William, you write: "Harris would agree to some extent, I believe, that the communication as intended does not occur until both speaker/writer and hearer/reader agree about the intended meaning, insofar as they can, albeit always imperfectly. This is way conversation usually involves a back and forth exchange, narrowing the shared meaning to a mutually agreeable form. This form is what Harris regards a context."
I don't think you have Harris's idea there, William. For him, the "context" of a spoken phrase is a compound of the sound of the phrase, all the other inputs to your mind from the surrounding situational elements, plus your memory of past connections with the phrase and the surrounding elements. If, on a bright, sunny day, a woman asks, "Can you lend me an umbrella?" the notion that arises in your mind will be different from the one that would rise if it were raining. Then you remember that this is the woman who often expressed concern for her fragile skin under a bright sun. So you conclude she wants the umbrella as a parasol. That, in Harris's view, is "contextualization". I continue to maintain it's not an original or profound observation on his part. I plead not guilty to your insinuation that I merely dismiss what he says as "fuzzy categorization". I have seriously tried to discern what could have been on his mind. Note my next comment - a search for what's in your head as you use the term 'represents'. Then you write: "It's the context that determines how words are representatives of constructed meaning." I don't know what Harris would say, but I can honestly tell you I'm not sure how you think words can "represent" anything. If, by "constructed meaning", what you have in mind is the notion prevailing in my head after my mind and memory process the phrase and the situational add-ons, I myself would never say that any words could "represent" that subsequent notion. I've never seen a description of the alleged ACT of "representation" that seemed cogent to me. "The word 'apple' represents the fruit on the table over there." "The word 'freedom' represents the ability and allowance to do what I want." Those statements are merely descriptions of unclear notions you have in mind when those words are mentioned. 'Represents' suggests to me some sort of fuzzy mind-independent ontic connection that feels, fictional, imaginary, to me. "The phrase 'Commander-in-Chief' represents Barak Obama." I'm not faking it when I say "represents" is far too fuzzy for serious philosophic conversation. You write: "The context takes precedence over any presumption that a word is a stable signifier." Harris would agree but probably note that the "word" is part of the "context". And I would join in the claim that a word is not a stable modifier. You write: "you have a responsibility to try to interpret the speaker/writer's context and to add to it or help shape it." I can't HELP but interpret when my senses pick things up. Agreed that my efforts are more or less sharp (or interested) on a given day, but all things considered I think I've been bringing a due amount of attention to this discussion. You also write: "OK, Cheerskep, so let's try to state the issue: You hear someone say something or you read what they say. You decide that there are so many different ways to interpret the statement that you can't know what the speaker/writer has in mind to communicate. Thus the communication is fuzzy and no specific meaning can be defined. This always puts you in the position of being the decider and it always put the speaker/writer in the position of supplicant." Decider of what? Who other than the listener should decide if what he's just heard has occasioned a serviceably clear notion in the decider's head? I don't gripe about everything. When someone says, "Please pass the salt," that usually works for me. In a sense, the speaker/writer is always the supplicant unless he's just jerking you around. HIS "responsibility" is to come up with phrasing that, along with attendant situational add-ons, will go a serviceably long way in contributing to the goal of the listener's conjuring the desired notion. The speaker can't entirely control the notion-molding effect of the listener's memories, (but he can try by, say, describing what he does NOT "mean"). In closing, I add this: I'm dismayed to see you think of my postings as largely instances of my simply crying "Fuzzy categorizations!" and ignoring specifics. I claim I try hard to respond to specifics. I myself am vexed to present a list of specific objections and assertions and have them largely ignored by an interlocutor - which, I submit, is what you did after my following specific indictment of Harris's thinking. To: [email protected] Sent: Mon, May 21, 2012 3:22:37 PM Subject: Re: On Roy Harris 2 0f 2 Here's a further attempt to articulate where (in my view) Roy Harris went wrong. Here is the link to Harris's own summary statement of his position: http://www.royharrisonline.com/integrational_linguistics/integrationism_intr o duction.html That summary has many interesting remarks, some of which I'd certainly call "insights". But, strangely in a thesis about "integration", his view is fundamentally non-coherent. I think Harris fails in this way because he does not describe his notion behind such key terms as 'sign', 'meaning', 'communication', and even 'contextualization". If he had forced himself to do that - for example, to ask himself what he basically has in mind when he speaks of "human communication" I believe he would have written something much more useful and defensible. Here are two extended quotes from Harris: "2a. Language is the faculty that underlies both speech and writing. It may be considered one part or facet of a more comprehensive faculty: that of sign-making (for which there is no general term in common use). If we adopt the term sign, however, it must be clearly understood that for the integrationist a sign is not a form which carries its own meaning permanently around with it. A sign acquires a meaning only when occurring in a specific context." "4a. Language, then, is the human capacity for communication by integrating signs into series of activities, some of which involve speech or writing or both.. 4b. That is why integrationism pays far more attention to contextualization than any other approach to language. There is no linguistic topic on which more naive and simplistic ideas abound than about context. There are no context-free signs, whether verbal or non-verbal. Contextualization is a complex activity, still too often neglected and poorly theorized. It is not just a function of the immediate situation, but of the entire communicational experience of the participants. The act of contextualization is the act by which the sign is identified as a sign. No contextualization, no sign. This is a basic assumption of integrational linguistics. 4c. Contexts are not given: they are constructed by the participants in particular communication situations. How exactly this is done how the distinctions are drawn between what is relevant and what is not no one has yet explained. Integrational research aims to explore this problem. 4d. The complexity of contextualization is one of the reasons why misunderstandings are common in human communication. Individuals contextualize differently from one another, depending on the personal experience they bring to bear on dealing with a given situation. Not even in the case of identical twins do two individuals share the same history of communicational experience." Harris does not appear to keep clear the distinction between what he'd call a "sign" (a spoken or written "word", a gesture, even a factor in environment smoke in the hall, rain, a growl from a lion) and the content of the mind receiving these signs. Harris is right to feel all of these signs can combine to occasion the next notions that arise in a person's mind. But Harris doesn't see the implication of his own excellent observation: "Contextualization. . . is not just a function of the immediate situation, but of the entire communicational experience of the participants." When he says, " A sign acquires a meaning only when occurring in a specific context," I claim he is thinking of "the meaning" as the notion that arises in the receiver's mind. The receiver, takes in these new "signs" and processes them, which involves connecting them with his memories. Everything you might say to someone -- "apple", "fire", "foopgoom", "appelsin" -- depends on the receiver's memory for the image, feeling, idea that then arises in the receiver's mind. It is this processing that Harris thinks of as "conceptualization" I understand why Harris says "the sign acquires the meaning", but what Harris actually is thinking is that the mind of the receiver acquires something, a rising notion. It's understandable but misleading to say the sign has acquired anything at all. The sign is absolutely unchanged. Harris is thinking straight when he says "a sign is not a form which carries its own meaning permanently around with it". But he's gone wrong when he suggests the sign itself EVER "has a meaning". That error, among others, has repercussions throughout what I've read by him.
