Formal Dinner Invitations and Spontaneous Chimpanzee Picnics

[kellogg]

1. Vygotsky says chimpanzee "speech" isn't representational. But it's very rich. What can it do? Name three functions!

비고츠키는 침팬지 ‘말’은 인간의 의미에서 보면 유의미하지 않으면 표상적이지 않다고 한다. 그 이유는 스턴이 지적한 두 기능들, 한 편으로는 표현에, 한 편으로는 의사소통에 제한되기 때문이다. 그렇지만 그것은 풍부하게 분화되었으며, 풍부하게 분화된 지능과 함께 존재한다. 이는 세 ‘계기’ 를 구별한다.

Notice how Ms Ha UPTAKES the question. That is, she repeats it in her own words.

This is a very good idea, and it’s a particularly good EXAM strategy. It does three things. First of all, you make sure that you understand the questions. Secondly, you can change it slightly to suit your answer. Thirdly, you give yourself something that you can UPTAKE when you actually start to answer the question.

I always have a little trouble reading homework in Korean, so I will try Ha-ha’s strategy—I will UPTAKE what she says, in English.

She says that Vygotsky does not think that chimp language contains representations, or “images”, or objective descriptions of any kind. It has only two of Stern’s “Wurzeln” (emotional expression‎ and social communication) and not the third (intension, that is, “having something in mind”).  She’s RIGHT, of course.

But consider the title of Vygotsky’s book: “Thinking and Speech”. This chapter is about the “genetic roots” of thinking and speech. In it, Vygotsky argues that thinking and speech have SEPARATE roots.

Let us say that chimp language has only two roots. Which one is the root of “thinking”? Which is the root of “speech”? Why do you think so?

첫 번째로, 정서적 흥분의 연결은 표현적인 감정적 행위들을 낳는다.

Emotionally colored expressions, and emotional behavior! We see this in English class too, of course:

“Ha ha!”

“Oh, no!”

“Oh, wow!”

Remember that emotionally colored expressions like these provide an important VEHICLE for intonation (the way that salad provides a vehicle for salad dressing)! And of course intonation is a natural sign which suggests emotion.

None of these expressions are representational, and they are not exactly communicative either, because they do not convey information and they are not chiefly oriented toward social contact.

Now, what do you think? Are these expressions the pre-history of THINKING or the pre-history of SPEECH?

두 번째로, 좌절의 제스처와 같은 감정적 행위들은 문제 풀이를 위한 노력들과 같은 지적 반응들을 파괴한다.

In the second place, there are gestures of SOCIAL CONTACT. (Is that chimpanzee “thinking” or chimpanzee “speech”?)

세 번째로, 감정적 행위들은 다른 동물에서도 그렇듯이, 사회적 접촉의 부가적 기능을 수행한다.

Actually, I think that Kohler goes a little further than this. Take a look at THIS, Ha-ha!

4-1-18] 동물들은 서로의 얼굴 표정과 제스처를 너무도 잘 이해한다. 제스처를 통해 그들은 다른 유인원에게 혹은 다른 대상에 대한 자신들의 정서적 상태를 “드러낼” 뿐만 아니라, 쾰러가 말하길, 욕구와 충동을 “드러낸”다. 그런 경우에 가장 흔히 발견되는 방법은, 침팬지가 내보이고 싶은 혹은 다른 동물에게 재촉하고자 하는 (다른 동물을 미는 것, 다른 동물에게 함께 가자고 “부를” 때 한 걸음 앞서는 것 혹은 원숭이가 동료로부터 바나나를 얻고자 할 때 잡는 움직임을 하는 것, 등등) 동작을 혹은 작용을 시작하는 곳에서 사례를 모으는 것이다. 이 모든 것은 작용 그 자체에 직접적으로 연결되는 제스처이다.

What do you think? The chimpanzees know how to INVITE! Now, it’s true that an invitation is not exactly ideation. But why not?

I think that Vygotsky would say that the invitation is not really “etwas zu meinen”, it’s not really “something in mind”.

Instead, it’s something that is SHARED between TWO MINDS. When a chimp invites another chimp, the chimp doesn’t really have a complete plan—they just have an emotional feeling that they want to do something together.

It’s like the difference between a formal dinner party and a spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment shared picnic with a chimp you just met. In one case, there really is a clear plan “in mind”. But in the other one you make up the plan as you go along.

Which one is more like the kind of TPR we want kids to do in pairs?

2. Which function do you think brings the monkey CLOSEST to human speech?

 감정을 표현하는 행위는 표현적인 발성 반응의 똑같은 형태로 인간 말의 출현과 발달의 기초가 된다.

Good! Emotional expressiveness in chimps really DOES look very much like emotional expressiveness in humans. I think, actually, that is why we find them so cute, and sometimes a little horrifying too.

 But wait a minute. Isn’t this really what brings the HUMAN closest to the MONKEY? The question is really the other way around: what is it that brings the MONKEY closest to the HUMAN!

For example, Kohler is working in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, which are a Spanish colony off the coast of Africa. He has a laboratory with lots of chimpanzees, and he does experiments on them. Because he is a famous professor, he doesn’t look after the chimps from day to day.

Instead, he has some Spanish soldiers who feed the chimps and take them out for exercise. The guards TALK to the chimps. They say “Eat!” and the chimps eat. They say “Exit!” and the chimps come out of their cages for exercise. They say “Enter!” and the chimps go back into their cages to sleep.

4-1-20] 쾰러는 다른 곳에서 어떻게 비슷한 제스처들의 도움으로 원시적 설명이 말로 하는 교수로 대체되는 것이 실험을 통해 확정될 수 있는가를 보여준다("Die Methoden der psychologischen Forschung an Affen [원숭이를 대상으로 한 심리학적 조사 방법]", p.119). 이 제스처는, 본질적으로 개에게서 보여 지는 복종(“먹어”(come):개가 먹이를 먹는다. “이리와”(entra): 개가 주인에게 다가간다. 그런 것들.)과 다를 바가 없는 것으로, 스페인 경계병의 말로 하는 명령에 의해 이루어진 유인원의 직접적 수행보다, 인간 말에 더 가까이 놓여진다.

In other words, the chimps act very much like Shimcheong and the sailor, or Cinderella and the mouse, or Kongjwi and the toad. Isn’t this VERY MUCH like human speech? In fact, isn’t this ACTUALLY human speech?

No! Vygotsky says it isn’t.  But why not?

Compare what the GUARDS say with the way that the chimpanzees “invite” each other. How are they different?

Which one is MORE like T-S discourse? Which one is more like S-S discourse? What does THIS tell you about TPR?

 또한, 감정적 행위는 인간 말에서 상응하는 기능의 명백한 발생적 근원이다.

Wait a minute. It’s true that emotion is part of speech, at least for humans. But is it really the ROOT of speech? We can have emotions without ANY social contact. And in fact it looks like chimpanzees can have emotions without social contact too, and sometimes emotions INTERFERE with social contact (e.g. crying interferes with talking).

Flamand: Die Schmerzensschrei gin der sprache voraus!

Olivier: Doch das Leid zu deuten, vermag sie allein!                              

(Flamand: The cry of pain preceded speech!

Olivier: But only words can explain it!)

Richard Strauss and Clemens Krauss, Capriccio

Isn’t emotion really a root of THINKING? Consider these questions:

T: Look! This is Jinho. What is he thinking?

Ss (do not answer)

T: Well, how is he feeling?

Ss (do not answer)

T: Well, is he happy, or sad?

Ss: Sad.

You can see that in order to get an answer, the teacher goes back to the microgenetic “root” of thinking. First she asks about FEELING. The kids don’t answer. The teacher thinks that it’s because they can’t handle the VERB, not because they can’t handle the IDEA. Is she right, or wrong?

말은 감정을 표현하는 반응일 뿐만 아니라 유사한 사람들과 심리적으로 접촉하는 수단이다. 이렇듯 표현하는 기능(감정적 기능, 예를 들어 울음)과 사회적 접촉(의사소통적 기능, 예를 들어 제스처)의 기능은 인간의 그것처럼 지적인 반응, 즉 생각과 연결되지는 않지만, 인간과 동물이 공유하고 있으며 인간의 말과 가장 근접하게 보일 수 있는 부분이라고 생각한다.

Good! Emotional responses are NOT simply (and sometimes not at all) a means of contact. (some people, including me, prefer to cry ALONE!). So crying and gesturing appear UNCONNECTED.

Even better! Ha-ha says that the intelligent response to an invitation suggests human-like communication. Yet in some ways, it is the OUTER part of chimpanzee speech which most resembles human language (vowels and consonants).

Vygotsky often differentiates between the PHENOTYPICAL appearance of speech and the GENOTYPICAL appearance. Phenotype is what things look like on the outside: a whale looks like a fish. But genotype tells us how things are actually related; a whale doesn’t look like a bear, but it’s more related to a bear than to a fish.

I think what Vygotsky might say is that phenotypically, it’s the outer form, the pronunciation of the chimp that looks like human speech. But genotypically, it’s the invitations that most resemble human MEANING.

Why? Because, as Vygotsky says, a word without thought is a dead thing, bereft of content; it is nothing but “Wah, doo warry! Wah! Wah! Wah!” (Actually, that kind of sounds like chimpanzee talk, doesn’t it?)

3. Actually, apes raised with human children DO learn very advanced forms of TPR. What does this tell us about TPR?

  비고츠키는 생각과 말은 다른 발달 노선을 가졌으나 어떤 지점에서 만나 그 결과 생각이 말이 되고, 말은 이성적이고 지적이 된다고 하였다. 또한, 어린이는 상황을 파악하는 주체라고 생각하였다.

  침팬지 문제의 경우, 본질은 소리에 의한 것이 아니라 인간 말에 대응하는 기호를 기능적으로 사용하는데 있으며 ‘관념화’ 의 존재라기보다는 특정 조건하에서 가장 단순한 도구를 제작하고 사용할 수 있고 ‘우회로’를 적용할 수 있다는데 있다.

TPR 활동의 경우, 단순 행동을 따라하고 익히게 하는 데 어느 정도는 유용한 활동이 될 수 있으나, 비고츠키 측면에서 보았을 때 관념화의 존재라기보다는 기호를 기능적으로 사용하는 활동에 가깝다고 생각된다. 이는 인간의 지적 기능을 자극하는 활동으로 보기는 어렵다. 그러므로 교사가 발화를 하고 학생이 발화에 상응하는 행동을 보이는 일방적인 TPR 활동은 어느 이상은 크게 의미 있는 활동이 될 수 없다. 이를 좀더 의미 있는 활동으로 발전시키기 위해서는 학생들이 주체가 되어 서로 주어진 상황에 맞는 발화를 해보고, 그것을 소리로 듣고 행동으로 나타낼 수 있도록 환경을 만들어주어야 한다고 생각한다.

I think it’s useful to remember the CONTEXT in which TPR was developed: it was 1967, and learning and teaching in the USA was entirely dominated by BEHAVIORISM. Asher, however, was sensitive to his older students; he realized they were uncomfortable with speaking and he found that they liked demonstrating their understanding through actions.

When Krashen and his students began to develop a “natural approach” based on much more cognitive (or “comprehensible-ist”) ideas ten years later, they found TPR an almost perfect technique: it provided input but not output, and it offered a good way of making input comprehensible (“Look and Listen”).

So it is STILL popular. But as Ha-ha points out, there are a lot of problems. The children have a way of reducing it to a “Look and Listen” activity: Monkey see, monkey do. When it's a "Look and Listen" activity, I think we can say that it contains neither thinking nor speech; it is perception and not conception, vision and not English.

"The intellectual life of man consists almost wholly in his substitution of a conceptual order for the perceptual order in which his experience originally comes."  (Henry James)

One way to COUNTER this is to use it for pairwork! (If you think about the chimpanzees and their invitations, and compare them with the guards and their orders, you will see why this is a good idea, as well as a Korean one!)

I suppose that Asher and Krashen would not approve, because of course as soon as we use it for pairwork, the children DO have to listen (they can’t just look) but they ALSO have to speak.

However, it turns out that TPR has actually lasted rather longer than the “comprehensible input” hypothesis!

There must be a good reason…it’s not that techniques are ALWAYS more durable than theories, but it’s that some ideas and theories change and remain, and others do not change and disappear.