도깨비 Questions and Text Comprehensions

[kellogg]

Nice work, Red Bean! I'm going to use COOL BLUE to comment on your comments. The blue means that my comments are not necessarily critical. It does not mean that they are COLD!

What exactly is "the problem" or "the question" of Thinking and Speech? Is it...

a) Is there thinking? Is there speech? Is there a link between thinking and speech?

b) What is thinking? What is speech? What is the distinction between thinking and speech?

Spinoza divided questions into three types:

EXISTENCE: “Is it a sun beam?” (Mehan calls these “choice” questions!)

ESSENCE: “What is a sun beam?” (Mehan calls them “product” questions.)

EXPLANATION: “Why does the sun emit light?” (Mehan calls them “process” questions.)

You can see that a) type questions are HARD to ask (for the teacher) and EASY to answer (for the child). But of course "yes" and "no" don't tell us very much; they often just give us information that we can see perfectly well with our own eyes!

You can also see that b) questions are also EASY to answer. The child can often answer with a NAME (e.g. "ray" or "light"). But of course a name is not an explanation.

You can see that c) questions are easy to ASK (and this is why Piaget thinks that the SECOND period of questions, around eight years old, when kids go around asking why they were born, and why there is air, and why the sun is shining and so on, is basically meaningless). You just keep going "Why?" "Why?' "Why?". But they can be VERY hard to answer.

Yes, there is thinking(생각) and there is speech(말).

Of course, behaviorists disagree, Somin! Behaviorists tell you that there is such a thing as speech. But "thinking" is only a hypothesis. Pavlov, Watson, Skinner, and even contemporary discourse analysts like Jeff Coulter will tell you that speech is nothing but verbal behavior. It's a noise people make with their mouths. The mind is an unnecessary conjecture.

We can why they thought this when we remember little Taeyong and his mother in the car. Little Taeyong drops his plastic giraffe on the car floor. He's strapped into a safety seat and he can't pick it up. So he yells "엄마!" But what is he thinking? What kind of thinking? Is it a NAME? Or just a way of getting attention?

But I think that Pavlov, Watson, Skinner, and Coulter are wrong. I think that our Hong Kong is completely right. Speech gives us data about many things: communicating, yes, but also thinking...and even feeling. So because there is speech, we know there is thinking. 

I believe that these two things make humans humanize(인간을 인간답게 만드는 두 요소=생각과 말)!

Yes, one of the beautiful things about this book is that it really does tell us what is that makes human beings specific and special among animals. Especially Chapter Four.

We sometimes imagine that we look different from other animals. But if I look in the mirror and I am really honest with myself, I have to admit that I look a lot more like a chimpanzee than a chimpanzee looks like a lesser monkey or a lemur. (Maybe it is the pot belly and the hairy face...Somin really doesn't look like a chimpanzee!)

But I certainly speak differently from chimps, and I think a lot differently too. But how do we know this?

Animals think much less than humans and they usually act depend on their instinct.

Wait a minute. I act on instinct too. When I see a snake, I am frightened. And Pavlov and Watson and Skinner proved that animals reactions often don't depend on instinct. For example, instinct doesn't tell the dog that a bell means food.

But, humans think. We think about what we learn. We organize our thought. Only humans can think rationally. Only humans can think not only about our survival but also about life, math, science, communication, manners and so on.

And we humans are the only creature that use language to communicate. So there is speech.

Think of little Taeyong and "엄마!". Apes do use cries like this to attract attention. So I think we have to admit that apes do use speech to communicate.

Now, as soon as we admit that, we have to say that a lot of other species do too. For example, bees have a sophisticated system of dancing to communicate how far and in what direction there is food.

Of course, Ms. Hong might say that the bee is acting on instinct. But there are two problems with that:

a) The monkey isn't acting on instinct. Monkeys learn particular cries. So do whales, by the way; a few years ago, a group of MALE whales from the Indian Ocean migrated to the Pacific, near Australia. The female whales near Australia found their particular cries new and very interesting, and the male whales got lots of girlfriends. Within a few MONTHS, whales all over the Pacific Ocean, including near Korea, were singing the Indian Ocean whale songs--kind of like 한류, only backwards....

b) According to Professor Hong (홍선호 교수님), a LOT of language behavior--including grammar--is innate, and a kind of instinct.

Distinction first!

As Mr.Kellogg said in 'g)' of the summary of our last class, speech is communicative work. Speech is something you do with other people. We use speech to communicate. Speech requires at least two people. Thinking is noncommunicative work. We think by ourselves. We use thinking to organize what we learn. We use thinking to predict or review our life. Actually we think about everything!  

We think about every "thing". But the meaning of "thing" develops, just as the meaning of "엄마!" develops. Not the word, but the thought.

How is "thought" related to "word"? We can see that there ISN'T one single, static, unchanging relationship. The word "thing" means a toy, an object, an apple to a child. But it can mean "justice", "love", "country" to an adult. How does that happen?

This all seems very abstract and unrelated to teaching. But the word "light" means a sunbeam to a child, and it means electromagnetic wave to an adult. Turning a sunbeam into an electromagnetic wave is what we call "education". 

Link

And we also think about how to communicate with others. We use speech to express our thoughts. So there is a link between thinking and speech.

Good! And if Hong Kong were NOT a teacher, that would be enough. The problem is that Ms. Hong's a teacher. Her job involves understanding HOW thought is related to word, and how that link can develop.

Rememer that Taeyong said "엄마" and was thinking something like "야!" Remember that the children say "Mr. K" and they are thinking something like "미스터 Donut" or maybe "Special K".

That's fine. In fact, if it helps the kids remember, it's a good beginning. But it's only a beginning. We need to understand how "엄마" can develop into the whole system of "mother", "Mom", "mommy", "Darling", "Dear", etc. We need the child to understand how "Mr. K" can develop into the whole system of "Mr. Kellogg", "Mrs. Kellogg", "Dr. Kellogg", "Professor Kellogg", etc.

c) Why is thinking (especially reading!) so much like speech? How did speech become rational, the way that thinking is?

This is a tricky question... When I first thought about reading, it looked like it is 'thinking' because we read by ourselves. But, when you read, you are reading someone else's organized thoughts. So actually you are communicating indirectly with the writer through your reading(thinking).

That's not all, Somin. When you read, there is vocabulary. There is grammar. And in very small children, there is even pronunciation: we can see that they move their tongues and even their lips when they try to read. So written language, which seems very THOUGHTFUL and THOUGHT-FILLED (at least compared to some everyday conversations), appears to be very much like speech. In fact, Vygotsky calls it "written speech".

If you read and not think, you can't get the meanings of the book(or writing) well. That means you have to think to understand the meaning. And the meaning of the book is what the writer of the book wants to tell you. Am I right?ㅠㅠ

Let me show you something. I want you to imagine a little fairy, or a little ghost, or maybe a 도깨비 who lives between sentences, right between the full stop (".") and the capital letter ("T"). We will call him 도-Q-비.

Now, imagine you are teaching a text.

“Look! This is a sun beam. A sun beam is a ray of sun light. Sun light is a kind of light from the sun.”

In some ways, this is just a list of names. “Beam” is a name for “ray”. “Ray” is a name for “light”. We know this because we can link the sentences together dialogically, like this:

“Look!” (도-Q-비: "Look? At what? Why should I?") This is a sun beam. (도-Q-비: "Is it? What is a sun bearm? Why is it called a sun bearm?") A sun beam is a ray of sun light. (도-Q-비: "Is  it really? What is a ray? Why is it called a ray?")

Which of 도-Q-비's questions are getting ANSWERED as we read? Is the text mostly about EXISTENCE, or ESSENCE, or EXPLANATION?

Names are not explanations. But they can LEAD us to explanations, just as

“Sunlight is an electromagnetic wave emitted by the sun.” (What is…? Why does…?)

“The sun beam bounces off the mirror.” (What does…? Why does…?)

“The sun beam bends in the lens.”

“The sun beam bounces off the moon.”

“The moon beam bends/bounces off the air/ atmosphere.”

In the last class we saw that the relationship between thought and word DEVELOPS. Taeyong’s word for “Mommy” developed from a way of getting attention to a name and then to way of calling mother that is specific to a child. The greeting “Hi!” was DEVELOPED into two different realizations of greeting: “Hi!” and “Hello”.

In TOMORROW'S class we want to see .how wordings develop. In particular, we want to see how the naming function can be integrated into the signifying function. The way this happens IN ENGLISH is that through GENERALIZATION—we go from specific objects (names) to general classes or groups of objects (pre-concepts). We go from “I want the apple” to “I like apples”.

1.     This work is a psychological study of one of the most difficult, complex, and intricately tangled questions of experimental psychology, (To-Q-bee: What problem?) the problem of thinking and speech. (To-Q-bee: Don’t these studies exist?) Systematic experimental resolution of this problem, as far as we know, is yet to be undertaken by any researcher. (ToQB: So how did you do it?) Solution of the problem which lay before us, if only in a preliminary and approximate fashion, could only be realized via a number of specific experimental studies of separate sides of the question which interests us. (ToQB: For example?), such as, for example, the study of experimentally formed concepts, the study of written language and its relation to the thinking, a study of inner speech and so forth (What is “inner speech?”

You can see that:

a) Vygotsky's ability to ANTICIPATE ToQB's questions is what gives the text coherence.

b) Our ability to ASK these questions and understand the NEXT sentence as Vygotsky's answer is what gives us understanding. 

Now, let's consider your NEXT question. 

And what about 혼잣말? Is it thinking or speech?

Vygotsky and Piaget has very different opinion about 혼잣말. Vygotsky thinks 혼잣말 is a way of solving problems. We use 혼잣말 when we confront difficult situation. But Piaget thinks 혼잣말 is a process of perfecting someone's language level and 혼잣말 will disappear gradually as we grow and start use inner speech. (피아제는 내적 언어 사용을 미숙한 사고의 표현이라고 보았으나 비고츠키는 사고력 발달의 표현이라고 보았다.) But, even if these two scholars have different opinion about 혼잣말, they both relate 혼잣말 with thinking. hmm... 혼잣말 is talking to oneself not to someone else... So I think it's closer to thinking than speech. ^^

Take a look at this:

KT: Good. (showing another card)
Ss: 어, 하이킹이다.
KT: 재영, let's go hiking this Sunday.

We can see that what the kids say is not simply self-directed speech. It's an implicit ANSWER to the teacher's implicit question ("What's this?"). The teacher ACCEPTS the answer, and puts it into English for the kids.

This is certainly 혼잣말, because otherwise it would be impolite. But can you really say that it is not communicative?

When we read Vygotsky, we often notice that things are LINKED as well as DISTINCT. They HAVE to be distinct, in order to be linked. And because they are linked, they develop each other in very important ways.

Maybe thinking and speech are like this?

dk

Thank you!