protoself. When a protoself becomes more self-referential, more aware of its cognitions and actions, a firmer sense of self emerges, which is a core self. When a core self is endowed with language, and thus became able to powefully recall, reason and narrate, it gives itself an extended version of itself, an autobiographical self. This autographical self is, more or less, the life of our conscious mind as we know it.

Now that we have this picture of ourselves, let's go back to our first agenda: avoid over- and under- estimating the power of consciousness. The following section is an attempt to properly estimate the functions of consciousness, and I continue to quote form Damasio's work.

5 Functions of conscious self

5.1 Evolutionary advantage

The evolution of noncouscious mind to autobiographical self must be motivated evolutionally. The largest portion of the evolutionary advantage lies, Damasio says, in how we care the world around us now. With consious self, we are able to connect ourselves with the outside world more advantageously for our well-being. We use images and feelings that we establish within ourselves to better congize and act in this world.

The lion’s share of the advantage, I suspect, comes from the fact that in a conscious mind the processing of environmental images is oriented by a particular set of internal images, those of the subject’s living organism as represented in the self. The self focuses the mind process, it imbues the adventure of encountering other objects and events with a motivation, it infuses the exploration of the world outside the brain with a concern for the first and foremost problem facing the organism: the successful regulation of life. That concern is naturally generated by the self process, whose foundation lies in bodily feelings, primordial and modified. (p. 268)

However, Damasio contends that the ultimate functions of consciousness are for futures, time frames that only an autobiographical self can deal with. We humans as a full-fledged conscious self (at least, so far in the evolutionary history up to now) use memory of the past to deal with not just the actual now but also potential futures.

And what is the ultimate gift of consciousness to humanity? Perhaps the ability to navigate the future in the seas of our imagination, guiding the self craft into a safe and productive harbor. This greatest of all gifts depends, once again, on the intersection of the self and memory. Memory, tempered by personal feeling, is what allows humans to imagine both individual well-being and the compounded well-being of a whole society, and to invent the ways and means of achieving and magnifying that well-being. Memory is responsible for ceaselessly placing the self in an evanescent here and now, between a thoroughly lived past and an anticipated future, perpetually buffeted between the spent yesterdays and the tomorrows that are nothing but possibilities. (p. 298)

For possible futures, we plan and deliberate.

As the process of consciousness became more complex, and as coevolved functions of memory, reasoning, and language were brought into play, further benefits of consciousness were introduced. Those benefits relate largely to planning and deliberation. The advantages here are legion. It became possible to survey the possible future and to either delay or inhibit automatic responses. (p. 268)

If the best part of the functions of consciouness lies in planning and delberation for potential futures, the other side of the same coin means that consciousness is not best fit for a split-second desion now.

In conclusion, what is meant by conscious deliberation has little to do with the ability to control actions in the moment and everything to do with the ability to plan ahead and decide which actions we want or do not want to carry out. Conscious deliberation is largely about decisions taken over extended periods of time, as much as days or weeks in the case of some decisions, and rarely less than minutes or seconds. It is not about split-second decisions. Common knowledge regards lightning-speed choices as “thoughtless” and “automatic.” Conscious deliberation is about reflection over knowledge. We apply reflection and knowledge when we decide on important matters in our lives. We use conscious deliberation to govern our loves and friendships, our education, our professional activities, our relations to others.

The famous aphorism of the centipede unable to walk after it begins to think how to walk already taught us the misuse of consciousness. Use of consciousness for an immediate action is not encouraged at all. (Here, I'm thinking about how pedagogical grammar is to be used for language learning. But this topic is to be left, as I said, for another occasion).

5.2 Interplay of consciousness and nonconsciousness

As consiousness is never omnipotent, omniscient or omnipresent, it should be used in interplays with the other state of mind, noncosciousness. To understand the interplay, we should also learn the power of noncosciousness as well.

Noncouscious cognition, as we confirmed, includes dispositions. Therefore nonconsciousness is to be used for fundamental cognitions and actions, the use of language included. But what about a more complex cognitive task that requires use of many images?

After citing a study by Dijksterhuis and others (2006) "On Making the Right Choice: The Deliberation-Without-Attention Effect" (Science 17 February 2006: Vol. 311 no. 5763 pp. 1005-1007 DOI: 10.1126/science.1121629), Damasio argues for the power of noncousciousness for complex cognitive tasks.

What they do suggest is that nonconscious processes are capable of some sort of reasoning, far more than they are usually thought to be, and that this reasoning, once it has been properly trained by past experience and when time is scarce, may lead to beneficial decisions. (p. 274).

Damasio further argues that our nonconsciousness not only reasons but also has a larger cognitive capacity.

All this goes to say that I very much like the notion that our cognitive unconscious is capable of reasoning and has a larger “space” for operations than the conscious counterpart. (p. 275)

If our nonconsciousness is capable of excecuting complex cognitive tasks than our conciousness, do we ever need consciouness at all? Here, we have to remind ourselves of the 'ultimate gift of consciousness to humanity': the ability to navigate the future (p. 298). Noncousciousness, although fast and vast, can only deal with events to which the past experiences can be appropriately applied. (Please read an account of a firefighter: Prospective Consciousness if you're interested).

The nonconscious space is wide open and suitable for this covert manipulation, but it works to one’s advantage largely because certain options are nonconsciously marked by a bias connected to previously learned emotional-feeling factors. (p. 275)

Consciousness may have started its function with veto of nonconscious execution (cf. "MIND TIME" by Benjamin Libet (and some thoughts of mine)), but it probably developed most as a new device for planning and deliberation. Consciousness turns out to be very useful when humans have to struggle with new events for which the past memories may not be exactly relevant.

But we should not stop here. Because nonconsiousness is better than consiousness at executing tasks, both simple and complex, as long as the past experiences are relevant, conscious we can teach uncousiousness to do what once was, but no longer is, new. If consiousness can let nonconsiousness do what it has recently learned to do, it can use its resources for something newer.

In the end, the relationship between conscious and nonconscious processes is one more example of the odd functional partnerships that emerge as a result of coevolving processes. Of necessity, consciousness and direct conscious control of actions emerged after nonconscious minds were in place, running the show with plenty of good results but not always. The show could be improved. Consciousness came of age by first restraining part of the nonconscious executives and then exploring them mercilessly to carry out preplanned, predecided actions. Nonconscious processes became a suitable and convenient means to execute behavior and give consciousness more time for further analysis and planning. (p. 270)

This teaching by consiousness to unconsciouness is like human teaching by a teacher to students; that is, not direct or efficient (as we wish it to be). Despite every efforts by a teacher, she cannot transfer her knowledge into students directly. (The teacher and students are different autopoiesis systems, according to Luhmann's systems theory). The language of the teacher is often incomprehensible to students. (We may even say they don't 'speak the same language.') Students react differently, some learn; some don't; some correctly; some distortedly.

The same is probably true when consiousness tries to teach nonconsiousness new tricks. Consciousness cannot transfer what it knows and/or does directly into nonconsiouness. (Consiousness is a psychic system, whereas nonconsiouness is a different, biological system (or an organism)). The 'language' of consiousness is images, linguistic images in particular, while the 'language' of nonconsiouness is mostly dispositions; they don't 'speak the same language.' (Consiousness and nonconsiousness may share some (non-linguistic) images, but they are only slightly mapped onto nonconsciousness). Different parts of nonconsiousness react differently.

This is why we need practice to make ourselves do what we want.

Human childhood and adolescence take the inordinate amount of time that they do because it takes a long, long time to educate the nonconscious processes of our brain and to create, within that nonconscious brain space, a form of control that can, more or less faithfully, operate according to conscious intentions and goals. (p. 269-270)

To use some terms from Luhmann again, how consious we (a 'psychic system') can 'permeate' into or establish 'structural coupling' with nonconsiousness (a biological system or an 'organism') is our issue. We may only have traditional wisdom in this teaching, but the important point is to clear ourselves of the modern overestimated concept of consiousness: consciousness can (or should) control ourselves directly and completely. No direct transfer is possible between consciousness and nonconsciousness. Conscious we can just watch noncousious ourselves practice repeatedly. Consciousness may encourage nonconsiousness, but consciousness can never replace nonconsciousness in its performance; Consciousness must let go of itself to let nonconsciousness go on its own. When we want to make our nonconsciousness do what we consciously planned and deliberated, we really have to be patient.

No less important, we need to be aware of the peculiar hurdle faced by our consciously deliberated decisions--they have to find a way into the cognitive unconscious in order to permeate the action machinery--and we need to facilitate that influence. One way to transpose the hurdle would be the intense conscious rehearsal of the procedures and actions we wish to see nonconsciously realized, a process of repeated practice that results in mastering a performing skill, a consciously composed psychological action program gone underground. (p. 281)

Patient as we must be, we may still learn to be better in our teaching to nonconsiousness. We can probably 'get the knack of it' or 'get the hang of it.' [For those interested in Japanese: The Japanese language has an idiom kotsu wo tsukamu (「骨をつかむ」）, whose literal translation would be "to get the bone structure." In Japanese martial arts, realizing the movement of the bone structure in performance is sometimes emphasized.] We should be skillful in making ourselves be skillful. (Welcome back, self-reference!).

Outsourcing expertise to the nonconscious space is what we do when we hone a skill so finely that we are no longer aware of the technical steps needed to be skillful. We develop skills in the clear light of consciousness, but then we let them go underground, into the roomy basement of our minds, where they do not clutter the exiguous square footage of conscious reflection space. (p. 275)

6 Conclusion

The overestimation of consciousness lies in the modern tradition in which we wish to believe that conscious we can move the body as we wishand that conscious cognition and action are better than unconsious cognition and action.

However, we now know that our consciousness knows only a small part of ourselves; conscious cognition and action may not compete with nonconscious cognition and action; consciousness is particularly bad for an immediate action.

On the other hand, we should not be led to the underestimation of consciousness; Consciousness is effective for new, unexperienced events; Consciousness, if it keeps patience, can teach what it has learned to nonconsiousness, which, after practice, will turn out to be a better performer than consciousness.

We should understand the relatonship between consciousness and nonconsciousness. Consciouness is a self-reference of nonconsiousness. Conscious mind has self (from protoself, core self, up to autobiographical self). Self posesses subjectivity, ownership, agency, personhood, and identity.

Yet, as consciousness is a self-reference of noncosiousness, all these senses -- subjectivity, ownership, agency, personhood, and identity --, in order to be meaningful, must be based on our nonconscious being, which is often convenietly referred to as the body.

The body gives us emotions, and when they are 'felt' by consciousness, they become feelings, which are vital information of ourselves in this world. The body is equipped with dispositions. You may simply use them, or modify them by using images. You can orient the modification with your conscious plan, but don't think that your consciousness constitutes you. You were, long time ago in human history, only a nonconscious being. Your consciousness only derives from your nonconscious being. Culture, school education in particular, may help your consciousness develop quickly, but it is only alive as long as it is rooted in, and repeatedly goes back to and comes back again from your nonconsciousness.

So, put it simply, use your consciousness wisely; don't forget your emotions, feelings, and body. We live in the loop of self-reference.

Other related articles:

Consciousness as a process that is entailed by molecular interactions

"Wider than the sky" by Gerald Edelman

"Making up the mind" by Chris Frith

Damasio on Mind and Body

Language and Consciousness according to Julian Jaynes

P.S.

Here's how John Searle, I believe, fails to see Damasio's points.

The New York Review of Books.

I wonder whether the traditional objective/subject distinction is the right framework to understand Damasio's argument.

P.P.S.

Below is the video of Damasio (and its transcript).

Antonio Damasio: "Consciousness" Is How We Know We Exist

Transcript is available from Big Think site.

http://bigthink.com/ideas/23020

P.P.P.S.
Antonio Damasio offers seven videos talking about this book.
http://yosukeyanase-video.blogspot.com/2011/10/antonio-damasio-on-self-comes-to-mind.html

"Where is Self, and what is it?" No, it's rather "How is Self?": Luhmann's theory of autopoiesis

2011-08-31T22:22:00.001+09:00

1 Space metaphor of in-between-ness

"In-between-ness" is one of the terms I learned in The 16th World Congress of Applied Linguistics(AILA 2011, Beijing), in particular from the presentation by Angela Scarino and Jonathan Crichton, "In-between-ness" in the experience of language learning. The describes where an L2 learner finds herself, away from the identity created by her native language (L1) or from another identity created by her target language (L2) .

Although I agreed with the presenters on substantial arguments, I was not perfectly happy with the term "in-between-ness" because it is a space metaphor that doesn't say much about the qualitative change (or "transformation," to borrow an expression by Gadamer quoted by the presenters).

Literally, something "in between" is located between two things, A and B, and that's what the expression is all about. The expression doesn't say anything about some possible transformation which that something, say, C, has gone through.

However, it is most likely that C, an L2 learner has been changed by being "in-between" L1 and L2. She is no longer what she was when she only knew her L1; nor is she what she is trying to be like (i.e., the native speaker of her target language, who is not usually assumed to know her L1, at least according to the monolingual mindset in language learning). She is no longer her old self, or the new self, which she can never be. She is "in-between," but, more importantly, she is being transformed. To describe the identity of an L2 learner, I prefer to use a description that connotes qualitative changes.

2 Compound metaphor of H₂O

So I raised a hand in the Q&A session of the presentation above and suggested a compound metaphor of H₂O. As a compound (or composite), H₂O exhibits unique features that its original elements, two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom, never show when they are separated. The composite, not just an aggregate but a new creation, has gone through qualitative transformation.

This compound metaphor is probably a better description of the identity of an L2 learner. I had the idea of this metaphor from the definition of "plurilingual and pluricultural competence" in Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (CEFR).

Plurilingual and pluricultural competence refers to the ability to use languages for the purposes of communication and to take part in intercultural interaction, where a person, viewed as a social agent has proficiency, of varying degrees, in several languages and experience of several cultures. This is not seen as the superposition or juxtaposition of distinct competences, but rather as the existence of a complex or even composite competence on which the user may draw.　(Council of Europe 2001, p. 168)

The idea of plurilingual and pluricultural competence does not describe an L2 learner as something that consists of two blocks (L1 part and L2 part). She is not just a sum of distinct two units. Rather, she is something new, like H₂O that is no longer hydrogen or oxygen. She has a new identity as H₂O that is different from the old L1 identity (say, hydrogen) or the target L2 identity (say, oxygen). In addition, this compound metaphor is better protected than the space metaphor against the wrong idea of L2 learner going from the old L1 self to the new L2 self, as some old view of "interlanguage" may have led us to believe. This is why I suggested the compound metaphor as a better description than the space metaphor, "in-between-ness."

3 From an entity (WHAT) to an operation (HOW)

However, I was not exactly happy with the compound metaphor, either, because it gives an impression that an identity is an entity: the old L1 self being a hydrogen atom, the target L2 self an oxygen atom, and the identity as an L2 learner a compound of H₂O. As an entity, the hydrogen atom, the oxygen atom or the H₂O compound (molecule), is fixed and stable. However, I see an L2 learner, myself included, as a more dynamic and changing being. In addition, a compound can be separated again by some chemical reaction into its original elements; H₂O can be separated into two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Yet, an L2 learner will never be back to the old L1 self; once a learner learns an L2, the change is mostly irreversible. Therefore, the compound metaphor is not a perfect description, either.

As I recall my L2 learning experience, I believe I was not even aware of the L1 (Japanese) self when I didn't begin to learn an L2 (English). It was only after I began to learn and use English that I began to feel that I am not like the target self (a native speaker of English) or, more importantly here, the old self with no influence of English that I only then gathered must have been. The point is that both the new self (the target self as a native speaker of English) and the old self (the "original" self as a monolingual speaker of Japanese) emerged at the same time. When the other language (English) was not present, I never thought I was "original": I didn't bother to think about my identity. (I could have thought about other identities, like one as a junior high school student, not a primary school kid, or one as a radio listener in his own room alone, not as a TV viewer in a living room with his parents. But I didn't think about my Japanese identity until I started to learn and use English).

So I was not a stable hydrogen atom. I began to think I must have been a hydrogen atom only as I tried to be like an oxygen atom and found that I was not an oxygen atom or a hydrogen atom but something different, H₂O. Furthermore, I was not or am still not a stable H₂O. My sense of identity changes as I live. It even changes as I change my perspective. It is not stable or fixed as an entity.

We should probably cease to see an identity as an entity. It is rather how we see ourselves. Identity is always in an operation. Identity is a temporary result of identity sense-making. Identity is constructed when I find something that doesn't seem like myself: "I am not that." But the point I've been trying to make is that 'I' am not also that which does not contain 'that' (the original, uncontaminated 'I'). 'I' am what finds itself not 'that'. I am the totality of the operation of this sense making. And it is here that I should introduce Luhmann's theory of autopoiesis.

4 Luhmann's theory of autopoiesis

For Luhmann, self-reference is critical in an autopoiesis system, a system that constantly organizes and produces itself. Self emerges with self-reference; Self did not exist before self-reference. When I, as an example of a psychic system (translate this into a "consciousness system" if you like), find something, I also find something else that finds that something. The first something is the other and the second something is myself. The other is something that is clearly not me (the psychic / consciousness system); The other is part of my "environment" (i.e. something that is not a system itself, another technical term by Luhmann). When I find the other, I sense the difference between me (system) and non-me (environment). But we don't stop here; human beings as we are not just make the distinction between system and environment but also "know" that we make the distinction. So there are "me" that makes the first distinction between non-me and me and "I" that makes the second distinction between me and myself. This is the self-reference that we constantly operate.

Hans-Georg Moeller, the author of an excellent introduction to Luhman's theory, Luhmann Explained: From Souls to Systems, explains as follows:

By making sense, sense-processing systems like psychic and communication systems distinguish between themselves and the world they are in -- they distinguish between system and environment. And this distinction is somehow “reflected” within the system itself. Sense-making systems make sense by making sense of the difference between themselves and their environment, by making sense of the difference between the “it” that makes sense and this “I” that makes that sense. By making this distinction the sense-making system performs a re-entry. It re-enters the distinction it just made. The system not only makes sense by introducing the distinction between itself and its environment, it also “reflects” on this distinction by reintroducing the distinction into itself. It can also make sense of it-self: the self becomes an it and a self! The system can make sense of making sense -- in other words, it can “know” or ascribe to itself (as to one side of the initial distinction) the making of that distinction. First, a system can observe an environment and make sense of it by producing the distinction between system and environment. Then, secondly, it can also perform a re-entry by relating that distinction to itself and, so to speak, be self-referential in the way it used to be other-referential. It can refer to “it-self” just as it used to refer to something else.

Moeller, Hans-Georg (2011). Luhmann Explained: From Souls to Systems (Ideas Explained) (pp. 67-68). Open Court. Kindle Edition.

The act (or "operation" as Luhmann calls it) of observing makes distinction not just between the observed (the other) and the unobserved (me) but also between the unobserved (me) and the observer (I). The whole operation of observing that involves the other, me, and I produces Self. I am me that is not the other but myself which is a reflected me.

The operation of observation not only distinguishes the observed from the unobserved, it also distinguishes the observed from the observer. Through continuous operations of observation, a system constructs what it observes -- and it constructs itself as an observation system.

Moeller, Hans-Georg (2011). Luhmann Explained: From Souls to Systems (Ideas Explained) (p. 69). Open Court. Kindle Edition.

Here we may introduce a deliberately ambiguous term of "observing system": the operation of observing a system and a system that does that observing operation. As an observer, I am not a stable entity that objectively observes another distinct entity. Observation makes three things: the observed, the unobserved and the observer. The observed does not become reality independent of the unobserved. They become reality with the observing operation. But the distinction between the observed and the unobserved produces another aspect of reality; As the observing operation (the first observation between the observed and the unobserved) is observed (in the second-order observation of the first observation), something distinct from the observed or the unobserved emerges, which is the observer. And this is, to repeat, the birth of Self, a self-referential system with its environment. A self-referential system that organizes and produces itself is an autopoiesis system, and it requires the theory of second-order observation, second-order cybernetics.

Observation loses its simplicity -- an observer can no longer observe reality without taking into account its very observation as a generating element of reality. A constructivist view of reality directs the attention of observation to the observation, so that the observation of reality becomes an observation of the observation of reality. It becomes second-order observation -- and the theory of second-order observation is called second-order cybernetics.

Moeller, Hans-Georg (2011). Luhmann Explained: From Souls to Systems (Ideas Explained) (p. 71). Open Court. Kindle Edition.

5 Identity explained

But what's the point of such a complicated theory? Do we obtain anything at all from this philosophical argument? I believe it does, so let's go back to the issue of the identity of an L2 learner.

The "identity" in the sense we're discussing is "the condition of being oneself or itself, and not another" (the second meaning of identity according to Dictionary.com based on the Random House Dictionary).

The "condition of being oneself" is not simple or stable; it depends upon its observation of something else, which produces the second-order observation. I am able to be myself when non-me, the observed, is observed by me, the unobserved that becomes myself when that first-order observation is observed in a second-order observation by I, the observer. In order to be sure about my identity, I need the other (non-me) to observe first, and the observation of that observation to find both I and myself.

"Subject" is another philosophical term for Self: "that which thinks or feels as opposed to the object of thinking and feeling; the self or the mind" ((the 7th meaning of subject according to Dictionary.com based on Collins English Dictionary). According to Luhmann, subject, hence Self, emerges in an operation of self-reference. It has no foundation other than its operation. It is not an entity on its own. It's always in its own making.

The term “subject” does not designate a substance that, by its pure being, shoulders everything else, the subject is rather self-referentiality itself as the foundation of cognition and action. (1997a, 868)

Translated by Moeller, Hans-Georg (2011). Luhmann Explained: From Souls to Systems (Ideas Explained) (p. 170). Open Court. Kindle Edition.

Als Subjekt bezeichnet man nicht eine Substanz, die durch ihr bloßes Sein alles andere trägt, sondern Subjekt ist die Selfstreferenz selbst als Grundlage von Erkennen und Handeln.

The original in Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft.

So, identity (I find myself) is constructed when you observe something that you regard as non-you (the other). Your identity changes with your observation. What you observe and how you observe it produces a different identity. You can be different you-s in the plural. But the multiple identities still make one you because they are observed by yourself self-referentially. As an autopoiesis system, whatever you do and however you do it will not change you into non-you. You are always re-organized and re-produced anew as yourself.

If identity is to be regarded like this, it is no wonder that a space metaphor or a compound metaphor is less than perfect. Ask not where Self is or what it is, for it is not an entity; Ask how Self is being constructed in autopoiesis.

Fluency as a qualitative, not a quantitative notion

2011-08-09T21:49:00.003+09:00

In an attempt to assess speaking performance in ELT, some researchers use the number of spoken words as the index of fluency; the more words a learner utters, the more fluent she is. But this is a very misleading, even wrong, conception. If fluency is just a quantitative matter, it becomes often indistinguishable from verbosity: too much utterance of unnecessary words. If fluency is to be a positive notion, you should not define it simply as the number of uttered words to avoid the confusion between fluency and verbosity.

Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) clearly regards fluency as a qualitative notion. In "Common Reference Levels: qualitative aspects of spoken language use" (Table 3, pp. 28-29), fluency is defined as follows from the highest level (emphasis added by me):

C2: Can express him/herself spontaneously at length with a natural colloquial flow, avoiding or backtracking around any difficulty so smoothly that the interlocutor is hardly aware of it.

C1: Can express him/herself fluently and spontaneously, almost effortlessly. Only a conceptually difficult subject can hinder a natural, smooth flow of language.

B2: Can produce stretches of language with a fairly even tempo; although he/she can be hesitant as he/she searches for patterns and expressions. There are few noticeably long pauses.

(Descriptions for B1, A2, A1 are omitted here, as they describe fluency only in negative terms).

'Fluency' as a qualitative notion defined by CEFR is described in terms of naturalness, spontaneity, flow, smoothness, effortlessness, or fairly even tempo. Spontaneous, natural and smooth flow (the highest C2 level) involves the comfort a speaker experiences in her creative choice of appropriate words. A natural, smooth flow of language which is almost effortless (the second highest C1 level) is more about the ease felt by a speaker when she says what she plans to say. An utterance with a fairly even tempo (the upper intermediate B2 level) indicates the undisturbedness in a speaker's performance, the maintained pace rather than the sheer speed of an utterance. In all cases, the notions are about quality felt by a speaker (and her interlocutor(s)), not about quantity objectively measured by an uninterested third person (or machine).

We may not have to quote from CEFR. I should have told you first that the simple numerical definition of 'fluency' betrays its meaning as defined in a dictionary (See Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary for example). Furthermore, as I said, the definition may even allow verbose language use to be regarded as 'fluent'.

Verbosity is never welcomed by anybody. Conventional wisdom in speaking (and writing) is let every word count. Economy of language is critical in the real world, for without it, you'll lose your audience. Or as Relevance Theory defines, you have to make your utterance 'relevant' for your audience. Your audience deserve to benefit from your utterance in proportion to the effort they made to process it. Expressions need to be concise. Wordy sentences with little content is never to be hailed. Assessment that may confuse fluency and verbosity must be discouraged.

Of course, the numerical measurement may be justified at a certain stage in ELT; learners may be temporarily allowed to focus on the number alone, if only to get motivated by its increase. But that measurement shouldn't last. After all, the learners cannot compete with native speakers for the sheer number of words they can utter in a fixed time. Learners should not be encouraged to be like a wordy, pointless bore; they should aim to be an intelligent speaker who uses the minimal amount of words to get the maximum effect. In the long run, quantitative measurement that disregards qualitative aspects of fluency can only be harmful.

Two EFL Pedagogical Grammar books by Akira TAJINO and Goro TAJIRI

2011-07-16T20:22:00.013+09:00

1 Thinkers and followers

There are two types of people who are usually referred to as a "scholar" in universities. One is the thinker. The thinker thinks for herself and her area of speciality (that is assigned by her university) makes no boundary for her inquiry. She thinks and investigates as her intellectual interest leads her. She doesn't mind breaking conventions to be creative.

The other is the follower. The follower doesn't think for himself and just follows what the authorities in his field do. What he says is determined by the authorities. Apparently, something very interesting does not usually come from the follower.

Akira TAJINO and Goro TAJIRI, the authors of the two books I'm going to introduce in this essay, are the thinkers. The books are pedagogical grammar of English as a foreign language for Japanese learners. They were written by the respective authors separately, but their creative thinking somehow converged and they seem to have re-defined the concept of pedagogical grammar (hereafter Pedagogical Grammar, or PG).

In this essay, I try to formulate their idea of Pedagogical Grammar and describe some features of the books respectively.

2 How we define Pedagogical Grammar

Pedagogical Grammar is usually understood as a grammar that is intended to help learners to learn a foreign language. But how is it different from the Traditional Grammar (TG)? Or if PG is also to help the acquisition of a foreign language, is it to have any resemblance to Generative Grammar (GG), that is supposed to be the representation of the knowledge of language in our brain? Let's see how PG is different from TG and GG.

2.1 Traditional Grammar (TG)

Traditional Grammar is usually considered as the basis of Pedagogical Grammar. I'll argue later, however, that PG is not a simpler version of TG. To understand that point, let's confirm the defining feature of TG.

TG tries to achieve descriptive adequacy. Descriptive adequacy is one of the levels of adequacy that was proposed by Chomsky (1965). Descriptive adequacy is a level where all observed language use is to be described systematically. In its pursuit for comprehensiveness and consisitency, TG tries to cover as much as it can, resulting in a large amount of description.

2.2 Generative Grammar (GG)

Generative Grammar attempts to attain one higher level beyond descriptive adequacy: explanatory adequacy. GG tries to accomplish not only consistency and comprehensiveness (as Traditional Grammar does), but also the predictability of linguistic events in general. GG is meant to be an adequate explanation of language by providing a "real" representation of the embodied grammar (the knowledge of language in the brain). The representation of that level is not something we know consciously. It is highly theoretical and technical and not meant for general readers as TG is. Below is what Chomsky says about GG.

Returning to the main theme, by a generative grammar I mean simply a system of rules that in some explicit and well-defined way assigns structural descriptions to sentences. Obviously, every speaker of a language has mastered and internalized a generative grammar that expresses his knowledge of his language. This is not to say that he is aware of the rules of the grammar or even that he can become aware of them, or that his statements about his intuitive knowledge of the language are necessarily accurate. Any interesting generative grammar will be dealing, for the most part, with mental processes that are far beyond the level of actual or even potential consciousness; furthermore, it is quite apparent that a speaker's reports and viewpoints about his behavior and his competence may be in error. Thus a generative grammar attempts to specify what the speaker actually knows, not what he may report about his knowledge. (Chomsky 1965, p. 8)

GG is a representation of what is embodied as the knowledge of language in our brain, which we know only non-consciously. As a representation, GG can of course be known consciously, but that requires highly theoretical training in linguistics. As an explanatory theory, GG predicts language events within its theoretical constraints.

2.3 Pedagogical Grammar

What, then, is Pedagogical Grammar? How is it different from Traditional Grammar or Generative Grammar?

PG is based on the description that TG provides (GG is obviously too technical for language learners). However, PG should not be regarded just as a simpler (or diluted) version of TG because it has its own distinct function.

PG tries to achieve "educational adequacy." Educational adequacy, as I use this term, is adequacy for helping learners to learn and use a foreign language. It is achieved to the degree that it helps learners.

The cost of understanding PG, therefore, should be reasonably controlled. PG must achieve an optimal balance between the efforts it requires learners for understanding it and the effects it produces in learners' language learning and language use. Other things being equal, the less effort, the better; the more effects the better. The balance between effects and efforts is to be decided considering learners' cognitive and motivational conditions. Educational adequacy requires an optimal balance. As there are many types of learners, there should be as many types of PGs. While TG or GG should converge into one for the ideal researcher, PG should diverge to particular types of learners.

Because of PG's primacy of educational adequacy over descriptive or explanatory adequacy, the description and explanation in PG can be compromised as long as it attains better educational adequacy. TG shouldn't compromise in terms of consistency and comprehensiveness of description, just as GG shouldn't compromise in terms of predictability and biological reality. However, in PG, consistency and comprehensiveness is rather to be sacrificed if it helps to achieve better educational adequacy; Predictability and biological reality (at least in the rigorous sense) can even be neglected.

PG is not a description of a language, or a representation of the knowledge of language. PG is an instrument for language learning and language use. It directs learners to think in some way to learn and use a foreign language.

Language learning and language use can be rather different depending whether they are for reception or production. PG should be differentiated accordingly. Japan has had a good tradition of PG for receptive purposes (mostly for reading).

Modernization of Japan has demanded massive translation of western literature into Japanese. The translation is not like a translation between two languages of the equal or similar degree of development in civilization. Translators in modern Japan needed to understand very foreign, almost unknown concepts of the West. In addition, the structure of the Japanese language is very different from those of the western languages (actually it was more different in those early days; translation created the modern Japanese language). Japan needed a good apparatus to develop and train translators for these demanding tasks. The entrance examinations to universities demanded test-takers a high skill of translation. This demand prompted publication of many Pedagogical Grammar books dedicated to help reading a foreign language (mostly English).

Productive abilities in English was not seriously demanded until the latest version of globalization came toward the end of the 20th century (Globalization has had many stages throughout human history). The current globalization, coupled with the Information Revolution, has begun to demand productive abilities of English in Japanese learners. It is in this context that the two ESL Pedagogical Grammar books that I introduce below were published for productive purposes in EFL.

3 Tajino

This book, Learn English according to the semantic order『意味順英語学習法』 is written by Akira TAJINO, professor at Kyoto University. The book is to be considered as a sequel to his English composition according to the semantic order『〈意味順〉英作文のすすめ』. As a sequel, the current book is better designed to be used by learners as an instrument for learning.
The semantic order, according to Tajino (translated by me), is:

WHO - DOES (IS) - WHO/WHAT - WHERE - WHEN

or if you include optional elements:

WHO - DOES (IS) - WHO/WHAT - WHERE - WHEN - HOW - WHY

The order is obvious to English speakers, for they think along this line. But for speakers of Japanese, which has the order of (S)OV [Subject is often not used] and is very flexible in the word order of Modifiers, the "semantic order" of English is not easy to be embodied.

The emphasis on this difficulty, something that is often unattended by native speakers of English (and hence by the "followers" of Japanese researchers) is the point that Tajino and Tajiri share. In the following, I mention some features of Tajino's approach.

3.1 "80% principle"

Tajino is to keen to maintain an optimal balance between efforts and effects for learners' educational adequacy. What he encourages students to do is to speak with "80%" of accuracy. One side of this message is of course the liberation from perfectionism, but the other side is the emphasis on the semantic order. For him, the acquisition of the semantic order is of primary importance for Japanese learners.

In Tajino's framework, the seven basic sentence patterns of English are to be explained as follows:

Figure 1 Seven basic sentence patterns according to Tajino's semantic order (Translation is mine)

(Tajino's semantic order does not seem to differentiate SVOO and SVOC, but this must be the price he's willing to pay for educational adequacy.)

3.2 Syntagmatic semantic order and paradigmatic grammatical categories

Tajino makes the semantic order not only as the guide for learners' language use, but also as the framework for his Pedagogical Grammar. In the current book, he explains various grammatical items according to the relevance to the semantic order. Below is his two-dimensional schema of the syntagmatic (horizontal) semantic order and the paradigmatic (vertical) grammatical categories; he maintains that once learners acquired the semantic order (how to arrange the folders), they are encouraged to learn grammatical categories that have relevance to each folder (learning which files are to be put into each folder, and learning about each file itself). Here's Tajino's two-dimensional schema.

Figure 2 Grammatical categories in the semantic order (Translation is mine)

The sequential arrangement of grammatical categories in PG is always difficult. When I was a senior high school student, for example, I was daunted by the first chapter of my PG: The Article, one of the grammatical items that does not exist in Japanese. Tajino's approach is to teach the semantic order (folders) first, and then grammatical categories (files) for each folder.

With a simple layout, this book by Tajino will be welcomed by adults who'd like to have a clear perspective of what they've learned.

For applied linguists, his two-dimensional idea of sentence construction is highly intriguing: the completion of the semantic order (the first, horizontal, syntagmatic dimension) and the elaboration of a semantic order element (the second, vertical, paradigmatic dimension) as is required by the literal meaning that the sentence is to convey.

This idea of two-dimensional expansion as a speaker constructs a sentence may sound too true to take notice of, but I believe this is one of the great sources of ideas for teaching English as a foreign language. I feel a lot of inspiration in this book, but I just cannot articulate my idea yet. When you read a book written by a thinker, you have to be a thinker as well.

4 Tajiri

Goro TAJIRI had been teaching in various public junior high schools for 26 years before he began his career as Professor at Kansai University. As those who know him directly or on television witness, he was an amazingly great junior high school teacher, but what is more surprising is that he's becoming greater as a practical researcher. As a thinker in nature, he never ceases to think in his practical positions (including the manager of the Kansai University baseball team) and always gives his utmost to help those around him. He's truly amazing.

The current book, English Grammar: You need nothing else『英文法　これが最後のやり直し!』 was written, I heard from him personally, primarily for the university athletes whose English proficiency is, honestly speaking, less than satisfactory. Yet, it has a much larger audience including adults who'd need to be proficient in English, high school students and English teachers.

One great feature of this book, amazing indeed, when you think of the reasonable price of this book (1,200 yen), is that it contains 3CDs narrated by Tajiri himself. He lectures according to the description of the book, adding more examples and episodes. As a great entertainer, listening to him explain and make jokes on English grammar is very a pleasant learning experience (he has a comfortable voice as well). Learners may want to listen to the CDs as they do something else until they remember what he says in them; teachers may learn the verbal art of a good teacher from the CDs. This is indeed a great book and such a bargain.

Below is some features that have importance when we think about Pedagogical Grammar.

4.1 Optimal balance between more efforts and more effects

In comparison with Tajino's book, this book requires more efforts to read, but the reward is of course more effects in terms of more detailed understanding of English grammar. This difference between the two books doesn't make either one good or bad as Pedagogical Grammar, for both keep educational adequacy in their own way. Learners are to choose their favorite book considering the time and motivation they have. (I'm not suggesting here, though, that this book by Tajiri is difficult. His explanation is as clear as always, and the explanation is clearer and more entertaining on the CDs). As I said before, we should have as many good PG as there are different types of learners.

4.2 Three canonical orders and other eight basic orders

Like Tajino, Tajiri also regards the acquisition of the word order of English as the most important element for Japanese learners. He has a different way of explaining the word order, though.

Figure 3 Tajiri's three canonical word orders and eight basic word orders(Translation is mine)

Tajiri regards the three patterns (1, 2 and 3) as the canonical, and adds to them other eight patterns (four, three, and one patterns respectively to the three canonical patterns) as the basic. These eleven patterns are first introduced in the book, and then grammatical items are added in three stages (Junior High School Grade 1 to 3).

Like Tajino's semantic order, Tajiri makes his word order patterns (three canonical and eight basic) as the first item to learn in English. After learners acquire a good sense of the first, horizontal, syntagmatic dimension, they learn to expand into the second, vertical, paradigmatic dimension. In actual language use, they use language in both dimensions simultaneously (or to be more precise, initiate the move in the first dimension followed by expansion in the second dimension). I say here once again that I'd like to think about this mental functions further on a different occasion.

4.3 Personification (anthropomorphic metaphor)

Among Tajiri's great skills of teaching is the use of personification (anthropomorphic metaphors).

He uses one to explain do/does. One of the difficulties that Japanese students find in basic sentence constructions of English (I'm curious how students in other countries find them) is the fact that although do/does is required in the construction of a negative sentence and an interrogative sentence, it is not required in the affirmative sentence.

Do you like music?
I do not like music.
*I do like music. [When no emphasis is intended]

Does she like music?
She does not like music.
*She does like music.[When no emphasis is intended]

Tajiri explains that do/does is a shy boy and he usually hides himself behind the main verb; but when a negative sentence or a question has to be made, he has to appear.

This metaphor of a "shy boy usually hiding behind the main verb" works well for a sentence that uses a verb in third-person singular form of the present tense. The shy does tries to hide behind the main verb (like, for example), but because the boy is a little too big he can't hide completely ([like]s). (The same explanation works for did as well.)

*She like music.
*She does like music. [When no emphasis is intended]
She likes music.

*She like music.
*She did like music. [When no emphasis is intended]
She liked music.

For disappearance of does in the follwoing sentence, he uses the shy boy metaphor, too.

How does Taro eat salad every day?
When does Taro eat salad with dressing?
*Who does eat salad with dressing every day?
Who eats salad with dressing?

This time, the sentence construction is the question form, but a teacher can tell a story like this: "Because does is shy, he always wants to hide behind the main verb. So when he finds the main verb immediately next to him, he hides himself behind it (although not completely) even when the sentence is a question. "

A strong behaviorist would find a narrative like this is not necessary, but this is something Tajiri find essential to help his students learn and use English.

The general point for the discussion of PG is that the use of personification (anthropomorphic metaphors) may work quite well for learners. The explanation of grammar turns into a narrative of a protagonist. If PG is an instrument, we're probably justified to use whatever means available and appropriate to guide learners properly. Use of anthropomorphic metaphors in a narrative is one example of them.

4.4 Contrastive linguistic account

The last feature I point out now (actually there are many other points I'd like to discuss, but I leave them to other occasions) is Tajiri's contrastive linguistic account. As the first language is quite dominant in a foreign language learning situation, contrastive accounts are necessary when apparent results of interference from the first language are often observed. Being a keen observer of langaugae in use, Tajiri provides a contrastive linguistic when appropriate.

5 Conclusion

Overall, both Tajiri and Tajino maintain educational adequacy and the imortance of word order. Some other features are observed from Tajiri like personification and contrastive linguistic account.

If we are to explore further possibilities of Pedagogical Grammar, we need to observe actual PGs and responses from learners that use them. PG is more an instrument than a description (as Traditional Grammar is) or an explanation (as Generative Grammar is). A study of an istrument would be pointless without observing the actual use of the instrument.

Metaphors of Bach and Karate

2011-07-13T00:14:00.002+09:00

One of the things that I often do as a college teacher is to read and advise on research proposals written by my students. Writing a proposal is not easy for them because the academic discourse is so different from the oral discourse of their daily life. After all, it's not a tea party.

An academic paper must be rigidly structured. Background must lead to Problem Statement properly, which, together with Literature Review, must direct the reader to Research Question. RQ demands a valid Method that must gurantee a certain result, which should be discussed in a more general term and must develop into the answer to RQ in Conclusion.

Yesterday, an undergraduate student of mine came to me with his research proposal. It was written, as should be expected, rather loosely. The purpose of the study appears in one section, and later in another. The section of Method includes one of the possible implications of the expected result, which should be actually examined in the section of Discussion.

It's not that he's a bad student. He just writes as he'd talk about his thesis to his friends in a party. (Indeed, he'd sound very odd if he talked in a party in the style of an academic paper). He just hasn't learned to write academically.

As I knew he was a good player in the University Wind Ensemble, I decided to use a musical metaphor to explain what he has to learn. I said something like this:

Please don't try to write like Mozart. Good music doesn't flow out of you unless you're a genius. Rather, write like Bach in counterpoint. Write not what you want to write, but what you must. What produces a good work is not your current talent but the great rule of music. You may have to revise and revise like Beethoven or Bruckner, but you first have to teach yourself to be true to the logic of music.

A change in the look on his face told me that the metaphor worked. It is really good to share a common interest.

Another student of mine came to me today with his research proposal. He said he'd like to find a better method to teach paragraph writing in English as a foreign language. However, I found his focus shifted from one aspect of paragraph writing to another without realizing it himself. It was apparent that his idea of paragraph writing was vague. His research proposal was not a model of paragraph writing, either. He was not experienced in academic discourse.

I said he should think about "what to teach" before "how to teach." One of the preoccupations that students in Faculty of Education have is that all they have to learn is "how to teach." They rarely know that they first have to learn the content of teaching before the method of teaching (Having graduated from a high school doesn't mean that you know enough to be a high school teacher). As one of such students, he was not really convinced of what I was trying to say.

Then, because our common interest was Karate, I chose to use a Karate metaphor:

Imagine a novice coming to a Karate Master. The novice says he's interested in how he can teach Karate to others. The Master reminds him that he's only learned Karate for a week and that he still doesn't know what Karate is. The novice says he already knows, but the Master says that the novice doesn't even know that he doesn't know Karate. "Your expression of 'How to teach Karate' is too vague," said the Master. "If you are to teach, you need to focus on a specific aspect of Karate first, like how to stand, or rather how to use your inner muscles when you stand, or even which inner muscle you should use in one way and which other inner muscle in another way when you stand. You don't know specific aspects of Karate yet. You just can't teach 'Karate' before you know and embody them yourself."

As he's been practicing Karate for many years,　this metaphor hit him hard. "Now I know what you mean," said the student. "My 'paragraph writing' is like 'Karate' of the novice. I first have to have an analytical understanding of paragraph writing; but more importantly, I first have to learn to write in paragraphs in English for myself. Trying to teach something to students, or rather, trying to teach teachers how to teach something to students before I learn to do that myself is silly as the wish of the novice in the Karate dojo is."

I'm not suggesting, by the way, that I'm really good at paragraph writing in English myself. I have to learn to write well in English as well. In fact, that is part of the motivation of writing on this blog in English. No genius like Mozart, I have to be aware of what I have to do like Bach and make many failures and revise them like Beethoven or Bruckner. No, I shouldn't compare myself to Bach, Beethoven or Bruckner! I have to learn like a humble student in a music academy, with books in his bag, spending many hours a day playing his instrument.

Anyway, what I learned from these two episodes was that metaphors work when they're proerly used and that they sometimes produce a greater effect in a listener than a speaker expects.

Or maybe that Bach and Karate are just great.

Prospective Consciousness

2011-07-11T15:05:00.011+09:00

Retrospective Consciousness

With the progress of neuroscience, we've been enlightened about the limited (and probably biased) function of our consciousness. David Eagleman uses a newspaper metaphor to explain consciousness in Incognito (excerpts from Chapter 1 is available on NPR).

Consider the activity that characterizes a nation at any moment. Factories churn, telecommunication lines buzz with activity, businesses ship products. People eat constantly. Sewer lines direct waste. All across the great stretches of land, police chase criminals. Handshakes secure deals. Lovers rendezvous. Secretaries field calls, teachers profess, athletes compete, doctors operate, bus drivers navigate. You may wish to know what's happening at any moment in your great nation, but you can't possibly take in all the information at once. Nor would it be useful, even if you could. You want a summary. So you pick up a newspaper - not a dense paper like the New York Times but lighter fare such as USA Today. You won't be surprised that none of the details of the activity are listed in the paper; after all, you want to know the bottom line. You want to know that Congress just signed a new tax law that affects your family, but the detailed origin of the idea - involving lawyers and corporations and filibusters - isn't especially important to that new bottom line. And you certainly wouldn't want to know all the details of the food supply of the nation - how the cows are eating and how many are being eaten ? you only want to be alerted if there's a spike of mad cow disease. You don't care how the garbage is produced and packed away; you only care if it's going to end up in your backyard. You don't care about the wiring and infrastructure of the factories; you only care if the workers are going on strike. That's what you get from reading the newspaper.

Your conscious mind is that newspaper. Your brain buzzes with activity around the clock, and, just like the nation, almost everything transpires locally: small groups are constantly making decisions and sending out messages to other groups. Out of these local interactions emerge larger coalitions. By the time you read a mental headline, the important action has already transpired, the deals are done. You have surprisingly little access to what happened behind the scenes. Entire political movements gain ground-up support and become unstoppable before you ever catch wind of them as a feeling or an intuition or a thought that strikes you. You're the last one to hear the information.

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/31/136495499/incognito-whats-hiding-in-the-unconscious-mind

This metaphor neatly describes some aspects of our consciousness: 1) it only reports a tiny portion of what has been happening in the world/your mind; 2) that portion is of relatively higher layers of the world/your mind; 3) it possesses no (or at least little) causal agency about the described events because the report is only retrospective.

From the third aspect in particular, you can draw an argument about the limit of free-will, which actually Eagleman did. The legal implications from the argument are highly interesting and controversial.

However, I'm more interested in whether or not consciousness is only retrospective. The current state of my consciousness (the perception of my PC monitor) is about the world some milliseconds ago; as a memory, I can recall some fragments of a certain event many years ago. I can monitor my current movement; I can reflect upon the past event and probably learn some lesson from it. But is our consciousness only about the past? If it is, doesn't it not make us only a worrier of what's going on, a negative person who cares only about the past, and, heaven forbid, a philosopher who just keeps thinking about what has already happened for its own pleasure? If so, what is the evolutionary advantage of our consciousness?

Gary Klein on Intuition and Higher-order consciousness

In this regard, I found "Insight: A conversation with Gary Klein" on Edge particularly interesting. Being an "applied" psychologist, Klein is interested in practical issues of the use of expertise in organizations. He wonders whether the current emphasis in modern organizations on checklists and formal procedures are valid. He acknowledges the importance of our intuition (which is never explicit or formal) in our practice. Below is his general account of System one (intuition (that you become aware of)) and System two (higher-order consciousness: second-order conscious thinking about the intuition that you're conscious of).

System one is really about intuition, people using the expertise and the experience they've gained. System two is a way of monitoring things, and we need both of those, and we need to blend them, and so it bothers me to see controversies about which is the right one, or are people fundamentally irrational, and therefore they can't be trusted? Obviously system one is marvelous. Danny Kahneman has put it this way, "system one is marvelous, intuition is marvelous but flawed." And system two isn't the replacement for our intuition and for our experience, it's a way of making sure we don't get ourselves in trouble.

If we eliminate system one, system two isn't going to get the job done because you can't live by system two. There are people who try, there are people who have had various kinds of brain lesions that create disconnects between their emotions and their decision-making process. Damasio has written about them. It can take them 30 minutes to figure out what restaurant they want to go to. Their performance on intelligence tests isn't impaired, but their performance in living their lives is greatly impaired; they can't function well, and their lives go downhill.

So we know that trying to do everything purely rationally, just following Bayesian statistics or anything like that isn't going to work. We need both system one and system two, and so my question is what are the effective ways of blending the two? What are the effective ways that allow people to develop expertise, and to use expertise while still being able to monitor their ideas, and monitor their actions?

Too often it's treated as a real dichotomy, and too many organizations that I study try to encourage people to just follow procedures, just follow the steps, and to be afraid to make any mistakes. The result is that they stamp out insights in their organization. They stamp out development of expertise in their organization, and they actually reduce the effectiveness and the performance of the organizations. So how do you blend those is an issue.

http://edge.org/conversation/insight

With this research question, Klein interviewed firefighters in their natural environment. Well, this is not exactly "hard science," but it reveals something laboratory models of decision making can't deal with. (You may recall the works by Hubert Dreyfus or Donald Schon. Yes, I'd like to read their books again, but this is another story.)

Back to Klein's account, I may classify cases that the firefighter report into two: easy cases and difficult cases.

How an experienced practitioner deals with an easy case

In an easy case, a firefighter doesn't ever think. He just knows what he has to do and simply does it. Here is what Klein's first interviewee surprised him by saying he follows the "procedures". Expecting the "procedures" to be a written manual or something, Klein was shocked, but soon learned that they were intuitive, automatic executions.

He [=the firefighter] looked at me, and there was a certain look of not exactly contempt, but sort of condescension, I [=Klein] would say at least, and he said,"I've been a firefighter for 16 years now. I've been a captain, commander for 12 years, and all that time I can't think of a single decision I ever made."

"What?"

"I don't remember ever making a decision."

"How can that be? How do you know what to do?"

"It's just procedures, you just follow the procedures."

My heart sank, because we had just gotten the funding to do this study, and this guy is telling me they never make decisions. So right off the bat we were in big trouble. Before I finished with him, before I walked out, I asked him, "Can I see the procedure manuals?"

Because I figured maybe there's something in the procedure manuals that I could use to give me an idea of where to go next. He looked at me again with the same feeling of sort of condescension, (obviously I didn't know that much about their work) and he said,

"It's not written down. You just know."

"Ah, okay, that's interesting."

Something was going on here. It feels like procedures to them, but it's not really procedures, and it's not that they're following the steps of any guide, or any set of checklists. We conducted a few dozen interviews to what people were doing, and we collected some marvelous stories, and some really very moving stories from them about how they made life and death decisions. What we found was that they weren't making decisions in the classical sense that they generated a set of options, and they looked at the strengths and the weaknesses of each option, and then they compared each option to all the others on a standard set of dimensions. I mean, that's classical management-type decision-making, get your options, A, B, and C, get your evaluation dimensions, rate each option on each dimension, see which comes out ahead. They weren't doing that.

http://edge.org/conversation/insight

So an experienced practitioner in an easy case just knows which scenario he's learned so far best fits the current case he's dealing with. He just knows (i.e., be aware of; be conscious of) what to do. This knowing, which happens in the arena of primary consciousness (Edelman), came not from his linguistic thought (higher-order consciousness), but from his un/non-conscious processes. He did not "think" to choose the best options among possible ones. He just knows it and does it.

An experienced practitioner does not "think, decide, and then act": he just "acts as he decides" like a Samurai in action. Consciousness as an awareness of what he's perceiving is of course in operation: His primary consciousness is on. Yet, his linguistic, higher-order consciousness of thought plays little role. Then what about a difficult case?

How a practitioner deals with a difficult case

Here's a description of a rescue expert from Klein's work in a difficult case, where he had to "figure out how to make the rescue."

But then he [=the rescue expert] imagines what would happen as the [sic] lifted her [=the one to be rescued], and he imagines the way her back would sag, and it was a painful vision, a painful image, and he thought

"Too much of a chance we're going to do damage to her back, that's a bad option."

He rules that out. He thinks of another few options, and when he imagines each of them, they're not going to work, so he rejects all of them.

Then he has a bright idea, he has a clever idea. What about a ladder belt?

...

And he imagines it, he does what we call "a mental simulation." He sort of works it through in his head to see if there will be any problems, and he can't think of any. So that's the way he makes a decision to do the rescue.

http://edge.org/conversation/insight

This "mental simulation" is obviously a conscious act, for the rescue expert sees an image and a vision and makes a decision as he evaluates an option one by one. This function of consciousness is more prospective than retrospective. Through consciousness, he sees a possible scenario of the future.

Of course, the image and vision must be made up from the multitude of images and visions he's learned from experience. His un/non-conscious mind arranges the bits and pieces in a meaningful way for this situation and projects a coherent vision in his (primary) consciousness. In this sense, i.e., the sense that the vision is made from the past experience, the consciousness may be described as retrospective. Yet, more importantly, the vision itself is of a possible future, and we may say that this function of consciousness is prospective.

However, this prospective function of consciousness is not like a classical decision making process that modern rationalism assumes. To see a possible future, an experienced practitioner never stops to compare different possible future options: he just sees the one that comes first and examines it.

We [=Klein and his co-researchers] learned about how he [=the rescue expert] did the evaluation. He looked at several options, but he never compared them to see which was the best one compared to the others. He wanted the first one that would work, and he did this mental simulation. He did this imaging process for each one. That was the way he could evaluate one option at a time, not by comparing it to others, but by seeing if it would work in this particular context.

http://edge.org/conversation/insight

(By the way, this strategy of dealing with only one option at a time, never stopping to compare multiple options at the same time, is also suggested in Relevance Theory, when the authors are trying to explain how a listener/reader effortlessly deals with several possible interpretations that an linguistic expression allows. They explain in terms of efficient information processing.)

So, in a difficult case, an experienced practitioner does not begin an action because he knows that he doesn't know a good option (this is higher-order consciousness). He then "thinks". But this thinking is not comparing, examining and analyzing multiple options which you may associate with the word "thinking" (as modern rationalists conceive it to be.) The practitioner may "look at" several options, but never "compares" them. He comes up with an option, and he is ready to use this first option. But he is not yet convinced that this is good enough (higher-order consciousness, again) and he "thinks". But once again, this thinking is not really a linguistic examination (= the typical "thought" according to modern rationalists), but rather seeing things immediately. In this mental simulation, he imagines and gets a vision, and that is his "thinking," if we should ever use this expression. Or we may say that this is a function of higher-order consciousness that is not linguistic.

Let's compare an easy case and a difficult one once again.

An easy case just takes one step:

(E1) An experienced practitioner gets an intuition un/non-consciously and acts upon it consciously in the sense of primary consciousness. (Note: decision and action is one and the same)

A difficult case takes two steps:

(D1) An experienced practitioner gets an intuition un/non-consciously and realizes consciously that he has to "think" (Note: this consciousness is higher-order consciousness).

(D2) He starts a mental simulation (his "thinking") and gets a vision. If it is a good one, he just acts upon it; if not, he goes back to (D1) and gets a second intuition. (Note: this higher-order consciousness is mostly non-linguistic except when he says to himself "Good" or "No".)

Here's how Klein puts it:

It's really a two-part strategy. The first part is the pattern matching to get the situation framed about what to do. Then the second part is this mental simulation to be able to evaluate and monitor an option to make sure that it will do a good job, and to use your experience.

http://edge.org/conversation/insight

Prospective consciousness

I've started this essay with a general question whether our consciousness is only prospective or not. As we examined Klein's report on practitioners, we first confirmed that our higher-order consciousness (typical "linguistic thought" we associate with the word "thinking") played little role both in easy and difficult cases. However, in difficult cases, an experienced practitioner "thinks" in the sense that he deliberately starts a mental simulation and sees a future vision. But a more important point for this essay is that a practitioner's use of his consciousness is prospective. We can use our consciousness for our future in a very practical way.

This prospective use of consciousness (mental simulation) is to be distinguished with hallucination or illusion, that have, presumably, no practical value. Prospective consciousness in a mental simulation is advantageous for survival of the conscious being.

Given the limited function of our retrospective consciousness, that is, we can only monitor what our brain has already started to do, we sometimes wonder what evolutionary advantage our consciousness has for survival. Consciousness as a monitor may look like a nanny going after a little child to take care of the mess he's made. However, in a mental simulation (a practitioner's "thinking"), he can project the essence of his past experience into a prospective vision to have a better future. What our linguistic thought (linguistic higher-order consciousness) does may only be to say "Think!" or "No, it wouldn't work" to ourselves, but that makes a huge difference, because then our un/non-conscious mind starts again for a new task. Isn't this use of consciousness great enough?

Four different "I"s in action: Behaving, Perceiving, Thinking, and Communicating

2011-07-01T21:42:00.005+09:00

Conversational Analysis

When I was reading Alternative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition (Kindle version), a fascinating book that I've decided to use as a textbook in a graduate course in the autumn semester, I came across an interesting description about speaking from the viewpoint of Conversational Analysis (CA).

[I]n order to speak, a prospective speaker has to listen to how the turn in progress is unfolding. Participation in interaction, then, comes with an "intrinsic motivation for listening" (Sacks et al., 1974, p. 727), a motivation that is not a matter of volition but a system constraint of interaction. Moreover, the listener's understanding becomes available to the co-participants once the former listener assumes speakership.
(p. 120)
"A conversation-analytic approach to second language acquisition" by Gabriele Kasper and Johannes Wagner. in Alternative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition (Kindle version)

Reference
Sacks, H., Schegloff, E.A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn taking for conversation. Language, 50, 696-735.

Pat Metheny on playing music

In its emphasis on listening as the essential part of speaking in interaction, the above passage immediately reminded me of words of Pat Metheny on his DVD: We Live Here (Live in Japan, 1995). Here's my transcript:

For me, honestly I can say that when I' m playing really good, I'm not really thinking about anything. I'm just listening.

And in fact more and more as time has gone on, I realize that playing is more about listening than it is about playing .

What I mean by that is if I play one note, and then I really hear how that note fits with what everybody else is playing. Then there's a person inside me who's a fan of music who is a listener.

And then I just kind of ask the listener, OK, if you're listening to this, which you are, what would you like to hear next and then I just play it out.

So really it's the listening part of you to be the leader of the melodic phrase or whatever. So really I' m just kind of listening and that's the best thing I can say. I'm trying to really hear the whole sound of the band that is kind of participating.

Two points in Pat's remark

There two interesting points in his remark.

(1) Good listening is essential to good playing.

(2) It's not the thinking I but something else that is called a good listener that is the leader of the interactive band play.

(1) Learning to listen to play music; learning to listen/read to speak/write is essential

Point (1) has already been indicated by the CA quotation. Speaking is not just a matter of knowing lexicon and grammar; the speaker has to have a good idea of the flow of a conversation. The flow is not fixed or determined in advance, and so the speaker has to be a good listener to feel the actual flow so far to anticipate the potential flow from now. Listening is thus an essential part of good speaking in interaction, without which speaking would be of little relevance to the other participants.

Listening, or the feeling of the flow, is also essential in what looks like a non-interactive speech. A speaker in front of a large audience may look like not interacting with the audience (aside from the nods and other facial expressions from the audience as feedback). However, the speaker, in order to be a good speaker, must "listen" or the feel the flow of hypothetical interaction that should be taking place between the speaker and the audience.

As Relevance Theory claims, a theory of listening/reading constitutes a basis for a theory of speaking/writing because a speaker/writer should speak/write, not as she like to speak/write, but as a listener/reader would like to listen/read. At least, as long as a speaker/writer wants to be a good one, not just producing grammatical bits and pieces of little relevance to the audience, she has to base her speaking/writing on a good theoretical anticipation of listening/reading.

In music too, learning to produce notes is never good enough to participate in interactive performance. A player needs a good understanding of how the music will develop, and to have that understanding, he must listen to good music a lot so that he can embody the sense of what it is like to feel good in music. Unless he can listen well to feel the flow of music, he can never play well. This is also true in solo performance, as it is the case with a speech in an apparently non-interactive situation. This is how, it seems to me, a conversational analysis and music analysis meet.

(2) The listener inside me, distinct from the thinking I, is the leader of my play

However, the second point of Pat Metheny does not seem to be well described by CA: There is someone (or something) besides the thinking I when I play well.

Some friends of mine, who are good musicians, agreed on the second point. It is the listening, not the thinking about playing, that makes a good performance.

Pat used an expression of personification ("there's a person inside me who's a fan of music who is a listener.") He also said that he "asks" the listener what he (the alter Pat) would like to hear next. However, I wonder whether Pat is talking with a personal being by a linguistic means. So here are my questions.

(2a) Is the communication between the listening part and the playing part done linguistically?

(2b) Is the listening part of a good music player in performance a personal being?

(2a) How do I communicate with the "listener" inside me?

Let's start with (2a), which should be much easier than (2b)

Language is not fine enough to communicate the delicate nuance of music and is not likely to be the medium of communication between the listening part of a player and the playing part. (Just imagine the hardship of a conductor trying to instruct how his orchestra should play via, say, e-mail, a linguistic medium that conveys no non-verbal means of expression. So we may conclude that when Pat says he "asks" the listener inside him, Pat is asking non-linguistically.

(2b) Is the "listener" inside me a personal being?

OK, then, (2b): Is the "listener" inside Pat a personal being? In order to answer this question, we need a definition of a "person". Let me introduce Luhmann's systems theory as I understand it.

Think of a person in communication (either linguistic or musical). Although we just assume that it is a person as a whole that participates in communication, Luhmann argues that communication per se is done by a social system that depends upon other two systems: a psychic system and a biological system.

(2b1) A social system, or a "communication system"

A social system is what constitutes communication. In linguistic interaction, it is the language that makes communication; it is not persons.

As you read this passage, I believe your consciousness is on (or so I hope), but it is rather the language you're processing that constitutes this linguistic communication. As you read, your consciousness may wander and you (or part of you) may be thinking something else. Your consciousness may be about something else that is not about this passage or only remotely connected with it. If that's the case, you have to come back to the language if what you're doing is to be called communication. The medium of linguistic communication is language, not consciousness.

Or you may be assuming my consciousness as a writer when you're reading this passage. I was of course conscious of the passage when I was writing it. But when you (whoever you are) are reading this passage (wherever or whenever it is), I may probably be not conscious about this passage; I may well be engaged in something completely different. Or, God only knows, I may be even dead by the time you're reading this.

If I'm still alive and to be engaged with communication with you, you have to produce language in response and when I read your language, you may be thinking something else or even ... sorry, let's leave this to God. So it is not really consciousness, yours or mine, that constitute communication. It is language upon which even a total stranger besides a writer and his intended reader can act. Language in communication is a social system, that depends upon, but is distinct from our consciousness, a psychic system.

(2b2) A psychic system, or a "consciousness system"

The psychic system is consciousness. Honestly, I don't know why Luhmann (or rather translators of Luhmann's works) chose to use the term of the "psychic system.") Personally, I prefer a simpler term of a "psychological system", or more directly a "consciousness system." So, please let me use the term a "consciousness system" to refer to what Luhmann called a "psychic system."

With the new term of "consciousness system," we should probably analyse further the concept of consciousness. According to Gerald Edelman's theory of consciousness, I divide the common sense notion of consciousness into the "primary consciousness" and the "higher-order consciousness".

The primary consciousness is non-verbal perceiving awareness: awareness of sensation and motion. The higher-order consciousness is mostly linguistic awareness of the primary awareness: the linguistically encoded meta-awareness of the primary consciousness.

Whereas an immediate escape from a falling object may be triggered by your primary consciousness (there are instances where even primary consciousness doesn't work in the escape, though; you do something before you know it), to yell "watch out" loud and then move your body is a work of your higher-order consciousness: linguistically expressed consciousness of your primary perceiving consciousness about the falling object. The consciousness system, then, is a system that works by consciousness, either primary or higher-order, or both.

(2b3) A biological system, or a "non-consciousness" system of the body

There is some other dimensions in the issue of consciousness: the lack of consciousness. Since Freud, the lack of consciousness has been called "unconsciousness." This unconsciousness is something, according to Freud, that can be brought to the level of consciousness (mostly the higher-order consciousness) with the help of a psychiatrist.

However, the state without consciousness has a deeper domain. For example, humans have no direct way of feeling functions of neurons or kidneys (You cannot even feel a pain in your brain). It's not something you can recall later with the help of a psychiatrist or whatever. This level of our being is called "non-consciousness." The biological functions of a person are mostly at the level of non-consciousness.

Layers of the three systems

If the level of non-consciousness is the level of most of our biological functions, then we may argue that the consciousness system assumes the existence of the non-conscious biological system. Likewise we may say that the communication system assumes the existence of the consciousness system.

I used as a verb "assume" not "depend upon," for at least from the functionalist point of view, the consciousness system may not need our human biological system and the social system may not need our consciousness system. Although our consciousness will be lost when some parts of our biological body is harmed, it is theoretically possible (at least in an SF-like thought-experiment) to imagine a consciousness emerging out of a system that is not composed of protein. Also, the consciousness system may not be necessary for the communication system because we can think of a world where, after the annihilation of human beings (again an SF-idea), bot systems reply to certain words and phrases from other bot systems, maintaining communication. With sophisticated algorithm, bot systems may develop and evolve communication.

Given this layered relationship among the three systems, not of dependence, but of assumption, we argue that the functions of the three systems are distinct. Therefore it is not only possible but also reasonable to argue that communication is done not by a person as a whole, but (in the case of human beings) by the three systems in relation, mostly by the communication system, although we're mostly aware of our consciousness.

Different aspects of Pat Metheny

So, let's divide the whole person of Pat Metheny into three . First, the thinking Pat that is not really contributing to musical performance. This is apparently the consciousness system. Next, the playing Pat, which produces great music without much help from the thinking Pat (the consciousness system), should be the non-consciousness system of the body. Lastly, the listening Pat, which, presumably, the consciousness system of Pat communicates with non-linguistically. However, the identity of this listening part of Pat is not as easy as the other two.

We confirmed that the communication between Pat and the listening part of him is non-linguistic. Therefore, Pat as the consciousness system in communication with the listening part should be the primary consciousness system, not the higher-order (linguistic) system. Likewise, the listening part of Pat shouldn't be the higher-order system. Is it, then, Pat has two primary consciousness systems that communicate with each other?

Before we conclude, let's pay attention to the way Pat described his musical performance. He used a conditional expression, "if you're listening to this, which you are." This expression may seem redundant because he uses a conditional expression of "if" and he immediately negates its conditionality by the expression of "which you are." Yet, given the high intelligence of Pat Metheny, I assume this expression was a necessary one in some way or other and argue further with this assumption.

The conditional expression of "if you're listening" suggests that the being referred to as the listener (we'll talk about the personification later) is not a habitual or prototypical listener (if it is, Pat wouldn't have used a conditional phrase which was to be negated soon). Since one of the typical functions of the primary consciousness system is perception, the primary consciousness system is typically to be considered a listener. Therefore, it is unlikely that what Pat tried to refer to by this series of conditional and negative expressions is the primary consciousness system. We have already excluded the higher-order (linguistic) consciousness system as a candidate of this "listener." It is also not likely for the non-consciousness system to be his "listener" because given its non-conscious state of being it is not likely to "communicate" with the thinking Pat who asks it what it would like to hear next.

The only candidate left, it seems to me, is the social system of communication (or the "communication system" as I call it). The thinking Pat asks , if only metaphorically, the communication system (music itself, in this case) what it would like itself to be next. Music can listen to itself, as it were ("if you're listening"), and it can indeed listen to itself ("which you're"). Luhmann's systems, whether social, psychic, or biological, are all autopoiesis systems that (re)produces themselves ("self-(re)production" or "self-organization"). They refer back to itself to (re)produce themselves anew. So, although it may hard for you to anthropomorphize music, music listens to itself to play itself. With this feature of listening, Pat probably personified music and called it a "listener."

The "listener" is both a personal and non-personal being

We may have reached an answer to (2b): whether the "listener" inside Pat is a personal being or not.

The listener inside Pat is personal in the sense it metaphorically listens to itself just like persons listen, but not personal in the sense that it is distinct from Pat as a biological being: the music can go on if - Heaven forbid - Pat suddenly dies without being noticed by other band players in the middle of performance.

However, this non-Pat of music communicates with Pat, or, to put it differently, penetrate into Pat's consciousness system. This doesn't mean that the music is inside or belong to Pat. The sound of the wind outside, for example, can penetrate into your consciousness, without being part of your biological system. Something outside of your biological system can directly penetrate into your consciousness system by the medium of "meaning". This medium is not physical (or indeed just mental). Something you perceive carries some meaning in itself, otherwise you wouldn't notice it. The entity shares meaning with your consciousness, if it is a vague one ("what's that?") or a very specific one ("a bear!").

The four Is

Let's summarize different parts of Pat as he plays music. I'll introduce new terms (four Is) in an attempt to better describe this issue.

(i) the non-consciousness system of the body (the Behaving I) that plays the instrument in coordination with the primary consciousness system.

(ii) the primary consciousness system (the Perceiving I) that communicates with music (the Communicating I) that listens to itself.

(iii) the higher-order consciousness system (the Thinking I) that does not much other than ordering the primary consciousness system (the Perceiving I) to communicate with music (the Communicating I) .

(iv) the communication system of music (the Communicating I) that listens to itself and suggests how it'd like to be played to the primary consciousness system (the Perceiving I).

When a person plays good music, all the four Is are involved. When someone plays miserably in a band, the fourth I (Communicating I) is missing, or the third I (Thinking I) is doing its work too much to interfere the Perceiving I and the Behaving I.

As a person plays good music, he may say he doesn't really know what he's doing, and when he says so, the non-consciousness system of the Behaving I is so powerful that both the primary and the higher-order consciousness systems cannot follow its move. He may decline to include the Behaving I into his personhood for its unreflectable and uncontrollable nature. He may also deny the Communicating I as part of himself, for, as he says, he doesn't really know what he's doing as he plays.

An intelligent (or should I say "reflective"?) player like Pat includes the Communicating I as a very important part of himself as a musician. Someone who is more a critic than a good musician may have a very good Communicating I and a Perceiving I (and also good Thinking I when he writes a review of music), but his Behaving I cannot satisfy the other three Is of his.

To put it differently, the boradest notion of "I" of a player includes the four Is from (i) to (iv). If you're inclined to the Cartesian notion of conscious self, you may regard only (ii) and (iii) as "I" (the rest is the body and music). The notion of "I" as banal musicisans like to have contains (i), (ii) and (iii) of I, but not (iv).

Conclusion

What does Pat Metheny's remark on playing music tell us who are interested in the issue of conscsiousness and practice/action. The folloing is my answer.

(1) Either in music or language communication, a learner must first immerse herself in the flow of that practice to embody it. Listen or read a lot before you ever produce anything. At least if you want to be a good musician or language user, you have to listen or read enough so that you can anticipate how music or language will develop itself.

(2) Higher-order (linguistic) consciousness, or the Thinking I, is of not much help when you're in action. If you want to be really good in action, you have to learn to "listen" or "read" in the above sense. This listening or reading is not done through a language as a code. You just listen or read the meaning. (Remember, even in a linguistic passage, the whole aspect of meaning is not codified). Develop the part of you that focuses on listening or reading in this sense (the Communicating I) and let it communicate with the Perceiving I and the Behaving I.

Thank you very much for reading. The Thinking I of mine worked a lot, and my Behaving I typed much. I sincerely hope my Communicating I listened to a hypothetical conversation between you and me and my Perceiving I heard what my Communicating I said to instruct my Thinking I how to edit my passage so that my Beharioral I can type.

P.S.　(July 4, 2011)

David Eagleman's new book Incognito: What's hiding in the Uncounscious Mind seems so interesting that I bought a Kindle copy. Here's his interview.

Let not your consciousness control you (over its capacity)

2011-06-26T18:33:00.001+09:00

One of the surest ways to make people dislike or disrespect you, at least among an intellectual circle, is to say that you believe in God. Yet, the dialectic between theism and atheism happens to be one of my great interests.

I became a Christian several years ago in the middle of my post-divorce mental depression. Without any depression now, I still keep going to church. I love the community and friends there, but thinking about God and meditate every week is a very interesting intellectual challenge in the age when atheism has become the orthodoxy. I'm liberal enough to accept the progress of science, but I'm a conservative liberal, in the sense F.A. Hayek was, to respect the traditional wisdom that cannot be easily rendered into scientific terms. The faith in God is one of such traditional items.

Today, in our international group meeting in my church, we read Chapter 1 of God's Power to Change Your Life. If you're not yet repelled by the sound of the title, please read the following quotation:

When the Holy Spirit controls your life, he will produce in you nine positive characteristics: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (p. 21: emphasis added by me)

Before I'm accused of being too indecent to use such a word like the "Holy Spirit", let me give you my modern translation of the quotation.

Let your unconscious/non-conscious mind control you. Let not your consciousness control you over its capacity. Then you'll gain love, joy, ... and self-control.

Recent progress of neuroscience is in line with what Julian Jaynes said in 1976 about the limited capacity of consciousness. (Please see my old article on Julian Jayes if you're interested.). Quite recently, the Atlantic carried an essay "The Brain on Trial" by David Eagleman, a neuroscientist and author of Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain. It contained a series of reasonable questions concerning the notion of free will and our legal system based upon it.

In a nutshell, our consciousness is not the master of our thoughts and behaviors. Consciousness is not us, or rather we're not consciousness alone, as Descartes led us to believe, or as Freud surprised the modern Europeans. Yet, since Descartes, our consciousness has become the basis of our existence, the foundation of science, the only arena where our rationality is allowed to work.

However, you only have to remind yourself of your ordinary episodes: when you come up with a solution to a difficult problem of science, business or whatever, it usually comes from somewhere beyond your consciousness. When you act perfectly well in a sport or a martial art, you often realize what you've done after you did it; you haven't planned or thought about your action before. Or simply, you can't.

Our consciousness has only a limited capacity. Even when you extend its capacity by the use of computer or other devices, the body (YOU)-in-the-World is too complex to be controlled by your (extended) consciousness.

Let the Self control you. The Self, which contains your consciousness, but is much larger and deeper than that, according to Jung, should be the center of you, not the superficial, limited, biased and yet explicit consciousness.

The modern notion of "self-control" is a control of your life by your conscious thoughts and plans. However, the traditional and religious notion (revived by Jung as a modern psychiatric one) of "self-control" is a control of your life by your unconscious/non-conscious mind, or if you dare, by the Holy Spirit.

Of course, our contemporary life is much more complicated than the life in the pre-conscious era as Jaynes surmised, or the spiritual life as Jung focused on. Our life is now messed by the miscellaneous bits and pieces and we need occasional help from our consciousness to let our unconscious/non-conscious mind adapt to this contemporary hustle and bustle.

But let not your consciousness override your true mind (that is unconscious and non-conscious). Let your Self be the master of you. And if you dare again, let the Holy Spirit be the master of you. Let your conscious mind be a humble servant of the Master.

This is not an awakening philosophy. As I said, you only have to remind yourself of your life (i.e. do philosophy as Wittgenstein defined it.) Or you may want to practice Budo, the Japanese martial arts, and learn from the traditional words of wisdom which try to explain the conflict between your conscious thoughts and your unconscious/non-conscious movements.

Yes, I admit I've mixed up different ideas and thoughts: Christianity, Julian Janes, F.A. Hayek, neuroscience, C.G. Jung, Budo, all in the same bag. You may dislike or disrespect me for this apparent lack of rigor, but this is what I expected from the first sentence of this essay.

Thank you for reading so far (if you ever did). It was at least a nice way of spending a Sunday afternoon, something I wanted to do despite the advice from my consciousness to do the business work that is overdue. I just tried to let my Self control my life. If I cannot do this on weekdays, I should be allowed to do this on weekends.

Reading Luhmann to understand Twitter and this changing world

2011-06-10T11:30:00.004+09:00

Twitter, an important "actor" in the social system today, led me to a very interesting paper:

Structural Coupling and Translation - Twitter observed as
Communication Medium and Non-human Actor

By Jesper Takke
Associate Professor, PhD
Information and Media Studies
Aarhus University
http://www.jespertaekke.dk

Available at:
http://pure.au.dk/portal/files/37429143/Taekke_Oslo_2011.pdf

This makes a very good reading for those who are interested in Luhmann's theory (like me), but the following passage may convince the general reader with no such interest of the relevance of this paper to understanding of this changing world.　(The original paragraph is divided into blocks for more comfortable reading.)

First on the interaction level Twitter opens for a network like form of near synchronous communication without the heavy framework of other social media like Facebook.

This medium is also freed from forced reciprocal relations. You only have 140 characters in a tweet, but it is possible to send links to other places on the Internet, like to a weblog, pictures on Flickr or other sources.

If we say that this is the possibility space of the medium the interesting thing is how it is actualized.

First of all it looks like Twitter is used by people who publishes or produces materials which can be linked to, for instance, a newspaper article written by you, about you, or just about a topic or a person you think is important.

Also we see many questions and answers, invitations, proclamations, and information, for instance, about new software or election results.

Persons can contribute to the communication on Twitter using a computer, a smart phone and even a cell phone via SMS. This means that you can stay in contact with the Twitter community wherever you are whenever you want.

Also Twitter has a special cyberspaceical configuration because you through the hashtag ‘#’ can participate in the communication of a topic with everybody else on Twitter following the same hashtag. Together with the possibility for retweeting (sending another person’s tweet to them who follows you) this makes the communication space of this medium, on the one hand one big arena, on the other, a very complex arena to navigate in.

Another interesting thing on the interaction level is that Twitter’s possibility space is actualized to form a parallel interaction system on conferences, for instance, making it possible for the public attending a lecture or a keynote, to communicate about the topic and it’s points, finding sources about it on the Internet, sharing it with the others in real time. This also opens for the possibility for the audience to confront the speaker with general questions, which are already consolidated through negotiations on Twitter.

This is a new coupling between the psychic and social systems. It allows people not physical present to participate in the discussion and demands that psychic systems present can oscillate their concentration between the spoken and written discourse. This means that Twitter communication, between people who at same time are also in physical based social contexts, selects persons who can and are willing to extent their psychic level of complexity (oscillating their concentration between the two co‐existing interaction systems). As long this is possible the social level of systems formation can extent its complexity because not only one contributes to the social at a time. The social system can use (select) every body’s contributions, everybody’s links to sources, the notes from everybody even input from participants who are not physical present, but who participate via the chosen hashtag and the live reporting from them who are present (or from a streaming)
(pp. 11-12)

Below are excerpts from the paper. They highlight some of the essence of Luhmann's theory (and also Latour's, of which I knew nothing). I thank the author of this paper, Professor Takke (sorry, I can't put the right alphabet) and Evgeny Morozov whose tweet let me know of this paper.

In systems theory media can be seen as the mechanisms of structural couplings between psychic and social system (p. 1)

Translation is “displacement, drift, invention, mediation, the creation of a link that did not exist before and that to some degree modifies two elements or agents” (p. 1)

the element is constituted as a unity only by the system that enlists it as an element to use it in relations” (Luhmann 1995, 22). (p. 3)

"communication only works through consciousness, using consciousness, but never operationally as consciousness" (Luhmann 2002, 274). (p. 4)

Communication and consciousness systems evolve in a co‐evolution, since the language makes it possible for them to differentiated themselves out (Luhmann 2002, 278) (p. 5)

Language is the structural coupling, that is its task, its function” (Luhmann 2002, 279) (p. 5)

Luhmann (1990, 26) defines meaning as a distinction between actuality and potentiality. (p. 6)

Selection of information, for instance, in communication is an announcement of what is not selected, but which could have been selected. (p. 6)

“Only when a system, in its autopoietic reproduction, adapts itself to the field in which it operates can it determine itself through its own structures” (Luhmann 2002b, 172). (p. 6)

The autopoiesis of social systems is nothing more than this constant process of reduction and creation of opportunities for linking. (p. 7)

Language and writing, as well as later developed media, thus guaranteeing that communication retains the ability to reorganize itself through its constant accommodation to the mind. (p. 7)

Consciousness can work without communication, but only if it has experienced communication and has socialized itself. (p. 7)

the actor concept includes everything that can be ascribed an action no matter if it is human, artifact, institution or for instance a god (p. 8)

Latour (2008, 133) defines translation as a connection that transports transformations and makes two mediators coexist. (p. 9)

Luhmann (1999, 358, 1990, 91) sees writing, printing and symbolically generalised communication media as generating the functional differentiation of society. (p. 11)

Language opened for the separating out of the psychic and social systems from the total biological control by enabling the structural coupling between them. (p. 17)

The structural coupling enabled the translation, or is the process of translation. (p. 17)