Anticipatory dynamics, arguability and agency in a normatively and self-transforming learning
Part 1
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.2005.1.2.261Keywords:
affordance, agent, anticipatory dynamics, discourse, cognition, distributed activity, learning, metafunction, semiosis, valuesAbstract
Theories of cognition that are based on information processing and representation are reactive (Rosen, 1985) or backwards looking, not anticipatory. In a previous article (Thibault, 2005a), I looked at the reasons why humans and bonobos do not need an innate language faculty in order to be minded, languaging beings. The present article takes up some of the questions explored there, but, it asks, on the other hand, what sort of a minded agent has language and what kind of account of language and more broadly meaning do we need to explain minded, languaged agents and the activities they participate in? Following Rosen (1985), I also take up and further develop a point first raised in Thibault (2004a: 187) on language as an anticipatory system, rather than a reactively ‘representational’ one (see also Bickhard, 2005).
References
Abercrombie, D. (1967) Elements of General Phonetics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Bickhard, M. H. (1987) The social nature of the functional nature of language. In M. Hickmann (ed.) Social and Functional Approaches to Language and Thought. Orlando and New York: Academic Press.
Bickhard, M. H. (2005) Function, Anticipation, Representation. Accessed March 2005 from http://www.lehigh.edu/~mhb0/mhb0.html
Brandt, P. A. (1989) The dynamics of modality: a catastrophe analysis. Recherches Sémiotique/Semiotic Inquiry (RSSI) 9(1–3): 3–15.
Bråten, S. (2002) Altercentric perception by infants and adults in dialogue: ego’s virtual participation in alter’s complementary act. In M. I. Stamenov and V. Gallese (eds) Mirror Neurons and the Evolution of Brain and Language. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Burke, K. [1945] (1969) A Grammar of Motives. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Clark, A. (1997) Being There: putting brain, body and world together again. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Clark, A. (2001a) Where brain, body, and world collide. In G. M. Edelman and J. Changeux (eds) The Brain. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers.
Clark, A. (2001b) Reasons, robots and the extended mind. Mind & Language 16(2): 121–45.
Cowley, S. J. (1998) Of timing, turn-taking, and conversations. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 27(5): 541–71.
Damasio, A. R. [1994] (1996) Descartes’ Error: emotion, reason and the human brain. London and Oxford: Macmillan Papermac.
Damasio, A. (2000) The Feeling of What Happens: body, emotion and the making of consciousness. London: William Heinemann.
Davidse, K. (1992) A semiotic approach to relational clauses. Occasional Papers in Systemic Linguistics (OPSL) 6: 99–131.
Davidse, K. (1997) The subject-object versus the agent-patient asymmetry. Paper Presented at the congress ‘Objects, Grammatical Relations and Semantics’. University of Gent, 23–24 May.
Deacon, T. (1997) The Symbolic Species: the co-evolution of language and the human brain. London and New York: Penguin.
Edelman, G. M. (1992) Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: on the matter of the mind. London and New York: Penguin.
Edelman G. M. (2004) Wider than the Sky: the phenomenal gift of consciousness. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Fabbri, P. (2003) Elogio di Babele: traduzioni, trasposizioni, trasmutazioni. Rome: Meltemi Editore.
Gibson, J. J. [1966] (1983) The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
Gibson, J. J. [1979] (1986) The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Hillsdale, NJ and London: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Habermas, J. [1976] (1979) Communication and the Evolution of Society. Translated by T. McCarthy. London and Melbourne: Heinemann.
Haken, H. (1977) Synergetics: an introduction. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. Halliday, M. A. K. (1975) Learning How to Mean: explorations in the development of language. London: Arnold.
Halliday, M. A. K. [1970] (1976) Modality and Modulation in English. In G. Kress (ed.) Halliday: system and function in language. Oxford and London: Oxford University Press.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1979) Modes of meaning and modes of expression: types of grammatical structure and their determination by different semantic functions. In D. J. Allerton, E. Carney and D. Holdcroft (eds) Function and Context in Linguistic Analysis: a festschrift for William Haas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1993) Towards a language-based theory of learning. Linguistics and Education 5: 93–116.
Halliday, M. A. K. [1985] (1994) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Second edition. London and Melbourne: Edward Arnold.
Halliday, M. A. K. [1984] (2004) The complete ‘Nigel’ Transcripts. In J. J. Webster (ed.) The Language of Early Childhood. Vol. 4 in The Collected Works of M. A. K. Halliday CD supplement. London and New York: Continuum.
Halliday, M. A. K. and Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2004) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Third edition. London and New York: Arnold.
Harré, R. (1990) Exploring the human Umwelt. In R. Bhaskar (ed.) Harré and His Critics. Essays in Honour of Rom Harré with his Commentary on Them. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Hasan, R. (1992a) Rationality in everyday talk: from process to system. In J. Svartik (ed.) Directions in Corpus Linguistics. (Proceedings of Nobel Symposium 82 Stockholm, 4–8 August 1991.) Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Hasan, R. (1992b) Speech genre, semiotic mediation and the development of higher mental functions. Language Sciences 14(4): 489–528.
Hutchins, E. (1995) How a cockpit remembers its speeds. Cognitive Science 19: 265–88.
Johnson, M. H. and Morton, J. (1991) Biology and Cognitive Development: the case of face recognition. Oxford: Blackwell.
Juarrero, A. (1999) Dynamics in Action: intentional behavior as a complex system. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press.
Langacker, R. W. (1987) Foundations of Cognitive Grammar Vol. I. Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Langacker, R. W. (1991) Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, Vol. II. Descriptive Application. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Lemke, J. L. (1983) Thematic analysis: systems, structures, and strategies. Recherches Sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry (RSSI) 3(2): 159–87.
Lemke, J. L. (1999) Opening up closure: semiotics across scales. Paper presented at the conference, Closure: Emergent Organizations and their Dynamics. University of Ghent, Belgium, May. http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/jlemke/index.htm
Lemke, J. L. (2000a) Material sign processes and emergent ecosocial organization. In P. B. Andersen, C. Emmeche, N. O. Finnemann and P. V. Christiansen (eds) Downward Causation: minds, bodies and matter. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
Lemke, J. L. (2000b) Across the scales of time: artefacts, activities, and meanings in ecosocial systems. Mind, Culture, and Activity 7(4): 273–90.
Lewontin, R. [1998] (2001) The Triple Helix: gene, organism and environment. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press.
Martin, J. R. (1992) English Text: system and structure. Philadelphia/Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
McGregor, W. J. (1997) Semiotic Grammar. Oxford: Blackwell.
Peirce, C. S. (1998) Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Vol. 8. Edited by A. W. Burks. Bristol: Thoemmes Press.
Peng, F. C. C. (1978) Linguistic potentials of non-human primates. In F. C. C. Peng (ed.) Sign Language and Language Acquisition in Man and Ape: new dimensions in comparative pedolinguistics. (AAAS Selected Symposium Series No. 16.) Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.
Penfield, W. G. and Rasmussen, T. (1950) The Cerebral Cortex of Man: a clinical study of localization of function. New York: Macmillan.
Prodi, G. (1977) Le Basi Materiali della Significazione. Milan: Bompiani.
Rizzolatti, G, and Arbib, M. A. (1998) Language within our Grasp. Trends in Neuroscience 21(5): 188–94.
Rosen, R. (1985) Anticipatory Systems: philosophical, mathematical and methodological foundations. Oxford: Pergamon.
Salthe, S. N. (1993) Development and Evolution: complexity and change in biology. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press.
Sarles, H. (1977) After Metaphysics: towards a grammar of interaction and discourse. Lisse: The Peter de Ridder Press.
Sealey, A. and Carter, B. (2004) Applied Linguistics as Social Science. London and New York: Continuum.
Silverstein, M. and Urban, G. (eds) (1996) Natural Histories of Discourse. Chicago. The University of Chicago Press.
Thelen, E. and Smith, L. B. (1994) A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Development of Cognition and Action. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press.
Thibault, P. J. (1986) The cognitive hypothesis: a critical comment. In Text, Discourse, and Context: a social semiotic perspective. Victoria University, Toronto: Monographs, Working Papers and Prepublications of the Toronto Semiotic Circle, Vol. 3.
Thibault, P. J. (1999) Communicating and interpreting relevance through discourse negotiation: an alternative to relevance theory. Journal of Pragmatics 31: 557–94.
Thibault, P. J. (2000) The dialogical integration of the brain in social semiosis: Edelman and the case for downward causation. Mind, Culture, and Activity 7(4): 291–311.
Thibault, P. J. (2002) Interpersonal meaning and the discursive construction of action, attitudes and values: the global modal program of one text. In P. Fries, M. Cummings, D. Lockwood and W. Spruiell (eds) Relations and Functions within and around Language. London and New York: Continuum.
Thibault, P. J. (2004a) Agency and Consciousness in Discourse: self-other dynamics as a complex system. London and New York: Continuum.
Thibault, P. J. (2004b) Brain, Mind, and the Signifying Body: an ecosocial semiotic theory. London and New York: Continuum.
Thibault, P. J. (2005a) Brains, bodies, contextualizing activity and language: do humans (and bonobos) have a language faculty, and can they do without one? Linguistics and the Human Sciences. 1(1): 101–28.
Thibault, P. J. (2005b) The interpersonal gateway to the meaning of mind: unifying the inter- and intraorganism perspectives on language. In R. Hasan, C. M. I. M. Matthiessen, and J. J. Webster (eds) Continuing Discourse on Language: a functional perspective. Vol. 1. London: Equinox.
von Uexküll, J. (1909) Umwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere. Berlin: Verlag von Julius Springer.
von Uexküll, J. (1982) The theory of meaning. Semiotica 42(1): 25–82.
Voloshinov, V. N. (1983) The construction of the utterance. In A. Shukman (ed.) Bakhtin School Papers: Russian Poetics in Translation, No. 10. Translated by N. Owen. Oxford: RPT Publications, in association with the Department of Literature, University of Essex, Colchester.
Vygotsky, L. [1934] (1986) Thought and Language. Translated by A. Kozulin. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press.
Wilden, A. [1972] (1980) System and Structure: essays in communication and exchange. Second edition. London: Tavistock.
Wilden, T. (1981) Semiotics as Praxis: strategy and tactics. Recherches Sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry 1(1): 1–34.
Bickhard, M. H. (1987) The social nature of the functional nature of language. In M. Hickmann (ed.) Social and Functional Approaches to Language and Thought. Orlando and New York: Academic Press.
Bickhard, M. H. (2005) Function, Anticipation, Representation. Accessed March 2005 from http://www.lehigh.edu/~mhb0/mhb0.html
Brandt, P. A. (1989) The dynamics of modality: a catastrophe analysis. Recherches Sémiotique/Semiotic Inquiry (RSSI) 9(1–3): 3–15.
Bråten, S. (2002) Altercentric perception by infants and adults in dialogue: ego’s virtual participation in alter’s complementary act. In M. I. Stamenov and V. Gallese (eds) Mirror Neurons and the Evolution of Brain and Language. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Burke, K. [1945] (1969) A Grammar of Motives. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Clark, A. (1997) Being There: putting brain, body and world together again. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Clark, A. (2001a) Where brain, body, and world collide. In G. M. Edelman and J. Changeux (eds) The Brain. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers.
Clark, A. (2001b) Reasons, robots and the extended mind. Mind & Language 16(2): 121–45.
Cowley, S. J. (1998) Of timing, turn-taking, and conversations. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 27(5): 541–71.
Damasio, A. R. [1994] (1996) Descartes’ Error: emotion, reason and the human brain. London and Oxford: Macmillan Papermac.
Damasio, A. (2000) The Feeling of What Happens: body, emotion and the making of consciousness. London: William Heinemann.
Davidse, K. (1992) A semiotic approach to relational clauses. Occasional Papers in Systemic Linguistics (OPSL) 6: 99–131.
Davidse, K. (1997) The subject-object versus the agent-patient asymmetry. Paper Presented at the congress ‘Objects, Grammatical Relations and Semantics’. University of Gent, 23–24 May.
Deacon, T. (1997) The Symbolic Species: the co-evolution of language and the human brain. London and New York: Penguin.
Edelman, G. M. (1992) Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: on the matter of the mind. London and New York: Penguin.
Edelman G. M. (2004) Wider than the Sky: the phenomenal gift of consciousness. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Fabbri, P. (2003) Elogio di Babele: traduzioni, trasposizioni, trasmutazioni. Rome: Meltemi Editore.
Gibson, J. J. [1966] (1983) The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
Gibson, J. J. [1979] (1986) The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Hillsdale, NJ and London: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Habermas, J. [1976] (1979) Communication and the Evolution of Society. Translated by T. McCarthy. London and Melbourne: Heinemann.
Haken, H. (1977) Synergetics: an introduction. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. Halliday, M. A. K. (1975) Learning How to Mean: explorations in the development of language. London: Arnold.
Halliday, M. A. K. [1970] (1976) Modality and Modulation in English. In G. Kress (ed.) Halliday: system and function in language. Oxford and London: Oxford University Press.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1979) Modes of meaning and modes of expression: types of grammatical structure and their determination by different semantic functions. In D. J. Allerton, E. Carney and D. Holdcroft (eds) Function and Context in Linguistic Analysis: a festschrift for William Haas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1993) Towards a language-based theory of learning. Linguistics and Education 5: 93–116.
Halliday, M. A. K. [1985] (1994) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Second edition. London and Melbourne: Edward Arnold.
Halliday, M. A. K. [1984] (2004) The complete ‘Nigel’ Transcripts. In J. J. Webster (ed.) The Language of Early Childhood. Vol. 4 in The Collected Works of M. A. K. Halliday CD supplement. London and New York: Continuum.
Halliday, M. A. K. and Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2004) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Third edition. London and New York: Arnold.
Harré, R. (1990) Exploring the human Umwelt. In R. Bhaskar (ed.) Harré and His Critics. Essays in Honour of Rom Harré with his Commentary on Them. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Hasan, R. (1992a) Rationality in everyday talk: from process to system. In J. Svartik (ed.) Directions in Corpus Linguistics. (Proceedings of Nobel Symposium 82 Stockholm, 4–8 August 1991.) Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Hasan, R. (1992b) Speech genre, semiotic mediation and the development of higher mental functions. Language Sciences 14(4): 489–528.
Hutchins, E. (1995) How a cockpit remembers its speeds. Cognitive Science 19: 265–88.
Johnson, M. H. and Morton, J. (1991) Biology and Cognitive Development: the case of face recognition. Oxford: Blackwell.
Juarrero, A. (1999) Dynamics in Action: intentional behavior as a complex system. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press.
Langacker, R. W. (1987) Foundations of Cognitive Grammar Vol. I. Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Langacker, R. W. (1991) Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, Vol. II. Descriptive Application. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Lemke, J. L. (1983) Thematic analysis: systems, structures, and strategies. Recherches Sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry (RSSI) 3(2): 159–87.
Lemke, J. L. (1999) Opening up closure: semiotics across scales. Paper presented at the conference, Closure: Emergent Organizations and their Dynamics. University of Ghent, Belgium, May. http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/jlemke/index.htm
Lemke, J. L. (2000a) Material sign processes and emergent ecosocial organization. In P. B. Andersen, C. Emmeche, N. O. Finnemann and P. V. Christiansen (eds) Downward Causation: minds, bodies and matter. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
Lemke, J. L. (2000b) Across the scales of time: artefacts, activities, and meanings in ecosocial systems. Mind, Culture, and Activity 7(4): 273–90.
Lewontin, R. [1998] (2001) The Triple Helix: gene, organism and environment. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press.
Martin, J. R. (1992) English Text: system and structure. Philadelphia/Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
McGregor, W. J. (1997) Semiotic Grammar. Oxford: Blackwell.
Peirce, C. S. (1998) Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Vol. 8. Edited by A. W. Burks. Bristol: Thoemmes Press.
Peng, F. C. C. (1978) Linguistic potentials of non-human primates. In F. C. C. Peng (ed.) Sign Language and Language Acquisition in Man and Ape: new dimensions in comparative pedolinguistics. (AAAS Selected Symposium Series No. 16.) Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.
Penfield, W. G. and Rasmussen, T. (1950) The Cerebral Cortex of Man: a clinical study of localization of function. New York: Macmillan.
Prodi, G. (1977) Le Basi Materiali della Significazione. Milan: Bompiani.
Rizzolatti, G, and Arbib, M. A. (1998) Language within our Grasp. Trends in Neuroscience 21(5): 188–94.
Rosen, R. (1985) Anticipatory Systems: philosophical, mathematical and methodological foundations. Oxford: Pergamon.
Salthe, S. N. (1993) Development and Evolution: complexity and change in biology. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press.
Sarles, H. (1977) After Metaphysics: towards a grammar of interaction and discourse. Lisse: The Peter de Ridder Press.
Sealey, A. and Carter, B. (2004) Applied Linguistics as Social Science. London and New York: Continuum.
Silverstein, M. and Urban, G. (eds) (1996) Natural Histories of Discourse. Chicago. The University of Chicago Press.
Thelen, E. and Smith, L. B. (1994) A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Development of Cognition and Action. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press.
Thibault, P. J. (1986) The cognitive hypothesis: a critical comment. In Text, Discourse, and Context: a social semiotic perspective. Victoria University, Toronto: Monographs, Working Papers and Prepublications of the Toronto Semiotic Circle, Vol. 3.
Thibault, P. J. (1999) Communicating and interpreting relevance through discourse negotiation: an alternative to relevance theory. Journal of Pragmatics 31: 557–94.
Thibault, P. J. (2000) The dialogical integration of the brain in social semiosis: Edelman and the case for downward causation. Mind, Culture, and Activity 7(4): 291–311.
Thibault, P. J. (2002) Interpersonal meaning and the discursive construction of action, attitudes and values: the global modal program of one text. In P. Fries, M. Cummings, D. Lockwood and W. Spruiell (eds) Relations and Functions within and around Language. London and New York: Continuum.
Thibault, P. J. (2004a) Agency and Consciousness in Discourse: self-other dynamics as a complex system. London and New York: Continuum.
Thibault, P. J. (2004b) Brain, Mind, and the Signifying Body: an ecosocial semiotic theory. London and New York: Continuum.
Thibault, P. J. (2005a) Brains, bodies, contextualizing activity and language: do humans (and bonobos) have a language faculty, and can they do without one? Linguistics and the Human Sciences. 1(1): 101–28.
Thibault, P. J. (2005b) The interpersonal gateway to the meaning of mind: unifying the inter- and intraorganism perspectives on language. In R. Hasan, C. M. I. M. Matthiessen, and J. J. Webster (eds) Continuing Discourse on Language: a functional perspective. Vol. 1. London: Equinox.
von Uexküll, J. (1909) Umwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere. Berlin: Verlag von Julius Springer.
von Uexküll, J. (1982) The theory of meaning. Semiotica 42(1): 25–82.
Voloshinov, V. N. (1983) The construction of the utterance. In A. Shukman (ed.) Bakhtin School Papers: Russian Poetics in Translation, No. 10. Translated by N. Owen. Oxford: RPT Publications, in association with the Department of Literature, University of Essex, Colchester.
Vygotsky, L. [1934] (1986) Thought and Language. Translated by A. Kozulin. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press.
Wilden, A. [1972] (1980) System and Structure: essays in communication and exchange. Second edition. London: Tavistock.
Wilden, T. (1981) Semiotics as Praxis: strategy and tactics. Recherches Sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry 1(1): 1–34.
Published
2007-02-18
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Thibault, P. J. (2007). Anticipatory dynamics, arguability and agency in a normatively and self-transforming learning: Part 1. Linguistics and the Human Sciences, 1(2), 261-335. https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.2005.1.2.261
