Agency and Consciousness in Discourse: Self-other Dynamics as a Complex System PAUL J. THIBAULT Continuum Agency and Consciousness in Discourse Self–other dynamics as a complex system PAUL J. THIBAULT Continuum International Publishing Group The Tower Building 15 East 26th Street 11 York Road New York, NY 10010 London SE1 7NX © Paul J. Thibault 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 08264 7426 8 (hardback) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall Contents List of Figures viii List of Tables x Preface xi 1 Introduction 1 1 Semiosis is a microcosm of human agency and consciousness 1 2 Alterity is a primitive intrinsic value that motivates self–nonself relations and meaning-making activity 2 3 Brain activity regulates body–world relations at the same time that body– world relations organize and shape body-brain systems and functions 3 4 Brain activity is contextually integrated to and participates in discourse 11 5 An outline of the arguments in this book 13 PART I: MEANING AND DISCOURSE 2 The Semiotic Mediation of Consciousness in Social Meaning-making 19 1 The diverse semantic scales of meaning-making 19 2 Indexical meaning-making practices and the semiotic grounding of consciousness 20 3 The deictic field of language and the texturing of consciousness 24 4 Karl Bühler’s theory of the deictic field of language 26 5 Intertextual meaning-making practices and the entraining of individuals to ecosocial semiotic values and constraints 31 6 Lemke’s theory of intertextual thematic formations 33 7 An analysis of the interaction of thematic patterns and genre in an instance of mother–child interaction 35 8 The context-sensitive and probabilistic nature of intertextual thematic formations 38 9 Social heteroglossia as a dynamical field of attractors and repellers and the individual’s re-envoicement of voices and values 41 10 Meta-semiotic meaning-making practices, stratification, and the emergence of symbolic levels of neural organization 43 11 Life as a referent: iconic, indexical, and symbolic dimensions 50 PART II: AGENCY, OTHERNESS, AND THE SELF 3 Agency and Intentionality in Early Infant Semiosis 55 1 The timescales of development and individuation: preliminary questions 55 2 Early infant semiosis and the dyadic regulation of the body-brain system 56 3 Movement, consciousness, and proto-intentionality in infant semiosis: Trevarthen’s account 57 4 A comment on Trevarthen’s ascription of intentionality to the infant 60 5 Proto-genres and semiotically mediated agency in the indexical phase: some reflections on Perinat and Sadurní’s interpretation of Piaget 60 6 Halliday’s account of early protolanguage 63 7 The conscious and the material domains as the two primary modes of experience: implications for the self 72 4 Agency, Consciousness, and Meaning-making in Children’s Play 77 1 The reconstitution of language and experience in symbolic play 77 2 Introducing the play episode: analytical preliminaries 78 3 Connecting the play episode to the context of culture of the participants 78 4 Reconstituting Harré’s theory of agency in relation to interpersonal meaning 82 5 The take up and negotiation of agent positions in the play episode: an analysis 86 6 Consciousness, agency, and the negotiation of self–other relations in and through propositions and proposals 93 7 Agency, learning, and the zone of proximal development 96 5 Egocentric Speech and the Re-envoicement of Others’ Meanings: Dialogue, Genre, and the Emergence of the Self 100 1 Re-envoicement versus internalization and appropriation 100 2 Egocentric speech, interpersonal meaning, and the development of self-reflexivity 101 3 Genre, dialogue, and the self-regulation of the individual 103 4 Vygotsky’s theory of egocentric speech and ludic communication 104 5 The linguistic characteristics of egocentric speech 106 6 Egocentric speech, practical activity, and the self’s emergence as agent 107 7 The imperative and indicative modes and the learning of the reflexive interpretation of self and other 109 8 Indicative mood, reflection, and the development of dialogical thinking 111 9 Egocentric speech, self-awareness, and identity 112 10 Egocentric speech and the dialogical negotiation and emergence of a self- referential perspective 113 11 Egocentric speech, indexical and symbolic modes of semiosis, and the development of the metaredundancy contextualization hierarchy 117 12 Egocentric Speech and the Emergence of Agency 118 12.1 An example of egocentric speech in children’s play: an analysis 118 12.2 Re-envoicing the social semiotic 120 13 Genre as social activity structure-type 121 14 The emergence of a self-referential perspective: the closing of the meta-loop on the “me” sector of the dialogic loop 125 15 Value, self-organizing context-sensitive constraints, and the semantic honing of the agent’s action trajectory 126 6 Agency in Action: from Multimodal Object Text to Performance in the Building of Semiotic Bridges between School and Home 129 0 Preliminary observations on the episode to be analysed and its transcription 129 1 The emergence of meaning across diverse timescales 129 2 The distribution of participant roles in the experiential space-time of the activity: an analysis of the location and distribution of consciousness across the “inner” and “outer” domains in relation to verbal and mental processes 131 3 Agency, viewpoint, and the locus of control of the activity 137 4 The semiotic integration of pictorial, graphological-typological, and linguistic resources in the child’s copy book 139 iv Contents 5 The school copy book as semiotic-material artifact 141 6 Sound events and sound acts 142 7 Written script and vocal performance 143 8 The activity-dependent nature of the contextualization of the written script 145 9 The phonetic characteristics of the sounds 146 10 Meaning, text, and performance 148 11 Sound metaphor 149 12 Agency, individuation, and self-organization: body dynamics, action, and the building up of viewpoints in the perspective of the self 152 13 Multimodality, learning, and the development of knowledge through the agent’s own meaning-making activity 157 PART III: CONSCIOUSNESS 7Reflexive (self-)consciousness, Conscience, and the Dialogical Basis of Intrapersonal Moral Consciousness 163 1 Consciousness is a relation between self and world, not access to a state 163 2 The self-reflexive structure of (self-)consciousness 167 3 The foregrounded differentiation and emergence of an inner self-perspective against a background of self–nonself relations and transactions 169 4 The inner self-perspective as semiotic reorganization across levels of neural networks 172 5 Selves, states of consciousness, and the integrating function of the trajectory 174 6 Natsoulas’s discussion of the interpersonal meaning of the terms “conscious” and “consciousness” 176 7 Extending the interpersonal sense of consciousness to the intrapersonal domain of conscience and consciousness 179 8 Guilty conscience and the feeling body 182 8 Interpersonal Meaning, Exchange, and the Dialogic Basis of Consciousness 185 1 Genre finalization and the dialogic negotiation of semiotic and material friction 185 2 The dialogic negotiation of semiotic and material friction: an example from children’s play 188 3 Finiteness, arguability, and the grounding of propositions in the perspective of the self 190 4 The semantic interact as interface between body-brain system and ecosocial semiotic system 194 5 Mood, the semantic interact, and the dialogic frame in action: illustrations from a dispute 195 6 The interpersonal enactment of semiotic-material action trajectories in the transactions between self and nonself 199 7 Limitations of the view that higher-order conscious thinking is propositional in the truth-conditional sense 201 8 Agency and Halliday’s theory of clause-as-exchange 202 9 Exchange, friction, and goal-seeking 204 10 Grammatical mood and the negotiation of friction 205 11 Proposals, propositions, and the discursive negotiation of moral values 207 12 The semantics of the lack in propositions and proposals 208 13 The self as a totality of integrities in various historically emergent semiotic orders 210 14 The constitutive character of our moral being and the semiotics of exchange 212 Contents v 9 Dialogic Closure and the Semiotic Mediation of Consciousness in Ecosocial Networks 214 1 Beaugrande’s distinction between the hard-coupling and the soft-coupling of material base and data field in a model of post-classical cognition: implications for the emergence of the semiotic objects of symbolic consciousness and the Principle of Alternation 214 2 Lexicogrammar, consciousness, and the three-level hierarchy 216 3 The integration of meanings on diverse scalar levels of semiotic organization 219 4 A textual example of semiotically mediated symbolic consciousness and the three-level hierarchy 221 5 Lemke’s Principle of Alternation and topological vs typological modes of semiosis 225 6 The dynamics of higher-order consciousness and the Principle of Alternation 225 6.1 Alternation and the reopening of closure 226 6.1.1 Material closure 226 6.1.2 Autocatalytic closure 227 6.1.3 Informational closure 227 6.1.4 Semiotic closure 228 6.1.5 Dialogic closure 228 6.1.6 Self-referential closure 230 7 Rethinking the notion of consciousness as representation 231 8 Consciousness as integration hierarchy of semiotic levels: iconic, indexical, and symbolic dimensions 233 9 Biological value or mental function? 237 10 The metafunctional shape of symbolic consciousness 239 11 The emergence of new levels of semiotic organization between already existing scalar levels 245 12 Semiotic-dynamical heterarchy and semiotically mediated consciousness in ecosocial networks 249 PART IV: METAPHOR AND SYSTEM COMPLEXITY 10 Metaphor as Multiplication of Meaning Potential and its Implications for Consciousness 255 0 Preliminary observations 255 1 Lakoff and Johnson’s theory of metaphor as conceptual mapping from one domain to another 255 2 Towards an alternative: children’s symbolic construal of spatial proximity as categorial similarity as semiotic reorganization across levels 256 3 The two-way and hybrid nature of metaphor as multiplication of meaning potential 259 4 Extending the view of metaphor as two-way construal of semiotic domains: Halliday’s theory of grammatical metaphor 260 5 Congruency and non-congruency with respect to lexical metaphor: lexicogrammatical and semantic aspects 265 6 Experiential and interpersonal grammatical metaphor in a text 269 7 Interpersonal metaphor and symbolic consciousness 276 11 Metaphor as Semiotic Reorganization across Levels 279 1 Lakoff and Johnson’s theory of embodied realism 279 2 Towards an ecosocial semiotic account of metaphor 281 2.1 Rethinking the implications of embodied realism for metaphor in language: a systemic-functional view 281 vi Contents 2.2 From Edelman’s general cognitive mechanisms as providing the basis for linguistic structures to a three-level account of language as emergent between the body-brain and the ecosocial system 283 3 The metaphorical reopening of embodiment across scalar levels: creating links between body-brain system, meaning, and world 287 4 Proto-metaphor in children’s symbolically mediated play activity 294 5 Grammatical metaphor as semiotic reorganization of lexicogrammatical potential in discourse 304 6 Linguistic and visual metaphor in a child’s multimodal construal of white blood cells 306 7 Visual semiosis and visual metaphor 310 8 Metaphor and Lemke’s Principle of Alternation 312 Appendixes 315 References 333 Subject Index 345 Index of Names 353 Contents vii List of Figures Figure 1.1: Specification-cum-integration hierarchy of iconic, indexical, and symbolic modes of semiosis, seen as a system of integrative levels extending from the most general to the most specified properties 10 Figure 3.1: The principle of dialogic closure and its role in early infant semiosis; adapted from Perinat and Sadurní (1999: 67) 63 Figure 3.2: Proto-metafunctional coordinates of infant’s dialogically organized protolinguistic utterance trajectory 75 Figure 4.1: The structure of joint agency in the clause dobbiamo fare la mente 91 Figure 5.1: Metafunctional analysis of instance of egocentric speech; dialogic turn coordinating linguistic and other resources 119 Figure 5.2: Metafunctional analysis of semantic interact in an instance of egocentric speech 119 Figure 5.3: The closing of the meta-loop on the “I” sector of the dialogic loop in the transition from egocentric talk to inner speech and the higher, intrapersonal mental functions 126 Figure 6.1: The intersection of the Action/Reflection and the Outer/Inner distinctions; represented as a three-dimensional space for understanding the experiential construal, location, and distribution of consciousness in relation to verbal and mental processes 136 Figure 6.2: Sound metaphor showing topological continuum among the environmental acoustic event, articulatory (vocal tract) activity, and vocalization 150 Figure 6.3: Metaphorical transcategorization across perceptual domains, showing the transcategorization of perceptual information about the concrete shape of extra-somatic physical objects (congruent) to the abstract somatic shape of the articulatory space that is created by the intersection of different parameter values in the vocal tract (metaphorical) 156 Figure 7.1: Cascading/collecting cycle involving two poles of awareness of proto-self 168 Figure 7.2: The second-order meta-loop that closes the cascading/collecting loop linking “in here” and “out there” on the “in here” pole so as to create a self-referential perspective 170 Figure 8.1: Halliday’s giving or demanding goods-&-services or information 186 Figure 8.2: Systemic network of basic mood options in the grammar of English, shown as a system of contrasting values; lexicogrammatical stratum 188 Figure 8.3: Declarative clause, showing scopal nature of interpersonal modification 191 Figure 9.1: Experiential semantic structure of reconstructed relational: attributive predication 222 Figure 9.2: Schematized model of emergent levels of semiotic organization from initial multi-level system 247 Figure 10.1: Grammatical metaphor showing multiplying effect of construing Figure-as-Thing 262 Figure 10.2: Metaphorical re-construal of a sequence of two figures as a figure, showing topological semantic merging of Sequence-as-Figure 262 Figure 10.3: Unpacking of a grammatical metaphor 263 Figure 10.4: Metaphorical and congruent experiential construals of clause A3a 270 Figure 10.5: Experiential grammatical metaphor showing topological semantic continuum among the material, verbal, and mental process domains 272 Figure 10.6: Metaphorical and congruent interpersonal semantics of clause A3a 275 Figure 11.1: Proto-experiential and proto-interpersonal meaning in hand-arm movement analytically construed in terms of its perceived component parts and globally synthesized as intentionally sourced act of giving 292 Figure 11.2: Two-dimensional hierarchical referential space of noun phrase types; reproduced from Silverstein 1987: 138 295 Figure 11.3: Joint verbal-visual text about white blood cells by nine-year-old Italian schoolboy 307 Figure 11.4: Fragment of joint verbal-visual thematic formation in child’s school copy book, showing multimodal thematic connections and meanings 308 Figure 11.5: A young child’s (aged 2.4) drawing of her father’s face, showing tracings on various scalar levels, and how their nestings, intersections, and closures produce visual invariants 312 List of Figures ix [...]... Huang, Marcel Kinsbourne, Lisa Leung, Marc Lorrimar, Eva Maagerø, Jim Martin, Kieran McGillicuddy, Blair McKenzie, Ng Lai Ping, Carlo Prevignano, Duane Savage-Rumbaugh, Susan SavageRumbaugh, Zhang Shaojie, Jared Tagliatela, Godfrey Tanner, Amy Tsui, Theo van Leeuwen, Eija Ventola, and David Wallace To my daughter, Ilaria, many thanks for allowing me to use so many of the materials that I have analysed... In chapter 2, I argue that all forms of social semiosis are characterized by three very general parameters which are only analytically, though not constitutively, separable dimensions of all acts of meaning-making The three aspects are as follows: (1) indexical meaning-making 14 Agency and Consciousness in Discourse practices; (2) intertextual meaning-making practices; and (3) meta-discursive meaning-making... (Thibault 200 3a) proposed three generalized parameters which are characteristic of all forms of social meaning-making, as follows: i ii iii indexical meaning-making practices; intertextual meaning-making practices; meta-discursive meaning-making practices These three parameters are analytically, though not constitutively, separable dimensions of all social meaning-making The fundamental question at stake... enough to analyse the lexicogrammatical and semantic units and relations in and through which agency and consciousness are construed and enacted in discourse as linguistic data that can be separated from the agency and the consciousness of the people who use language Instead, it will prove necessary to connect language and other modalities of semiosis with the body-brain system which is the ground and reference... well as to posit in language and in imagination alternative relations between other and world and between self and world In the process, the child learns (1) that others are selves with their own points of view and points of action and (2) that other selves are distinct from one’s own self Social intelligence is therefore massively expanded in this stage and with it the capacity to think and reason in. .. organization of language from the infant’s protolanguage is developed in chapter 2, section 10 The metafunctions show how previously looser environmental constraints in relation to protolanguage are entrained to the internal organization of language and re-organized as intrinsic linguistic constraints on language form and function The proto-metafunctional character of the infant’s vocalization in Halliday’s... above That is, she (1) attends to the same environmental 6 Agency and Consciousness in Discourse event qua phenomenon of (shared) attention and experience; (2) she responds to the infant as a partner in dialogue in which both participants are assigned reciprocally defined and dialogically coordinated speaking and listening positions; and (3) both participants and their contributions cohere into a larger... an adequate explanation of both agency and consciousness I argue that it is necessary to reconnect body-brain processes and interactions to the social and discursive practices which directly act upon and a ect our body-brain systems in meaning-making activity To achieve this goal, it is necessary to construct an integrated picture of the semiotic integration of meanings across many different space and. .. Vygotsky, and others In particular, I suggest how they can all assist in the development of a semiotic theory of agency and consciousness and their formation across diverse scalar levels of semiotic and material organization Michael Halliday, Ruqaiya Hasan, and Jay Lemke deserve a very special mention for their generosity and support – both intellectual and personal – over very many years I also wish... in ways that are the prototypes of metaphorical thinking itself The expanding capacity to see things the way an increasing diversity of others see things goes hand in hand with an expanding ability to create semiotic links and trajectories between self and others on ever larger space-time scales In chapter 5, which is an extended reflection on the nature and significance of what Piaget (e.g 1959) and . key players include Basil Bernstein, Mikhail Bakhtin, Robert de Beaugrande, James J. Gibson, Michael Halliday, Ruqaiya Hasan, Walter Kauffman, Lakoff &. Agency and Consciousness in Discourse: Self-other Dynamics as a Complex System PAUL J. THIBAULT Continuum Agency and Consciousness in Discourse Self–other