New Wants, New Ways, New Words : Abstracts

Abstract (Short Version)

Human language has traditionally been equated with grammar; human utterances, with propositions. More recently, however, language has begun to be studied as an overall modulation of social behaviour created by repeated reactions to meaning-sharing events and by repeated attempts at (co-) producing such events in response to a felt need to represent something (to oneself, to others), to do something (through representation), and above all to be something (through representation). Utterances therefore become tokens of existential intent, used to construct a relationship with one's interlocutor, in which the tokens acquire meaning as both parties acquire a new consciousness. This paper will encourage participants to translate this new paradigm into proposals for materials for teaching intercultural communication.

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Abstract (Full Version)

Human language has been studied over the centuries mostly for its rational properties. The tradition of equating a language with its grammar, i.e., with the logical and morphosyntactical attributes of utterances seen exclusively as propositions, goes back in fact to the Platonic and Stoic grammarians.

But as Aristotle, Humbolt, Gramsci and others have noted, human language is not necessarily propositional. And in any case human utterances actualize much more than what is predicated by the propositional content they may have. Thus, over the centuries, another current of language studies -- one that sees ordinary speech as the concrete expression of situated meaning, revealing both an individual psychology and a people's mind set or Weltanschauung -- has developed as well.

The contemporary manifestation of this current - the social constructivist view of communication (Delia et al. 1982) - sees language, in fact, as the sedimentation of modulations of social behaviour created by repeated reactions to meaning-sharing events and by repeated attempts at (co-)producing such events in response to a felt need

to represent something (to oneself, to others),
to do something (through representation), and in any case
to be something (through representation).

Many language teachers and intercultural trainers, however, continue to focus largely on the representational function of language. Since this aspect has been thoroughly described by linguistics, they find abundant materials on the marketplace to prepare students or trainees to describe objects or feelings in grammatically accurate sentences. But even if they get their students to spontaneously utter well-formed sentences with a perfect pronunciation, the students will not necessarily have acquired a cross-cultural capability. Once they are in the L2 country, they may still sound "foreign". They may fail to get the jokes, ask the wrong questions, occasionally make people smirk, get left out of the conversation, be treated condescendingly (or, worse, mothered), and not be understood.

Other teachers and trainers prefer to focus on the second aspect language listed above: agency, acting on the world. They, too, find suitable textbooks and instruction manuals that put pragmatics first (the so-called "communicative" approaches). But even if they get their students to use the whole spectrum of verbal and kindred behaviour to communicate in contextually appropriate ways in every circumstance imaginable, the students will not necessarily have acquired a cross-cultural capability. Once in the L2 country they may still not be "just like anyone else". They may get the jokes but not laugh, give the wrong answers, occasionally make people uneasy, get heard without being listened to, be tolerated but not accepted, and be understood without having convinced. In a word, they may have communicative competence but they may lack communicative-cultural competence.

This is because language is more than just representation and agency. It is above all a way of being. When we sign our name with a flourish, sing in the shower with gusto, or exclaim "Here I go!" as we begin executing a difficult dive, we are using verbal expression to thrust ourselves into reality in a particular way that we feel to be us. "Language as being" underlies not only the pure expressions of self such as the three just mentioned, but any expressive act. Even in a highly conceptual activity such as delivering a university lecture, what the orator communicates above all is himself and his world.

Halliday (1975, 1978) hints at this most fundamental language modality when he speaks of the personal function manifested in young children's talk. The personal function -- which children use when they say things like "Here I go!" -- may be defined as the assertion of one's ego. If we substitute "existence" for Halliday's "ego", we have the modality of language use we have just called called "language as being".

In this cross-cultural perspective, therefore, the primary unit of linguistic analysis becomes not grammatical categories (nouns or "subjects") realized in utterances, but rather EXISTENTIAL VALUES collocated in a SCENE (the enactment of an unfolding intent), according to the following scheme:

Phenomenon	Perception*	Interpretation**
1. An accumulation of signals...	...taken to be intentional and thus an offering...	...constitutes an existential value.
2. An accumulation of values...	...taken to be coherent and thus a stance...	...constitutes a conversational contribution.
3. An accumulation of contributions...	...taken to reveal a Weltanschauung and thus a frame...	...constitutes a scene, the basic unit of a narrative event.
* Psychological rules governing perception ("Ratification rules"): - The perception (attribution) of intentionality ratifies signals as offerings. - The perception (attribution) of coherency ratifies values as stances. - The perception (attribution) of a Weltanschauung ratifies contributions as frames.
** Rules of interpretation (hermeneutic rules for laying claim to sense): - A (projected) likeness of feelings constitutes offerings as values -- Affect. - A (projected) conceptual scheme constitutes stances as contributions -- Cognition. - A (projected) "will to be" constitutes frames as scenes -- Volition. Scenes are stages in the progressive enactment of an intent, i.e. a particular instance of a historical will realizing itself. The term "scene" is thus a process-bound concept.

What all this means is that cross-cultural capability is fundamentally an ability to manage scenes: the ability to narrate and interpret events conferring upon them the existential values familiar to one's interlocutor as a member of another culture.

To acquire a full-fledged cross-cultural capability, therefore, one must undergo a transformation similar to that of actors (Stanislavski's state of "I am" [1961]) or writers (Flaubert's "Madame Bovary, c'est moi!"), one that is:
- affective (one learns to feel things as someone in the other culture might),
- cognitive (one learns to see things as someone in the other culture might),
- and volitional (one learns to want the things that someone in the other culture might).

My presentation will argue for research into (and the creation of teaching and training materials based on) this social-constructivist language paradigm: utterances are considered tokens of existential intent, used to construct a relationship with one's interlocutor, one which acquires meaning as both parties acquire a new consciousness.

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Delia, J., O'Keefe, B., and O'Keefe, D. (1982) The constructivist approach to communication. In F. Dance (ed.) Human Communication Theory (pp. 147-191). New York: Harper & Row.

Halliday, M.A.K. 1975. Learning how to mean: Explorations in the Development of Language. Oxford: Elsevier.

Halliday M.A.K. (1978), Language as Social Semiotic, London: Edward Arnold.

Stanislavski K. (1961): Stanislavski on the Art of the Stage, [translation by D. Magarshack], New York: Hill & Wang.

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