The Development of Language: Functional Perspectives on Species and Individuals

The Development of Language: Functional Perspectives on Species and Individuals

Open Linguistics Series Series Editor: Robin Fawcett, Cardiff Unive The series is 'open' in two related ways. First, it is not confined to works associated with any one school of linguistics. For almost two decades the series has played a significant role in establishing and maintaining the present climate of 'openness' in linguistics, and we intend to maintain this tradition. However, we particularly welcome works which explore the nature and use of language through modelling its potential for use in social contexts, or through a cognitive model of language - or indeed a combination of the two. The series is also 'open' in the sense that it welcomes works that open out 'core' linguistics in various ways: to give a central place to the description of natural texts and the use of corpora; to encompass discourse 'above the sentence'; to relate language to other semiotic systems; to apply linguistics in fields such as education, language pathology and law; and to explore the areas that lie between linguistics and its neighbouring disciplines such as semiotics, psychology, sociology, philosophy, and cultural and literary studies. Continuum also publishes a series that offers a forum for primarily functional descriptions of languages or parts of languages - Functional Descriptions of Language. Relations bet linguistics and computing are covered in the Communication in Artificial Intelligence serio series, Advances in Applied Linguistics and Communication in Public Life, publish books p linguistics, and the series Modern Pragmatics in Theory and Practice publishes both soci cognitive perspectives on the making of meaning in language use. We also publish a range of introductory textbooks on topics in linguistics, semiotics and deaf studies. Recent titles in this serie Construing Experience throu gh Meaning: A Language-based Approach to Cognition,AM.A.K. Hall

and Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen Culturally Speaking: Managin g Rapport through Talk across Cultures,eHelen Spencer-Oatey (e Educating Eve: The 'Language Instinct' Debate, Geoffrey Sampsn Empirical Linguistics, Geoffrey Sampson Genre and Institutions: Social Processes in the Workplace and School, Frances Christie andR

Martin (eds) The Intonation Systems of English, Paul Tench Language Policy in Britain and France: The Processes of Policy, Denniser Language Rel ations across Bering Strait: Reappraising the Archaeological and Linguistic Eviden

Michael Fortescue Learning thro ugh Language in Early Childhood, Clare Paint Multimodal Discourse Analysis, Kay L. O'Halloran (ed. Pedagogy and t he Shaping of Consciousness: Linguistic and Social Processes, Frances Christie ) Register Analys is: Theory and Practice, Mohsen Ghadessy (e Relations and Fu nctions within and around Language, Peter H. Fries, Michael Cummings, David

Lockwood and Will iam Spruiell (eds) Researching Langua ge in Schools and Communities: Functional Linguistic Perspectives, Len Unsw

(ed.) Summary Justice: Judges Address Juries, Paul Robertsha Syntactic Analysis and Description: A Constructional Approach, aDavid G. Lockwo Thematic Developments in English Texts, Mohsen Ghadessy (ed The Signifying Body. Meaning, Embodiment, and Consciousness, PaulJ. Thibau Ways of Saying: Ways of Meaning. Selected Papers of Ruqaiya Hasan, Carmen Cloran, David But

and Geoffrey Williams (eds) Words, Meaning and Vocabulary: An Introduction to Modern English Lexicology, Howard Jacks

and Etienne Ze Amvela Working with Discourse: Meaning beyond the Clause, J.R. Martin and David Re

The Development of Language: Functional Perspectives on Species and Individuals Edited by Geoff Williams and Annabelle Lukin in

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The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX 80 Maiden Lane, Suite 704, New York, NY 10038 First published 2004 This paperback edition published 2006 © Geoff Williams, Annabelle Lukin and Contributors 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: 0-8264-5758-4 (hardback) ISBN: 0-8264-8878-1 (paperback) Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Typeset by Fakenham Photosetting Limited Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wilts

Contents 1. Emerging Language Annabelle Lukin and Geoff Williams

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2. On Grammar as the Driving Force from Primary to Higher-order Gonsciousness M.A.K. Halliday

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3. The Evolution of Language: A Systemic Functional Exploration of Phylogenetic Phases Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen

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4. Language, Apes and Meaning-Making Jared P. Taglialatela, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, Duane M. Rumbaugh, James Benson and William Greaves 5. Agency, Individuation and Meaning-making: Reflections on an Episode of Bonobo-Human Interaction PaulJ. Thibault

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6. The 'Interpersonal First' Principle in Child Language Development Clare Painter

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7. The World in Words: Semiotic Mediation, Tenor and Ideology Ruqaiya Hasan

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8. Two Forms of Human Language Russell Meares and Gavin Sullivan

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9. Changing the Rules, Changing the Game: A Sociocultural Perspective on Second Language Learning in the Classroom Pauline Gibbons 10. How our Meanings Change: School Contexts and Semantic Evolution David G. Butt

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11. Ontogenesis and Grammatics: Functions of Metalanguage in Pedagogical Discourse Geoff Williams

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Index

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1 Emerging Language Annabelle Lukin and Geoff Williams

This book presents functional perspectives on language development in relation to two significant time scales: language development in evolutionary time (phylogenesis) and language development in the lifetime of an individual (ontogenesis). Both are processes of 'emerging language'. They are distinct processes, but the general argument of this book is that they are also related in complex and very interesting ways. Debates around language development have attracted interest from disciplines as diverse as neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, embryology, cognitive science, chemistry, artificial intelligence, computer science, primatology, evolutionary biology and linguistics. These debates are part of the larger intellectual project concerning the nature and emergence of consciousness, a project which has been gaining momentum in recent years. For example, McCrone notes, 'the 1990s were when science got serious about consciousness again' (McCrone 1999: 5), and Rose points to the extraordinary growth of interest in the science of brain and behaviour during this period, with the number of scholarly journals with 'some permutation of the words, neuro, brain or behaviour in their titles' now running into the hundreds, providing fora for the publication of hundreds of thousands of research articles each year (Rose 1999: 1). Many themes and approaches run through these various works. Not surprisingly, different disciplines and writers see the issues differently. The orientation of this book is primarily, though not exclusively, through linguistics. Since even among linguists there is little agreement about what might constitute a 'linguistic' orientation, this introductory paper sets out the key theoretical principles shared by the writers in this volume. Most simply stated, the perspective offered here is a 'semiotic' one. 'Semiotics' is the study of sign systems: language is a 'semiotic' or 'meaning-making' system. By this we mean not simply that language is use to make meaning, but that it is organized as a meaning-making system. Thi is because language has evolved under the pressure to 'mean'. Though language is only one of the semiotic systems in which humans participate, these papers argue that it is the one most centrally implicated in the development of modern humans.

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While the book focuses on language development from a semiotic perspective, the arguments do not divorce meaning or 'semiosis' from the material world. As Halliday argues in his paper in this volume: the human condition is a constant interpenetration between our two fundamental modes of being, the material and the semiotic. This simply means, of course, that we inhabit these two phenomenal realms, of matter and meaning.

While for theoretical and analytic purposes we can separate the material and semiotic orders, meaning and matter are in fact interdependent. Semiotic systems require the material order for their expression, and, at the same time, the material is dependent on the semiotic for its organization (Halliday, 2002a). The semiotic order depends on the material order because any meaning must be realized through some form of material expression: in speech, it is patterns of sounding; in writing, it is some kind of organized marks on a page, screen or other surface. By the same token, the material order depends on meaning because we have no unmediated access to the natural world. As Edelman comments, 'the world, although constrained by physical laws, is an unlabelled place' (1992: 99). We rely on language as the central means for organizing our experience, which would otherwise be perceptual chaos (Saussure 1978 [1916]: 112). By taking this point of view, we reject the notion that the categories of our environment are independent of the way we talk about them. But, equally, we reject the notion that there are no regularities in our material environment, that there is no reality outside of language. This is because, as Halliday (this volume) notes: there are indefinitely many natural classes: everything is like many other things in some respect or other. The grammar selects those among the possible analogies that are plausible, in the sense that the resulting categories collectively constitute a world that humans can live in - that favours survival under the current eco-social conditions.

Our language, or languages, through their grammatical resources - such as resources for construing time and change, action and states of being, participant relations, and so on - become our models of reality. They become our chief resource for making sense of our experience (Halliday and Matthiessen 1999). In his analysis in this volume of an episode of exchange between a human and an acculturated bonobo, Thibault provides a grounded account of what it means to analyse action as both material and semiotic, or, in his terms, as a configuration of the 'physical-material world and semiotic-discursive resources'. He comments: Action is ... simultaneously both semiotic and material. There are no disembodied semiotic events 'in' a material environment or setting. How can we deal with these two dimensions - the semiotic and the material - of action in a unified way? Actions do not occur in and are not performed in an abstract physical space and time in the Newtonian sense. Meaning-making activity entails processes of selective

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recontextualization (Lemke 1997). It is doing something meaningful by relating an act as a part in some whole rather than others, selecting some possible alternatives rather than others, cross-coupling some configurations of the physical-material world (objects, surfaces, tools, etc.) and the semiotic-discursive resources, rather than others. In this way, action enacts and entrains organization, matter, information, form, and meaning in some local environment.

As Thibault's explanation makes clear, the material and the semiotic are intricately interconnected. The material order has, undoubtedly, been better theorized and understood: the semiotic is, by its nature, invisible, and has been harder for both the layperson and the specialist to model and understand. As the great Danish linguist Hjelmslev remarked, 'It is in the nature of language to be overlooked - to be a means and not an end' (Hjelmslev 1961, cited in Hasan 1996 [1984]: 14). When the material and the semiotic orders are seen to be in constant interpenetration, explanations of human evolution in which the material order is treated as somehow fundamental or prior to the semiotic order become limited. In a recent interdisciplinary collection, titled Explaining Consciousness, the editor, Jonathan Shear, summed up the issue in t following way: 'How, in a basically material universe, are we to understand the bare existence of consciousness?' (Shear 1998: 4, emphasis added). Since protolanguage1 - a simple semiotic system - is likely to have a long history indeed, perhaps 'predating the evolution of the hominid line and thus extending back in time before the common ancestor' (Matthiessen, this volume), then in the timescales relevant here matter is neither more fundamental than, nor prior to, meaning. Indeed, any separation of the material and the semiotic will always remain theoretically and practically problematic. This perspective, in which matter and meaning are seen as unified, resonates with recent work on the 'co-evolution' (Deacon 1997) or 'coconstruction' (Baltes and Singer 2001; Halliday 2002b: 1) of language and the brain. These proposals would appear to be relevant to both the ontogenetic and the phylogenetic timeframes. Deacon argues that, from an evolutionary point of view: language must be viewed as its own prime mover. It is the author of a single core semiotic innovation that was initially extremely difficult to acquire. Subsequent brain evolution was a response to this selection pressure and progressively made this symbolic threshold ever easier to cross. This has in turn opened the door for the evolution of ever greater language complexity. (Deacon 1997: 44)

Consistent with this argument, Halliday has proposed that 'the human brain is a "language-brain" ', further suggesting that if we want to take account of the defining characteristic of human language, we can even call it 'a "grammar-brain"' (Halliday 2002b: 3). By this he means that because modern human language - the central characteristic of which is its lexicogrammar - has shaped the brain, the brain is naturally predisposed to participate in the process by which human infants take up the language/s of those around them. This is quite a different position from that taken by

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Chomsky (1976), in which grammatical structure is argued to be hard-wired in the brain, as part of the genetic code. As Deacon has pointed out, Chomsky's position is an instance of a 'hopeful monster theory', the evolutionary theorist's counterpart to divine intervention, in which a freak mutation just happens to produce a radically different and serendipitously better-equipped organism. (Deacon 1997: 35)

In contrast, Halliday's position recognizes that 'it is in the process of learning language (the first language, or "mother tongue") that the brain's "[culture based] software" is put into place' (2002b: 3). Halliday's seminal study of one child coming into the mother tongue (Halliday 1975, 1978, 1979, in press a, in press b, this volume) models the process of language development in the child not as a process of 'learning sounds and words', nor as 'learning to name and refer' (Halliday 1995: 7), but rather, as a phased process of 'learning how to mean'. This is a threephase process, in which the child first develops a protolanguage, a small set of simple signs through which s/he can interact with his/her meaning group. At a certain point, the child, under pressure to expand his or her meaning potential, moves into a 'transition' phase, which is 'a strategy for enabling the mother tongue to take off, for getting the whole system airborne' (Halliday, this volume). In the transition phase, the child embarks on processes of expansion and intensification of language resources, which are more fully developed in the third phase, in which the child is recognized to have taken on the mother tongue. The principle of the interconnectedness of the semiotic and material is fundamental to Halliday's exploration of the inter-relationship of the child's physical and semiotic milestones. Each crucial semiotic leap happens in tandem with the child's physical maturation. As a child develops the capacity to lift his or her head, roll over onto the tummy, crawl and walk, he or she becomes a different kind of physical agent in the environment. Each of these developments provides a radically different angle on one's perceptible world - and not surprisingly these physical milestones go hand in hand with the equally significant, but much less visible, 'semiotic milestones' of human development. Arguing from a 'cosmogenetic' perspective on language - that is of language as a complex system in a hierarchy of complex systems, which includes physical, chemical, biological and semiotic systems - Matthiessen adopts and adapts Halliday's model of ontogenesis to phylogenesis (see also Halliday and Matthiessen 1999). Matthiessen is careful to distinguish these processes. Clearly the timescales are quite different. In addition, in ontogenetic time the child takes up the language through his or her interactions with speakers of some variant of an evolved, modern language, whereas in evolutionary time, the process of development had to happen in the absence of models of what was to become modern human language. Nevertheless, Halliday's model of ontogenesis is particularly adaptable to modelling phylogenesis because, through tracing the development of a

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child's entry into language, Halliday maps out how it is possible to move gradually into the complex and crucial dimensions which characterize modern human language. The child's move into adult language is a process of 'dimensionalization'. The complexity and plasticity of human language comes from its capacity to mean more than one kind of meaning simultaneously, and this facility requires a certain kind of dimensionalized organization (Halliday 1961, 1973, 1994; Halliday and Matthiessen 1999; Matthiessen 1995). These dimensions are wholly abstract and include: • instantiation - each act of meaning is an instance of semiotic 'weather', which is both a function of, and construes, the linguistic system - or semiotic 'climate' - as a whole. • metafunction - language is simultaneously able to construe our experience of our inner and outer worlds, enact our social relations and organize the flow of discourse (in Halliday's terms these are the ideational, interpersonal and textual metafunctions). • stratification - language is a multilayered system, consisting of meaning ('semantics'), wording ('lexicogrammar') and expression ('phonology' and 'graphology'). • realization - meaning is a function of choices of form, such that semantic pressures activate choices in the lexicogrammar and expression plane (sounding and writing), and these choices construe meaning. Matthiessen shows that this model provides a plausible account of how, under the pressure to expand the shared meaning potential, hominids must have crossed the same 'semiotic milestones' that children cross to have become the forebears of the complex multidimensional semiotic system we now know as modern human language. A crucial feature of Matthiessen's proposal for evolutionary debates is that it provides a model in which language evolved through a gradual but accelerating process of emergent complexity. Matthiessen writes: Language will be assumed to have evolved 'emergently' first as a primary semiotic and then as a higher-order semiotic system within an ordered hierarchy of systems of increasing complexity - physical, biological, social and semiotic systems. (Halliday and Matthiessen 1999: ch. 13)

As in Halliday's model of ontogenesis, it is language as a meaningmaking system which is foregrounded here. This distinguishes systemic functional linguistics from linguistic work in which the emergence of syntax is foregrounded. In relation to this orientation to linguistics, Butt (this volume) notes that linguistics has paid a price for its singular preoccupation with 'well-formedness', with 'quasi-axiomatic linguistics', which produced a kind of linguistics in which it was as if grammar could be studied autonomously, that is, as if the whole semantic purpose of the grammatical organization could be 'put on hold', or more zealously, could be formalized out of the circle of relevance.

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Butt asks us to consider how different might the evolutionary debates appear had the linguistic input been centrally concerned with meaning and with the increasingly complex forms of our meaning making?

For Matthiessen, as for Halliday, 'syntax' - or, as they prefer, 'structure' - is simply 'a general strategy in the evolution of complexity' (Matthiessen, this volume). Halliday has argued for some decades now that structure is just one part of grammar, and grammar just one part of the overall linguistic system (Halliday 1975: 3). Any explanation of the nature of syntactic patterns needs to be seen as simply one of many possible points of view on linguistic phenomena. This is not in any way to downplay the importance of structure: in both the ontogenetic (Halliday) and the phylogenetic (Matthiessen) timeframes, the emergence of lexicogrammar is seen as an absolutely crucial milestone. Focus on the semiotic is not to exclude material explanations. It is important, therefore, that any proposal about human language evolution be made with reference to the material records of human evolution in general. Matthiessen's paper not only offers an interpretation of language evolution in relation to Halliday's model of ontogenesis, but does so clearly grounded in arguments from archaeology concerning material evidence of biological phylogenesis. A crucial consequence of modelling language evolution as a process of gradual emergent complexity is that one is not forced to assume a sharp divide between humans and other primates (Matthiessen, this volume). Leakey's rather exasperated statement that linguists are the last defenders of the great divide between humans and other primates does not hold for the view of language represented here (Leakey 1995: 153). In fact, with this model of human language, one can (and Matthiessen does) argue that human language developed out of capacities shared with other primates. Thus it is natural that our volume would include work in the fascinating area of the forms of communication developed by bonobos in bi-species environments. The paper by Taglialatela et at. illustrates how research which takes a semiotic perspective - where capacity to mean, rather than the acquisition of syntax, becomes the focus - enables a new perspective on the communicative capacities of non-human primates. As they note here, the question then becomes 'not whether or not apes have language, but rather how and to what extent these non-human brains are using a symbolic system to construct and represent their worlds'. Reporting on continuing research at the Language Research Center, Georgia State University, Atlanta, they suggest that the highly decontextualized, experimental methods which have been typical in primate research have resulted in the underestimation of the capacities of the apes under study. They argue for the need to explore research methodologies for primatology in which the role of 'meaning in context' is taken into account.

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Thibault also considers data from non-human primate studies, arguing that meaning-making should be viewed as dependent on diverse and multimodal resources. In an instance of interaction between Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and the bonobo Panbanisha, Thibault notes that these resources include the lexigram board, language, sound, pointing, posture, gaze, dialogically co-ordinated movements and actions, all of which are 'codeployed in order to give structure to the unfolding context' (Thibault, this volume). These multimodal, semiotic resources display 'essential continuity and unity', as part of an overall configuration of meaning. Like Taglialatela et at., Thibault (this volume) suggests that the focus on syntax has been problematic for primatology, arguing that While the architecture of Panbanisha's use of language lacks the full-fledged 'syntax' that we see in human language, the point is not whether she shows evidence or not of an 'autonomous' syntax, seen as the sign of a genetically endowed, quintessentially human rationality. Rather, the interest lies in showing how the architecture of her language is continuous with the meanings she is creating in the particular contexts in which she participates.

As Taglialatela et at. themselves note, adopting this kind of perspective allows the researcher to ask a range of new, semantically oriented questions about the semiotic capacities of non-human primates, including [W]hat kinds of negotiating skills do the apes display? ... Do they initiate statements, offers and questions, as well as demands for goods and services? ... How do the apes tie their conversations to the unfolding environments of which they are a part?'

The focus in this volume on language as a semiotic system means that language is viewed as fundamentally interpersonal, rather than intrapersonal. If there is a 'language instinct', it is one that derives from our nature as social beings. An individual's brain is central to the equation but the generative principle for the evolution of language, in both phylogenetic and ontogenetic timeframes, is our social experience. As Hasan has recently argued: our most precious biological assets - the plasticity of our brain and its potential for forming billions of connections - make us uniquely dependent on the social for turning that powerful brain into a usable mind. It thus transpires that the two basic supports of our existence, the biological and the social, are linked by a co-genetic logic, and what forges this link between the two is our capacity for semiosis - for making meanings by the use of shared symbolic systems. Through centuries of evolutionary trial and error, the human brain is predisposed to make sense of symbols and, among the various symbolic systems, language, due to some of its defining characteristics (Deacon 1997) proves crucial in the enterprise of linking the biological and the social: to gain consciousness, to become a usable mind, the human brain needs experience, and language acts as a uniquely effective, immensely supple means of construing experience by acts of meaning. (Halliday and Matthiessen 1999; Hasan 2002: 538)

In the context of child language development, Painter (this volume) argues that while language is a multifunctional resource - organized both

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for construing reality and for enacting social relationships - it is interpersonal resources which provide the impetus for crucial developments in the child's expansion of meaning potential. She comments: the trajectory of the language development is in various ways driven by the making of interpersonal meaning ... it is the interpersonal that leads the way. It is charged personal response, the power-play of interpersonal negotiation and the exploitation of dialogic construals of meaning that move the child's language into new territory.

Using her own data from a longitudinal child language development study and also drawing on Halliday's data, Painter demonstrates how each of these interpersonal 'sources' impel the child from its simple protolanguage towards the multidimensional adult form of language around them. Painter suggests this claim may be relevant to postulating the evolution of language development, as a counter to arguments, for instance from Chomsky (1976) and Bickerton (1990, 1995), that language is 'a system that is only incidentally and secondarily involved in communication'. It is not that the role of language in making sense of the world is incidental. As Painter argues, Unquestionably infants have a strong inbuilt impulse to explore and make sense of the world of objects and events in which they are immersed, but it is only when they are able to calibrate this with their need to engage with other persons that their semiotic life begins, and from then on many of the linguistic resources for exploring and making sense of the world are first developed with a personal and/or interpersonal orientation.

The crucial role of adult talk in the development of the child's consciousness and social identity is the focus of Hasan's paper. Hasan shows the importance of early forms of interaction for a child's socialization. Through these interactions, she notes, adults model more than words, structures and pronunciation: in fact, they define, at least initially, the child's world, giving it the power of 'reality' and the attraction of new possibilities.

On this view, the child thus develops what Greenfield refers to as a 'personalised brain' (Greenfield 1997), although Hasan's position emphasizes the mediating role of social semiosis in this process in a way that Greenfield's account does not. Reporting on findings from an extensive research project into the nature of mother-child talk, Hasan shows how such talk varies depending on the social location of family. If forms of talk mediate the emergence of consciousness, then different forms of talk, or 'fashions of speaking' (Whorf 1956), create different kinds of mental dispositions. Hasan argues here that the kind of learning which takes place in this period of primary socialization is 'likely to colour every social action that children will participate in for a substantial part of their growing years, and sometimes, perhaps, throughout their lives'. To exemplify this, she demonstrates how certain forms of talk are more likely to create for some children a mental disposition which inclines them

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towards 'the mastery of esoteric knowledge'. She makes the important point that cognitive science tends to ignore the kind of learning which takes place in a child's early life in favour of studies of highly valued forms of mental activity, such as the formation of technical concepts, logical thinking, problem solving and inferential reasoning. But, she argues, early forms of socialization develop in some children - those from families in which the breadwinner is a 'high autonomy professional' - a predisposition towards such highly valued forms of cognitive functions, through their 'experience of receiving sustained explicit information in emotionally supportive environments'. This experience is highly significant, not for the content that is learned, but for the ways in which it disposes children to experience the mediation of official pedagogic discourses. In her account, Hasan highlights the role of the interpersonal function of language in mediating the processes through which people from different social locations come to see different 'orders of relevance'. She argues that systemic functional linguistic theory, i.e. the theory on which the arguments of this book are constructed, needs to develop its description of the contextual feature, tenor, to account for the variation in these processes of early socialization, which are so fundamental to how one experiences the world. The centrality of the interpersonal role of language is also a theme in a paper which focuses on forms of talk of people diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Meares and Sullivan explore the 'Conversational Model' of therapeutic discourse, which recognizes forms of consciousness to be a function of a person's range of interactions: forms of consciousness, i.e. fluctuations in the state of self, exist in the context of particular forms of relatedness ... the form of language used in a particular conversation manifests and constitutes not only a form of consciousness but also a form of relatedness.

By linking the sense of self to a person's modes and forms of interactions with others, Meares and Sullivan provide a semiotically oriented account of borderline personality disorder. It follows from this that in a therapeutic context, the actual forms of the interaction between psychiatrist and patient are of interest, since it is through the pattern of linguistic choices that modes of interaction are realized. Meares and Sullivan point to recent collaborative work between the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Sydney and the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University, which provides a new area of research in which 'self can be "observed" by means of linguistic study'. They go on to note that 'since the dimensions of self are various, the strategies of possible linguistic variation are numerous'. In our discussions so far, the motif of language as 'meaning potential', rather than a 'universal calculus for abstract rational thinking and reasoning' (Thibault, this volume), has been central. The link between

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phylogenesis and ontogenesis is that both are processes of emerging meaning potential, characterized by a growth of complexity. This motif remains central to the papers in the volume which directly address educational issues, since learning is conceptualized as 'a change of "meaning potential" ' (Butt, this volume). In the first of these papers, Gibbons explores the development of meaning potential in relation to the way that modes of teacher-student interaction influence the degree to which students master subject matter. Using evidence from an analysis of the forms of the teacher-student exchange, she argues that certain kinds of interactional practices provide explicit scaffolding for students' language development. Drawing on research in a primary school classroom in which the majority of students had a language other than English as their mother tongue, Gibbons demonstrates how subtle shifts in the forms of teacher engagement with students opens up possibilities for new kinds of classroom interactions and, therefore, new possibilities for children's language development in education-related discourse forms. To exemplify, she focuses on exchanges between teacher and students following a group activity in which students had carried out a number of science experiments. While the students had had no communicative difficulties working in small groups with the materials to hand, they experienced difficulties when requested to report back to the class on what they had done and found. Gibbons argues that, in the reporting context, a different kind of semantic pressure is put on the students, namely, that they must reconstruct their activities 'in language alone, and thus use more written-like and explicit language, demanding a greater range of lexicogrammatical resources' (Gibbons, this volume). Using transcripts of the exchanges between students and teacher in these reporting contexts, Gibbons draws attention to the critical role played by the teacher in scaffolding the children towards mastery of this more complex task. The teacher's strategies included requests for clarification, drawing students' attention to additional information or text and the direct recasting of a student's contribution, all of which led to the students being more successful in the task. In some cases, she argues, quite small changes to the teacher's mode of engagement with students opened the way for new opportunities for second language development. The significance of forms of talk for educational outcomes is a theme in Williams's paper also, but his interest is specifically in meta-talk: he argues that it is not just our ways of talking which are crucial to the forms of consciousness which emerge, but also our ways of talking about talk. Williams's paper draws on extensive classroom-based research (Williams 1995, 1998, 1999a, 1999b, 2000), which has raised questions fundamental to language education: what do students need to understand about the nature of language, and what do they need to be able to do through language, to be prepared for the multifaceted demands of our societies' complex and evolving semiotic practices? This research, with both early

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and upper primary school children, has explored the effect of the introduction of concepts from semantically and functionally oriented grammar on children's capacity both to use language and to reflect on their uses of language. Like many writers on education, Williams is interested in the relationship between social interaction and learning, but his use of the term 'interaction' has a very specific orientation. For this he draws on the work of Vygotsky and, in particular, Vygotsky's claim that: Any function in the child's cultural development appears twice, or on two planes. First it appears on the social plane, and then on the psychological plane. First it appears between two people as an interpsychological category, and then within the child as an intrapsychological category. This is equally true with regard to voluntary attention, logical memory, the formation of concepts, and the development of volition. (Vygotsky 1981: 163)

Williams argues that Vygotsky's claim is more radical than simply saying that interaction is important for children's development. Rather, the claim is that the forms of consciousness that children develop depend on the kinds of interactions in which they participate. Williams presents several glimpses of evidence from this research which demonstrate not only that children are interested in close and systematic engagement with language, but also that the exploration of language through semantically and functionally oriented grammatical concepts creates opportunities for students to develop more abstract understandings of language as a meaning-making resource. But Williams argues what is crucial is not just the kind of grammatical concepts being used, but also how children are brought to see the relationships between grammatical patterns and meaning-making practices. In this regard, traditional approaches to grammar have been sadly lacking; there has been a marked tendency to reject explicit grammatical instruction because there has been no ready means of showing learners how grammatical descriptions can be used as 'intellectual tools' for the exploration of meaning-making. Williams suggests that models of the ontogenesis of abstract thought about language have been unnecessarily pessimistic because they have been incorrectly predicated on the 'cognitive' limitation of learners, rather than the functional limitation of the traditional pedagogical resources. While classroom talk also provides the data of Butt's paper, the central argument concerns 'semantic evolution'. In classroom talk we find a locus in our culture at which we can witness the changing of our semantic resources, our 'meaning potential'. The transition from primary to secondary school is an optimum site of investigation in that, at this point, children first confront the discourse of the guilds of specialization (i.e. teachers whose training and teaching have become discipline specific in our culture). Given the highly differentiated labour of many modern societies, Butt argues, the child:

12

T H E D E V E L O P M E N T OF L A N G U A G E has to embark on a new interpretation of the world - one in which the 'dominants' are complex entities that must be quantified and characterized by symbolic attributes (i.e. the attributes derived from the place a concept holds within a theory, whether of a specialized or of a folk provenance).

The forms of interaction are crucial to how students come to understand the concepts of a subject area. Using selections from classroom transcripts, Butt explores the grammatical and semantic characteristics of the 'rhetorical resources' of teachers' explanations. In the process, Butt shows the complexity of the teacher's role in this endeavour: The teachers' skills have to work in both directions - not only to ground the general, but also to denaturalize the common sense so that the conventional arrangements which underpin our intellectual tools are laid bare, and thereby offered up for negotiation to these new members of the 'guild'.

This exploration is offered in response to alternative explanations in which human development is seen as 'cognitive', and so largely intrapersonal. In contrast, Butt argues that 'human cognitive development can be construed as the convergence of cultural and linguistic opportunities' and relates this idea to the role of expanding meaning potential in human evolution: the meaning-bearing artefacts of cultural history become a kind of 'cultural DNA' (Gell-Man 1994: 292): what we speak becomes what we think and enact; and our brains are, inevitably, the embodiment of that history of social enactments ... adaptive cultural tools become the central, human response to changing evolutionary pressures. In bringing this set of papers together, we h o p e to engage interest in a

semiotic perspective on the nature of language evolution and development amongst a wide range of scholars. The linguistic perspective offered here - by being oriented to the study of actual linguistic practice by actual meaning-makers - is, we suggest, uniquely placed to engage in transdisciplinary conversations. In such conversations lies enormous potential: With the current restructuring of knowledge in transdisciplinary terms, so that language can be viewed in differing interpretative perspectives - of systems thinking, complexity theory, ecosocial dynamics and the like - perhaps our understanding of processes of meaning may finally begin to match our understanding of the processes of matter. (Halliday 2002c: 125)

Many good colleagues have contributed advice and support as we developed this book. We would like to thank all of them and, in particular, John Bateman, Alex Jones, Lene Nordrum, Louise Ravelli and Kathryn Tuckwell. Notes 1 The term protolanguage was introduced by Halliday in his explorat ion language development prior to a child beginning to use the mother tongue. He discusses it extensively in the opening section of his chapter in this volume.

EMERGING LANGUAGE

Lukin and William

13

References Baltes P.B. and Singer T., 2001. 'Plasticity and the ageing mind: an exemplar of the bio-cultural orchestration of brain and behaviour', European Review, 9, 1, pp. 59-76. Bickerton D., 1990. Language and Species. Chicago: University of Chicag Press. Bickerton D., 1995. Language and Human Behaviour. Washington: University of Washington Press. Chomsky N., 1976. Reflections on Language. London: Temple Smith in association with Fontana Books. Deacon T., 1997. The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and Human Brain. London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press. Edelman G., 1992. Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind. London: Penguin Books. Greenfield S., 1997. The Human Brain: A Guided Tour. London: Weidenfield and Nicolson. Halliday M.A.K., 1961. 'Categories of the theory of grammar', Word, 17 pp. 241-92. Halliday M.A.K., 1973. Explorations in the Functions of Language. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday M.A.K., 1975. Learning How to Mean: Explorations in the Developmet of Language. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday M.A.K., 1978. 'Meaning and the construction of reality in early childhood', in Modes of Perceiving and Processing of Information, eds H. Pick Jr. and S. Elliot. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Halliday M.A.K., 1979. 'One child's protolanguage', in Before Speech: T Beginning of Interpersonal Communication, ed. M. Bullowa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Halliday M.A.K., 1994. An Introduction to Functional Grammar.22nd edition London: Arnold. Halliday M.A.K., 1995. 'On language in relation to the evolution of human consciousness', in Of Thoughts and Words: Proceedings of Nobel Symposi 92, The Relation Between Language and Mind, Stockholm 8-12 August, 199 ed. S. Allen. London: Imperial College Press. Halliday M.A.K., 2002a. 'M.A.K. Halliday', in Linguistics in Britain: Personal Histories, eds K. Brown and V. Law. Oxford: The Philological Society/Blackwell Publishers. Halliday M. A. K., 2002b. 'Meanings, wordings and context: Modeling the "language brain"'. Paper delivered to Brain Sciences Institute, RIKEN Tokyo, 2002. Halliday M.A.K., 2002c. 'The Power of Language', in Paper presented at Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics Association seminar, 'The Importance of Bringing Ernest''. Macquarie University, Sydney Halliday M.A.K., in press (a). Language in Early Childhood: Collected Works M.A.K. Halliday, Vol 4, ed. by Jonathan Webster. London: Continuum. Halliday M.A.K., in press(b). 'Moving and meaning in the earliest months

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE of life', in New Perspectives on Education and Discourse, eds J.A. Foley a

K. O'Halloran. London and New York: Continuum. Halliday M.A.K. and Matthiessen C.M.I.M., 1999. Construing Experie Through Meaning: A Language-based Approach to Cognition. London: Cassell. Hasan R., 1996 [1984]. 'What kind of resource is language?', in Ways of Saying, Ways of Meaning, eds C. Cloran, D. Butt and G. Williams. London: Cassell. Hasan R., 2002. 'Ways of meaning, ways of learning: code as an explanatory concept', British Journal of Sociology of Education, 23, 4, pp. 537-4 Leakey R., 1995. The Origins of Humankind. London: Phoenix. Matthiessen C.M.I.M., 1995. Lexicogrammatical Cartography: English Syste

Tokyo, Taipei and Dallas: International Language Science Publishers. McCrone J., 1999. Going Inside: A Tour Round a Single Moment of Consciousness. London: Faber and Faber. Rose S., 1999. 'Brains, minds and the world', in From Brains to Consciousness"? Essays on the New Sciences of the Mind, ed. S. Rose. Lon

Penguin Books, de Saussure F., 1978 [1916]. Course in General Linguistics, trans. C. Bally A. Sechehaye in collaboration with A. Riedlinger. Glasgow: Fontana/ Collins. Shear J., 1998. 'Introduction', in Explaining Consciousness - The 'H Problem'. Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Pres Vygotsky L. S., 1981. 'The genesis of higher mental functions', in The Concept of Activity in Soviet Psychology, ed. J.V. Wertsch. New York: M.

Sharpe. Whorf B., 1956. Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings. Cambridg

MA: The MIT Press. Williams G., 1995. 'Learning systemic functional grammar in primary schools', in Australian English in a Pluralist Australia. Proceedings of Styl

Council 95, ed. P. Peters. Sydney: Dictionary Research Centre, Macquarie University. Williams G., 1998. 'Children entering literate worlds: Perspectives from the study of textual practices', in Literacy and Schooling, eds F. Christie and Misson. London and New York: Routledge. Williams G., 1999a. 'Grammar as a metasemiotic tool in child literacy development', in Language Teaching: New Insights for the Language Teacher, e

C. Ward and W. Renandya. Singapore: SEAMEO. Williams G., 1999b. 'The pedagogic device and the production of pedagogic discourse: a case example in early literacy education', in Pedagogy and the Shaping of Consciousness: Linguistic and Social Processes,

F. Christie. London: Cassell Academic. Williams G., 2000. 'Children's literature, children and uses of language description', in Researching Language in Schools and Communities, ed. L

Unsworth. London: Cassell.

2 On Grammar as the Driving Force from Primary to Higher-order Consciousness M.A.K. Halliday

1 Introduction

Having worked for half a century in a discipline-based academic culture, with which I never felt really comfortable - I was never happy with the way language was constructed as an object of study exclusively by linguists - I feel privileged to be taking part in a transdisciplinary conversation about language. Not that I am claiming myself to be able to transcend the boundaries between disciplines; by nature (if not strictly by training) I am a grammarian, and my contribution will be that of a grammarian who has studied children's language. But perhaps what I understand by 'being a grammarian' is not quite the same as what that meant either in the received tradition of grammatical studies or in what is sometimes called the 'syntactic age' of (predominantly Chomskyan) linguistics. To me being a grammarian means trying to explain how language functions as a semogenic, or meaning-creating, resource; and it means looking at language from the outside as well as the inside: from the point of view of the significance it has both for ordinary people (including children, who are also people) and for researchers in any field where language is involved. Earlier I tried to relate my work to questions raised by educators and by sociologists; on this occasion I hope to dialogue more with neuroscientists and evolutionary biologists. And I should perhaps mention here that my 'grammar' means lexicogrammar, as one integrated stratum within the linguistic system; I shall not be separating out syntax and lexicon as distinct orders of phenomena. I started working on children's language in the mid-1960s. I had read some earlier work such as that of M.M. Lewis (1936 [1951]), W.F. Leopold (1939-49) and A.D. Watts (1944); I explored the research done by psychologists in the 1950s, and Ruth Weir's recent (and now classic) study Language in the Crib (1963); and then, following through the much earli tradition of language diary studies, I undertook an intensive study of one child from shortly after birth up to the age of 3i. This last has remained

16

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

my primary source of information; but it has been strongly reinforced through subsequent research especially by Clare Painter (1984, 1989, 1996) and by Jane Torr (1997; under previous name Oldenburg 1986, 1990), as well as in specific studies by Joy Phillips (1985, 1986, 1988), Qiu Shijin (1985a,1985b) and others. (Joy Phillips in fact used my data; but she used it in a highly original way which I had never thought of.)1 Early on in my own observations I was struck by the fact that, long before embarking on the mother tongue, before being able to construct language in anything like the form in which we recognize it, children have typically developed a rich and highly functional semiotic system with which they engage in meaningful exchanges with the small number of others - normally mother, perhaps father, other carer, an older sibling or two - who constitute their immediate family, their 'meaning group' so to speak. I had found no name for this in what I had read - in fact I had found no reference to it at all as a systematic phenomenon; so I labelled it 'protolanguage', and set out to describe, in as much detail as I felt was needed, the protolanguage of this one individual child (Halliday 1969, 1975, 1978, 1979). The protolanguage is a systematic semiotic resource that develops before the mother tongue. It is not a. form of the mother tongue: its mod of meaning is very different - for one thing, it does not refer. Developmentally, it goes with crawling, or at least self-propulsion in some style or other, such as bottom-shuffling, that is not yet two-legged. It is not static, but constantly changing throughout the period it is in play (which was roughly 10-18 months, in the case of Nigel); it overlaps with the beginning of the mother tongue, but at the same time it has rather clearly denned functional properties of its own. Appendix 1 includes specimens of protolinguistic conversation, with Nigel talking his protolanguage and those around talking in typical adult English: of a kind that is addressed to a child, of course, but clearly language, not protolanguage. As I reported at the time, sometimes other people, such as uncles who are not in the child's meaning group, will try serving his protolanguage back to him, to tease or to make a claim for intimacy; but from what I saw such attempts were either ignored or else indignantly rejected. In this discussion I want to focus mainly on the transition from protolanguage to language, because that is where grammar starts. But first I need to look back to the period of time before the protolanguage: very roughly, the first nine months of life. I will do this in summary form; I spoke about this, taking in the period from birth up to the beginnings of the protolanguage, in a conference at Monash University on 'Representing the Child' (see Halliday, in press). The context there was different, because we were talking about ways of representing infancy and childhood in all their multiple aspects; it was our language about children, rather than children's own language. But the perspective there was also transdisciplinary; and although I myself was talking about representing childhood in its linguistic, or rather semiotic, aspect, I was looking in, as it were, from the outside, at the changing role of meaning in the life of the developing child.

GRAMMAR — THE DRIVING FORCE HdlHda

17

I shall take it that the human condition is a constant interpenetration between our two fundamental modes of being: the material and the semiotic. This simply means, of course, that we inhabit these two phenomenal realms, of matter and meaning. These are more usually referred to, perhaps, as 'matter' and 'information'; physical scientists tend to characterize them in terms of how they are measured: matter in dimensions of space, mass, density and so on, information in bytes. But 'information' in that sense is a rather special kind of meaning; most meaning cannot be measured in numerical, quantitative terms. So I shall refer to the two realms as those of matter and meaning, with the corresponding adjectives 'material' and 'semiotic'. Even before birth the infant inhabits both domains, being impinged on by the rhythms and airstream mechanisms of its mother's speech, and possibly also by the interpersonal meanings that go with them. But I will start rather at the moment when we can observe the baby performing in these two phenomenal realms - that is, at birth. 2 Before the protolanguage What we observe within a few weeks of birth, as demonstrated by Colwyn Trevarthen in the early 1970s (1977, 1979), is an animated exchange of attention: the newborn baby, as its mother comes into view, gazes at her face and animates its whole body, particularly the arms and legs but also the facial muscles. If the mother's attention is withdrawn, the baby subsides into an inactive and inexpressive state. Whether we want to call these movements meaningful is a matter of choice; they are interactive, but they are not symbolic - the point being that, at this stage, moving and meaning are not yet distinct activities. To use Paul Thibault's conceptual frame, the signifying body is not yet distinguished from the body as material actor (Thibault, in press). Within two to three months both moving and meaning become directe and this is when they start to separate. Movement of the limbs can be directed towards some object, in the action of reaching, touching and grasping. By the same token, a cry becomes a yell: that is, it can be directed towards some person - it can be addressed. And here is a significa difference: the yell is not addressed to an object. Movements may be directed towards either persons or objects; meanings are directed only to persons. Thus with a sighted child (and I shall assume the child is sighted; I do not know how these steps are taken with a child who is born blind) the visual mode - visual perception - mediates the distinction between moving and meaning, as well as enabling both to be directed towards some entity that is perceived as being outside the child's own body, the people and things that constitute (following Lemke 1993) the 'ecosocial environment'. Changes in perception, in how things are perceived in the child's changing visual orientation, continue to mediate in the ongoing parallel

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THE D E V E L O P M E N T OF LANGUAGE

development between moving and meaning. There are perhaps three significant steps leading up to the emergence of the protolanguage: expressed in terms of movement, of the child's increasing control of the body as material actor, these are rolling over, sitting up and crawling. Already by lifting his head the infant is beginning to impose his own perspective on the environment. (Since my subject was a boy I shall use the modern rather than the post-modern form of the neutral gender.) But the first movement that is critical in this respect is that of rolling over: tummy to back, and then back to tummy. Visually this means that the child can now switch between two contrasting perspectives; in other words, he can varv his position as an observer. Of course, he has seen the world from most of the possible angles already; but involuntarily, so to speak, at (and in) the hands of others, so that he has not yet associated a particular view of the world with the posture of his own body. Now he does, and (since in principle this movement can be repeated indefinitely) he can now begin actively to explore the material environment. It was at this moment that Nigel produced his first systematic act of meaning, which was also (like his movement) exploratory: a clearly identifiable expression of curiosity, used now and again over a period of about three weeks. In my notes it appears as 'v.h.p.s.', which stood for very high-pitched squeak. This was a directed meaning, triggered by some commotion such as a sudden noise or bright light, addressed to whoever of the meaning group was within range; it was interpreted as a request for explanation, and the addressee responded accordingly, 'Yes, that's a bus - isn't it noisy!' or whatever. Nigel was now being admitted as a semiotic agent, one that could initiate a conversation. But ii is with sitting up that the semiotic potential comes to be significantly enlarged. Here again the critical factor is the child's own agency: he can now voluntarily take up a position from which he sees the environment consistently as landscape, with the material effects of gravity becoming death apparent. lie will soon begin to conduct his own experiments with gravity, dropping anything he can lay his hands on and watching how it falls - much to the irritation of those who think they are expected to pick it up. In this phase the child is in fact extending his control on three fronts: first, control over his own body, and then two forms of control over the material environment - one directly by action (it is much easier to manipulate objects once you can sit upright), the other indirectly by acts of meaning - it was at this phase that Nigel developed his first true signs. A sign is a meaning/expression pair, in which the expression may be sound or gesture or some combination of the two; with it, the child can act semioticallv on any aspect of his ecosocial environment. He can interact with people, to create and maintain togetherness; he can also, by addressing people, act indirectly on things. He now has two ways of getting hold of something he wants: either reaching out and grabbing it, or else telling someone to give it to him. The signs are not yet referential - there is no naming; so the material range over which this added semiotic resource gives control is not very

G R A M M A R - T H ED R I V I N G FORCE

HallidY

19

greatly enlarged: you cannot 'tell' what it is you are wanting. In fact with Nigel at this stage the effective ranges of the two strategies were identical, since both depended on his being able to touch the object he sought to obtain. Nevertheless the two modes of performing were categorically distinct. Acting materially, he would grab the object and pull it towards him; or if he didn't want it, he would push it or knock it away. Acting semiotically, on the other hand, if he wanted to be given the object he wrapped his fist around it, held it for a moment and then let go, but without withdrawing his hand; if he did not want it, he tapped it very lightly and then withdrew his hand back towards his body. These gestures were clearly iconic; after all, they had to be understood by the other person, who might not be very quick on the uptake. But they were gestures: the distinction between the body as actor and the body as signifier was now clearly established once and for all. (This feature is very characteristic of moves in semiotic development. Such a move often does not in itself (i.e. in the context in which it is made) enlarge the child's control over the environment. But it is a 'trailer': it expands the potential for control, which will be exploited in the next developmental phase.) That little set of differentiated signs - Nigel had five or six of them altogether, used over a period of about three weeks - opened up the way to the protolanguage. Figure 2.1 summarizes the steps the child has taken so far, and foreshadows the further steps to be discussed below. reach & roll over sit up > grasp ~ > [shift" > [world [directed perspective] as movement] landscape] yell "!" "?" signs as meaning exchange [semiotic attention" "^directed ^ [express"""^ isolates cry] wonder] action) Moving [material action]

agitate limbs: cry

crawl [move walk > vantage> upright point] protolanguage language -^ [primary ^* [higher order semiotic system] semiotic system]

Figure 2.1 Moving and meaning Next, the child learns to crawl: to move himself, under his own power, from one location to another. He can now examine his environment, and the various objects in it, from every angle, gaining a truly threedimensional picture; and he now starts meaning in earnest. The signs now rapidly increase; but it is not the increase in number that really counts. What is critical is the way the signs become organized into a sign system; and it is the system to which we can give the name of protolanguage. The key to the system is its functionality, the way meaning is built up around a small number of functions-in-context. With Nigel at 10i months I was able to identify four such systemic functions, which I called 'instrumental', 'regulatory', 'interactional' and 'personal', glossing these as 'give me!', 'do for me!', 'you and me together' and T wonder'. The networks for these svstems are shown on Figure 2.2.

Figure 1. NL 1 : Nigel at 0; 9-0; 101/2

Note: All above on falling tone; mid = mid fall, narrow low = low fall over narrow interval, &c. Similarly in below, except where otherwise shown. At 0; 9, Nigel had two such meanings, both expressed as [0] on mid or mid-low falling tone; one interactional, "let's be together", the other (usually with the wider interval) personal, "look, it's moving". He also had another three meanings expressed gesturally: two instrumental, "I want that", grasping object firmly, and "I don't want that", touching object lightly; and one regulatory, "do that again", touching person or relevant object firmly (e.g. "made that jump in the air again"). The gestures disappeared during NL 1-2. In this and subsequent Figures, favourite items are indicated by *, and rare or doubtful items by ?. Where two or three items are related in both meaning and sound these are shown by =, accompanied by an index number where necessary. — indicates that the syllable is repeated. (-), (- -) indicate typical number of optional repetitions.

Figure2. NL 2; Nigel at 0; 10/12-1 ; 0

Figure 2.2 First stages in Nigel's protolanguage (from M.A.K. Halliday 1975)

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

The detailed account of these 'microfunctions' was given in my original publication (1975); here I would just like to locate them in terms of two fundamental oppositions. One is the opposition between reflection and action: between how things are and how I want them to be (one could label these in grammatical terms as 'indicative/imperative', but it is important to bear in mind that the protolanguage has no component of grammar in it). The other opposition is that between outer and inner experience; or, to put that another way, between orientation towards object and orientation towards people (again there is an analogue in grammar: the inner, or better perhaps 'inward', orientation is that of first and second person, while the outer, or 'outward', is that of third person). These then form a little matrix with rows and columns as in Figure 2.3. (My term 'personal' was unfortunately chosen, in this context. I meant by it the child's expression of his own persona, taking the form of a reaction of either curiosity or (dis/) liking towards different phenomena of experience. But the orientation was definitely outward; these 'personal' meanings are significant in the child's construction of reality, involving as it does the clear separation of the self from what is 'out there'.)

Figure 2.3 Mood and orientation in the protolanguage The child is now positioning himself in relation to the ecosocial environment, and so already has a clear sense of 'self in contradistinction to that of environment. Not, of course, at the 'self-conscious' level of explicit awareness; that is a feature of higher-order consciousness, whereas what we see here is a fully developed primary consciousness, analogous to that in other species. It is interesting in fact to compare the infant protolanguage with communication patterns in other species, where the signs are similar in kind; small children get on very well with cats and dogs - I used to say that each party recognized that the other had the same mode of meaning as themselves. 3 The protolanguage The infant protolanguage, as a manifestation of fully developed primary consciousness, is an important means of learning and of interacting: learning about, and interacting with, the different elements that make up the ecosocial environment. But it is also a major step on the way to the mother tongue, language in its 'adult' (i.e. post-infancy) sense. Here what

GRAMMAR - THE DRIVING FORCE HalUday

23

is critical is its systematic nature: we are able to model it systemically, and this implies two things. On the one hand, there is now a clear line of instantiation: each occurrence of a sign is an instance of (a term in) an underlyin system. (Note that this semiotic 'thickening' takes place at the birth of the symbolic sign; before that, there is no dimension of instantiation. In my observations I required three clear instances before recognizing some vocalization or gesture as a systemic element.) On the other hand, there is a clear dimension of opposition: sets of signs contrast with one anoth (perhaps modelled on the elementary opposition of polarity, between 'it's this' and 'it's not that', and between 'I want' and 'I don't want'). Both these features, instantiation and systemic contrast or opposition, are going to be essential preconditions for the later move into grammar. In order to follow this move, we need perhaps to pause for a moment to consider the nature of the protolanguage in relation to the human body including of course the human brain. What is significant here is that the 'adult' (post-infancy) members of the child's meaning group have consistently been tracking his semiotic development. They don't speak his language, as I said, but they know what it means, well enough to hold extended conversations with him, even though it is changing all the time; and he knows if they haven't got the message right, and has ways of telling them so. The reason the others can do this is the same reason they can master any semiotic system: that they approach it from three different angles —from above, from below, and from round about (I have referred to this as a 'trinocular' perspective). Figure 2.4 represents the protolanguage so as to accommodate these three angles of vision. I have labelled the point of vantage for the view 'from below' the bodily environment

Figure 2.4 Protolanguage and its environment

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

because it is clearly the body that is the locus of the expression facet of th sign: that is where gestures and vocalizations are produced. The view 'from above', on the other hand, is that of the ecosocial environment, the world of experience and interpersonal relationships that provides the locus for the content facet of the sign - including the context of situation, which i simply the instantiation of this ecosocial environment. In fact, however, the body is involved at both ends, both the lower and the upper bounds, as the custodian of the human brain. What the brain is doing, at both these interfaces, is effecting a transformation between the two phenomenal realms - the material and the semiotic. When Nigel says * ['d... {'d... {] his brain is distilling a complex of feature from his experience of the world, of the objects and the people in it, and transforming these into a quantum of meaning. Like all meanings, it is strictly ineffable - because it only means itself; but we do our best, as I did, by glossing it with something like 'nice to see you; now let's look at this picture together' - or, in terms that are less situation-bound: 'let's be together by sharing a common experience'. This, in turn, is transformed into the material realm, again of course by the brain, as muscular movements of the articulatory organs and the vocal cords, modulating the egressive airstream coming from the diaphragm. Analogous transformations are taking place, in the reverse direction, in the brain of whoever is attending to what Nigel says. These instances are dependent on th memories of both parties; I understand that imaging has shown that the neuronal energy required tends to diminish as 'the same' act of meaning is repeated, and if so this is a function of the system, the 'meaning potentia that defines what are, or are not, instances of the same. Given that the system is maintained, and ongoingly developed, by this constant translation between the material and the semiotic that is taking place in the brain, it is not surprising that the various phases of semiotic development should be so closely integrated with the physical development of the body, especially when we take into account the mediating effects of the child's progressive visual mastery of his environment. But body and brain are now maturing fast, and suddenly our infant stands up and moves about on two legs instead of on all fours. The moving body has undergone a revolutionary change, leaping over hundreds of generations of biological evolution. What happens to the meaning body at this time? When the brain says 'get up and walk on two feet', it precipitates the final phase in the dimensioning of the child's perception of the environment. This combines the two advantages of sitting up and of crawling; but the combined effect is qualitatively different from either taken by itself. The child now processes a cinematic, 3-D landscape; and, for the first time, the seen environment comes to be virtually limitless. At more or less the same time - not surprisingly - the semiotic potential is also thickened, redimensioned for the latest time, so that now it too becomes indefinitely large. And the source of energy for this revolution is

GRAMMAR — THE DRIVING FORCE HdlUda

25

grammar. Grammar transforms protolanguage into language, likewise in the process shortcutting hundreds or thousands of generations of human semiotic evolution, and propelling the child forward from primary consciousness to a consciousness of a higher order. The protolanguage is an impressive resource; but it has very great limitations. It consists only of one-to-one mappings of a content (meaning) onto an expression. You can go on adding to the inventory of signs, up to what kind of maximum we do not know (probably less than a hundred); but that is the only way of increasing its power. You can use it to point; but you cannot use it to name things - it does not refer; hence you cannot make generalizations, or isolate and combine independent variables. You can use it to initiate and respond; but you cannot open up a dialogic role system or develop systematic modes of appraisal. You can string signs together (Nigel's maximum was three, and that noted on one occasion only); but you cannot construct a narrative or any other structured form of discourse. Some richer, open-ended kind of semiotic system is needed for

Figure 2.5 Language and its environments

Figure 4.

Figure 2.6 (a) Nigel's protolanguage at l;li-l;3

NL 4 : Nigel at 1 ; 1V2-I ; 3

Note: Here there occurs for the first time a set of options which do not form a simple taxonomy. The personal names Anna, Daddy, Mummy combine either with stepping up high level tone, meaning 'where are you ? I'm looking for you,' or with mid fall plus low level tone, meaning 'hullo, there you are !' This involves a level of coding intermediate between content and expression.

Figure 2.6 (b) Nigel's protolanguage at l;3-l;4i

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

the child to be able to construe the complexity of his experience and enact the complexity of his interpersonal relationships. What makes such a system possible is grammar. A grammar (always in the sense of lexicogrammar) is a stratum of purely abstract semiosis that is interpolated in between the content and the expression. By 'purely abstract' I mean that it has no direct interface with the environment. If we redraw the diagram in Figure 2.4, it will now look as in Figure 2.5. 4 The emergence of grammar How does a grammar actually come into being? I have written elsewhere (e.g. 1993) about how Nigel took this critical step. At 14 months, shortly after he had taken to walking as a useful mode of propulsion, he had in his protolanguage some 40-50 signs, distributed around the range of functions that I referred to earlier: instrumental, regulatory, interactional and personal. Each sign had its expression in sound, which was some complex of articulation and intonation; see Figure 2.6. The articulation at this stage is postural rather than phonemic; to our more phonemically attuned ears it sounds unstable, but actually it was remarkably consistent. Likewise, the prosody was consistent: each sign had a fixed intonation pattern associated with it, usually falling but with some signs standing out as different, for example [fhng] 'I like that' which was (fall-) rise-fall. Just at this time Nigel introduced three new signs, marked for the three people who were closest to him: [ama] [dada] [an:a]. These were, respectively, 'mummy, 'daddy' and 'anna'; but they were not yet names, they were interactive expressions of togetherness, meaning something like 'meand-you' with the 'you' specialized out according to the person. And they had their own special tone: uniquely, they were all high level. Now at a certain moment, over a period of two or three days, Nigel replaced these with the system shown in Figure 2.7, where 2.7(a) is before, 2.7(b) after, the change. The articulation had not changed; what had changed was the patterns of intonation, with the uniform high level being replaced by two distinct patterns with a systematic difference in meaning: either stepping up (mid level followed by high level), or moving down (falling high to mid, followed by mid level). The first was used when the person was not present: it was a question tone, meaning 'where are you? I want you'; the second was used when the person was in or came into sight, meaning 'it's you - there you are!' By taking this little step, Nigel became a certified member (a novice certainly; but fully accredited) of the species homo grammaticus.e had separated out two systemic variables: one a system of interpersonal meaning, realized by the prosodic opposition between rising and falling tone, the other a system of ideational meaning, realized by contrasts of articulation; and the two systems were freely combinable. Now for the first time [ama] etc. were true names, referential meanings analysed out from the interpersonal meanings contrasting seeking with finding (or, more

GRAMMAR — THE DRIVING FORCE HdlUday

33

Here for the first time a system of experiential meaning (three personal names) become separated from, and freely combinable with, a system of interpersonal meaning (two moods). This is the child's first step towards a lexicogrammatical stratum.

Figure 7(a) Nigel at 13 months: no separation of articulation and prosody; terms not yet referential

Figure 7(b) Nigel at 14 months: articulation and prosody separately variable; terms (system 1) referential - proper names, (system 2) modal - 'seeking' vs. 'finding'

Figure 2.7 Nigel's first stratification of the content plane generally, anxiety with reassurance; interestingly, this is also the developmental 'moment' when fear sets in, anxiety if an unknown person appears or if the intimates are no longer around). Looking back on this step from later on, we recognize in it the forerunners of transitivity and mood. Here for the first time a system of experiential meaning (three personal names) becomes separated from, and freely combinable with, a system of interpersonal meaning (two moods). This is the child's first step towards a lexicogrammatical stratum. Nigel now knew about grammar: he had taken the first step into a higher-order, stratified world of meaning. And, as was typical, he left it at

32

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

that. It was as if - something that happened several times - he had learnt the way forward, mastered the principle, and would now keep it in reserve until he was ready to start using it in earnest. In our adult timeframe, of course, it was not very long before he did set out in earnest on the evolutionary journey into the mother tongue - I will need to tell one more story to show how he crossed a further developmental frontier. I tell Nigel's story because I observed it all happening, at first hand (and being in at the birth of language was perhaps the most exciting experience of my intellectual life); but every child has to find his or her own way to becoming a grammatical creature. The grammar of every natural language is two things at once: it is a theory of human experience, and it is simultaneously an enactment of human relationships; and we can see how Nigel's little game with syllables and tones established this principle at the ver beginning. You can't have one kind of meaning without the other; this is a principle that is built into the architecture of our higher-order consciousness. We call these two aspects of grammar the 'experiential' and the 'interpersonal'; the experiential is then backed up by a component of grammatical logic, so we use a different term 'ideational' to refer to the immensely powerful combination of these two motifs. So what is the next frontier that I referred to? Children need a strategy for enabling the mother tongue to take off, for getting the whole system airborne. What they seem to do, by some means or other (the tactics vary, of course, but the principle has been widely recognized), is first to systemi this duality, that of grammar as reflection versus grammar as action, so that every utterance is assigned just to one of these two functional types. And here once more, if I may, I will let Nigel take over the narrative. By 16i months his protolanguage had grown to over 50 signs; but by this time the pattern is beginning to break down, and by 18 months he has embarked on the transition to the mother tongue. Some signs are disappearing, while the others have become lexicalized and have formed the basis of a rapidly expanding vocabulary, now around a hundred items. But these words (as we may now call them) have appeared in different contexts: some in contexts of action ('give me ... !', 'let's play with ...!'), others in contexts of reflection ('there's a ...', 'that's a ...'); while none of the words has yet appeared in both. In the month from 1;6 to 1;7 Nigel's lexicogrammatical resource expanded very quickly, extending beyond single words to utterances of two words and then three; and again each wording functioned in one or other of the two contexts, but none in both of them. All wordings were on a falling tone. In the next two weeks, however, a remarkable change took place, a change which set in and was completed (that is, became totally consistent) within a period of five days. What happened was that, with all utterances in the reflection mode, where Nigel was commenting on something he was seeing, or else remembering ('construing' experience, in our terms), the tone remained as falling. But now all those in the action mode, where he wanted to be given something, or to have someone do

GRAMMAR - THE DRIVING FORCE HdlUday

33

something for him, or simply to be with him ('enacting' personal relationships and social processes) - all these utterances were switched into a rising tone. Examples are given in Appendix 2. The difference in intonation was clear, categorical and fully consistent. The contrast was reinforced by Nigel's accompanying behaviour. Any rising tone utterance demanded a response, and would be repeated, with increasing urgency, until it got one - not necessarily a compliance, of course; the response might be 'no you can't'; but this was just (well: almost!) as acceptable as 'yes you can' because it completed the meaning cycle set up by the rising tone. A falling tone utterance, on the other hand, while it might be acknowledged by a hearer ('yes that's a green bus', 'no it's not green, it's blue' and so on), was semiotically self-sufficient and with these Nigel did not press for a response. I labelled this opposition 'pragmatic' versus 'mathetic', mathetic meaning 'having a learning function': with mathetic utterances the child is using the grammar to make sense of the jungle of experience, whereas with the pragmatic he is saying 'somebody do something!'. This systematic distinction picks up the motif we found in the protolanguage; but it has been grammaticalized - moved on to a higher level of abstraction by being systemized within the grammar. The two categories are discrete, with every utterance being assigned to one or the other. The same strategy was found by Clare Painter (1984) in her study of Hal, and by Jane Torr (1997) in her study of Anna. There were differences in the mode of expression: where Nigel used a rising tone, Anna used a creaky voice quality, and Hal some combination of the two; but in every case the functional distinction was the same. Interestingly, the pragmatic was always the marked term in the opposition; a striking bit of evidence for this in Nigel was the way in which, in the one small class of pragmatic utterances where he continued to use a protolinguistic sign (the demand for music, realized by beating time with the right arm), the utterance tone was falling, showing that the falling tone remained the default choice. As long as the two sets of wordings are non-overlapping, such that each possible utterance is specialized to just one function or the other, the opposition is really only semi-grammaticalized. Within a few weeks, however, Nigel had fully grammaticalized the distinction, such that any wording could in principle take either the mathetic or the pragmatic mode. Of course, an expression such as more meat is more likely to b pragmatic, one such as green bus more probably mathetic; but the alternative combination was now entirely possible. The first recorded instance of the same wording occurring in both functions in a single dialogue happened when Nigel was waiting for his father to get ready to take him out. 'Dada ready now,' he said (falling tone). 'No,' said his father, 'I'm not ready. You'll have to wait.' Nigel switched to the other mood: 'Dada ready now!', with rising tone - in other words, 'well then get ready'. Here one can pick up the echo of that much earlier pair of utterances with which the enterprise of grammar was set in train.

34

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

Nigel's system of mathetic versus pragmatic was maintained throughout his transition into the mother tongue - except of course that it was transformed along the way. At first, it was like a prototype of declarative versus imperative, with the proviso that imperatives in adult English do not usually take a rising tone. By about l;10 Nigel was learning to ask questions; he didn't use the interrogative in this function (he had mastered the interrogative syntax perfectly well, but he used it as a special kind of declarative), but since a question is also pragmatic - it demands a response, even though in the form of information rather than goods and services - questions went along with commands in having a rising tone. Being able to ask a question depends on having crossed yet another developmental threshold: the child had to realize that the power of grammar was such that you could use it to tell people things that they didn't already know. This was where the interrogative came in. Up to that time (at around l;9i), Nigel's observations about things and events were grounded in shared experience: that is, they were always addressed to someone who was or had been a party to them; and when these were construed clausally, they were declarative with (being mathetic) falling tone. So when he started using language to inform - to tell someone about an experience he knew they had not shared - he grammaticalized the distinction between the two, using the interrogative for this new kind of semiotic act. Questions began as pragmatic declaratives, and remained this way until the system was transformed once more, taking on its 'adult' guise. The critical step, in the transit to the mother tongue, is that whereby language comes to be used to exchange information. Giving and demanding goods and services is not problematic; it has a correlate in the material realm, and the child has been using language in such contexts for quite a long time. Giving and demanding information is more complex, because there language is being used to exchange itself. Once the child has mastered this mode of meaning, the grammar can assume its full postinfancy form. In this process the opposition between pragmatic and mathet develops, through various stages (according to the child) into the system of mood; while the representational content of both pragmatic and mat develops into the transitivity system (in its extended sense as the grammar of processes and their configurations). The grammar now has it 'metafunctional' semiotic order, simutaneously construing the child's experience and enacting his interpersonal relationships. 5 Some features of the grammar-brain

Any attempt at characterizing the grammar-brain must depend, as Matthiessen (this volume) points out, on an account of the ontogenesis of language which makes sense of human evolution without lowering an opaque symbolic curtain between ourselves and the rest of creation. We know that the brain has evolved in the context of the increasing complexity

GRAMMAR — THE DRIVING FORCE Hdlliday y

35

of our relationship with our environment; this has to mean both the natural and the social environment, without privilege to either one of the two. (There is a danger here of being trapped in the oscillations of fashion. Two or more decades ago, when this was becoming understood, it was only the physical environment that was being considered; this has now been corrected, with the recognition of social intelligence, but it is important to maintain a balance between the two - not simply that they both count, but that they interpenetrate to such an extent that you cannot 'mean' one without the other. The grammar will not let you.) Here is the origin of what, when first drafting system networks, I started referring to (with apologies for the Graeco-Latin hybrid) as the metafunctional foundation of the grammar. This duality of perspective is built in to the architecture of language. But it is not simply a matter of representing these two aspects of the human ecosocial environment. The grammarbrain manages them in complementary ways: it construest the eco, whereas it enacts the social. These are our 'experiential' (or, more broadly, 'ideational') and 'interpersonal' metafunctions. (The remaining one, the 'textual', is the grammar's way of organizing itself to carry out this complexity management). It is precisely, and only, because the two are different semiotic modes that their meanings can vary independently, so that any 'reflection' can be the occasion for any 'action'. Meaning, in turn, depends on instantiation: the principle that each act of meaning instantiates numerous underlying systems. As noted in section 2 above, this depends on memory: the system is the potential that is itself built up as an abstraction from different instances, and which defines what is a 'repetition' of 'the same' semiotic act. It may be already from the moment when the infant first distinguishes meaning from moving (a semiotic act from a material act) that it begins to construct its meaning potential in this way. The move to a higher-order semiotic depends, further, on stratification. The primary semiotic, the protolanguage, already involves realization, as the fusion of a content with an expression. But by introducing a stratum of grammar into the picture, the grammar-brain expands the meaning potential to an indefinite extent, because there can be many-to-many mappings at each interface, and at at least one interface (that between the grammar and the expression) the realization can be wholly conventional, with no requirement of an iconic link between the strata. (In the event, the realization is largely but not wholly conventional below the grammar and largely but not wholly iconic above it.) So when the brain is transforming from the material to the semiotic and back again, any movement of the body as signifier can realize any element in the brain's constitution of the environment (using 'constitution' to include both construal and enactment). Whether construing or enacting, the grammar has to categorize, t determine in what respects phenomena are to be constituted as alike or

36

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

different. So let me finally make a few observations about the grammarbrain's strategies for categorizing. The earlier view was that the categories of our experience were natural classes; a more recent view has been that there are no natural classes, and all categories have to be imposed by the grammar. I would rather say that there are indefinitely many natural classes: everything is like many other things in some respect or other. The grammar selects those among the possible analogies that are plausible, in the sense that the resulting categories collectively constitute a world that humans can live in - that favours survival under the current ecosocial conditions. This is a job of what today is called the management of complexity; and it inevitably involves strategies such as cross-classification, compromise and complementarity. If phenomena are to be transformed into networks of meaning potential, they have to be multiply classified; and the very complex areas of experience, like learning and suffering, will have numerous different addresses - different locations around the grammatical map. In particular, phenomena of all kinds tend to look different when seen from different angles of vision; the view 'from above' (focus on function) and the view 'from below' (focus on form) yield different alignments, and the grammar is always compromising between these two perspectives. And in modelling those pervasive categories that are associated with almost every aspect of experience, like time, or agency, the grammar resorts to complementarities: mutually contradictory interpretations of which both have to be adopted in order to provide a rounded or 'thickened' account. These are not special properties of the language of technology and science; they are features of our common-sense understanding, part of the grammar of daily life, which the child is engaging with from the very beginning of the transit into the mother tongue. Wherever the lines are drawn, on the grammar's mapping of experience, there will be indeterminacy - not as a regrettable shortcoming but as a necessary and entirely positive feature. All categories across the lexicogrammatical continuum are fuzzy; this seems a shortcoming when we try to label them in our metalanguage, but it is essential to the metastability of the whole. By the same token the arrangement of categories into sets and systems of alternatives also depends on indeterminacy - as a function of choice. The varying frequencies with which one or other option is 'chosen' whenever we speak represent the underlying probabilities of the language; these quantitative patterns are critical for children learning their mother tongue; and they allow for the grammar to evolve over the course of time, as probabilities change (and may sometimes reduce to certainty).2 For grammar to be successful, as a way of life, it is important that its options should not be equally likely: we rely on this to interact in conditions of noise. Curiously, Shannon and Weaver (1964 [1949]) may not have been far out in suggesting that language had an overall redundancy of roughly 50 per cent. I say 'curiously' because what they had in

GRAMMAR — THE DRIVING FORCE HalUdayy

37

fact measured was the redundancy of written English analysed as consisting of 26 letters and a space. But my own quantitative studies of a few very general grammatical systems in English at least leave open the possibility that what they found was a special instance of something that is a feature of language as a whole. Finally, indeterminacy also means 'play', in the sense that the system has a great deal of play in it, the elasticity of both semantic and phonetic space. Children moving from the postural phonetics of the protolanguage towards a more digitalized pattern of articulation have to constrain the parameters; but it is still a highly elastic space that they end up with. And analogously with the semantic space: its parameters also are more closely defined than those of the protolanguage; but there are many more of them, and such multidimensional space cannot help but accommodate virtually unlimited play. If we view the evolution of the language-brain in a grammatical perspective, the ontogenesis of grammar offers a way in to tracking the development of higher-order consciousness, or semiosis, suggesting what semiotic strategies are likely to be put in place when the human individual

1.

Dimensionality (thickness) ideational (construing experience ['reality construction'])

metafunction interpersonal (enacting relationships ['social intelligence']) instantiation (systemising meanings ['grammaticalization']) stratification

iconic [matenal/semiotic interfaces] conventional [within semiotic]

2.

Category selection (principle of multiple perspective) cross-classification compromise complementarity

3.

category organization (principle of indeterminacy) fuzziness probability and redundancy 'play'

Figure 2.8 Patterns in grammatical energy

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

moves from infancy to childhood. This perspective is a metafunctional one, taking account of the critical parts played by language in human lives, construing and enacting the relationships of the individual, the group and the species to their social and physical environment. This meaning potential has to be 'learnt' - it has to be constructed; and it seems, if I understand aright, that in constructing it the child is also, not just at the same time but also in the same operation, constructing the pathways of the brain, in the personalized form that is the product of the uniqueness of the individual experience, mediated by the culture, and transformed into the meaning potential that evolved with the species. If I have called grammar the 'driving force', this is because I think it has a special place as the source of energy for the semiotic process.3 (Summary in Figure 2.8.) Notes 1 Phillips studied Nigel's development of 'sameness, similarity, difference, opposition' from age 1;6 to 2;6. She drew up system networks for the final stage (2;3-2;6); then, using these as traces, gradually blocked them in, showing how this aspect of Nigel's meaning potential was built up step by step over the twelve-month period. See Phillips 1985, and (on the development of modality and hypothetical meaning) 1986. 2 Clearly the grammar-brain is responsive to relative frequencies observed over large numbers of instances. The findings of Hasan and her colleagues are crucial in this respect, because they show how young children recreate in their own speech the frequency patterns characteristic of the particular familial environment in which they have learnt their mother tongue. See Hasan 1991, 1992, 1996; Hasan and Cloran 1990. On quantitative studies in grammar, see Halliday 1993. 3 I should make it clear that I am not a student of the brain and have no specialist knowledge in this area. From my limited reading, two recent studies stand out as presenting a picture with which I feel my work on the ontogenesis of language is entirely compatible: those of Deacon (1997) and Lamb (1999). The work that first led me to read about brain evolution was that of Edelman (1992), from which the notions of primary and higher-order consciousness are derived. References Deacon T., 1997. The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and t

Human Brain. London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press. Edelman G., 1992. Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind.

London: Penguin Books. Halliday M.A.K., 1969. 'Relevant models of language', Educational Revie Special Issue: The State of Language, 22, 1, pp. 26-37.

GRAMMAR — THE DRIVING FORCE Halliday

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Halliday M.A.K., 1975. Learning How to Mean: Explorations in the Developmen

of Language. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday M.A.K., 1978. 'Meaning and the construction of reality in early childhood', in Modes of Perceiving and Processing of Information, eds

H.L. Pick Jr. and E. Saltzman. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Halliday M.A.K., 1979. 'One child's protolanguage', in Before Speech: T Beginning of Interpersonal Communication, ed. M. Bullowa. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press. Halliday M.A.K., 1993. 'Quantitative studies and probabilities in grammar', in Data, Description, Discourse: Papers on the English Language in Honour

John McH. Sinclair, ed. M. Hoey. London: Harper Collins. Halliday M.A.K., in press. 'Moving and meaning in the earliest months of life', in New Perspectives on Education and Discourse, eds J.A. Foley a

K. O'Halloran. London and New York: Continuum. Hasan R., 1991. 'Questions as a mode of learning in everyday talk', in Language Education: Interaction and Development, eds T. Le and

M. McCausland. Launceston: University of Tasmania. Hasan R., 1992. 'Rationality in everyday talk: from process to system', in Directions in Corpus Linguistics: Proceedings of Nobel Symposium, ed.

J. Svartvik. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Hasan R., 1996. 'Literacy, everyday talk and society', in Literacy n Socit eds R. Hasan and G. Williams. London and New York: Longman. Hasan R. and Cloran C, 1990. 'A sociolinguistic interpretation of everyday talk between mothers and children', in Learning, Keeping and Usi Language: Selected Papers from the Eighth World Congress of Applied Linguistics, Sydney, 16-21 August 1987, eds M.A.K. Halliday, J. Gibbons

and H. Nicholas. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Lamb S.M., 1999. Pathways of the Brain: The Neurocognitive Basis of Language.

Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Lemke J.L., 1993. 'Discourse, dynamics, and social change', Language as Cultural Dynamic: Cultural Dynamic {Special Issue), 6, pp. 1-2, 243-75. Leopold W.F., 1939-49. Speech Development of a Bilingual Child I—IV.

Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Lewis M.M., 1936 [1951]. Infant Speech: A Study of the Beginnings of Language.

London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Oldenburg J., 1986. 'The transitional stage of a second child: 18 months to 2 years', Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 9, 1, pp. 123-35.

Oldenburg J., 1990. 'Learning the language and learning through language in early childhood', in Learning, Keeping and Using Language: Selected Papers from the Eighth World Congress of Applied Linguistics, Sydn

16-21 August 1987, eds M.A.K. Halliday, J. Gibbons and H. Nicholas. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Painter G, 1984. Into the Mother Tongue: A Case Study in Early Lang Development. London: Frances Pinter. Painter C, 1989. 'Learning language: a functional view of language devel-

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opment', in Language Development: Learning Language, Learning Culture (Meaning and Choice in Language: Studies for Michael Halliday), eds R. Hasan and J.R. Martin. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Painter C , 1996. 'The development of language as a resource for thinking', in Literacy in Society, eds R. Hasan and G. Williams. London and New York: Longman. Phillips J., 1985. The Development of Comparisons and Contrasts in Young Children's Language. M.A. Honours thesis. University of Sydney, Sydney. Phillips J., 1986. 'The development of modality and hypothetical meaning: Nigel l ; 7 i - 2 ; 7 i ' , University of Sydney Linguistics Department: Working Papers, No. 3. Phillips J., 1988. 'The development of comparisons and contrasts: LI and L 2 \ Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 11, 1, pp. 54-65. Qiu S., 1985a. Early Language Development in Chinese Children. M.A. Honou University of Sydney, Sydney. Qiu S., 1985b. 'Transition period in Chinese language development', Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 8, 1, pp. 31-43. Shannon, C.E. and Weaver, W. 1964 [1949]. The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Thibault P.J., 2004. Brain, Mind and the Signifying Body: An Ecosocial Semiot Theory. London and New York: Continuum. Torr J., 1997. 'From child tongue to mother tongue: a case study of language development in the first two and a half years', University of Nottingham: Department of English Studies. Monographs in Systemi Linguistics 9. Trevarthen C , 1977. 'Descriptive analyses of infant communicative behaviour', in Studies in Mother—Infant Interaction: Proceedings of the Lo Lomond Symposium, Ross Priory, University of Strathclyde, September 1975, H.R. Schaffer. New York: Academic Press. Trevarthen C , 1979. 'Communication and co-operation in early infancy: a description of primary intersubjectivity', in Before Speech, ed. M. Bullow. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Watts A. F., 1944. The Language and Mental Development of Children. London D.C. Heath. Weir R., 1963. Language in the Crib. The Hague: Mouton Appendix 1 Examples of protolinguistic conversations [from Halliday, 1978] One year, six months Nigel was waiting for his lunch. He picked up his fork and tried the prongs on the palm of his hand, "66h," he said in a low, breathy voice. It meant 'ooh, it's sharp'. He dropped the fork on the table, "oo" It was a short, high-pitched squeak. "Ooh, dropped it," I said. "Is it sharp?"

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Anna came in, with lunch. "Do you know what it is?" said Anna. "You're having fish." "lu\" said Nigel, "hi"' "Lunch, yes," said Anna. "It's fish." "vo" (fish) Nigel set himself to eat his lunch. Some fish fell off the fork. "60" It was another very high pitched squeak. "Ooh you lost a big bit then," said Anna. "Where did it go?" "baiba" Nigel looked up at Anna, inviting her to share a memory, 'aiba ... baiba," he said. 'Yes, all the trains went away, and you said 'byebye', didn't you?" she said, "baiba," said Nigel sadly, waving his hand. He finished off his lunch, "noumo ... noumo" "Where has it gone?" Anna asked him. Nigel turned his attention to the salt, "adida," he asked. "That's salt," said Anna. "Salt and pepper." "uh ... uh" ('I want it') Anna passed it to him. "That's salt." Nigel poked the hole in the top with his finger, "lou! lou" ('a hole!') 'Yes, it has a hole in it," she said. "adida" "It's salt." "16" "Salt." "16" One year, three months

Nigel was in his high chair; his mother gave him a piece of toast. "There you are, Bootie," she said. "Toast." "dou" said Nigel, picking it up. "dou" He looked over at my piece, "dou" he said again. 'Yes, I've got a piece of toast as well." Nigel finished his piece. "dou" he said firmly. "Do you want some more?" "n" It was a short, very high-pitched squeak, with lips spread, meaning 'yes I do' or 'yes do' in answer to an offer of goods and services. His mother started to butter another finger of toast. Nigel watched her with growing impatience. "(in ... uh ... mng!" (T want it, I want it. Give it to me!') "All right, it's coming! You want some butter on it, don't you? See? That's butter," "bata"

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

There was a plop and a miaow, and the neighbour's cat appeared at Nigel's side. She was regular visitor, "abae ... abae" It was a greeting to the cat. Apart from Anna, his mother and me, the cat was the one other being with whom Nigel exchanged meanings. They spoke the same kind of language. Twelve months

Nigel and I were looking at his book together. Nigel took hold of my finger, and pressed it lightly against one of the pictures. "eya," he said. The meaning was clear: 'You say its name.' "It's a ball," I said. "e - e - eh" Nigel gave his long, drawn-out sigh, meaning 'yes, that's what I wanted you to do.' He was pleased that his meaning had been successful, and he repeated the procedure throughout the book. Later he was looking at it all by himself, "do ... eya ... veu" This was Nigel's first complex utterance, and the only one for many months to come. But it made excellent sense. He had picked up the picture book, opened it at the ball page, and pointed it at the picture. It was just as if he had said in so many words, "Look, a picture what is it? A ball!" Ten and one-half months

Nigel was sitting on my knee. On the table in front of us was a fruit bowl with an orange in it. Nigel struggled to reach it. "na na na na" he said. It meant 'I want it,' 'Give it to me.' I gave him the orange. He made it roll on the table; it fell off. "na na na na" he said again. When the game was over, he got down, crawled away and disappeared along the passage, going boomp-boomp-boomp as he went. Then silence. His mother began to wonder where he was. "Nigel!" she called. "e- e - eh" It was his special response to a call: 'Here I am.' "Where is he?" said the mother. "Nigel!" She went to look for him. He was standing, precariously, by the divan, looking at his picture cards that were hanging on the wall. "doh" he said as she came in. it meant 'Hullo - shall we look at these pictures together?' 'doh ... doh' "Are you looking at your pictures?" his mother asked him. "doh ... doh"

Appendix 2 Examples of pragmatic and mathetic: Nigel l;f i-i; 9 (a) pragmatic

(b) mathetic

chuffa stuck

N. calling for help in freeing toy train

me lasses nose

find foryou

'I've lost something; find it for me!'

bi^ ball

throw up low wall high wall

'throw the rabbit up in the air again' N. about to jump off suitcase, asking to be caught; first used when jumping off walls, low & high, in park

mi

squeeze

play chuffa

'squeeze the orange for me' 'I want my milk in a glass' 'sing "Oranges and lemons'"; accompanied by music gesture, which is alternative realization of pragmatic; hence falling tone N. repeating instruction given when fitting shapes into puzzles: 'is that what I have to do?' 'let's play with the train'

open foryou back toothpaste

usual form of request for box, etc. to be opened 'put the toothpaste back in the cupboard'

ba Dy duck

more gravy

also: more omelet, -lettuce,-tomato,-bread, -bun, etc.

th; it broke

glass orange lemon

turn round

immy book

'I've got molasses on my nose' (with accompanying expression of delight) frequent when playing with ball; also: little ball frequent on picking up book and finding no picture inside ('it's Mummy's book')

rec I sweater

on seeing it: red jumper (same object)

biz ck brush

also green, red, blue, yellow, with stick, light, peg, car. train etc. applied to goods train, bubble; tonic on big as in adult form. in picture; also mummy duck frequent; sometimes appropriate, as when trying to push object through wire mesh; sometimes inappropriate, as when trying to reach ball with stick (= 'too far')

big one

tO( >big

'that's broken'

(b) mathetic

(a) pragmatic

bounce table

'I want to bounce my orange on the table'

loud music chuffa stop

carry

'carry me!'

two green peg green stick find old green train ... green old train

have it toast hut floor

(usual form of 'I want that thing') 'I want some toast'; also breakfast, tomato, etc. 'I'm going to hit the floor with the hammer'

dada black brush no more water toothpaste ... on toothbrush;

that song have that

'sing that song you've sung' (same as have it above)

hedgehog book play rao train under tunnel ... getit foryou down ... table ... sugar ... spoon

'I want the book with the hedgehog picture in it' 'I want to play at lions' both halves rising tone

tree fall down dada got ball ... nila got ball ball go under car

'put the sugar down on the table for me to put mv spoon in it'; rising tone on down and spoon.

frequent comment as loud passage starts in game (Father bouncing N., N., being 'fast train'; Father stops) 'the green stick's been found' both halves falling tone; the second, though less probable, would have been the appropriate one in the context. 'Daddy's black brush' falling tone on on and again on toothbrush: not fullv formed as a single structure later: big tree fall down

cf water gone plughole

3 The Evolution of Language: A Systemic Functional Exploration of Phylogenetic Phases1 Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen

1 Introduction

While speculations about the origin and evolution of language were considered outside the realm of scientific enquiry in linguistics for many years, recently a growing number of valuable contributions have been made to this topic from a range of scholars, including linguists (e.g. Beaken 1996; Corballis 2002; Deacon 1997; W. Foley 1997: ch. 2; Hawkins and Gell-Mann 1992; Hurford et al 1998; Jablonski and Aiello 1998; Noble and Davidson 1996; Ruhlen 1994a, 1994b). There is still a certain tendency to see the beginning of the evolution of language as dependent on conditions created by the evolution of the brain (to cope with general intelligence) and the vocal organs (resulting from bipedalism, a change in foraging behaviour, and so on), thus suggesting that language is a secondary phenomenon - perhaps even a property unique to a human 'language faculty' that arose because of some mutation, as suggested by e.g. Bickerton (1990), thus creating a sharp divide between humans and other primates or indeed other animals in general. Such a line of interpretation seems to be made more plausible when there is a lack of a developmental model that could be used to explain an evolutionary sequence leading up to language: language comes to be seen only by reference to the full complexity of modern human languages (though Bickerton himself has a notion of protolanguage). Against this kind of view, a number of scholars have argued that language was a much more central factor in the evolution of humans (and as part of that, in the evolution of the human brain): see e.g. Bickerton (1995: ch. 2), Deacon (1992, 1997) and Edelman (1992). According to this line of interpretation, language and the human brain co-evolved. This is certainly the view that makes sense from the point of view of a systemic functional understanding of language and the evolution of language: see Halliday (1995). However, the accounts offered in the literature can be further supported by a general theory of language that will allow us to

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interpret the co-evolution of language with the brain and other aspects of modern humans as a gradual but accelerating increase in complexity. Halliday's (1975, 1979) account of the ontogenesis of language from protolanguage via a transitional phase to (adult) language provides us with a very plausible model for how language might have evolved. Significantly, it does not force us to assume a sharp divide between (modern) humans and other primates - or indeed other mammals: Halliday's account of ontogenesis provides a very detailed model of the ontogenetic phases; it combines both continuity and transformation and it interprets language development as children actively learning how to mean - developing a meaning potential together with the people they interact with in a growing range of critical social contexts (cf. Trevarthen's (1987) discussion of intersubjectivity in ontogenesis) - rather than as children 'acquiring' a ready-made product. When we review changes within the recent past, either by observing them in existing texts or by using the traditional methods of historical linguistics, we find that there are two kinds of change: (i) cyclical and (ii) unidirectional. (i) On the one hand, there are changes of a cyclical nature; most changes traditionally studied within historical linguistics are probably of this kind (cf. Fischer 1999: 137). One such example is the central concern of nineteenth-century typology - typology based on the nature of the word grammar of a language (fusional, isolating or analytic, agglutinative, polysynthetic). There is no evidence for linking such changes to general socio-cultural changes that characterize human evolution; they are purely internal to the distribution of realizational resources within the grammar or phonology of a language (cf. Matthiessen, in press). (ii) On the other hand, there are changes of a more unidirectional nature. One key example is the evolution of registers like narrative, instruction, gossip, team co-ordination (as on a hunting expedition), funeral ceremony, legal discourse, scientific discourse, media discourse. Registers are defined not in terms of linguistic subsystems, but rather in terms of socio-cultural contexts of use. This means that, unlike local aspects of language that undergo cycles in the course of evolution, registers evolve together with socio-cultural changes. Since a language is nothing more than an assemblage of registers (e.g. Halliday 1978; Matthiessen 1993), this can give us an important window on the evolution of language. That is, we can infer aspects of the evolution of language based on the evolution of registers that we can correlate with sociocultural evolution. For example, we can ask what new registers evolved as cities emerged as a new form of social organization, and how these new registers added to - and changed - the total linguistic system they were part of. When we explore the evolution of language, we thus have to focus on the longer-term unidirectional form of change.

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2 The evolution of language in a cosmogenetic perspective The techniques of historical linguistics enable us to go back only on the order of 8-10,000 years (cf. e.g. Fischer 1999; Nichols 1998). How do we move beyond this recent past? This will have to involve speculation, but the speculation should be as systematic and informed as possible so that it is possible to constrain it and evaluate alternative proposals. Here I will adopt a cosmogenetic perspective (cf. Delsemme 1998; Layzer 1990; Maynard Smith and Szathmary 1999) on the evolution of language. Language will be assumed to have evolved 'emergently': first as a primary semiotic and then as a higher-order semiotic system within an ordered hierarchy of systems of increasing complexity - physical, biological, social and semiotic systems (see Halliday and Matthiessen 1999: ch. 13). The evolution of language will be assumed to have been a gradual but accelerating process following general principles of the evolution of increasing complexity in complex adaptive systems in general (cf. Steels 1998), and building on earlier capacities shared with other primates (following the general evolutionary principle of new functions out of old structures). The evolution of languages is further assumed to have been a process characterized by co-evolution with both biological systems (bipedalism, vocal apparatus, brain, etc.; see Bickerton 1995; Deacon 1992, 1997; Edelman 1992; Halliday 1995) and social systems (forms of social organization; division of labour, social hierarchy etc.; see e.g. Johnson and Earle2000). Through this co-evolution, there has been a gradual increase in complexity in all the co-evolving systems as greater complexity in one creates the conditions for greater complexity in another. (I thus do not accept the arguments put forward against 'gradualism' by e.g. Dixon 1997; Noble and Davidson 1996) In other words, the evolution of language has been an integral part of the evolution of humanity. Importantly, the evolution of modern language has provided a new order of organization that has made human evolution possible without further brain expansion after the appearance of modern Homo sapiens 100-150,000 years ago. 3 The three phases of the evolution of language 3.1 The three phases

The model for the phased evolution of complexity in the meaning potential is based on Halliday's (e.g. 1975) investigation of ontogenesis, expanded by subsequent research by Painter (1984), Torr (1997) and others, and on his (1995) discussion of the evolution of language in relation to consciousness. One reason for adopting and adapting this ontogenetic model is the assumed relationship between ontogeny and phylogeny. Hypothesis: 'ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny' (Ernst Hackel [1834-1919]).

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

Therefore: ontogenetic phases of language development model of phylogenesis. But even if we do not want to accept this general hypothesis, there is good reason to adopt and adapt the ontogenetic model: it represents an explicit and detailed model of how semiotic complexity can develop from a simple primary semiotic system to a complex higher-order one. It is also a model that has certain properties that are critical for an evolutionary account: it is not based on some future goal, but shows how each stage of development is functional in its own right; it shows how more complex semiotic patterns develop out of existing ones - earlier patterns are adapted in new ways; and it shows how the human potential to mean increases in the course of development, not only quantitatively but also qualitatively. According to this model, there would have been selective advantages throughout the evolution of language, with two major advances. In adopting a model that derived from detailed, empirical studies of ontogenesis, we have to remember that unlike semiotic ontogenesis, semiotic phylogenesis does not involve modelling and scaffolding by more mature meaners (cf. Noble and Davidson 1996: 221). This is one critical way in which the learning of language by a young child differs from the evolution of language by hominid groups. Consequently, certain developments that are quite compressed in the learning of language must have been quite extended in the evolution of language. According to Halliday's model, it is possible to identify three nondiscrete phases of development after a 'pre-symbolic' period when infants engage with semiotic instances and precursors (such as exchanges of attention - what Catherine Bateson (1979) has called protoconversation) that have not yet crystallized into a semiotic system: • Phase I: protolanguage [primary semiotic] (bistratal [content/ expression]; and microfunctional [where function equals use and is directly tied to context: regulatory, interactional, instrumental, personal at the onset]); • Phase II: transition (from bistratal to tristratal: the emergence of lexicogrammar [the system of wording: 'morpho-syntax' and lexis] as a new stratum within content and of a phonological system out of the vocal 'postures' of protolanguage; from an axial-stratal system to one with axis and stratification as separate dimensions of organization; and macrofunctional [where the microfunctions are generalized into two initially alternative but ultimately simultaneous macrofunctions: mathetic and pragmatic]); • Phase III: language [higher-order semiotic] (fully tristratal [semantics/lexicogrammar/phonology - possibly expanded later by graphology at the level of expression and by grammatical metaphor in the relationship between semantics and lexicogrammar]; and metafunctional [ideational (logical + experiential), interpersonal, textual - as simultaneous modes of meaning]).

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These are phases in 'learning how to mean' — phases in the developmen of the child's meaning potential. Each phase represents a significant increase in the child's power to mean. At some point, syntagmatic structures emerge under the pressure to increase the power of the resources needed to create meaning; but this is their proper place in the overall scheme of things - an expansion of the power to realize meanings, not the central organizing principle of language. Prior to the emergence of structures there are sequences of signs appearing one after another; but structures integrate a short sequence into one unit marked by a single intonation contour. These same phases must have characterized the evolution of language. The key motif in evolution was also the creation of meaning: language evolved as a meaning potential in the first instance, and every evolutionary change extended the meaning-making power of this meaning potential as an adaptation to the new pressures on it that emerged in the course of human evolution. Particular aspects of language at any given evolutionary stage - grammatical structure, gesture as a mode of organization, and so on - have to be seen against the background of the organization of language as a meaning potential. For example, if we put forward the hypothesis that language started with the gestural mode of expression (e.g. Arbib and Rizzolatti 1997; Beaken 1996; Corballis 2002), we have to be able to link this to the creation of meaning; that is, while gesture may have served as a way into the expression of meaning, it was the pressure placed on humans to make some kind of meaning in some context or other that was the driving force. Similarly, grammatical structure cannot be taken as a given in the account of the evolution of meaning; we have to be able to show both how and why it would have evolved as a resource for organizing and realizing meaning. Each ontogenetic phase has critical implications for both social and biological developments in the growing child. For example, while protolanguage goes with crawling and primary consciousness, language goes with walking and higher-order consciousness (Halliday 1998). In addition, the account also has clear socio-cultural implications: each phase represents a distinct relationship between language and context, from the constrained phase of protolanguage where the microfunctions are directly tied to particular contexts of use in a one-to-one mapping to the very complex and open-ended relationship that characterizes Phase III. This will make it possible at least to explore the question of what our ancestors would have been able to achieve with the linguistic potential characteristic of each particular phase. The ontogenetic model can, I believe, serve as an explicit and detailed outline for exploring phylogenesis (see Table 3.1) with one central difference. (This is, of course, an analytical strategy. As far as language development is concerned, it is the other way around: just as in the biological development of an individual, ontogenetic strategies recapitulate phylogenetic ones - up to a point.) Children learn how to mean in

50

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

Figure 3.1 The phases in the evolution of linguistic complexity - stratification and functional organization interaction with their immediate caregivers, who have a full-fledged linguistic meaning potential, and possibly also with older siblings. Thus when they have learned the basic principles through their own protolanguages and begin the transition into the mother tongue spoken around them, they have an existing model to draw on in building up their own meaning potentials. This was, of course, not the case in human evolution: there were no models of a more powerful and complex kind of semiotic system; and all members of a given social group were at the same stage of language evolution. As a result, I believe the transitional phase must have extended over a very long period of time in phylogenesis even though it is fairly brief in ontogenesis. But this seems to be what the general picture of human evolution suggests - a long period of relative phylogenetic stasis for the duration of Homo erectus from around 1.8 million years ago until the appearance of archaic Homo sapiens some 400-200,000 years ago. There would thus have been a gradual build-up in semiotic complexity during the transition, followed by a more rapid evolution once the break-through to language had taken place. 3.2 The three phases in relation to periods of human evolution

I have now presented the three phases of the evolution of language. The next step we need to take is to relate them explicitly to the periods of human evolution, locating them relative to biological and social developments. I will give an overview here, and then discuss each phase in some

Table 3.1 Properties of the three phases of the evolution of language Phase I (protolanguage)

Phase II (transition)

Phase III ([modern] language)

specialized microfunctions: regulatory, interactional, instrumental and personal - plus later: heuristic, imaginative relation to context fixed: each microfunction tied to a corresponding micro situation stratification bi-stratal/taxial: content (paradigmatic) - expression (syntagmatic)

generalized macrofunctions: pragmatic and mathetic

abstracted metafunctions: ideational (logical and experiential), interpersonal and textual variable: contextual settings ~ registers

axis

fission of axis and stratification

functionality

expression plane dialogue

narrative commodity

becoming disassociated fission of content, with emergence of lexicogrammar

whole body: vocal and gestural (vocal involves postures rather than articulatory sequences) - (proto-dialogue, but no true early dialogue [mathetic, dialogue with exchanges of roles) pragmatic, but often with strong pragmatic component] (Halliday, 1975: 111) early narrative [mathetic] (Halliday 1975: 111) at first only goods-&-services, only goods-&-services into phase II also information [at first only shared experience, but then also vicarious information as substitute for personal experience]

tri-stratal: content [semantics lexicogrammar] - expression [phonology, (graphology or sign)] bi-axial: paradigmatic syntagmatic whole body, but differentiated domains: vocal - language, gestural - 'paralanguage'

proliferation of registerial structures goods-&-services/information [with information being dominant]

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more detail. In terms of the evolution of Homo, the three phases would have succeeded one another as follows: • Phase I: from before the emergence of Homo up to about the time of the appearance of Homo habilis. • Phase II: into Phase II with Homo habilis and then development of Phase II during the time of Homo erectus and archaic Homo sapiens. • Phase III: possibly into Phase III towards the end of archaic Homo sapiens and then development of Phase III during the time of modern Homo sapiens sapiens (anatomically modern humans). According to this interpretation, Phase II marks the beginning of the genus Homo, while Phase III marks the beginning of anatomically modern humans. This means that Phase II extends from the beginning to the end of the period in human evolution that starts with a 'spurt' of brain enlargement and ends with another 'spurt' (to use Mithen's term (1996)). Phase II had started by the time it seems that there had been a shift from pre-natal to postnatal development: with Homo erectus, infants may have been born less mature than before and needed a longer post-natal period of maturation that would have involved both social and semiotic nurturing. Phase II started before a modern vocal tract had evolved. This is not a problem since the properties of Phase II do not depend on a modern phonological system realized by a phonetics that presumes the full articulatory potential of modern humans. By the time Phase II shaded into Phase III, something like the modern vocal tract seems to have evolved (around 200,000 years ago). Phase III starts at the time when human evolution becomes a matter of social and semiotic evolution in the first instance, with these two orders of system thus taking over the burden of evolutionary responsibility from the biological order and increasing the potential for rapid evolution (cf. Table 3.2). I have related the three phases of semiotic evolution to the biological order of the evolution of humans in very broad terms. These correlations are summarized in Table 3.3. To this broad outline, we need to add the social dimension of evolution, also indicated in Table 3.3. The beginning of Phase II may also be the beginning of the family-level group as a form of social organization (Johnson and Earle 2000), but there is no obvious social change corresponding to the move from Phase II to Phase III (the transition from family-level group societies to local group societies coming much later, well into Phase III). This will be discussed in Section 3.5.1. The determination of the biological and social correlates for each phase of semiotic evolution depends on the nature of the demands that the semiotic system of each phase imposes and the possibilities that it opens up. For example, Phase II must make heavier demands on the brain than Phase I because it is a more complex form of semiotic system involving syntagmatic structures for the first time. This would correlate with the beginning of the brain enlargement. But it also opens up new possibilities because it makes a form of dialogue possible for the first time. This would

Table 3.2 Biological evolution and phases of the evolution of language Period Biological years BP

name

4.4-4m

Australopithecines bipedalism

1.9-1.5m

Homo habilis

bipedalism

1.8m-250k Homo erectus

bipedalism

400K-90k

Homo sapiens, archaic

bipedalism

150k-

Homo sapiens, modern

bipedalism

Semiotic

locomotion brain: cranium brain: Broca's developmental vocal organs timing area, other features 400-500 ml bipedalism (bipedalism frees up larynx removes heat (Wills, 1993: constraints on 290) brain? - Falk's 'radiator theory') 500-750 ml development of Broca's area (preferential right handedness) 750-1250 ml presence of change towards Broca's area greater immaturity at birth and longer maturation period 1100-1430 ml human-like into Phase III vocal tract [200K] 15201600 ml

Phase I (continued)

into Phase II

Phase II

Phase III

Table 3.3 The three linguistic phases in relation to biological and social developments Time period c.5m BP 2.5-2m BP

Biological Social common bipedalism ancestor hominids [Lower and genus Homo: beginning of family-level Middle Homo habilis brain group Paleolithic] tristratal:

tri-stratal

regulatory reflective

interactional personal + heuristic

bi-stratal

stratification

emergence of lexicogrammar (& phonology) semantics

content (protosemantics)

semantics (emergence of semantic structures like narrative)

semantics

+ interpersonal grammatical metaphor [probably all languages]; + ideational grammatical metaphor [very recent, "standard" languages]

semantics lexicogramar

lexicogramar

emergence of vocabulary and grammar in distrinct macrofunctions

lexicogrammar

expression: phonology

emergence of phonology (separation of articulation and prosody; emergence of phonological rank scale)

phonology

expression: phonetics

as vocal postures

phonetics as phonetics as realization of realization of phonology, phonology increasing in expressive potential with evolution of vocal tract;

THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE

expression: face, gesture

MatthieSSefl

Phase I

Phase II

Phase III

... together with other modes of expression: gesture, facial expressions

gradual marginalization of other modes of

as paralinguistic expression plane

expression?

emergence in the last 5K years or so, for some languages

expression: writing [graphology-, graphetics] instantiation

local (to stratum)

axis

scalar: potential narrative Sec instance

scalar: potential subpotential/ instance type instance

function = use

emergence of registerial zone on cline of instantiation

proliferation of registers

content = paradigmatic / expression = syntagmatic

emergence as separate semiotic dimension

bi-axial

emergence of rank: "clause word" > clause group - word

(continued elaboration of rank)

(protodialogue)

dialogue

dialogue

goods-&-services

goods-&-services, with information emerging

goods-&-services / information

narrative emerging

elaboration of kinds of narrative

extension of dine

bi-polar:

intermediate region on cline

potential instance

rank (lexicograinmar)

particular features

dialogue

commodity exchanged narrative

85

summarized the major dimensions in Table 3.9 This multidimensional model of language allows us to see how linguistic resources must have evolved gradually in power to mean and complexity. Phase I had considerably fewer dimensions than Phase III; the new dimensions emerged during Phase II. In the course of Phase II, the fundamental dimension of stratification was expanded within the content plane to allow lexicogrammar to emerge, and within the expression plane to allow phonology to emerge. Similarly, the cline of instantiation was expanded by a move of generalization along this cline up from the context-specific meaning potentials of Phase I (regulatory, instrumental; interactional, personal) to the generalized meaning potentials of Phase II (pragmatic; mathetic). This expansion transformed the original domain of meaning along the cline of instantiation into a region of patterning intermediate between potential and instance; this was the functional variation in patterns of instantiation that represents different registers situated within different situation types. By the end of Phase II, the functional organization of language was emerging as a semiotic

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dimension in its own right: the macrofunctional organization was transformed into a metafunctional spectrum of simultaneous modes of meaning. In addition, new dimensions emerged - through the separation of axis from stratification so that all strata could become bi-axial in their organization and through the development of the rank scale as a compositional mode of organization. With Phase III, all the semiotic dimensions of modern language had emerged. The history of Phase III is, therefore, one of expansions within this multidimensional organization. The expansion of the range of registers must have been a leading force: as language radiated into, and created, new contexts of use through the emergence of new registers, its overall meaning potential also expanded — since the overall meanin potential is an assemblage of the patterns of meaning of all registers. Against the background of this form of evolution, we can also identify a few evolutionary changes that adjusted the dimension of stratification. The emergence of grammatical metaphor - first interpersonal, perhaps in all languages, and later ideational, only in certain languages - created a more complex mapping between the systems of the content plane, i.e. between semantics and lexicogrammar. And the development of writing systems created a new, alternative, mode of expression within the expression plane, within certain languages under certain conditions. Throughout the phased evolution of language, its nature as a meaning potential remained the key organizing motif: this is what the system network of systemic functional theory represents. All evolution can be understood as gradual augmentations of this meaning potential - either simple elaborations, or a restructuring of the system to make it possible to mean in new ways. Halliday (e.g. 1975) suggests that the precursor of grammar in Nigel's protolanguage was the introduction into the meaning potential of two simultaneous systems making it possible to create two different strands of meaning at the same time. The evolution of language has thus been a gradual, complex semogenic process. Notes 1 I am very grateful to Annabelle Lukin for extracting this chapter from a much longer manuscript - a generous act of true scholarship! I am also grateful to participants in the workshop that this book is based on and another workshop on 'language, brain, culture' - particularly to David Rose for his many insights into the evolution of language. References Arbib M. and Rizzolatti G., 1997. 'Neural expectations: a possible evolutionary path from manual skills to language', Communication an Cognition, 29, pp. 392-424. Bateson M.C., 1979. ' "The epigenesis of conversation interaction": a

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Ghadessy. London: Frances Pinter. Matthiessen C.M.I.M., in press. 'The architecture of grammar according to the systemic functional theory of language'. New Delhi: Decent Books. Matthiessen C.M.I.M., in press. 'Descriptive motifs and generalizations', in Language Typology: A Functional Perspective, eds A. Caffarel, J.R. Mart and C.M.I.M. Matthiessen. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Maynard Smith J. and Szathmary E., 1999. The Origins of Life: From the Birt of Life to the Origin Of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mithen S., 1996. The Prehistory of Mind: A Search for the Origins of Art, Religio and Science. London: Thames and Hudson. Nichols J., 1998. 'The origin and dispersal of language: linguistic evidence', in The Origin and Diversification of Language. Memoirs of the California Academy of Sciences, Number 24, eds N.G. Jablonski and L.C Aiello. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Noble W. and Davidson I., 1996. Human Evolution, Language and Mind: A Psychological and Archaelogical Inquiry. Cambridge: Cambridge Universi Press. Painter C , 1984. Into the Mother Tongue: A Case Study in Early Language Development. London: Frances Pinter. Potts R., 1992. 'The hominid way of life', in The Cambridge Encyclopedia Human Evolution, eds S. Jones, R. Martin and D. Pilbeam. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rose D., 2001. 'Shared meanings: a case for cultural continuity across languages', MS. Paper presented at the Language-Brain-Culture Conference, the University of Sydney, December 2001, Sydne. Rose S., 1997. Lifelines: Biology, Freedom, Determinism. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Rose S., Lewontin R.C. and Kamin L., 1984. Not in Our Genes. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Ruhlen M., 1994a. On the Origin of Languages: Studies in Linguistic Taxonomy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Ruhlen M., 1994b. The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mothe Tongue. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Savage-Rumbaugh E.S. and Lewin R., 1994. Kami: The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind. New York: John Wiley. Steels L., 1998. 'Synthesizing the origins of language and meaning using coevolution, self-organization and level formation', in Approaches to th Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases, eds J. Hurford, R.M. Studdert-Kennedy and C. Knight. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Torr J., 1997. From Child Tongue to Mother Tongue: A Case Study of Language Development in the First Two and a Half Years. University of Nottingham Department of English Studies. Monographs in Systemic Linguistics 9. Trevarthen C , 1987. 'Sharing makes sense: intersubjectivity and the making of an infant's meaning', in Language Topics: Essays in Honour of

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Michael Halliday, eds R. Steele and T. Threadgold. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Walker A. and Shipman P., 1996. The Wisdom of Bones: In Search of Huma Origins. New York: Knopf. Wills C , 1993. The Runway Brain: The Evolution of Human Uniqueness. London: Flamingo.

4 Language, Apes and Meaning-Making Jared P. Taglialatela, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, Duane M. Rumbaugh, James Benson and William Greaves

There is nothing in his [man's] physical frame which truly separates him from other animals, because every member and organ of his body has its counterparts or analogue in the bodies of other animals But there is one physiological standard by which man can truly be measured, which applies to him alone, and which rounds his whole marvelous being - his faculty of speech. The immeasurable distance between man and every other animal on earth is fully accounted for by the existence, the nature and the significance of man's words. (Thomson 1907, p75-79) (original emphasis)

1 Human language is unique. Isn't it?

Human language has long been thought to be fundamentally different from all other animal communication systems. The quote above epitomizes this viewpoint. Not only has human language been regarded as a unique entity without comparison in the animal kingdom, but many have also considered language to be the key to human uniqueness. However, on what evidence have we concluded that other species do not have language? Scientists from various disciplines have constructed intricate frameworks in an attempt to outline the characteristics that make human language unique, and in doing so have attempted to describe the fundamental principles of human uniqueness. These studies have in common the underlying premise that a marked discontinuity exists between human language and the vocalization systems of all other animals. However, the functional characteristics of human languages, and the neurological structures they rely upon, are the products of the same evolutionary processes that shape the communicative systems of all animal species. Therefore, to scientifically evaluate the hypothesis that human language is unique, or that humans possess unique characteristics that facilitate or enable linguistic competency, evidence that supports this claim must be provided. Such an investigation must employ identical criteria for the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data. To our knowledge, no such study has been conducted.

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This chapter will attempt to critically evaluate the claim that language is unique to the human species. This assertion will be countered by the position that the question has not been adequately framed, and rarely, if ever, have assays of sufficient complexity been employed. We will propose novel methods for approaching this issue, and describe communicative behaviours and cognitive competencies observed in captive bonobos that have been exposed to human linguistic culture. 2 Non-human communication systems

Non-human animals employ a variety of auditory, visual, and chemosensory signals that function to attract mates, alert others to potential dangers, announce the quality and location of food resources, and inform conspecifics of their physiological state or social status (e.g. willingness to mate, dominance, etc.). These behaviours and their physiological counterparts can be viewed as evolutionary adaptations that have conferred a selective advantage upon those individuals that possess superior communicative skills. Certainly, it is not difficult for one to reason why the individual who can attract more mates, locate and gain access to more food sites, or ward off more rivals than her conspecifics, will have increased reproductive success and, therefore, increased fitness (at least in the evolutionary sense). To be a superior communicator, one must be able not only to produce and transmit signals in a way that optimizes their propagation in the relevant environment, but one must also be able to perceive, process, and respond appropriately to the signals of others. Species often adapt to these challenges in highly specific ways, resulting in various forms of species-specific communicative behaviours. The waggle dance of honey bees, the complex vocalizations of song birds, and the electrical pulses of some fish provide only a few examples of the vastly different modalities for intraspecies communication. However, similarities do exist in the communicative repertoires of animal species as a result of shared phylogenetic history, or adaptations to similar selection pressures. For example, gibbons and many species of song birds all broadcast elaborate sequences of vocalizations that serve to alert conspecifics of their territories. These species have independently evolved similar mechanisms for communicating territorial boundaries. Researchers interested in the evolutionary origins of these communicative behaviours often draw upon these similarities and make direct comparisons between species. By examining the behaviours of both phylogenetically distant and phylogenetically related species, scientists gain insight into the evolutionary origins of these communicative characteristics. For example, studies have shown that many non-human species perceive and discriminate speech sounds in ways that are similar to humans (Dooling et al. 1995; Kuhl 2000; Kuhl and Miller 1975, 1978; Ramus et al. 2000). These data indicate that humans may share the physiological and neurological hardware necessary for speech perception with even distant evolutionary relatives. The study of

LANGUAGE, APES AND MEANING-MAKING Tdglidlatela et al. 93 human language, therefore, can be approached just as the study of any other animal communication system would be. Only by recognizing that human language is an evolutionary adaptation that evolved in response to selection pressures that operate without bias on all living organisms can we gain broad insight into the origins of human language. 3 Animal vocalizations and human speech

Studies of the vocal repertoires of animal species have revealed numerous similarities between animal vocalization systems and the way in which humans acquire and utilize speech. Recent data indicate that learning may play a role in shaping the structure of the vocalizations produced by many non-human primate species, and in determining the context in which these calls are emitted (Cheney and Seyfarth 1990; Elowson and Snowdon 1994; Fisher et al. 1998; Hopkins and Savage-Rumbaugh 1991; Maeda an Masataka 1987; Marshall et al. 1999; Masataka 1988; McCowan and Newman 2000; Mitani et al. 1992). For example, Marshall et al. (1999) recently compared the 'pant-hoot' vocalizations produced by two captive groups of male chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes. The authors report that t structure of the calls produced by the members of each group have converged as a result of vocal learning. In addition, reports suggest that many non-human primate species may produce vocalizations that directly refer to objects, individuals, or events in their environments (Hauser 1998; Seyfarth et al. 1980; Struhsaker 1967; Zuberbuhler 2000; Zuberbuhler et al. 1999). For example, Zuberbuhler, et a (1999) conducted a series of playback experiments in order to determine if diana monkeys attend to the meanings of alarm vocalizations produced by conspecifics or simply to the acoustic characteristics of the calls. To test this hypothesis, the authors presented groups of monkeys with two calls in succession, separated by a five-minute period of silence. The playback stimuli included four types of vocalizations, male diana monkey alarm calls produced in response to leopards, male diana monkey alarm calls produced in response to eagles, as well as the calls produced by these two predators. The authors found that the monkeys readily transferred habituation across acoustic, but not semantic features. In other words, when monkeys were presented with conspecific alarm vocalizations for eagles followed by the shrieks produced by crowned eagles, the monkeys did not alter their behaviour. However, when the shrieks produced by crowned eagles were preceded by monkey alarm calls for leopards the monkeys reacted as if a novel stimulus had been presented. These results suggest that diana monkeys attend to the underlying meaning of their conspecifics' alarm vocalizations. Furthermore, data from studies that have employed conditioning paradigms indicate that primate vocal production may contain a volitional component as, in certain contexts, monkeys can be trained to produce or silence their vocalizations (Aitken 1981; Aitken and Wilson 1979; Pierce 1985; Randolph and Brooks 1967; Sutton et al. 1973; Sutton et al. 1978; Sutton et al. 19

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Considered collectively, the results from these studies reveal interesting parallels between the way in which non-human primates acquire and apply their vocalizations and humans learn to comprehend and produce speech. However, few researchers would claim, or have claimed, that the vocalization systems of non-human animals qualify as, or are functionally equivalent to, human language. This is, in part, because when humans participate in spoken conversation, they consider who they are conversing with and use this information to determine what to say and how to say it. Although there is little doubt that the alarm calls produced by monkeys function to inform nearby conspecifics of specific danger (e.g. the presence of an eagle), some investigators have concluded that monkeys do not consider their listeners' mental states when vocalizing (Cheney and Seyfarth 1999). In other words, humans speak with the intention of communicating specific ideas to others and, in turn, treat others as if they have similar intentions when interpreting their utterances. However, there is little evidence as to whether or not non-human animals similarly consider the knowledge state of other individuals when communicating. For insight into this question, a discussion of some previous work designed to uncover the non-human potential for mental state attribution is warranted. 4 What is so special about theory of mind?

The ability to attribute mental states to others, commonly referred to as a 'Theory of Mind' (ToM)l is a complex cognitive process that requires a second-order intentional system or higher (Dennett 1988; Premack 1988; Premack and Woodruff 1978; Woodruff and Premack 1979). Individuals with a theory of mind are not only aware and knowledgeable about another's behaviour, but they are also cognizant of another individual's psychological state (Tomasello and Call 1997). That is, individuals who are capable of this awareness are able to make complex predictions about the actions and motivations of others. Indeed, this ability is fundamental to human language. However, the question of whether or not non-human animals consider the knowledge state of their audience when vocalizing remains unanswered. In other words, do non-human animals possess the ability to separate what they 'know' from what they believe other individuals to 'know' and adjust their vocal production accordingly? Do they provide others with information they know they do not know, and withhold information they know they already have (or don't want them to have)? In other words, is there communicative intention on the part of the caller, and expectation on the part of the receiver? The question is actually twofold. First, do animals possess the ability to distinguish their own knowledge state from the knowledge state of other individuals? And second, do animals possess the neurological and physiological structures necessary to modulate their vocal behaviour accordingly? Premack and Woodruff (1978) first asked whether a non-human ape possessed the ability to attribute mental states to others. The investigators

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devised a sequence-completion task for a young chimpanzee named Sarah. Sarah was asked to predict the ending to novel videotaped sequences that were presented to her by selecting a photo that would conclude each sequence. Sarah was able to complete this task successfully, and was even able to choose appropriately from objects based on quality (e.g. selecting an intact key to open a lock as opposed to a bent key). In addition, Sarah was able to choose different alternatives for different caretakers, (e.g. an unsuccessful alternative for a 'bad' participant, and a successful alternative for a 'good' participant), ruling out the possibility that she was merely empathizing with the character in the sequence. Despite Sarah's successful performance on the sequence-completion task and its variations, scepticism persisted about whether Sarah was actually forming a mental image of what the human actor was thinking. To address this issue directly, Premack (1988) presented Sarah with a falsebelief task2 in which her ability to form two distinct mental images was evaluated: the first regarding what she knew to be true, and the second about what she knew a human trainer to know. The procedure involved a human caregiver placing a preferred item in a locked cabinet in Sarah's presence. The human then left, and sometime later a 'thief entered Sarah's cage area and removed the item, replacing it with a despised item. The 'thief then exited, and Sarah's trainer returned. When the trainer went to retrieve the item she had previously hid, Sarah failed to alter her behaviour so as to suggest that she knew that the trainer did not know what she was going to find. Premack argues that the results indicate that Sarah may not be able to form two separate mental images - one of what she knew was hiding, and the other regarding what the trainer 'thought' was hiding (Premack 1988). Sarah's performance on Premack's (1988) 'falsebelief task suggests that chimpanzees may lack the ability to form mental images about others' mental states. At the time of Premack and Woodruffs (1978) initial publication, a second study was conducted in which the authors reported that two chimpanzees, Sherman and Austin, could use graphic symbols to accurately specify and request foods from one another when the item's identity was known by only one (Savage-Rumbaugh et al. 1978). Although it was reported that Sarah did not always distinguish between what she knew and what her trainer knew, note that she was being asked to consider the knowledge state of an individual of another species whom she did not live with or know intimately. In contrast, Sherman and Austin were the same species and shared a long rearing history. In their report of symbolic communication between the two chimpanzees, the authors describe a test in which a food item was hidden in a container in the presence of only one individual (the informant), but the lexical keyboard containing the symbols the apes had learned to use was not made available. This meant that the informant could not use his learned symbols to provide the other ape with the necessary information. If the informant did not recognize that his knowledge state differed from

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that of the other ape, one would expect him to do nothing when placed in this novel situation. However, this is not what happened. The informant, deprived of the keyboard, invented another way to tell his counterpart what he knew - he used the manufacturer's food labels, as a means of communication. He did this even though no one had ever demonstrated such a technique before and no associative training between label and food had ever occurred. This held true for both chimpanzees for all eleven of the foods used in this study. Sherman and Austin devised their own method for communicating novel information to the other, providing evidence of theory of mind in this situation. A second, more recent report provides additional evidence that chimpanzees may consider the knowledge state of their counterparts when communicating. An adult female, language-competent chimpanzee named Panzee spontaneously reported the names and locations of items hidden outside her enclosure to caregivers who were not only unaware of the locations of the hidden items, but ignorant as to whether or not anything had been hidden at all (Menzel 1999). The author would hide an object while Panzee observed. Then, after an imposed delay of up to sixteen hours, Panzee was given the opportunity to interact with her caregivers. The author reports that from the very first trial, Panzee spontaneously initiated interactions with her caregivers. On a typical trial, Panzee would vocalize, gesture, and/or establish eye contact to solicit a caregiver's attention, and then indicate the name of the hidden object by gesturing to the symbol on her lexigram keyboard. Panzee would then lead the caregiver outdoors to the site of the hidden item and gesture to its precise location. Panzee would continue these behaviours until she successfully directed a caregiver to the item, and it was removed. The author reports that it was Panzee who initiated the interactions with her human caregivers, and that she was highly motivated to do so. We would argue that this behaviour suggests intentional communication, and that Panzee may have even recognized the disparity between her knowledge (i.e. the location of the hidden object) and the caregiver's, who was unaware of the item altogether. Why was Sarah able to pass some tests and fail others even though the experiments were designed to evaluate the same ability? Why does Sarah's performance seem to indicate an inability to separate her own knowledge from another's whereas the behaviours observed in Sherman and Austin suggest they do consider the other's mental state? These questions epitomize the current status of theory of mind research with non-human primates. Whereas reports of primate behaviour in both captive and wild populations describe complex interactions that suggest mental state attribution, the data from controlled laboratory experiments are equivocal (see Byrne 1995; Call and Tomasello 1998, 1999; Cheney and Seyfarth 1990; Goodall 1986; Tomasello and Call 1997; Tomasello et al 1998; Tomasello etal 1999). In the time since Premack and Woodruff's (1978) initial publication, researchers working with non-human primates have sought to evaluate the

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presence or absence of abilities thought to be fundamental to a theory of mind. Imitation, deception, gaze-following and self-recognition have all been addressed by investigators seeking to uncover the nature and evolution of primate intelligence (for reviews see Byrne 1995; Heyes 1998; Tomasello and Call 1997). However, the fundamental component of a theory of mind is undoubtedly the ability to attribute mental states to others. In other words, an individual who possesses a theory of mind is capable of reasoning of the following type: 'X thinks Y or lA believes B\ To an experimenter working with subjects that they are unable to interact with linguistically, assessing this ability presents a formidable challenge. One method is through observational reports of behaviour in natural settings (Goodall 1986). However, it is often impossible to determine whether an overt behaviour is the result of an individual's attempt to affect the beliefs or to affect the behaviour of another (Heyes 1998;Premack 1988). To this end, investigators working in the laboratory have devised creative procedures for evaluating mental state attribution in non-human subjects. One group of researchers sought to determine whether juvenile chimpanzees were able to appreciate the connection between seeing and knowing (Povinelli and Eddy 1996). The procedure challenged the subject by requiring him to choose between two human individuals that were to assist him in acquiring a food reward. The subject was to indicate his choice by passing his hand through one of two holes corresponding to the location of the selected individual. One of the human participants was blindfolded (or visually impaired in some way, e.g. a bucket over the head, etc.). The subject was then evaluated for the ability to reason as follows: T should elicit the assistance of the "sighted" human, as the "blinded" individual is unable to observe my gesture.' Povinelli and Eddy (1996) report that their chimpanzee subjects were unable to complete this task successfully. However, Hare et al. (2000) conducted a series of experiments on social problem-solving in chimpanzees and reported that chimpanzees are aware of what conspecifics do and do not see. In addition, the authors suggest that the chimpanzees use this knowledge to devise social-cognitive strategies. Researchers have found additional evidence that chimpanzees, as well as four other primate species, follow the visual gaze of conspecifics (Tomasello et al. 1998; Tomasello et al. 1999). Recently, Call and Tomasello (1999) evaluated the ability of two species of great ape, chimpanzees and orang-utans, to perform a non-verbal, falsebelief task. This procedure required that the ape subjects choose the location of a food reward based on the knowledge, or lack thereof, of a human participant. The apes were permitted to observe a human hiding a food item in one of two containers. However, they were not permitted to see which of the two containers the item was placed in. A second experimenter was present for this procedure, and the apes were able to observe that this individual, the informant, was indeed able to see which of the two containers held the food. The informant then left the area, and the ape

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observed the hider swap the locations of the two identical containers. The informant then returned, indicating to the subject the container in which they witnessed the food being placed. The ape was then permitted to choose one of the two containers. The challenge was whether the subject could reason as follows. 'X thinks the food is in container A, but I know the containers were switched. Therefore, the food must be in container B.' Call and Tomasello (1999) report that the apes were unable to complete this task successfully. However, Call and Tomasello (1998) previously reported that both chimpanzees and orang-utans were able to distinguish between intentional and accidental actions on the part of a human experimenter. The data reported in these studies fail to provide a definitive answer to the question of theory of mind in non-human animals. In fact, although the issue is far from settled, many investigators remain sceptical, or even doubtful, that any non-human animal possesses a theory of mind (Povinelli 1994). However, as discussed above, contradictions and inconsistencies exist among the various observational and experimental reports of ape behaviour. Is this disparity a reflection of the apes' abilities, indicating their capacity for complex behaviour but lack of a theory of mind? Or, do these results reflect an inability to access experimentally this phenomenon thus far? Evidence from studies with human children may shed some light on this issue. Unlike their ape counterparts, a great deal of work has been done on the development and acquisition of theory of mind and mental state attribution in human children. What is particularly interesting about these studies is that the results indicate that many of the behaviours and abilities believed to be associated with mental state attribution emerge piecemeal in human children. Children reliably complete tasks designed to evaluate theory of mind abilities sometime between their third and fourth birthdays (Astington 1993; Baron-Cohen 1995; Frye and Moore 1991). Wimmer and Perner (1983) demonstrated that three- to four-year-old children successfully complete a false-belief task that requires them to report on another individual's mental state, despite its conflict with their own. Gopnik and Astington (1988) devised a task to determine whether children were able to understand representational change.3 Whereas three-year-old children were unlikely to complete this task successfully, five-year-old children were, leading the investigators to conclude that, 'children begin to be able to consider alternative representations of the same object at about age four' (Gopnik and Astington 1988). However, researchers have reported that behavioural correlates of these abilities are present at an even earlier age (see Frye and Moore 1991). For example, children as young as two years old participate and seem to comprehend 'pretend' play, suggesting an ability to attribute mental states to others (Leslie 1988). Bretherton (1991) suggests that infants begin to demonstrate an ability to appreciate the mental states of others at around nine months of age. Why does the emergence of these behavioural correlates appear before the child has the ability to complete successfully false-belief (Wimmer and

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Perner 1983) or representational change tasks (Gopnik and Astington 1988)? Furthermore, why does a child of a particular age category demonstrate improved performance on false-belief tasks when the linguistic structure is simplified (Mitchell 1997)? If behavioural correlates associated with mental state attribution emerge piecemeal in a young child, then this may explain why a child's observed abilities surpass their test performance. An analogy can be drawn between this phenomenon and the apparent discrepancies among the observational accounts and experimental reports of ape (or more generally primate) behaviour and performance durin laboratory tests. While very young children may not possess the requisite cultural or social skills which would enable them to pass the theory of mind tasks, they nonetheless demonstrate complex behaviours suggesting an ability to attribute mental states to other individuals (Bretherton 1991; Leslie 1988). One prediction that follows from this is that one might expect to see improved ape performance by those apes that were at least partially enculturated into human environments. This is in fact the case (Call and Tomasello 1994). Like young children who may not yet possess the requisite social or cultural skills, apes that have had limited exposure to humans may lack similar abilities needed to perform theory of mind tasks successfully, or they may possess these capacities but limit their application to conspecifics. In other words, an ape that has not had the opportunity to participate in communicative interactions with humans most likely has not learned that their own actions can alter the behaviour (and maybe even the knowledge state) of other humans, and that the actions performed by humans may have consequences for themselves. This is not to suggest that human enculturated apes are in any way cognitively advanced when compared to other apes, or that human enculturated apes exhibit more cognitively complex behaviours. In fact, great apes in the wild show cognitive competencies of the same order of complexity as those that are human enculturated (Russon 1999). Perhaps the conclusion to be drawn from the various findings concerning theory of mind is that the evidence for theory of mind in non-human animals is as diverse as the studies designed to investigate it. 5 Conversations between species Apes at the Georgia State University Language Research Center (LRC) are exposed to human language and culture from a very young age and their linguistic competencies reflect the social environment that they inhabit. Kanzi and Panbanisha, an adult male and adult female bonobo, respectively, have been the subjects of an ongoing research project aimed at uncovering the non-human potential for human language. Their abilities to comprehend spoken English and understand and produce utterances via a lexigram keyboard are well documented (Brakke and Savage-Rumbaugh 1995a, 1995b; Savage-Rumbaugh et al. 1993; SavageRumbaugh and Lewin 1994). These studies have revealed that the apes

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acquire these competencies observationally and without formal training. However, while the experiments aimed at quantifying the extent of these linguistic abilities were conducted within the confines of the laboratory in highly controlled situations, Kanzi's and Panbanisha's acquisition and application of language take place in a spontaneous and less rigid context. Daily interactions between bonobos and researchers in the lab resemble human dialogue. These conversations occur between individuals in direct visual proximity to one another and include not only spoken English and lexigram keyboard use, but gestures, glances and vocalizations. Humans make requests and the bonobos, in turn, respond with utterances of their own. In addition, the bonobos initiate interactions and utilize a suite of communicative modalities concurrently to make requests, discuss past events and plan for the future (requests for food, to go outdoors, play hide, watch television, etc.). A principal component of these inter-species conversations is interpretation. In other words, ape utterances are treated by their human counterparts as intentional actions in a connected series of events. It is our contention that this point is fundamental to the establishment of the observed linguistic competencies, as well as integral to the creation of a neurological substrate that enables these abilities. That is, from a young age, the apes are exposed to all aspects of human language. They observe conversations between human caregivers who employ traditional communicative modalities (e.g. spoken words, gestures, facial expressions) as well as the lexigram keyboard which was originally designed to provide experimenters with an unambiguous method for interpreting ape utterances. Early exposure permits the apes to develop a sense of how human language is applied. For example, the bonobos are given the opportunity to relate spoken words with events in their environment. Similarly, the apes are given access to the lexigram keyboard that is not only employed by their human participants, but that they themselves can use as well. The apes initiate lexigram use on their own, and their interest in the keyboard itself is observed from a very young age. This early exposure to human conversation and its applications instills the apes with much more than an understanding of specific words and how they relate to specific items (e.g. learning that the sound 'banana' means a yellow fruit that is highly preferred). The bonobos learn when language is used and what it is used for. For example, Kanzi and Panbanisha both seem to recognize when information is being requested of them as opposed to when they are being asked to do something. More importantly, however, the apes' utterances are treated as intentional acts. Because the apes are treated as purposeful agents with wants and desires, the interactions move beyond the simple association between symbol and stimulus. In this way, the apes are given the opportunity to observe how their own utterances can affect the behaviour of others. The apes come to learn that language is used not only in experimental situations where providing the 'correct' response will result in receiving a reward. Rather, the apes acquire the linguistic

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competency to negotiate their environment and, along with their human counterparts, to construct and represent their world. This is critical, for it permits the apes to direct their use of language and equips them with the tools necessary for meaningful exchanges. This results in individuals that can not only respond to requests, but bonobos that can also produce novel utterances of their own and participate in conversations. Human linguistic interactions include a considerable amount of interpretation on the part of the sender and receiver. Individuals provide information based on what they believe an individual to already know. Similarly, listeners interpret the utterances of speakers and infuse the perceived signal with a variety of additional information. Much of this information is provided by the senders themselves. Components such as facial expression, posture, and tone of voice provide critical information for the interpretation of an utterance. Additionally, social context and the relationship between speakers provide the foundation for the meaningful exchange of information and determine the ways in which information will be transmitted and received. In this way, human spoken language carries semantic information that is encoded not only by the physical properties of the sounds themselves, but also by the context in which the signal is delivered and the identities of the signaller and receiver. This is readily apparent to most modern speakers in a world which provides numerous alternatives to face-to-face conversation. Indeed, telephone conversations, emails, letters and faxes all provide methods for information exchange. However, humans recognize (if only subconsciously) the importance of context by frequently reserving face-toface conversation for critical information exchange. Of course, human language originated before modern technologies provided alternatives to close-range interactions between familiar individuals. Despite this, researchers working with non-human animals have often focused on eliminating contextual information. For scientists interested in the non-human potential for human language, as well as those interested in the natural communication systems of other animals, the creation of controlled experiments that attempt to eliminate contextual information is the norm. The reasons for this are twofold. The first can be attributed to the legacy of a horse called Clever Hans (Pfungst 1965). Hans was heralded as possessing the ability to solve arithmetic problems and perform other cognitive feats thought impossible for a horse by stomping out the answers with his hoof. However, it was later discovered that this ability was contingent upon a human observer knowing the answer to the problem posed to Hans who, unbeknownst to the observers themselves, cued Hans when to stop stomping. While Hans was not a mathematician, he was in fact a gifted reader of human behaviour. Scientists today cite this as an example of how cueing can confound results. However, we would argue that an additional and equally valuable lesson can be learned. That is, the importance of context cannot be overstated. By recognizing that a horse, without explicit training, surreptitiously acquired the ability to monitor so closely the

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behaviour of human observers, one can begin to appreciate the extent to which individuals monitor the counterparts that they are conversing with. When Kanzi's comprehension of spoken English was assessed, great lengths were taken to avoid the potential for observer cueing (SavageRumbaugh et al 1993). Words and sentences were uttered to Kanzi from experimenters outside the testing room. Kanzi received these requests via headphones and was the only individual in the room that heard the utterances. Kanzi completed these tasks successfully. However, it is our contention that the rigorous experimental requirements provided results that, while unequivocal, vastly underestimated the level of Kanzi's linguistic competencies. Kanzi's comprehension of spoken words and utterances were evaluated under conditions that not only denied Kanzi supplementary information that is integral to human conversation, but also removed the act of language from its natural domain. We are currently developing more complex assays for assessing the linguistic competencies of the bonobos at the Language Research Center. We will describe some of these methods later in the chapter. Second, scientists studying the natural communication systems of nonhuman animals have focused upon the potential for vocalizations to refer to items or events in the environment by similarly decontextualizing the signals themselves. These studies typically employ a playback paradigm that involves the presentation of prerecorded vocalizations. Individual behaviour is then assessed in order to determine whether or not the stimulus vocalization in question alters the behaviour of a focal individual in a predictable way. For example, Cheney and Seyfarth (1990) presented vervet monkeys with vocalizations that were previously emitted by individuals who encountered various predators. They observed that under natural conditions, conspecifics, upon hearing these alarms, would perform an escape behaviour that corresponded to the predator that was present (e.g. leopard present then run up a tree; eagle present then dive into a thicket). When prerecorded vocalizations were presented to individuals when no predator was present, the monkeys still performed the predicted escape behaviour. These results provide evidence for referential signalling in at least one species of non-human primate. However, they fail to address the implications of this ability to the monkeys' communicative repertoire. This is because the experimental requirement for rigorous controls necessitates the inclusion of only a single variable, in this case the physical sound itself. However, as we have acknowledged above, human language includes a number of components that all contribute to the meaning of an utterance. A methodology that permits analysis of this complexity without destruction of the whole, while still maintaining scientific objectivity, is required in order to address these questions.

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6 A new way of looking at it

At the Language Research Center we are currently developing and employing new methods for not only assessing the linguistic competencies of our subjects, but also for examining the effects these competencies have on our subjects and their offspring. In contrast to earlier methodologies that were characterized by rigorous experimental testing procedures, we are working to develop procedures that directly examine the complex interactions that occur as part of the bonobos' daily life. We draw upon tools from various disciplines such as ethology, linguistics and bioacoustics to synthesize methods for data collection, analysis and interpretation that will move away from a strictly comparative approach. This new methodology focuses on the communicative behaviours of the apes themselves and seeks to describe their linguistic and cognitive abilities. For example, rather than address whether or not the apes comprehend the semantics of a decontextualized spoken word or sentence, we seek to examine the various communicative modalities (e.g. lexigram use, gesture, vocalization) that are employed, often simultaneously, by the apes and humans during conversations. The apes' behaviours during these interactions are examined and interpreted from a viewpoint that considers their functional role in the exchange as well as in the broader social and cultural context. In this way, we can analyse how each of these modalities are perceived, interpreted and employed by the apes, and the way in which these modalities interact to form the functional whole of the dialogue. Vocalizations provide one example of a modality that we are currently focusing on. The bonobos produce frequent vocal utterances during linguistically mediated interactions with humans, and these utterances are paired with human speech in a way that bears a resemblance to human conversation. The choice to focus on vocalizations that are produced during these interspecies conversations is deliberate. Much of the work on great ape vocalizations has focused on the long-distance calls of these species (Snowdon 2001). However, a vast majority of human language occurs between familiar individuals in close proximity of one another. Therefore, it is our contention that the vocalizations produced in these contexts provide a more appropriate setting for data collection. Indeed, many primatologists have also recognized the importance of studying vocal exchanges between familiar individuals and noted their similarity to human conversation (Biben et al.1 1986; Biben and Symmes 1991; Masataka and Biben 1987; Smith et al 1982; Snowdon and Cleveland 1984; Sugiura 1993, 1998; Symmes and Biben 1988). Researchers studying social groups of bonobos in both captive and wild populations have noted the importance, frequency, and variability of closerange or affiliative vocalizations (Bermejo and Omedes 1999; De Waal 1988; Mori 1984). Indeed, observations from our laboratory are consistent with these claims (Hopkins and Savage-Rumbaugh 1991). As indicated above, both Kanzi and Panbanisha produce frequent and highly variable vocalizations during their conversations with humans. Previous work has

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demonstrated that this variability is regular and predictable (Taglialatela et al. 2003). In other words, certain vocalizations are produced regularly in specific contexts. Additionally, researchers and caregivers at the laboratory have reported that many of these sounds bear a perceptual resemblance to English words. These reports are corroborated by recent data indicating that Kanzi and Panbanisha are capable of producing vocalizations that bear a structural resemblance to English vowel sounds (Savage-Rumbaugh etal. 2001). To determine whether or not Kanzi was employing his vocalizations in a communicatively relevant way, his behaviour in response to spoken English questions was examined. Kanzi's responses to 23 polar interrogatives and 17 non-polar interrogatives (40 queries in total) were considered in the analysis. All the questions can be described as typical queries posed to Kanzi on a daily basis and, at the time, none of the human participants had any knowledge of the subsequent analysis. It is important to note that, as alluded to above, the queries posed to Kanzi were elements of a larger discourse. Therefore, the spoken English questions varied in form, word usage, and intonation pattern, and included supplementary elements such as facial expressions and gestures on the part of the human questioner. No attempt was made to exclude or include queries that contained these additional elements, but rather the questions for which responses were analysed were selected randomly. We sought to evaluate how Kanzi employed his vocalizations naturally, and not whether or not he was able to selectively produce or silence his vocalizations in response to given stimuli. The queries were divided into two basic forms: polar interrogatives, such as 'Kanzi, would you like to go outdoors?', and non-polar interrogatives, such as 'Kanzi, where do you want to go?'. Data from previous work have indicated that Kanzi is capable of comprehending and answering both of these question types (Savage-Rumbaugh et al.1 1993). While the polar interogatives required a relatively simple positive or negative response, the non-polar interrogatives required that Kanzi provide relatively more complex information such as the name of a place, object, or another individual. The response modality that Kanzi utilized was evaluated in relation to the query type. Response modality was operationally defined as lexigram keyboard use, vocalization production, both lexigram and vocalization, or no response. The data indicate that the response modality that Kanzi employed varied with the type of question, and therefore the type of information requested (X2(3, N = 40) = 11.65, p < .01). Kanzi produced vocalizations following polar interrogatives more often than he used the keyboard, and used the keyboard in conjunction with vocalizations. In contrast, Kanzi more frequently utilized the keyboard exclusively, or in conjunction with vocalizations, in response to non-polar interrogatives when compared to vocalization production exclusively in response to the same query type. In other words, while vocalizations seemed to be the preferred response

LANGUAGE, APES AND MEANING-MAKING TagUalatelda et al. 105 modality in response to polar interrogatives, keyboard use was much more prevalent following non-polar interrogatives. Kanzi's preferential use of vocalizations in response to polar interrogatives, and the infrequency of vocalizations in response to non-polar interrogatives accompanied by an increase in lexigram use, provide support for the hypothesis that Kanzi is using his vocalizations to communicate during linguistically mediated interactions with humans. These results suggest that Kanzi distinguishes the two basic query types from one another, comprehends the information that is requested, and adjusts his communicative behaviour accordingly. This observed difference in response modality usage provides further support for the hypothesis when one assumes a functional perspective. Although human participants interacting with Kanzi could not always label his vocalizations as specifically informative, they could reliably detect the presence or absence of a vocalization. In other words, while human participants may not have considered Kanzi's vocalizations to be referential, they could readily determine whether or not Kanzi produced a sound. Consequently, in response to polar interrogatives, listeners tended to regard a vocalization as indicating 'yes' and silence 'no'. However, a vocalization in response to a non-polar interrogative was not accepted by the listener as specifically informative, and thus it was important for Kanzi to provide lexical information, via the keyboard, that could be interpreted appropriately by the listener. Given Kanzi's linguistic abilities (Savage-Rumbaugh et al. 1993), we would argue that these results provide support for the hypothesis that Kanzi is using his vocalizations to communicate with humans. However, we considered the alternative explanation that Kanzi is merely vocalizing in response to certain key words contained in the query, and not to communicate specific information. For example, in response to the question, 'Kanzi, do you want to go outdoors?' Kanzi might produce a vocalization in response to hearing the word, 'outdoors,' as Kanzi recalls from past experience that 'outdoors' is positive, thereby eliciting an emotional response from him leading to a vocalization. However, if this were the case, one would expect that Kanzi would produce vocalizations in response to non-polar interrogatives containing the same key words. For example, a non-polar interrogative such as, 'Where is the banana?' would be just as likely to elicit a vocalization as the polar interrogative, 'Would you like a banana?' However, the data indicate that this was not the case. The presence of a key word in either class of interrogative did not indicate whether or not Kanzi produced a vocalization following that query. Therefore, the explanation that Kanzi is merely vocalizing in response to certain key words fails to account for the observed disparity in response modality following the two query types. Rather, Kanzi's use of different modalities (vocalization, lexigram keyboard use, both vocalization and lexigram use) in response to the two basic query types indicates that he can systematically vary his vocal output and is selectively utilizing his vocal apparatus to communicate during interactions with humans.

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7 Concluding comments Decontextualization has its uses. For example, when the possibility of cueing is eliminated by rigorous experimental design, unequivocal evidence for Kanzi's understanding of spoken English is the result. But there is a very high price to be paid for decontextualization, since it does violence to the way language is learned and used, in both inter-species and intra-species communication. In Kanzi's case, the price in particular is the under-estimation of his linguistic abilities. However, contexualization has its uses too, but the price to be paid is not nearly as high, nor does it entail otw-estimation of Kanzi's abilities. Observation of naturally occurring bonobo-human interactive communication in different sensory modalities reveals patterns and regularities (Benson et al. 2002). These interactions resemble human conversation as Kanzi participates in turn-taking, and responds to and produces requests. This is neither over-estimation, nor under-estimation. Rather, the new methodology provides an accurate estimation of one parameter in which Kanzi clearly demonstrates linguistic abilities. From a functional perspective there remain, of course, many other parameters to be investigated. In terms of representing experience, for example, what semantic fields do the apes engage in? Is there evidence that the symbols on the keyboard are multivalent - that an ape uses the same symbol to construe meanings in different fields? Do these differences suggest that the apes attribute different 'world views' to different speakers? Do the apes use or respond to mental process verbs to construe a 'thinking other'? Do features such as tense and aspect come into the conversations in the LRC environment? Or, in terms of interpersonal meaning, what kinds of negotiating skills do the apes display? Do they initiate statements, offers and questions, as well as demands for goods and services? Are indications of probability and desirability part of their conversational environment? Do concepts such as good and bad construe a cultural environment in which they can evaluate others? In which they can have a notion of how others evaluate them? How do the apes tie their conversations to the unfolding environment of which they are a part? Does their behaviour suggest that they treat an information question differently when the information will be new for the asker from when it is already clearly known? The LRC human-bonobo environment is one in which it makes sense to ask questions such as these. In addressing them, we can begin to answer not whether or not the apes have language, but rather how and to what e these non-human brains are using a symbolic system to construct and represent their worlds. Notes 1 For a related discussion in this volume see the chapters by Meares and Sullivan, Matthiessen, and Painter.

LANGUAGE, APES AND MEANING-MAKING TagUalateld et al. 107 2 False-belief tasks (as they are commonly referred to) have been used extensively in order to determine whether or not children have the ability to distinguish another individual's beliefs from their own, even if they know that belief to be 'false'. Wimmer and Perner (1983) created the task, and since that time the procedure has been modified and used extensively in cognitive and developmental experiments. The basic procedure involves two actors, for example, Sally and Anne (BaronCohen et al, 1985). In the presence of the subject, Sally places an item in a container for safe keeping (e.g. in a backpack). Sally then leaves the room, and Anne removes the item from its location (the backpack) and places it in another (e.g. a desk drawer). The subject is then asked where Sally will look for the item, or where Sally thinks the item is. 3 Representational change tasks have been utilized to test a child's understanding of false-belief. The basic procedure involves the presentation of a deceptive object to a subject (e.g. a sponge that is coloured and shaped to look like a rock). The subject is then informed as to what the object actually is. Following this, subjects might be asked what they thought the object was when they first saw it, what another child would think the object was, and what the object looks like and what it actually is. References: Aitken P.G., 1981. 'Cortical control of conditioned and spontaneous vocal behaviour in Rhesus monkeys', Brain and Language, 13, pp. 171-84. Aitken P.G. and Wilson D.A., 1979. 'Discriminative vocal conditioning in Rhesus monkeys: Evidence for volitional control?', Brain and Languag 8, pp. 227-40. Astington J.W., 1993. A Child's Discovery of the Mind. Cambridge, M Harvard University Press. Baron-Cohen S., 1995. Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind

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5 Agency, Individuation and Meaning-making: Reflections on an Episode of Bonobo-Human Interaction Paul]. Thibault

1 Some general criteria for talking about action

Action arises in the first instance as a consequence of one's being in the world. First, there is one's self; if this were not the case, then we would not have cause to be concerned with our being in the world at all. The self as a self-organizing agent can be taken to be a first in Peirce's sense. Through exchanges of matter, energy and information with their environments, order and pattern spontaneously emerge in individual selves. Second, the self does not exist alone. It encounters forms of resistance or friction because of the existence of the non-self- the environment - which the self engages with, encountering something or someone outside the self. That is, the self interacts with that which is different from, or other than, the self. This interaction between self and non-self is a second in Peirce's sense. Third and finally, it is necessary to specify the system of relations which brings self and non-self into some kind of organized relationship. The fact that it is organized means that it is not random. Rather, it is mediated by some higher-order system of meaning which organizes it. The organized system of system which mediates and makes possible the interactions between self and non-self is a third in Peirce's sense (see Salthe 1993: 14-15). The three factors I have spoken about above point to the need to talk about action from three perspectives. Following the logic of scalar hierarchy theory, as developed by Salthe (1993; see also Lemke 1995; Thibault 2000, 2003, 2004), action can be viewed from the point of view of three hierarchically organized scalar levels of organization. The interactions among participants, including persons, tools, symbols, things, and so on, may be taken as the focal level in any analysis of meaningful action. Below this level, there is the nature of the participants that predisposes them to certain kinds of interactions, certain ways of making meaning, and

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not others. This includes the neuroanatomical capacities of participants. Above the focal level, there is the larger-scale system of social meanings the ecosocial semiotic system - which, by virtue of its transindividual character, always defines the parameters of any given participant's contribution to meaningful action. In this sense, an ecosocial semiotic system, rather than individuals per se, is the repository of information about the possible forms of meaningful action in a given community. The relationship among the three categories posited above is logical, rather than temporal or sequential. All three categories coexist simultaneously in any given instance of meaning-making activity. For our present purposes, secondness will be assumed to be primary for any system. This important fact is also acknowledged by Halliday's (1993) understanding of the interpersonal, or dialogic, basis of child language development. The self qua first emerges from, or derives from, initially vague, undifferentiated possibilities in and through its interactions with the non-self. In the process, the self develops an understanding of and an awareness of the possibilities of thirdness. That is, the self comes to learn about and discover the possibilities of - the system of constraints and enablements - the meaning-making resource systems of the ecosocial system. In the Cartesian view of human action, on the other hand, the agent qua firstness is primary. The agent may be seen as a firstness in this view. According to this view, agents have cognitions in the mind which causally bring about actions in the world. But if the distinction between cognition and action is dissolved and then brought back together in a unified conception of meaningful activity, it is possible to develop a perspective more like the one I introduced at the beginning of this discussion. Action refers to our participation in situationally specific meaningful activity. In such a view, we are concerned with all forms of environmental information that are, potentially, meaningful for the participant—observers in action. These include material constraints of various kinds, the affordances of the semiotic body, the available semiotic resource systems, and so on. Action, in this view, implies a system of interpretation that reduces, in contextually specific ways, the environment's informational capacity in the process of construing appropriate interpretants. All the bodily and material resources available in the local environment constitute possibilities or affordances for action in this sense. Action entails coordinating and entraining appropriate environmental possibilities in response to specific ecosocial contingencies and the interests of the participants involved. In crosscoupling semiotic-discursive and physical-material processes in order to coordinate and entrain such cross-couplings as an occasion-specific action, the action which is performed as well as the participants who take part in it selectively interact with and modify their ecosocial environment. In this way, events, objects, tools, symbols, and so on, are not so much 'in' an environment, but are a constitutive part of it. Action is, then, simultaneously both semiotic and material. There are no disembodied semiotic events 'in' a material environment or setting. How

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can we deal with these two dimensions - the semiotic and the material - of action in a unified way? Actions do not occur in and are not performed in an abstract physical space and time in the Newtonian sense. Meaningmaking activity entails processes of selective recontextualization (Lemke 1997). It is doing something meaningful by relating an act as a part in some whole rather than others, selecting some possible alternatives rather than others, cross-coupling some configurations of the physical-material world (objects, surfaces, tools, etc.) and the semiotic-discursive resources, rather than others. In this way, action enacts and entrains organization, matter, information, form and meaning in some local environment. In my view, it is then misleading to say that an action simply occurs 'in' space and time. Gibson (1986 [1979]: 100) points out that space and time are not empty receptacles in the Newtonian sense which are then filled. Space and time are not, then, uniform and homogenous abstractions. Rather, the sequencing of acts in relation to specific configurations of surfaces, objects and so on, enacts and models the space-time of meaningful activity, relative to an observer perspective. We do not perceive an empty and abstract space or time, which is primary (Gibson ibid.). We perceive, instead, actions, events, configurations of objects and surfaces relative to an observer viewpoint. The space-time of meaningful activity is multiscalar and heterogeneous, rather than linear and homogeneous. All these factors are interdependent; they all contribute to the emergence and entraining of a coordinated flow of space-time in a given local environment. The space-time that is so mobilized and entrained is not something which is perceived as information input which is then processed as further output. Rather, the body-brain complex as a whole, in relation to its ecosocial environment, generates the space-time of meaningful activity. There may be more than one subjective perspective or viewpoint in any given action performance, as Bakhtin's (1981 [1975]) dialogic principle shows. The observations made above may be contrasted with the Cartesian view of action. According to this view, action is subsumed under the mechanism of inner, hence epistemically private, mental faculties. These faculties constitute a causal-explanatory framework for understanding our own and others' action as intentional, rational, and so on (Shanker 1998). In the framework proposed here, this is a reductionist view for the following reasons. Mental faculties, in the Cartesian framework, are efficient causes which both drive or propel the individual's actions, as well as provide a framework for inferring and explaining intentionality, rationality, and so on, in the actions of self and others. From the perspective of scalar hierarchical systems, such 'inner' mental processes exist at the lower scale of the individual participant in some meaningful activity. That is, they occur at a smaller, or lower-scalar, level than does the action trajectory itself. This means that the individual's mental activity does not directly control the flow of this trajectory. Instead, these are only indirectly involved as part of an overall process that functions to coordinate and entrain these and other

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lower-level events. Individuals do not drive or control the action trajectory because the individual is just one constitutive and functioning part in a wider system of relations on various scalar levels of organization. Meaning neither inheres nor originates in the individual mind per se. Rather, meaning is distributed along the entire trajectory, involving the affordances of the material environment, the body-brain complexes of the individual participants, the semiotic resource systems that are deployed, and so on (Lemke 1997: 41-2). 2 The episode to be analysed The episode to be analysed features Susan Savage-Rumbaugh and Panbanisha, a bonobo, walking along a path in the forest of the Centre for Research in Language and Cognition, State University of Georgia, Atlanta, USA. The episode is taken from the video Bonobo Family (NHK, Japan). A multimodal transcription of the episode is presented in Appendix 1. The episode to be analysed comprises the following macro-sequence of movements which serve to delimit and define the episode with respect to that which precedes and follows it. The three macrolevel features are as follows: 1 Panbanisha is walking on a pathway in the forest ahead of Susan 2 They stop and converge into the episode in question (see transcription in Appendix 1). 3 They resume walking, with Panbanisha being carried on Susan's back. The pathway on which this episode occurs is itself an affordance. What does the path afford or enable its users? Here are some possible answers: • unimpeded mobility/movement from one point to another • social encounters • transportation of persons, animals, and objects • connection of physically distant points • boundary defining wood/path distinction • coordinates and entrains the flow of people, animals and objects in specific directions and hence in ways that both constrain and enable the possible behaviours of the participants • the pursuit of some of Panbanisha's favourite activities such as the game of chase which immediately precedes Panbanisha's request to be carried by Susan in the episode under consideration here. The observations made above draw attention to what I shall refer to as the mutually constitutive character of action and physical setting. On the basis of this premise, a number of assumptions will be shown in the following sections to be central to the account of action and meaning-making that I am arguing for in this chapter. These assumptions are as follows: • The relations between embodied participants-in-activity and physical setting are mutually constitutive (Lave 1997: 91). • Interactionally familiar activities tend to take place in settings that are

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE culturally fashioned to be an integral part of the activity (e.g. surfaces such as the pathway in the forest, objects such as the lexigram, in relation to the intentional acts of participants). Particular arrangements of these physical settings are inscribed with metafunctionally describable semiotic values. For example: (1) what experiential meaning is stored in objects and configurations of these; (2) what interactive procedures are entailed between participants and objects; (3) how objects are arranged in particular coherent spatiotemporal configurations, relations of dependency, and so on. Objects such as the lexigram in our example are not simply tools that participants manipulate to produce a cognitive result; rather, participants place themselves in specific embodied and interactive (hence semiotic) relations with selected aspects of the physical setting; it is this which produces meaning, knowledge, 'cognition'. The person-acting-in setting (Lave 1997) is fundamental here. Thus, knowledge is not organized as decontextualized, abstract ways of thinking and knowing, but in interactively structured, three-dimensional and embodied relations between participants and physical-material environments. Language is not a universal calculus for abstract rational thinking and reasoning, but a semiotic resource which is co-deployed with other semiotic resources whereby solutions to problems co-emerge with selected aspects of the situation in the course of participants' interaction with these. In interacting with the physical-material environment, participants use language to organize and reorganize the physical-material environment until a coherent and meaningful result semiotically and materially emerges. Semiotic interaction with the material environment imposes value on it; the fact that Susan and Panbanisha are on the path in the forest paradigmatically defines where they are in relation to where they are not, and hence the value of the activity they participate in along some of its dimensions. Semiotic values are embodied in room- and other-sized configurations of participants, objects, surfaces, and so on, in the physical world.

3 Bodily resources and action

As a close analysis of the interaction between Susan and Panbanisha shows, the contextual parameters involve a complex visual-spatial field of orientation that the participants must construe and hence understand in a convergent fashion through the cross-modal relations between the diverse semiotic resources (lexigram, language, sound, pointing, posture, gaze, dialogically coordinated movements and actions) which are codeployed in order to give structure to the unfolding context. At the beginning of the episode in question (see Appendix 1), Panbanisha uses her right arm-hand to point to a particular symbol on the

AGENCY, INDIVIDUATION AND MEANING-MAKING Thibault lt 117 lexigram, which she proceeds to touch, in the process activating the electronically re-produced word 'carry'. A number of semiotic resource systems are simultaneously orchestrated in relation to this pointing gesture and its significance. I will focus on the following resources here: (1) the point; (2) posture; (3) gaze; (4) the lexigram. First, the pointing gesture is directed towards a particular location on the lexigram board, which is here construed as a shareable domain of experiential focus and interpersonal engagement. Panbanisha, as addresser, directs Susan, her addressee, as to where she should look in order to find the goal of the point on the lexigram. In this particular case, the domain of experiential focus and interpersonal engagement is, in the first instance, the lexigram board, which is a visual-spatial surface displaying signs of a particular type. That is, visual-graphic signs which index linguistic signs and their corresponding phonetic activations. That pointing is not a simple picking out of pre-constituted entities in the world, but is, rather, a semiotic resource that is co-contextualized with other semiotic resources in the construal of some entity was well understood by Karl Biihler (1990 [1934]: 95), who wrote of the organized visual field in which participants in some interaction are oriented. Pointing is a dialogically organized and coordinated act which implicates the active participation and engagement of two or more participants in the attempt to establish a particular space as a shared vector for the organization of meaning-making activity. Within such a shared vector of interest and attention, pointing is made meaningful through its co-contextualization with a range of other meaning-making resources such as (1) the body of the participant who points; (2) language, which mutually elaborates and is elaborated by the point; (3) the spatial organization of the environment that is the focus or target of the point; (4) the orientation of the participants towards each other, as well as to the space which is the focus of the point; (5) the overall activity within which the point occurs and of which it is a constitutive part. The lexigram board itself can be viewed as a semiotic tool which functions as a mediator in the context insofar as it plays a role in structuring the interaction between Susan and Panbanisha, as well as the kinds of experiential representations that will emerge from these interactions. Panabanish's point can be analysed metafunctionally, as shown in Table 5.1. The action of pointing is always embedded within and integrated with a larger hierarchy of bodily actions and displays. At the beginning of the activity sequence in question, Panbanisha is crouched on the ground; Susan then crouches and unfolds the lexigram in front of Panbanisha. They are both facing each other. It is this placement of bodies and objects in relation to each other which constitutes a visual-spatial field of semiotic relations and interactions. Moreover, this arrangement is not a static configuration, but, rather, an activity unfolding in time which endows these various phenomena with meaning. When both participants have

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crouched down in the way described above, Susan unfolds the lexigram board so that it is facing Panbanisha. In doing so, she indicates that this has a specific interactional significance for Panbanisha as well as showing that it is the current focus of their joint attention. Panbanisha's right arm extends towards a given area of the lexigram - a particular symbol she

AGENCY, INDIVIDUATION AND MEANING-MAKING TJlibault t 119 wants to select - in a pointing gesture at the same time that both her gaze, as well as Susan's, focus on this point. She then extends her left arm-hand to another symbol on the opposite side of the lexigram at the same time that the gaze vectors of both Susan and Panbanisha attend to this new domain of interest on the lexigram. On completing this operation, which is signalled by the retraction of her left arm back towards her torso, Panbanisha's gaze is now directed to Susan such that a mutually shared gaze vector indicates here that the focus is on the interpersonal engagement between the two rather than the lexigram, as is also revealed by the shift in postural orientation. What we see here is the way in which gaze, pointing and postural orientation are all coordinated in such a way as to achieve both (1) a joint attending to the relevant experiential phenomenon within the shared perceptual purview of the two participants; and (2) sustained interpersonal-interactional engagement whereby addresser and addressee roles are synchronized in terms of a shared orientational framework. In other words, the co-orchestration of diverse semiotic modalities functions experientially to construe the joint focus of attention and interest as a given phenomenon of experience and interpersonally to enact, orient and sustain the interaction between the participants. These diverse semiotic resources are not only integrated with each other so as to create an ongoing semiotic performance text, but they are also integrated with a complex visual-spatial field. In the interaction between Panbanisha and Susan, the interaction can be seen as a series of wave-like pulses in which each pulse has to do with a selective attending to a given aspect of the overall visual field. Thus, gaze, pointing, posture progress (1) from attending to a symbol on the right of the lexigram to (2) attending to a symbol on the left of the lexigram, followed by (3) mutual synchronization of the shared gaze vector. This shows how these resources fluctuate between the foregrounding of an experiential and an interpersonal focus or weighting, without in any way suggesting that there is anything mono-functional about this. In the first two micro-phases, the focus is experiential — attending to what is of interest or relevance in the immediate purview of the participants. In the third phase, the focus shifts back to the interpersonal orientation as Panbanisha looks back towards Susan so as to evaluate Susan's orientation (i.e. has Susan attended to the correct symbol on the lexigram?) and whether she is responding in the desired way (i.e. has Susan responded or will Susan respond to the action 'carryAyes' that is activated by Panbanisha's touching of these term symbols so as to form a little syntagm on the lexigram?). What the above observations suggest is that the participants, Panbanisha and Susan, in the dyad under consideration here, act in a coordinated fashion in ways that yield information that has superordinate, common properties that are revealed in the spatio-temporal unfolding of the joint activity. However, it is not just the coordination of visual and spatial modalities in terms of an overall visual-spatial field of objects and participants

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that is significant. There are also cross-modal correspondences among the visual, auditory and tactile modalities, as evidenced in the interaction between Panbanisha and Susan. The use of the lexigram involves not only the visual modality, but also active manual exploration, along with the perception of auditory patterns when the visual-graphic symbol is touched. That is, the touching of the visual symbol for 'carry' also activates an electronically synthesized voice which utters the word 'carry'. Gibson points out that language 'cuts across the perceptual systems' (1983 [1966]: 281), in the process cross-coupling with the stimulus information which provides 'invariant information about regularities in the environment' (ibid.). It is this cross-coupling of language with stimulus information which is picked up from the environment by the various perceptual systems that enables the individual to attend to relevant aspects of the environment. Stimulus information about environmental events is selectively re-contextualized in and through the semiotic categories afforded by language and other semiotic systems such that the perception of such events is entrained to the trajectory of the meaning-making activity which is taking place. The visual signs on the lexigram are entities which have converged, both through design and through their use in specific contexts, such that each element on the lexigram is a part in a larger-scale system. In this system, each element has its position and its potential relations with other elements. It is in this way that the signs on the lexigram take on a range of different semiotic functions in the contexts in which they are used. The material embodiment of the system - i.e. the physical structure of the lexigram - is the means of storage of the system. However, the stored system is not reducible to its physical embodiment, but is, rather, a product of its prior uses. As with human language, the system of possibilities afforded by the lexigram also persists through the uses that it is put to over time in occasion-specific instances of human-bonobo interaction such as the episode that is featured in our example. The arguments made earlier in this section highlight the essential continuity and unity among formal resources, meaning and context. While the architecture of Panbanisha's use of language lacks the full-fledged 'syntax' that we see in human language, the point is not whether she shows evidence or not of an 'autonomous' syntax, seen as the sign of a genetically endowed, quintessentially human rationality. Rather, the interest lies in showing how the architecture of her language is continuous with the meanings she is creating in the particular contexts in which she participates. In this functionalist perspective, we can inquire into the meanings she produces and the formal means of their realization on different levels of organization. Thus, on the expression stratum, the visual symbols on the lexigram provide a visual means of differentiating formal units. On the content stratum, each visual symbol, such as those representing 'carry' and 'yes', is lexicalized as a word. In turn, as the example shows, these visual words can be combined to form elementary syntagms, as in the case of our

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example 'carryAyes'. Finally, such syntagmatic combinations are integrated into larger-scale discursive events in combination with other semiotic resources such as those examined above. Compared to human languages, the repertoire of resources is small, though it is not closed. In ways not unlike the lexicogrammatical terms in human languages, the visual signs on the lexigram constitute an open system such that elements can be combined in different ways and take on a variety of different functions in different combinations in their contexts of use. Furthermore, the extra-somatic resources of the lexigram can be integrated with other somatic resources (e.g., gaze, pointing, posture, and so on) so as to acquire newly emergent properties in particular discursive events. The notion of storage implies much more than the physical inscription of the visual signs on the lexigram board. Rather, the lexigram stores a meaning potential (Halliday 1978). This meaning potential specifies what the users of the lexigram - e.g. Panbanisha - can do and can mean. That is, the stored system of potential meanings provides its users with a metalevel access to and a potential awareness of the operations - the meaning-making acts - that can be performed through the uses of the system in particular contexts. The on-line use of the system entails accessing a stored system of indexical-symbolic possibilities in ways which enable Panbanisha selectively to modify her own responses to contextual modulations emanating from other (contextual) levels. Panbanisha's creation of the 'carryAyes' syntagm in our example is an instance of this. It is a contextualized use of the system which evidences an elementary ability not only to produce on-line, contextualized acts of meaning in her interactions with Susan, but also to develop strategies of meaning-making which would suggest that she has some awareness of their contextual appropriateness and effectiveness. From our specifically human viewpoint, a bonobo's internal model of its world is likely to be less specified and less amplified than is a human being's richly cultural one. Nevertheless, the principle of evolutionary convergence suggests that there are similarities, too. In the human case, the internal models that are built up and elaborated in our central nervous system are enhanced and amplified through epigenesis. From its inception, the individual trajectory-in-time and therefore the individual's internal models of the world are changed and updated on the basis of the individual's participation, over time, in particular socio-cultural networks and their associated practices. Language is not a static internal model, but is constantly revised and changed on the basis of the individual's transactions with the ecosocial environment. The genetic basis of language does not pre-determine the 'growth' of language in the individual organism. Rather, language in the individual is amplified by the individual's participation in an ecosocial semiotic system along the entire duration of the individual's trajectory. Where is the meaning in such a system of relationships? Is there an overriding cause, plan or intention which regulates all these fluctuating

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micro-level variables? I think these are the wrong sort of questions to ask. Indeed, they are old, decidedly superseded questions. In the present paper, I assume a dynamic systems approach in which global order and local variability are not seen as separate questions. In dynamic systems, the local detail and variability of many micro-level processes, distributed across all the various material and semiotic systems that are cross-coupled, realize both single acts (e.g. pointing, gaze, posture), as well as the global structure that is more than the mere sum of all the local components put together. There is no single factor or 'cause' that starts everything going, but a whole complex system of interacting variables and relationships on different levels of organization. Moreover, such a system is not just complex; it is also non-linear. Rather than saying that the global pattern is caused by this or that factor, we can say that some ranges and parameters of activity bring about qualitative shifts in the dynamics of the system as a whole. It is the global system of relations which behaves in stable and organized ways, though nothing in any given material or semiotic factor in itself resembles the emergent global pattern. 4 Boundary conditions and the notion of action as a general integrative level Action may be seen as a general integrative level whereby phenomena from diverse micro-level, or lower-scalar, resource systems - e.g. posture, gesture, rhythm, movement, language, objects, tools, physical settings - are organized at a higher-scalar level in terms of which they can be viewed from the point of view of the same variable, viz. the meaningful activity which is seen as taking place. It should be clear from this way of putting the matter that action necessarily implies participant-observer perspectives. I shall return to this question. We have, then, a consistent framework for explaining how similar patterns in diverse systems are emergent from their lower-level material and other enablements. These cannot be explained in terms of material or efficient causes alone. Nor are they, unlike the theory of mind, necessarily tied to specific mechanisms. Rather, they are contextual in character. This means that the action formation as a whole is emergent from the cross-coupling of these diverse resources relative to some common formal cause. (Such a view may be compared to stimulusresponse and physiological reductionism as alternative ways of explaining action in causal terms.) Where does action lead? In individual-centred accounts founded on Cartesian principles, action is said to lead to the attainment of some desired goal-state or purpose. But such theories do not take into account the interdependent networks and trajectories of activities in the overall ecosocial system in which any given action occurs. Rather than truncating the explanation in terms of individual goal-states, we need to consider the ways in which the matter-energy and information flows that are coordinated in a meaningful activity are dissipated into other systems, both near

AGENCY, INDIVIDUATION AND MEANING-MAKING Thibault l t 123 and far in space-time, in the overall ecology of human social meaningmaking. Both Cartesianism and bifurcationism have difficulty in talking about change. They presuppose that being in possession of a theory of mind enables the agent to access any of the states that are potentially within its capacity and, for this reason, predictable (Salthe 1993: 26). The a priori exclusion of apes from the possibility of developing and using human language may be considered in the light of this observation. The exclusion of apes in this way means that such species are presumed not to be able to access the possibilities of human social meaning-making. The research on ape language conducted by Susan Savage-Rumbaugh et al. (1998) and others (Benson et al. 2002) shows, on the other hand, that the changes which occur in individual bonobos such as Kanzi and Panbanisha depend on their accessing entirely new possibilities and conditions of action, rather than on merely activating latent biological or developmental potentialities that are immanent in them from the start. Such new possibilities are not predictable on the basis of the already immanent structural potentialities of a given form (Salthe 1993: 26). Unlike Cartesianism, these are not based on criteria of predictability. Are language and other forms of symbolic meaning-making already immanent potentialities in a given form? If you follow Pinker's (e.g. 1994) line of reasoning, you will answer 'yes', because you will assume that linguistic structures - e.g. lexicogrammar - evolved by classical Darwinian evolution, i.e. through processes of random variability and selection. Thus, neo-Cartesians who pursue this line or argument say that linguistic structures are unique to language or to some language faculty in the human brain. That is, they evolved exclusively and specifically for the purposes of language, rather than being re-configurations of older evolutionary abilities. Gottlieb (1991a, 1991b) argues, on the other hand, that there may be no predetermined and hard-wired bedrock to epigenesis. In other words, there is no non-experiential component in development and individuation. In this view, development and individuation include and work on experiential components all down the line from the very outset. Moreover, in this experiential and activity-oriented view, the processes of development and individuation involve the whole organism and its environment. Cartesian bifurcationism presupposes an evolutionary model based on the principle of'descent with modification' (Salthe 1993: 28). This presupposition explains the differences, but not the convergences, between species such as humans and bonobos. The development of language in the child is based on predictable, irreversible change (ibid.: 29). It is based on the ability to predict what will happen at any given stage of development. Change of this kind occurs in all tokens of the given type. Stored information acts as a constraint on variety, producing order. Typically, such constraints have been formulated in terms of timeless rules in the head.

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However, such rules are unable to explain how global order is achieved in time-bound meaning-making activity. Furthermore, individuals - tokens - also acquire their own unique features as the result of noise, historical accidents which they encounter along their trajectories. That is, they individuate (ibid.: 51). A close examination of the interaction between Susan and Panbanisha reveals the higher-order action formations as a single overall phenomenon which is not reducible to or explainable as the mere summation of the behaviour of the individual participants. Rather, there is clear evidence that the two participants are entrained by some higher-level pattern or structure which regulates and constrains the individual contributions at the lower level. The persistent rhythmic, postural and other patterns that are shared and coordinated as if in a synchronized dance between the two participants strongly supports this thesis. In some ways, Susan and Panbanisha both spontaneously cohere as a higher-level pattern which is inherent in the overall situation on account of their seemingly unconstrained individual contributions at the lower level. It seems that our awareness of these higher-level structures is unconscious, or on the periphery of awareness for the most part. Neither Susan nor Panbanisha consciously access 'rules' of behaviour. Rather, the (higher-order) constraints operate as boundary conditions deriving from the systems of ecosocial semiotic resources and practices (c.f. thirdness). Each individual's contribution self-organizes into a more global sequence of moves and responses to these that are, in turn, entrained by higherorder principles of organization. Initiating conditions are provided by the biological and psychological dispositions of the individuals; formal ones by the various material affordances in their shared ecosocial environment, or various arrangements of these. Final causes are generated by the perspectives or the projects in which Susan and Panbanisha - individually and together - are engaged. That is, both have perspectives or viewpoints on the event, and these perspectives produce meaning. Action necessarily entails a higher-scalar viewpoint — or viewpoints - that provide the higher-order criteria of integration I mentioned earlier. Generalizing from the more highly specified human case 'back' to the less highly specified bonobo one, as seen from our human perspective, we can say that final causes of meaningful activity or action are the overall projects in which participants are engaged. Bonobos in their natural habitat in central Africa are regulated by the tropical forest, food gathering, the need to monitor the group and to keep a watch for possible intruders. All these activities and others are meaningful practices which have a meaningful trajectory both for the group and for the individuals that comprise it. It is by means of such trajectories that jointly made actions model the environment for individuals. But if, as in the case of bonobos such as Panbanisha and Kanzi, who have been co-reared by humans from the early years of their life, an individual bonobo is regulated by other, human patterns of meaningful activity in

AGENCY, INDIVIDUATION AND MEANING-MAKING Thibault l t 125 which he or she participates, then it seems reasonable to suggest, given the evolutionary convergences (not identity) between human and bonobo, that the bonobo, too, will come to model the environment in new ways as a result of the newly acquired structures resulting from this new trajectory. That is, a new project emerges as an attractor of new possibilities — not potentialities - of action and meaning on account of the new trajectory and, consequently, the new boundary conditions on the possibilities of meaningful action that this provides. The evolutionary convergences of human and bonobo mean that both have, to varying degrees of specification, a repertoire of relevant internal structures for generating the initiating conditions of shared meaningful activity, given the right boundary conditions. This requires an approach in which both initiating conditions and boundary conditions are attended to relative to some shared trajectory. Cartesianism fails to achieve this insight because of its tendency to abstract from specific contexts in order to simplify and reduce in the name of prediction and control of 'outer' nature. As individuation proceeds along the new trajectory, greater definition of levels of semiotic organization occurs. As the newly emergent system develops, so too does the necessity for stored information. This helps to explain the emergence of primitive language abilities in bonobos like Panbanisha and Kanzi. The stratification of semiosis develops, achieving greater definition of the various strata involved as in the transition from protolanguage to language in human language development (see Halliday 1975, 1993). This, in turn, is one way of realizing the necessity of information increase. The emergence of more clearly defined strata of semiotic organization goes hand in hand with the attainment of more mature stages of semiosis. 5 Self-organization, individuality and agency Organization rather than mere regularity or predictability is crucial to the understanding of action. Organization entails the effects of a perspective, or a viewpoint. Action requires criteria of self-organization. That is, the building up of orderly arrangements in which we can recognize self and other (non-self). The other is a generalized notion of the non-self with whom a participant-observer interacts in meaningful activity. It may or may not be another human participant. It may be, for instance, an object or tool of some kind. In action, self-organization entails the emergence of a self-referential perspective. Action requires signs of the presence of viewpoints or perspectives. It requires, in other words, criteria of agency. Self-organization is, thus, a dialogic-interactive process whereby orderly arrangements are built up and elaborated. Without this, we could not recognize other selves, for the emergence of a self-referential perspective depends on the dialogic and social ability to recognize and identify with other viewpoints and perspectives of other selves. An individual system has agency with respect to some action if its effects in

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the world leave a trace of its individuality. Individuals qua agents bring about historical events that contribute to the individuation of action systems. They act as tokens, not types, and contribute to the individuation of other tokens. For example, the effects of some agent such as teacher on pupil, parent on child, Susan on Panbanisha, and so on. Individuals have more richness than agents per se. That is, individual selves are more specified than agents. Participants in action are, of course, regulated by higher-scalar levels. Here, I am emphasizing that individual agents have effects that cannot be imputed to other factors. A theory of action that does not deal with individuals (tokens), but only with types, is not a theory of action because such a theory remains unable to theorize the notion of agency. Individuals as self-organizing systems construct their agency as they individuate in and through their participation in action structures. This requires that the individual participants recognize and distinguish individual markers in action. Full participants in action are accorded individuality in ways that frog embryos, say, are not. That is, participants are discursively determinate - they have acquired determinate ways of life, determinate viewpoints and so on. Thus, they have acquired potential agency in the action roles they participate in. Individuals-cum-agents are internally complex (Harre 1983). Without this internal complexity of structure, it would be hard to say that the agent was 'doing' something, because there would be no distinct, describable criteria for saying 'x did a'. Thus, the semiotic and material resource systems qua semiotic thirdness provide the necessary backdrop for innovation and individuation. Individuation refers to historical-autobiographical change along the individual's time-bound trajectory. Processes of individuation amplify and adaptively modify the lower-scalar constraints imposed by genetics by virtue of the individual's participation in the social meaning-making practices of the communities to which the individual belongs. Rather than prescribing limits on or determining, for example, the intelligence of individuals, genetics provide lower-level constraints, or initiating conditions, on the ways in which individuals both develop and individuate (Salthe, 1993: 214). The trajectory-in-time, not its moment-by-moment material embodiment, is the seat of the individual (ibid.: 261). It is only from " this perspective that the individual can be grasped as a totality. In this perspective, individual bonobos such as Panbanisha, who has been coreared by human caretakers since an early age, are afforded new possibilities for action and meaning. For example, Panbanisha has developed a repertoire of symbolic strategies for interacting with humans, notwithstanding the lack of adaptiveness of the bonobo's biological base for this purpose (e.g. bonobos have not evolved a human-type vocal tract). In this way, the individuating strategies evolve along the individual's trajectory as a historical consequence of the individual's own agentive determinability. It is in this way that individuals are able to overcome some of the limitations of their genotype. In other words, bonobos such as Panbanisha (and Kanzi) have, to some degree, integrated human-like

AGENCY, INDIVIDUATION AND MEANING-MAKINGh i bdultt 127 symbolic abilities to their own trajectories in ways which reflect the increase in the historical information stored in t he trajectory as a result of its own agency. Historical information is individuating precisely because it is information that is associated with the individual's own agency, rather than with the type of organism it is. Information of the latter kind refers to the development of the individual and is shared by all tokens of the same type. In the ecosocial semiotic view, it is essential to develop a theoretical model that can encompass the evolution of both the biological organism and the evolution of its cross-coupling to the ecosocial semiotic system. Genetic information accounts for differences between types of organisms, and in ways which give rise to specific forms and behaviours which afford their adaptiveness to particular ecological niches (see ibid.: 110-11). In this view, the evolutionary convergences between humans and bonobos, while in no way denying the very significant differences, allow us to pose the question as to how their organismic similarities afford both species the possibility of being cross-coupled to a human ecosocial semiotic system. What information is provided by the ecosocial system and its practices? How does such information get linked to the organism? Following a suggestion in Salthe (1993: 110), we may postulate that the embodiment of certain structural possibilities in both humans and bonobos by virtue of their evolutionary convergence means that both species, given certain conditions, may embody structural attractors that can be accessed by human social meaning-making practices. 6 Agency and symbolic possibility Let us take another look at the interaction between Susan SavageRumbaugh and Panbanisha with the above considerations in mind. Table 3.2 schematizes the first part of the episode in order to show how various semiotic, perceptual and material resources are cross-coupled as the interaction unfolds in time. In the first instance, I think it is valid to say that we have here a means-end structure. That is, various semiotic, perceptual and material resources and modalities are cross-coupled in the real-time unfolding of the activity in order to achieve a desired goal on the part of Panbanisha. This suggests that Panbanisha does not see the lexigram symbols as merely indexically presupposing the co-presence of some signalled phenomenal reality in her perceptual purview. Furthermore, the addresser/addressee relation which is implicated in this jointly enacted and constructed sequence entails the joint attending to the visual-graphic symbol as a sign which can be used in order, semiotically, to mediate the attaining of this goal. This means that she understands this sign as a proposal for action. She has understood that the sign can be activated as an instance of an action schema. In doing so, she has achieved the equivalent of an elementary metasemiotic awareness or understanding of signs. Thus, the pointing to and touching of the visual-graphic symbol is a kind of experi-

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Table 5.2 Schema showing a cross-coupling of semiotic, perceptual and material elements in unfolding activity as Panbanisha touches lexigram descriptive gloss

modes of semiosis/perception

Panbanisha + Susan Savage-Rumbaugh visually and bodily orient to the right side of the lexigram Panbanisha points to selected symbol Panbanisha touches symbol activates recorded voice 'carry' Panbanisha and Susan Savage-Rumbaugh visually and bodily orient to the left side of the lexigram Panbanisha points to selected symbol Panbanisha touches symbol activates recorded voice 'yes'

VISUAL/KINESIC VISUAL/KINESIC TACTILE/VISUAL AUDITORY/LINGUISTIC VISUAL/KINESIC VISUAL/KINESIC TACTILE/VISUAL AUDITORY/LINGUISTIC

ential naming of the sign such that the naming of the proposed course of action - 'carry' - is also, simultaneously, the proposing of the desired course of action, viz. being carried on Susan's back. The fact that an elementary metasemiotic capacity is at work here means that Panbanisha does not simply see the visual-graphic symbol and its auditory counterpart (the electronically synthesized voice) as a device for calling up (indexically presupposing) some presupposed contextual value that is already present in the context. Rather, the sign is a means of invoking a dialogically oriented and co-ordinated action schema - a dialogic interact - which is instantiated as a proposal for a desired course of action when the given lexigram symbol is pointed to and touched so as to activate it. The action schema so invoked does not pre-exist the use of the sign, but is created or enacted by it. In short, the symbol experientially names the schema at the same time that it entails the interpersonal enacting of the schema as a proposal for a desired future course of action. How can we be sure that the signs Panbanisha construes are not simply indexes tied to the material here-now? How can we be sure that 'carry' is, interpersonally speaking, a proposal for a desired course of action? The two questions are closely related. Indexes in their barest essentials entail a necessary relation between the signs that impinge upon the system and s aspect of its environment. However, I have argued above that for Panbanisha the sign in question is symbolic because there is no necessary relationship between the sign and external events. Instead, the sign is one of a set of symbolic possibilities made available by the lexigram. Symbolic possibilities are not tied to particular contexts. Panbanisha can select and modulate them in various ways in order to construe symbolic possibilities according to different contextual contingencies. Experientially, the visual-graphic sign 'carry' on the lexigram construes some segment of reality as an experien-

AGENCY, INDIVIDUATION AND MEANING-MAKING Thlbault

129

tiable phenomenon by analytically segmenting it into its constituent parts. Interpersonally, I have said 'carry' is a proposal for a desired course of action. From this point of view, the sign is a dialogically oriented act which its users deploy so as to achieve particular interactive goals or effects. In this perspective, the sign is modified and re-shaped in the service of specific interactional-interpersonal ends and projects (McGregor 1997: 64-70). In the present example, the 'yes' which follows 'carry' has precisely this interpersonal modifying function. Thus, the proposal 'carry' is modulated by 'yes' in terms of Panbanisha's expectations concerning the outcome of the proposal. It may also be seen as eliciting a response, i.e. compliance from Susan Savage-Rumbaugh. The above considerations now allow us to grasp the full import of Panbanisha's symbolic achievement. In actual fact, the use of the proposal shows how she has attained symbolic emergence (not transcendence) over the indexical necessities of the relationship between biological organism and its environment. Specifically, the proposal allows for a possible, not yet verified, world, which may not even necessarily be realized. The attainment of symbolic possibilities of meaning-making connects the individual's Innenwelt to the unknown and the indeterminate, it opens up the possibility of exploration and expansion of the organism's Umwelt through the formulating and posing of hypotheses about the unknown, the desired and the not-yet-attained. Importantly, it is not correct simply to say that the lexigram sign 'carry' symbolically construes or names a segment of experience. Rather, it does so relative to Panbanisha 's viewpoint or perspective as interpreter, along with S

Savage-Rumbaugh, of these signs. Furthermore, as a proposal for action, sign is grounded in a specific framework of interpersonal engagement and interaction in the here-now of the unfolding discursive event. The metafunctional organization of language provides resources which simultaneously enable the phenomena of experience to be controlled by (1) a representation of what the given phenomenon is; (2) a specification as to how to act in relation to the given phenomenon; and (3) how to integrate the given phenomenon to some relevant discourse context. Both perceptual systems and semiotic systems such as natural language provide organisms with internal systems models which enable the organism to organize and interpret the phenomena of experience in ways that are meaningful to the organism in its ecological niche. The stimulus information (haptic, optic, auditory, kinesic, and so on) that is picked up by our perceptual systems is coupled to particular environmental events and provides the organism with information about these events. Such information is coupled to environmental events in ways that may be described as iconic-indexical. A system of symbolic possibilities such as a language is, like our perceptual systems, an internal model for organizing and interpreting the phenomena of experience in ways that are meaningful to the organism. However, language is much less hard-coupled to material events than are our perceptual systems. By the same token, both perception and semiosis provide organisms with resources for orienting to and acting on environ-

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mental phenomena in ways that are functionally relevant to the organism and its needs at the same time that both perception and semiosis endow the phenomena of experience with meaning and value for the organism. In this perspective, we can ask how the individuation of bonobos like Panbanisha in a partly human cultural environment supports the increasing soft-coupling of meanings with respect to the here-now of physicalmaterial in the immediate environment of the individual. It is this softcoupling of the symbolic possibilities of language to its material base which affords richer, more flexible strategies for the on-line management of particular contextual contingencies, as compared to the greater inflexibility of those systems that are hard-coupled to a particular material base. Panbanisha has evolved an elementary system of symbolic possibilities for operating on meanings in contexts of interaction with human beings. The discourse move which she performs in the example - viz. proposing that Susan carry out a specific, desired course of action - demonstrates her ability to control the system of meanings that she has elaborated on the basis of her long-term engagement with some aspects of human culture at the same time that she performs the particular discourse move. The use of the syntagm 'carryAyes' exhibits metafunctional properties. It both experientially names the action carry at the same time that Panbanisha's use of this syntagm interpersonally engages with Susan as the designated performer of the desired action. The experiential naming of the phenomena of experience provides a basis for achieving an intersubjective consensus about the phenomena of experience by virtue of the fact that the same term can be used to name many different phenomena on many different occasions as being the same phenomenon. At the same time, the interpersonal resources of language provide a means for co-ordinating each individual's subjective experience to a jointly shared action schema that enables the different subjective viewpoints of different individuals to converge on or orient to the same phenomenon. 7 Meaning-making, historical emergence and the honing of the self

Meaning-making is an emergent, self-organizing process. Meanings are made from what is initially a more topological-continuous relationship between self and the world (the environment, others and so on). As Panbanisha and Susan participate in meaning-making activity, they produce actions, perceive their consequences and their effects on others, as well as attend to the responses of others. In this way, stable categories of meaning become co-contextualized with certain types of sensori-motor activities of the body in regular and systematic ways. Meaning, then, is a global and emergent product/process across diverse cross-couplings of semiotic-discursive and physical-material processes. Panbanisha can now access possibilities of meaning-making precisely because she, like us, is not pre-specified according to hardwired rules and competencies. Change, development and individuation take place because

AGENCY, INDIVIDUATION AND MEANING-MAKING TMbaultl t 131 heterogeneous components in the activity, in the body-brain of the participants, act on and affect each other along the time-bound trajectory of the dyads in which they participate. Each occasion of interaction leaves its mark, so to speak, so that Panbanisha, too, like Susan Savage-Rumbaugh, is able to individuate and, therefore, increase her agentive determinability in the process of narrowing the symbolic possibilities available to her as she learns to participate in more specified forms of human-bonobo interaction. A self emerges from the vaguer, topological-continuous possibilities of earlier stages, which means that potential agency is increasingly enabled by this developing complexity and self-organization. It is as a result of the stored information which is built-up and elaborated through participation in time-bound activity that the system acquires perspectives and viewpoints and learns how to participate in dialogically co-ordinated exchange structures. That is, it becomes capable of acting as an agent in the world in the sense that it can produce effects which are specific to its perspective and which are sourceable at that perspective. The re-entrant mapping of activity, perception, signs, tools and so on, to inner neural activity means that the resulting symbolic categories are elaborated in the brain as action rules, which, in turn, serve to regulate sensori-motor (gestural, articulatory) activity as output back into the Umwelt. Panbanisha's activating of the sign 'carry' is symbolic in this sense because there is no necessary indexical connection to external events. It is Panbanisha's accessing of this system of symbolic possibilities which allows for the honing of self and its perspectives, the emergence of agency, symbolic creativity and playfulness. If, on the other hand, Panbanisha were tied by indexical necessity to a perpetually remembered present, this historical emergence would not be possible. References Bakhtin M.M., 1981 [1975]. 'Discourse in the novel', in The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. M. Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press. Benson J., Greaves W., O'Donnell M. and Taglialatela J., 2002. 'Evidence for symbolic language processing in a bonobo (Pan paniscus) \ Journal of Consciousness Studies, 9, 12, pp. 33-56. Biihler K., 1990 [1934]. Theory of Language: The Representational Function of Language, trans. D.F. Goodwin. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. Gibson J.J., 1983 [1966]. The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Gibson J.J., 1986 [1979]. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Hillsdale, NJ and London: Lawrence Erlbaum. Gottlieb G., 1991a. 'Epigenetic systems view of human development', Developmental Psychology, 27, pp. 33-4. Gottlieb G., 1991b. 'Experiential canalization of behavioural development', Developmental Psychology, 27, pp. 35-9.

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Halliday M.A.K., 1975. Learning How to Mean: Explorations in the Developme

of Language. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday M.A.K., 1978. Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation

Language and Meaning. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday M.A.K., 1993. 'Towards a language based theory of learning', Linguistics and Education, 5, pp. 93-116. Harre R., 1983. Personal Being: A Theory for Individual Psychology. O\ Blackwell. Lave J., 1997. 'The culture of acquisition and the practice of understanding', in Situated Cognition: Social, Semiotic, and Psychological Perspe

eds D. Kirshner and J.A. Whitson. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Lemke J.L., 1995 [1993]. 'Discourse, dynamics, and social change', in Textual Politics: Discourse and Social Dynamics. London and Bristol, P

Taylor & Francis. Lemke J.L., 1997. 'Cognition, context, and learning: a social semiotic perspective', in Situated Cognition: Social, Semiotic, and Psychological

Perspectives, eds D. Kirshner and J.A. Whitson. Mahwah, NJ: Lawren Erlbaum. McGregor W.B., 1997. Semiotic Grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Pinker S., 1994. The Language Instinct: The New Science of Language and Mind.

Harmondsworth, Sussex: Penguin Books. Salthe S.N., 1993. Development and Evolution: Complexity and change in Biolo.

Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press. Savage-Rumbaugh S., Shanker S.G. andTaylor T.J., eds, 1998. Apes, s Language and the Human Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shanker S., 1998. 'Philosophical Preconceptions', in Apes, Language and t Human Mind, eds E.S. Savage-Rumbaugh, S. Shanker and T.J. Taylor. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thibault P.J., 2000. 'The dialogical integration of the brain in social semiosis: Edelman and the case for downward causation', Mind, Cultur and Activity, 7, 4, pp. 291-311. Thibault P.J., 2003. 'Body dynamics, social meaning-making, and scale heterogeneity: re-considering contextualization cues and language as mixed-mode semiosis', in DiscussingJohn J. Gumperz, eds S. Eerdmans, Prevignano and PJ. Thibault. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. Thibault P.J., 2004. Brain, Mind, and the Signifying Body: An Ecosocial Semiot

Theory. London and New York: Continuum.

Appendix 1 Time Visual Frame

Posture, Kinaesthesis, Gaze

Locomotion and Gesture Lexigram

05.55

Posture: P. crouching on left; Susan Savage-Rumbaugh, who is standing initially, also begins to crouch; = the adopting of parallel bodily orientations in the process of delimiting and defining a jointly enacted social activity. This is achieved by orienting their bodies to each other and to the shared task of using the lexigram. Kinaesthetic: Close, but not touching distance (no contact of body, arms, legs); S. opens lexigram in front of and within touching distance of P. Gaze/Eye Contact: S. directs her gaze downwards to P. as P. crouches.

Gesture: P's arms are extended outwards, her hands slightly curved back towards self. Movement: None

05.56

Posture: Both P. and S. are crouching, facing each other. Kinaesthetic: P. moves her arms and body towards the lexigram, now open in front of her; she orients herself as a prelude to using it; she then moves her right hand towards one of the symbols on the right side of the lexigram in order to select this. Gaze/Eye Contact: P.'s gaze, in synchrony with her right arm movement, is directed towards the part of the lexigram in question; S.'s gaze is synchronized with P. so as to follow it to the same point on the lexigram which is the focus of attention.

Gesture: None. Movement: None.

Posture, Kinaesthesis, Gaze

Locomotion and Gesture Lexigram

05.57

Posture: As before. Kinaesthetic: P.'s right arm, now fully extended, touches the desired selection on the lexigram. Gaze/Eye Contact: As before.

Gesture: None. Movement: None,

05.58

Posture: As before. Kinaesthetic: P. extends her left hand to the left side of the lexigram, again touching the desired selection. Gaze/Eye Contact: P.'s gaze, synchronized with her left arm movement, is directed to the left side of the lexigram; S.'s gaze is synchronized with and follows that of P. to the same point on the lexigram.

Gesture: None. Movement: None.

05.59

Posture: As before. Kinaesthetic: P. withdraws left hand from lexigram. Gaze/Eye Contact: P. recentres her head and directs her gaze to S.'s face.

Gesture: None. Movement: None.

06.00

Posture: As before. Kinaesthetic: None. Gaze/Eye Contact: S.'s gaze follows P.; S. directs her gaze to P.'s face. Thus,

Gesture: S. points with her right hand to her upper chest area (repeated three times), and indicating herself in response to P.'s

Time

Visual Frame

carry

yes

interpersonal engagement is re-established by the mutual gaze vector after initially attending to the two points on the lexigram.

request; then S. puts her right hand on the right side of her face. Movement: None.

06.01

Posture: P. stands, while S. remains crouching. Kinaesthetic: P. extends her left hand to S.'s shoulder while coming round behind S. Gaze/Eye Contact: None.

Gesture: None. Movement: P. starts to move towards S.

06.02

Posture: P. standing, S. crouching. Kinaesthetic: P. draws closer to S.; S. begins to raise her hand, she closes the lexigram; P. grasps S. round the neck and shoulders. Gaze/Eye Contact: None.

Gesture: None. Movement: P. moves close to S., goes beside her, then behind her.

06.03

Posture: S. still crouching. Kinaesthetic: P. now holds S. from behind; S. has almost completely closed the lexigram. Gaze/Eye Contact: Both P. and S. now look ahead, sharing the same, unified field of visual orientation.

Gesture: None. Movement: None.

Posture, Kinaesthesis, Gaze

Locomotion and Gesture Lexigram

06.04

Posture: S. crouches. Kinaesthetic: P. is now fully mounted on S.'s back, piggy-back fashion; S. finishes closing the lexigram. Gaze/Eye Contact: As before.

Gesture: None. Movement: None.

06.05

Posture: S. stands up. Kinaesthetic: S. carries P. on her back; thus jointly achieving a merging of bodily perspectives (= merged and co-ordinated field of both vision and locomotion). Gaze/Eye Contact: As before.

Gesture: None. Movement: S. starts walking with P. on her back.

Time

Visual Frame

6 The 'Interpersonal First' Principle in Child Language Development Clare Painter

There is no question that language is an astonishing instrument for learning, and that the infant's need to make sense of and understand the world into which it has been born is a powerful driver of the language development process. But this does not mean that we need accept Derek Bickerton's (1990) contention that language evolved originally as a 'system of representation' of the properties of the world rather than as a communicative system and that the same is true for the trajectory of individual development. On the contrary, much research by developmental psychologists over the past few decades has argued that communication processes enacted from the earliest weeks of life provide the essential foundation for language, and that the co-ordination of minds is a necessary condition for learning a system of representation itself (see, e.g. Bruner 1978; Field and Fox 1985; Kaye 1982; Nadel and Camaioni 1993; Newson 1978; Rogoff 1990; Tomasello 1988; Trevarthen 1980, 1987, 1998). In this paper, this latter position will be elaborated within the framework of Michael Halliday's (1978, 1994) systemic-functional linguistic (SFL) theory to provide an account of mother tongue language development which sees each milestone in the process as founded on interpersonal beginnings. SFL has always argued for the equal importance of the two extrinsic functions of language - for communicating with others and for representing reality - arguing that these two fundamental uses of language are built into its organization as the two broad semantic domains of the 'interpersonal' and the 'ideational'. This means that the grammar of language is organized so that we both assign speech roles and construe reality with every clause we utter. If we utter a statement, such as Jane's car is red, adopt a communicative role (information giver) and assign a complementary role (information receiver) to the other, but simultaneously we construe an aspect of experience ideationally, in terms of meanings like 'possession' and 'ascription of quality' and in terms of categories of persons, things, colours, time and number and so on. While the interpersonal and ideational functions, or 'metafunctions', have equal

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status in the developed language, Halliday has suggested that when first building the language, a child needs to find an initial entry point into new developments, and that this is typically an interpersonal one, 'whereby new meanings are first construed in interpersonal contexts and only later transferred to ideational ones' (1993: 103). In this paper, a number of key aspects of early language development will be described to illustrate, clarify and develop this idea, taking the starting point that we need to understand 'interpersonal' as including not only the 'inter' (between persons) but the 'personal' (attitudinal or emotional) aspects of the term.1 It is thus the child's impulse to share emotion as well as the communicative need to engage in dialogue with others that lies at the heart of the language development process. It will be argued here, in fact, that crucial moves in language development emerge from three interpersonal sources: the child's emotional engagement in experience, the verbal negotiation of behaviour and the use of interactively produced text as a source of change in the developing linguistic system. 1 The role of emotion A systemic-functional account of initial language development regards the key milestones in the process as constituted by the emergence of the first system of signs, the transition to a three-level semiotic, the development of the informative function and finally the ability to frame generalizations. In the next section of the paper, this developmental trajectory will be described, showing how each step in the child's journey into language can be seen to arise from the child's affective involvement in the world. The data used to illustrate these points come from three naturalistic case studies of a child's spontaneous speech as it occurred in everyday settings: Halliday's (1975) study of his son Nigel, and my two studies of my sons Hal and Stephen (see Painter 1984, 1999 respectively). These studies offer a detailed picture of development from the age of about nine months, but, as a background to this, some attention should be given to the wealth of close descriptive work on caregiver-infant interaction that has been amassed by developmental psychologists working with neonatal infants. Scholars such as Kaye and Fogel (1980), Newson (1978), Trevarthen (1979, 1980, 1987, 1993, 1998) and others offer a picture of the infant's earliest weeks and months of life, in which the co-ordination of reciprocal attention between caregiver and infant is foregrounded. Importantly for the argument to be developed here, much of this research strongly emphasizes the emotional engagement of the interacting parties. For example, Murray and Trevarthen (1985: 194) point out 'the important function of the infant's expressions of pleasure, interest, annoyance, or avoidance as regulators of the presentation of objects and events by adults', while Stern et al. (1985: 265) talk of later mother-infant interaction as a process of 'affect attunement', enabling 'interpersonal communion'. Trevarthen (1987: 178) sums up the general finding when he says: 'Young

THE 'INTERPERSONAL FIRST' PRINCIPLE

Painter

139

infants were confirmed to be highly and complexly emotional ... They were, also, exquisitely responsive to the mother's reactions'. This then is the picture of the neonate that has emerged over recent decades - as a partner in a kind of communicative interaction with the adult which is regulated by emotions. However, from about four or five months of age, the 'third party' world of objects begins to distract the infant's attention from engagement with the caregiver, until, at about nine months, there is a successful co-ordination of competing interests. At this point, the caregiver and child routinely focus together on the external world, exchanging attention about something else for the first time (Bates et at. 1975; Locke 1993; Trevarthen 1987). It is with this achievement that many infants have now been observed to begin the process of becoming semiotic beings, doing so by creating a simple system of signs, enabling more systematic forms of communication. This first semiotic system created by infants is a 'protolinguistic' one (Halliday 1975), comprising a small set of idiosyncratic vocal and/or gestural 'signs'2 created by the infant and addressed to close caregivers and family members. The use of these signs emerges at about nine months of age (Bates 1979; Carter 1978; Dore et at. 1976; Halliday 1975; Painter 198 Torr 1997) and enables the child to achieve meanings that can be glossed as 'I want that' or 'this is fun, do it again' or 'this tastes yummy' or 'wow, that's interesting'. The important point here is that these first protolinguistic signs are not lexical words. Even though there will be some object or activityjointly attended to, protolinguistic signs - unlike words - are not a means of representing experience in terms of classes of things and event they are, rather, affectual appraisals of experience offered to the addresse sometimes requiring action from the other, sometimes only acknowledgement. Thus the first semiotic system of the individual emerges to enable the infant to share reactions to experience with the other, and it is upon this personal and interpersonal foundation that language proper is built (see Painter (2003) for an elaborated presentation of this argument). The impetus to share emotional experience that appears to underlie the development of protolanguage is similarly responsible for the transition into language itself. This involves a move from a system of simple signs (i.e. pairings of meaning with vocal/gestural expression), to a linguistic semiotic where a level of 'wording' is interposed between the meaning and its vocal expression. As described above, any protolanguage sign is a complex of interpersonal and ideational meaning. That is to say, a sign construes some evaluative reaction by the child in relation to something in experience, but these two aspects of meaning are inseparable: they are fused together and expressed holistically in the vocalization (or other expression form). Thus even if there are several signs that seem to pertain to the same referential domain - perhaps a sign for 'this milk is yummy' and another for T want that milk' and another for 'there's some milk', there is no way the ideational aspect 'milk' can be held constant and then combined with different communicative acts on different occasions.

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Similarly, even though a variety of things may be demanded protolinguistically, the speech act 'I want' cannot be systematically separated out for combination with different referential contents. This inability to 'notate' interpersonal and ideational meaning separately and so to combine and recombine the meanings in different utterances is a major limitation of a protolanguage sign system in comparison with language proper. As already discussed, it is a defining characteristic of human language that an ideational meaning such as Actor (e.g. 'Mummy') plus Action (e.g.'sing') can be 'notated' by one grammatical pattern even while different communicative roles can be taken up and assigned by the speaker on different occasions using another grammatical pattern (e.g. Is Mummy singing?/Mummy is singing/Sing, Mummy!) on different occasions. Young children do not make the move from protolinguistic symbols to utterances which map different grammatical structures on to one another in one simple step, of course. But they can begin to enact the principle of dual strands of meaning, separately notated, from the time of their first words. Separate notation of interpersonal and ideational meaning requires at the very least a semiotic system which allows for the possibility of naming - of categorizing different instances of phenomena as 'the same' regardless of one's attitudinal stance. From the available case studies, one typical strategy for achieving dual strands of meaning is for the child to use an articulatory realization for the ideational meaning (e.g. [dada] as the name Daddy ) and a prosodic realization for the interpersonal meaning (e.g. rising/level tone or tense voice quality for 'I want' as opposed to falling tone or neutral phonation for 'I notice') (see Halliday 1975; Painter 1984, 1990; Torr 1997; and also related research in other theoretical paradigms, such as Greenfield and Smith 1976; McShane 1980; Menn 1978). As Halliday explains, with this strategy 'it becomes possible to mean two things at once, so that one of the two meanings [becomes] a name' (1993:98). What is significant for the current argument is that there appears to be a clear affective impulse underlying the move described above. Halliday's son, Nigel, first took this step within the period 15—16"? months, but for the first ten weeks that he engaged in meaning two things at once - using a three-level semiotic - it was only with respect to one particular domain of meaning: that of his own three caregivers; for no other meanings but 'Mummy', 'Daddy' and 'Anna' could the ideational meaning be separated out and combined with different interpersonal stances (e.g. 'I want' or 'I see'). It is surely not by chance that the ideational domain implicated in this development was that of the caregivers, those with whom the child had the closest emotional bonds, making them not only key persons to be interacted with and thus addressed by protolanguage, but also key aspects of experience to be reflected on and thus named. So while the achievement of naming is a move in developing ideational (i.e. representational) resources, it was the interpersonal and emotional salience of Nigel's meaning group that brought it about in his case.

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In a similar way, the first true lexical item construed by my son, Hal, involved a domain of great affective involvement. His first word was puss, distinguishable from protolinguistic signs involving his own cat, in that the word puss could be used in many different functional contexts and for any member of the class 'cat'.3 As can be guessed, the family cat had always been a source of passionate engagement for Hal, an object of affection and consequently of intense interest, which then extended to other comparable creatures. This, in turn, presumably led the child to being receptive to the adult construal of cats as a general class, to be named by the word puss. Thus Hal, like Nigel, moved from a protolinguistic to a (transitional) language system through his emotional engagement in his world. For Nigel, the powerful emotional attachment to his carers was the foundation for moving out of the limitations of the protolinguistic sign system. For Hal, his affective relationship with the smallest member of his household and her kind was instrumental in taking him even further - not only providing the impetus for the creation of a name, rather than a protolanguage sign, but also for a 'common' rather than 'proper' name, something which is itself a cognitive achievement: a step in generalizing experience. From a functional perspective, a linguistic system that allows for categorization of phenomena and the simultaneous adoption of some illocutionary force or dialogic role embodies key characteristics of adult language. What may take longer to emerge, however, is the understanding that language can substitute for shared experience and so create a. reality the hearer. This understanding underlies our ability to exchange information with others, to tell what is not known to the other person, or to find out what we have not personally observed. In adult life we tend to see this as the entire raison d'etre of using language, but for the infant in the ear months of the mother tongue, this is not the case. He or she uses language to act on the world through others (demanding or supplying goods and services and perhaps names), to jointly attend to what is in shared view or to jointly attend to shared past experience, but does not use this new resource to inform others of what is outside already shared experience. As Halliday explains: [T]he informative function has no existence independent of language itself. It is an intrinsic function which the child cannot begin to master until he has grasped the principle of dialogue, which means until he has grasped the fundamental nature of the communication process. (1975: 31)

Whereas Halliday's Nigel took several months to develop the informative function of language, following his move out of protolanguage, Hal found a 'way in' relatively early on in his life as a language user. The passing on of unknown information was not something routine, however, but clearly sprang from an impetus to share keenly felt emotions with others, following episodes of being hurt or reprimanded. The first recorded occasion of this was when, at barely 16 months, he approached his mother,

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complaining: bump after hurting himself in another room. A few weeks later, after pinching his mother and being roundly scolded, he went to his father in another room and related pathetically: badboy.4O Over the ne month or two there were a number of more extensive informative texts where being told off by one parent led to a relating of the incident to the other who had not been present, as in the following examples (where the child's age is given in years, months and days at the end of the text): Example 1 (a) Hal is told off by his mother for pulling the cat's tail. He goes to his father in another room and relates the event, saying: tail; tail; tail pussy; tail; pussy; tail; pussy; badboy1 (1;7;1). (b) While playing with tins of cat food in the kitchen, Hal pees all over the floor, to his father's audible dismay. Hal goes to his mother in another room, saying: naughty; pee; naughty; pee. He then leads her to kitchen, repeating naughty; pee; pussy ; (1;7;7). Like Nigel, Hal would at this age remain silent when asked about his day's experience by a family member who had not shared it and he asked no such questions of others, but in contexts like these where the experience - of being reprimanded or hurt - was clearly deeply felt, the desire to share his painful feelings caused him to extend his budding but very limited representational resources into new territory, and thereby to discover the revolutionary possibility of language substituting for shared experience. These occasions where Hal used language to inform others of what their own experience had not made available to them are notable also in being proto-stories. Since the core of any narrative text is the representation of some crisis to be resolved, it seems noteworthy that it was the painful experience of being hurt or negatively judged that provided the impetus for Hal's first experience of taking on the role of 'teller' - both in the sense of telling the addressee what they don't know (a key basis of mature dialogue) and in the sense of 'teller' of a story (a key form of monologue). Initially these roles were always conflated because it was only in relation to a highly charged experience that Hal found a sufficient need to realize the informative potential of the semiotic now coming under his control. The steps described so far - the creation of protolanguage, the development of 'common' names, the separate expression of interpersonal and ideational meanings, and the development of the informative function constitute the key moments in the initial language development process in Halliday's original (1975) account, and my argument has been that the impetus for each of these moves comes from the child's emotional engagement with the world. As well as this foundational role in the creation of a metafunctionally organized, three-level5 language system, however, it may be that the child's emotional life continues to drive new linguistic developments. Some evidence for this can be provided from the case study of Hal's brother, Stephen, whose language was recorded from

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the age of 2i years onwards (i.e. after the initial stage outlined for Nigel and Hal). One of the first developments observed concerned a further move in generalization beyond that involved in initial naming. In the data recorded from Stephen up to the age of three years, there were just half a dozen instances of texts where he construed a generic category, referring for example to babies in general rather than that baby, my baby or a ba0 typical example is given below. Example 2

(S is at kitchen counter with his brother and M. He puts a drink down carefully.) S: Only little boys put on edge M: Mm S: 'cause little boys are naughty M: Well, little boys spill it by accident S: Only little boys do accident; (delightedly) I can say 'accident'! M: Yes you can, can't you? S: (leaning over on stool) Little boys do that sometimes and they fall off the stool and they cry H: Sometimes big boys cry S: No, little boys cry (2;7;20) A common noun, such as boy, is already a generalization since it construes a particular element of experience as comparable to others, sharing the feature of 'boyness' however different the particular instances may be. But to talk about boys is to go a step further and to construe the category explicitly as a category and then to generalize about behaviour in relation to that general category. As with Hal's initial forays into information-giving, Stephen's first occasions for using generic categories were only in relation to aspects of experience that were emotionally highly charged. In his case it was almost exclusively the domain of age, since he was very conscious of being the 'little boy' in the household, always wishing to achieve the status of his older brother, but he also attended a preschool where there were babies and younger 'little' children. It would seem that reflection on this affectively salient domain provided Stephen with the 'way in' to this new linguistic development, after which, in his fourth year, it became routine to talk about generic categories and their relationships.6 By that time, of course, it was as likely to be houses, cars, bones or clouds as emotionally hot topics that were under attention, but all Stephen's first forays into generalizing centred on areas with a heavy investment of affect. Whether Stephen's will be a typical entry into this particular development is unknown, but - given the prominence of affect as a motivating impetus in the creation of protolanguage and the transition into the adult semiotic - it seems very likely that for many children it will be within domains of emotional salience that at least some important developments are first assayed in the post-transition period.

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2 Ideational resources developed within the interpersonal sphere

A second and related way in which the 'interpersonal first' principle is realized is in terms of the interpersonal 'gateway' into new developments described by Halliday, where the focus is not specifically on emotional experience but on the fact that each critical step in learning language is taken first of all in the interpersonal metafunction - even if its eventual semiotic contexts are going to be primarily experiential [i.e. ideational]. (1993: 103)

While in fact the nature of all the developments already discussed could be regarded as broadly fitting this description, it seems preferable to limit the idea of the interpersonal metafunction as the site of new meaning to developments after about age two, since the protolanguage and initial transitional system are not organized on adult metafunctional lines. As already mentioned, within SFL, the lexicogrammatical resources of language are viewed as (meta) functionally organized. That is to say, there is a complex and interconnected set of semiotic choices related to interpersonal meaning, including, for example, the grammar of mood and modality, and there is a different set of resources concerned with ideational meaning, involving the grammar of process types and agency, the lexical construal of things, the 'logical-semantic' relations of time, place, causality, and so on. As discussed earlier, both sets of resources are called into play simultaneously whenever we speak. What proved unexpected, however, in the SFL developmental case studies, was that various grammatical resources within the ideational metafunction were first used by the child in contexts where it was the interpersonal negotiation with the addressee that was principally at stake, not the referential domain itself. In the following section this will be illustrated with respect to the development of key logical-semantic relations and the grammar of mental processes, two ideational systems with particular relevance for discussions of children's cognitive development. Afinalillustration will be given with respect to 'grammatical metaphor' - not itself a discrete grammatical system but rather a radical new deployment of the semiotic that constitutes a 'macro' development for the user. Here too, the 'interpersonal first' principle applies. Logical-semantic relations in language are the means by which clauses or propositions are logically linked to one another. They thus constitute an ideational resource centrally implicated in processes of cognitive organization and reasoning. Yet in the children studied, these relations developed not in the service of reflecting on or thinking about the world, but in order to act in it. Thus from Halliday's (1984) data, it can be seen that Nigel's first temporal links were in examples such as: When NewWorld [symphony] finish, song about bus (l;8;20) or First Daddy finish talking, then go in park

(l;10;l). In such cases the child was not recalling or observing a sequence of events - not focusing on representing as a means of making sense - but rather attempting to negotiate addressee behaviour. This is confirmed by

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the rising tone on the second clause of the earlier example, which functioned to demand action of the addressee. Following temporal relations, conditional links were also initially made by Nigel to effect interpersonal negotiation (Halliday 1993: 104). In other words, dependent conditional clauses were used to issue threats and warnings, always with self or addressee in the Subject role, as in If you walk on the railway line, the train would come and go boomp! and knock you over? The

same pattern of the conditional relation emerging in the negotiation of goods and services was also observed in Stephen's language, and in those of a number of other children studied (see e.g. McCabe et al. 1983). So while the logic of condition may be seen as quintessentially ideational, a tool of an objective 'scientific' stance where conclusions are drawn impersonally from stated premises, its ontogenetic origin - like that of temporal relations - is far otherwise. As well as the conditional relation, Stephen's speech was investigated for the development of the causal links of reason or consequence and this, too, proved to be initiated within interpersonal negotiation. One aspect of this is that the first why? questions Stephen used were not to explore ideational causality, but to achieve strictly interpersonal ends. On the one hand, they were used in dialogic games, where everything the adult says can be responded to with why ?, allowing the child the delightful power of endlessly consigning the addressee to the role of information giver in response, even though the information sought is itself of no interest. On the other hand, ivhyfwds used by Stephen as a challenging, non-compliant response to commands or refusals, as in Example 3. Example 3

M: Oh, oh, Stevie! Don't eat it like that! S: (truculently) Why? (2;7;8) In addition to the use of why? to challenge the addressee, Stephen's own clauses of explanation were similarly developed first within the sphere of negotiating goods and services rather than establishing cause and effect relations between observed or neutral events. Typical early examples use causality to justify the child's own refusals or commands, as in: Can't [refusing to do as asked] 'cause I'm too tired (2;8); We don't want a big dog 'cause he would licks on my tongue (2;7;24); We have to leave it 'cause it might bleed (2;9); or You can't do it in the rubbish 'cause it's mine (2;7;3). And the onl

examples where the focus was on ideational content rather than issues of control were ones where affectively salient content was again in focus, as in I'm doing lots of names 'cause I'm a big boy (2;8) and Only little boys put on 'cause little boys are naughty (2;7;15).

In his fourth year, Stephen began to extend his use of the relation to more neutral ideational domains but also developed a new form of causal link, using so to draw a conclusion in a 'paratactic' relation between clauses.8 Once again these occurred initially only in contexts of negotiating behaviour.

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Example 4 (a) (M holding tissue to S's nose) M: Big blow, big blow S: I can't always do a big blow; big boys - big boys [pause] they do big blows; I'm just a little boy so I do little blows (3;5) (b) (S and his brother are arguing) H: Mum, he won't stop calling me (?) S: He always says it to me, so I always say it to him (3;10) What impels the new use of the causal relation here is Stephen's desire to hold his own by justifying his behaviour to an authority figure. This is achieved by linking his behaviour causally to something that is an incontestable fact (I'm just a little boy, He always says it to me) so that his highly

contestable behaviour appears to be an inescapable result of something to which no responsibility attaches. This proves an effective rhetorical ploy for negotiating his behaviour, and it is only after successfully using the relation for such interpersonal ends that Stephen extended its use to reasoning about ideational content in which his own behaviour or desires were not implicated (as for example at 4;5 when he reasoned to himself that vans go faster than cars so vans should go faster than motor bikes).

A further key area of ideational meaning that clearly emerges within the interpersonal metafunction is that of 'mental processes' and the associated logical relation of 'projection'.9 Within SFL descriptions, a central ideational system is that of 'process type' by means of which the speaker can construe a quantum of experience as a happening of one kind or another, such as material (e.g. 'going'), verbal (e.g. 'saying') or mental (e.g. 'thinking'). Mental process verbs of cognition have been of particular interest within developmental psychology since they are the means by which a speaker reports the content of another's mind, as in he thinks th chocolate is in the drawer, and experimental evidence suggests that it is until age four that children are able to construe the thoughts/knowledge of another person as being different from their own (Astington 1994; for related discussion see Meares and Sullivan, this volume; Taglialatela et al, this volume). In accordance with these findings are the linguistic data showing that third person uses of mental process clauses of cognition are indeed very rare in children's spontaneous speech in the first few years of life (see Painter 1996b). Nonetheless it is well attested that children younger than this do use such forms with first or second person Subjects, such as / think ..., I don't know or (Do) you know . . . ?

Within the psychological literature such utterances have been referred to as 'conversational uses' of mental vocabulary, stressing that their function is to enable dialogue rather than to construe one's own thinking process (see Shatz et al. 1983). Thus when Stephen said / think I do the pio (2;8;20), he was using / think as a 'softener' to forestall any prohibition, and when he said I expect Daddy's got it (2;8;3) it was to reduce his commitm to the certainty of the fact being asserted, and when he said Do you kno that a hundred is more than ten (3;9;3) it was to claim the information-giv

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role for himself, forestalling the adult's display of knowledge.10 Such examples are described within SFL as examples of 'grammatical metaphor' in that the ideational meaning - the representation of a mental process is to be read as 'standing for' something else, in fact standing for an interpersonal meaning of mood or modality. / expect Daddy's got it is alternative way of expressing the modalized statement Daddy might have i similarly, / wonder where the Superman book is, is an alternative wa expressing an interrogative mood choice Where is the Superman book?. Stephen already had the grammar to express modality and interrogative mood in the 'congruent' manner, the use of mental processes with these functions constituted a means of expanding these resources, allowing for subtle additional shades of meaning, such as the foregrounding of the subjectivity of the modalization with / think or allowing for an indirectness in the demand for information with / wonder where ... These examples illustrate the 'interpersonal first' principle in two ways. In the first place they show that the central ideational semantic domain of cognition first enters the child's language not for representational ends but for interpersonal ones: to facilitate dialogue by expanding the already developed resources of mood and modality. They illustrate the principle in a second respect, though, which is that the phenomenon of 'grammatical metaphor' itself emerges first within the interpersonal metafunction. Grammatical metaphor is the most important developmental milestone of the later childhood years according to the SFL account, and discussions have centred on the use of one ideational system to stand for another, as happens with the process of 'nominalization'.11 While ideational grammatical metaphor of this kind is a crucial phase in the individual's development, especially of written language skills, it is preceded by experience with interpersonal grammatical metaphor. Whether interpersonal and ideational grammatical metaphor are sufficiently similar to claim that experience with one is crucial for the development of the other is perhaps arguable. What is not in doubt though is that the possibility of exploiting the non-bi-unique relation between semantics and grammar - so that meanings can be expanded by allowing one grammatical form to be read both 'literally' and metaphorically occurs first within the interpersonal domain. Mental process clauses are in fact not the first example of this. In the case study of Hal, it was apparent that virtually as soon as a full-fledged three-level linguistic system was established, some degree of interpersonal metaphor was possible. A very early example was the expression of the ideational meaning of possession as a covert means of asserting control. Even before turning two years of age, Hal would sometimes snatch objects away from others, saying that's my or that's Hals, using these utterances to stake a claim to the object. While he would also use these forms 'congruently' to label things in quite neutral contexts of classification, such occasions of claim-staking used the ideational form as a metaphor for the command 'give me that' or 'don't touch that,' thus coopting the ideational into the service of the interpersonal function.

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Thus, as well as initially developing ideational meanings of time, cause and cognition for interpersonal rather than representational ends, the whole subtle business of speaking indirectly is mastered within the interpersonal sphere, well before the double meanings of ideational grammatical metaphor are attempted. 3 Co-ordinating minds within the deictic centre of dialogue

To explain how the child manages the transition from interpersonal uses of ideational systems to their more central ideational functions requires bringing in a third aspect of the 'interpersonal first' principle. Again, this can perhaps be seen as another way of looking at many of the phenomena already described. This time it is by focusing on the centrality in the developmental process of the dialogic space of interpersonal interaction involving 'you and me, here and now' - what Matthiessen (1991: 92) calls the 'deictic centre of the interpersonal universe'. This dialogic space provides both the site for exploration of ideational meaning and the source for change in the child's resources. While we may agree with Bickerton (1995) that it is the capacity of human language to represent experience that distinguishes it from many other communication systems, it is within dialogic interaction that the child learns to shape experience into ideational meaning. It is the coordination of minds in the enactment of dialogue that allows for contingent modelling by the adult (to make visible new properties of the language), for joint production of the child's meaning (to reduce the difficulty of organizing monologue) and for situated exploration of ideational domains (to enhance cognitive understandings). The role of conversational interaction in allowing for contingent modelling of adult grammar and semantics is an area that has been well researched over several decades (see, e.g. Cross 1977; Garton 1992; Howe 1981; Nelson et al. 1973; Ninio and Bruner 1978; Painter 1986; Snow 1983; Strapp and Federico 2000; Wells and Robinson 1982). Much of this work demonstrates the tendency of caregivers to offer 'recasts' of imperfect utterances, or to model appropriate semantic extensions to children's meanings, for example adding an explanation to a child's refusal or a missing Actor to a transitivity structure. The contention of such research is that the adult contributions to the dialogue provide a source of models for children to draw on in developing their linguistic resources, not least the ideational ones of transitivity structures, lexical forms and logical relations. An important aspect of this modelling is that it makes the nature of the adult system more visible to the child at the very point when the child is 'ready' to apprehend new potential because the minds of adult and child are co-ordinated to create meaning that satisfies both. An example would be the entry into naming that has already been discussed. I have stressed the emotional impetus to this, which focuses the child's attention on some object, person, or being, but the sharing of that affective involvement also

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makes the child attentive to the adult's way of construing the phenomenon, which (unlike protolanguage) involves classifying it with a mother tongue name. It is the co-ordination of joint attention within the dialogic frame that makes the child receptive to this new semiotic potential (see also Tomasello 1988). Similarly, with the development of cognition processes discussed earlier, case study data can show that there are points where the adult's response to the child makes visible some potential in the adult system not yet being exploited by the child. For example: Example 5

S: I know what that one is — that's five M: Yes, you've got to know what all the numbers are (4;0;13) At this point in his language development, Stephen repeatedly used Do/did you know or / know as an interpersonal ploy to claim the information-giving role of primary knower, but the adult's response in this case was not simply to respond to the interpersonal meaning and affirm the information ('Yes, that's five') but to discuss Stephen's mental process. At this moment then, the ideational meaning of know as a representation of a mental process (rather than its meaning as a high-value modality) was brought to the child's notice at the very moment when his wish to have his knowledge validated would make him attentive to this possibility. I would suggest that such experience was the basis for Stephen's development of third person cognitive forms in the fifth year. The point, then, is that dialogue is the source of new meanings and forms that become available to the child, not simply because the child must hear the language before using it, but also because of the contingent nature of the modelling afforded by the coordination of attention achieved in the unplanned give and take of dialogue. What is being learned may be a 'system of representation' but it is only learnable because it is equally a system for interpersonal exchange. As well as making visible new semantic possibilities of the developed language, the enactment of dialogue also provides a crucial space for the development of monologic forms of language. In this sense we might say the 'interpersonal first' principle relates to the priority of the interpersonal context of dialogue in developing the 'textual metafunction' - the grammatical and discourse options that are concerned with organizing information appropriately, something particularly called for in constructing longer, more monologic texts.12 One example of this concerns the child's ability to recount personal experience. I argued earlier that this development was first impelled by the child's desire to share a strong emotional reaction to an experience (see Examples la and lb). The ability to do this as a successful monologue, however, depends at the very least upon being able to shape the experience into an ordered sequence of events. This is achieved by the building-up of story texts in collaboration with the adult who can offer 'scaffolding'13 guidance as to how to extend the text appropriately, as in Example 6 from Hal.

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Example 6

(H is cuddling a toy giraffe and recalling a zoo visit) H: I saw a big giraffe M: Yes, what was the giraffe doing? H: Eating /d/ leaves M: What about the little giraffe? Remember what he did? H: Go peepbo M: Yes, he was looking out of the door, wasn't he? (2; 2; 24)14 Two days later, on seeing a picture of a giraffe in one of his books, Hal repeated this text, saying: That's giraffe. I saw a big giraffe. Big giraffe eating / 9 / leaves; little giraffe go peepbo round / 9 / door. Examples such as this suggt

that while storying is essentially a monologic mode in our culture, it is learned first in forms of co-operative dialogue (see Halliday 1975: 112 for a further example of dialogue transformed into monologue). Storying is not the only monologic skill that depends on prior scaffolding in dialogue. Another example, offered by the study of Stephen, is that of reasoning by formulating complex questions using a conditional sequence. In his fourth year, Stephen's consciousness of the contradictions in his observed and his linguistic experience led to puzzlement and attempts to achieve resolution through talk. Typically he would offer a fact for verification and then challenge the adult's response in the light of contradictory information. The following exchanges exemplify. Example 7 (a) (watching a dancing skeleton on TV) S: What's that? M: Skeleton S: Then why does it move? (3;0;3) (b) S: Batman and Superman are nice M: Yes, they are S: Why — then why do they punch holes through people? (3;7;5) After considerable experience of working through a logical sequence in this dialogic way, Stephen began to formulate his questions monologically as a clause complex, as in: Mummy, how can you move when something's hard insid you ? (4;3;6) or How canyou be dressed up as a ghost if there's no such thing as a g (4;3;14) or How come that bus is beating us when cars go faster than buses? (4;5;

It would seem, then, that through prior experience of negotiating information in dialogue, Stephen was eventually enabled to construct complex enquiries in which an ideational problem was formulated using a clause complex. Interpersonal experience was crucial here in developing the ideational metafunction (conditional relations), but to do this was also an advance within the textual metafunction, since it required organizing information monologically within a sentence, with the established information or observable fact as the starting point and the challenging condition at the end as New (i.e. 'information to be attended to'). Both the examples I have given of the significance of dialogue to the

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development of the textual metafunction are also cases of the furthering of ideational understanding within the interpersonal context of dialogue. One final example of the latter lies in the child's development of 'theory of mind' (Astington 1994). As mentioned earlier, it is well attested that children below about age four do not construe the contents of other people's minds and only use cognition clauses with speech role pronouns (/, you) as Subject rather than with third person forms. In Stephen's language, it was partly by enacting little games of deception with the addressee and exploring through talk their reaction, that he came to clarify the possibility of semiotic misconstruals due to misleading perceptual evidence. An example of the exploratory games of his fourth year is Example 8. Example 8

(S holds opaque plastic beaker to his lips) S: Hey you don't know (?wh.. ) I'm drinking or not when I do this! M: Are you drinking? S: (grunting sounds) M: Are you? Oh you are! S: (laughs) Yeah M: What a big glug S: You could see it, couldn't you? M: Mm S: Did you see it? M: I didn't see it, but I heard it (3;10;2) After six months or more of obsessively practising visual and verbal 'tricking' of the addressee, and engaging in talk about what 'you and I' can see, and what you or I might think or know as a result, Stephen was able to generalize these understandings, move beyond the deictic centre and construe the minds of others, as when he described his cat's reaction to a game using a brush as a prop, saying excitedly: We used a bath brush and she [ = cat] thinks - she thinks she thinks it was her own one [i.e. for grooming]. It was a toilet brush! (4;0;24).

The point is that this cognitive advance involving the understanding of an ideational domain depended on repeated dialogic explorations that focused on 'you and me' in the 'here and now' (see Painter 1996b for an extended discussion). The 'interpersonal first' principle thus encompasses not only the emotional impetus for new developments and the initial development of ideational meanings to negotiate action, but also the exploitation of dialogue as a space for using the addressee in cognitive explorations as well as becoming apprenticed into new textual and ideational possibilities. 4 Conclusion The SFL account of human language is one that gives equal status to three 'metafunctions': the interpersonal, the ideational and the textual - all of which are brought into play whenever we speak. However, when we come to consider developmental questions, or issues of change, I believe we need

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to recognize the priority of the interpersonal. I have argued in this paper that there is a principle of 'interpersonal first' which is visible in the longitudinal case studies undertaken within an SFL framework and corroborated by other developmental research. I have suggested a number of facets of this principle: in particular that developments are impelled by emotional factors; that new ideational domains are called into play first in the negotiation of interactant behaviour and in relation to emotionally hot topics; and, finally, that the co-ordination of minds within the interpersonal deictic centre of dialogue provides the site for new meanings to become visible to the child, for the initial scaffolding of monologic text and for the initial exploration of key ideational domains. There are a number of possible implications to recognizing this principle of 'interpersonal first' in language development. For example, it may perhaps have ramifications for theories about the phylogenetic origins of language. Since we know that early humans lived in co-operative social groups, it seems reasonable to suppose that affective and interpersonal needs may have driven the initial language development experience for the species, just as for the individual. More obviously, it provides a counter to arguments such as those of Chomsky (1976) and Bickerton (1990; 1995) that language is a system that is only incidentally and secondarily involved in communication. Unquestionably infants have a strong in-built impulse to explore and make sense of the world of objects and events in which they are immersed, but it is only when they are able to calibrate this with their need to engage with other persons that their semiotic life begins, and from then on many of the linguistic resources for exploring and making sense of the world are first developed with a personal and/or interpersonal orientation. It is simply not the case that we learn to represent the world and then learn to use language to communicate with. An understanding of the primacy of the interpersonal may also be important for the better design of experiments to explore children's cognitive potential and for interventions to assist language development or the development of knowledge constructed in language - in educational contexts. Here the notion of scaffolding deriving from Vygotsky's (1978) psychology, which privileges dialogue, recognizes the value of contingent modelling and takes account of the 'distributed' rather than purely intra-individual mind, is an educational trend that sits well with SFL developmental research and has been fruitfully taken up within language and literacy education (see e.g. Gibbons 2002; Hammond 2001). While educational applications of scaffolding recognize in particular the dialogic basis of learning, the importance of affective involvement as an aspect of the interpersonal first principle has perhaps been less appreciated. Of course, educators have long felt that learning is most successful when learners are enjoying themselves, but taking account of the place of affect is more complex than this. Lemke (1990) raises the issue when he talks of the total alienation of high-school students in many maths and science classrooms where there is no emotional engagement with the

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ideational domains being addressed, which is partly due to the way these domains are ideologically framed. In the humanities, however, the problem appears to be somewhat different. The representational worlds created by fiction or by the visual arts may give rise to strong emotional responses in the students, but what is called for in their critical work in art and literature is a transmuting of that response into less interpersonal forms of expression - by appraising in terms of 'appreciation' (i.e. field specific dimensions of evaluation recognized in the culture) rather than simple encodings of affect (see Stenglin 1996; Rothery and Stenglin 2000). In the humanities, then, the issue is to harness the students' affective involvement and effect the move into ideational construals of affectual appraisal itself. While an account of language development drawing on the spontaneous utterances of children engaged in everyday conversation does not of itself resolve difficult issues in theorizing language and educational practice, it does alert us to factors that should be taken into account. In this paper, I have elaborated the idea that one such factor is the understanding that the trajectory of language development is in various ways driven by the making of interpersonal meaning. Language in use draws on all three metafunctional resources: the interpersonal, the ideational and the textual, but in the gradual building of that multifunctional potential, it is the interpersonal that leads the way. It is charged personal response, the power-play of interpersonal negotiation and the exploitation of dialogic construals of meaning that move the child's language into new territory. Notes 1 As indeed Halliday originally argued (see e.g. Halliday 1978: 48, 112). 2 Often referred to in the literature as 'phonetically consistent forms' (see Blake 2000). 3 For example, sometimes glossable as 'Where's my puss?', sometimes as 'There's a cat', sometimes as 'I remember seeing a cat', sometimes as 'Let's pretend this is a cat', and so on. 4 A single unit, not a structure combining adjective and noun. 5 A three-level ('tri-stratal') system because in addition to the strata of semantics (meaning) and phonology (expression) there is a level of lexicogrammar that interfaces with each. 6 This itself is a very important step in language development, since it allows for explicit reflection about meanings (e.g. Parrots can talk, can't they? or Are seals dolphins?), without the talk being tied to actual specific occasions of observation or recall (see Painter 1996a). 7 You = I/me in Nigel's speech here. 8 A paratactic relation between clauses obtains where each clause has equal status rather than one being 'dependent' on the other (see Halliday 1994: 218ff.). 9 'Projection' is Halliday's (1994: 219) term for the relation between a

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primary clause of speaking or thinking and the secondary clause of quoted or reported speech/thought. 10 This becomes clear when we consider an example like the following: S: Do you know what scruffy means? M: Means all scruffy and dirty and S: No, don't tell, /tell, 'cause - cause it's a word that you don't say; me say (3;6;0) 11 An example of nominalization, or ideational grammatical metaphor, is when a meaning which is most congruently realized as a clause or clause complex is construed instead as a noun or as nouns in a relation. For example, a nominalized version of the two clauses: if you eat thes mushrooms, you will vomit, might be: ingestion of these mushrooms leads

nausea, where the actions of eating and vomiting are the nouns ingestio and nausea. 12 The textual metafunction is 'the resource for creating discourse' (Halliday 1993: 107). Unlike the other two 'extrinsic' metafunctions, it is 'intrinsic' to language, because it is necessarily brought into being as a means of making operational the other two metafunctions. For exemplification of textual choices, see note 14 following Example 6. 13 A term, drawing on ideas of Vygotsky (1978) and popularized by Jerome Bruner, who explains that the mother 'reduces the degrees of freedom with which the child has to cope, concentrates his attention into a manageable domain, and provides models of the expected dialogue from which he can extract selectively what he needs for filling his role in discourse' (1978: 254). 14 The textual metafunction is manifested in this text through choices such as the appropriate placement of intonational stress to mark Given vs. New information (e.g. placing stress on little rather than giraffe in the la clause), the ordering of information within clauses (e.g. Little giraffe go . rather than Round the door, little giraffe go...) and ordering from one cl to another (e.g. implicit temporal relations here), cohesion achieved by lexical choices (e.g. big, little and repetitions of giraffe), and so on. References: AstingtonJ., 1994. The Child's Conception of the Mind. London: Fontana. Bates E., 1979. The Emergence of Symbols: Cognition and Communication i

Infancy, with the collaboration of L. Benigni, I. Bretherton [et al.]. Ne York: Academic Press. Bates E., Camaioni L. and Volterra V., 1975. 'The acquisition of performatives prior to speech', Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 21, 3, pp. 205-26. Bickerton D., 1990. Language and Species. Chicago: University of Chica Press. Bickerton D., 1995. Language and Human Behaviour. Washington: University of Washington Press.

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Blake J., 2000. Routes to Child Language: Evolutionary and Developmental Precursors. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. BrunerJ.S., 1978. 'The role of dialogue in language acquisition', in The Child's Conception of Language, eds A. Sinclair, R. Jarvella and W.M.J. Levelt. New York: Springer-Verlag. Carter A., 1978. 'From sensori-motor morphemes to words: a case study of the evolution of attention-directing communication in the second year', in Action, Gesture and Symbol: The Emergence of Language, ed. A. Lock. N York: Academic Press. Chomsky N., 1976. Reflections on Language. London: Temple Smith in association with Fontana Books. Cross T.G., 1977. 'Mothers' speech adjustments: the contribution of selected child listener variables', in Talking to Children: Language Input and Acquisition, eds C.E. Snow and C.A. Ferguson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DoreJ., Franklin M.B., Miller R.T. and Ramer A.L.H., 1976. 'Transitional phenomena in early language acquisition', Journal of Child Language, 3, pp. 13-28. Field T.M. and Fox N.A., 1985. Social Perception in Infants. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Garton A., 1992. Social Interaction and the Development of Language and Cognition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Gibbons P., 2002. Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning: Working with ESL Children in the Elementary Mainstream Classroom. Portsmouth, N Heinemann. Greenfield P.M. and Smith J.H., 1976. The Structure of Communication in Early Language Development. New York: Academic Press. Halliday M.A.K., 1975. Learning How to Mean: Explorations in the Developmen of Language. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday M.A.K., 1978. Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation Language and Meaning. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday M.A.K., 1984. Listening to Nigel: conversations with a very small ch Sydney: University of Sydney. Mimeo. Halliday M.A.K., 1993. 'Towards a language based theory of learning', Linguistics and Education, 5, pp. 93-116. Halliday M.A.K., 1994. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. 2nd edition London: Edward Arnold. Hammond J., ed. 2001. Scaffolding: Teaching and Learning in Language and Literacy Education. Newtown: Primary English Teaching Association. Howe C , 1981. Acquiring Language in a Conversational Context. New York: Academic Press. Kaye K., 1982. The Mental and Social Life of Babies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kaye K. and Fogel A., 1980. 'The temporal structure of face-to-face communication between mothers and infants', Developmental Psycholog 16, pp. 454-64.

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Lemke J., 1990. Talking Science: Language, Learning and Values. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Locke J.L., 1993. The Child's Path to Spoken Language. Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press. Matthiessen C, 1991. 'Language on language', Social Semiotics, 1, pp. 69-111. McCabe A., Evely S., Abramovitch R., Corter C. and Pepler D., 1983. 'Conditional statements in young children's spontaneous speech', Journal of Child Language, 10, pp. 253-8.

McShaneJ., 1980. Learning to Talk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres Menn L., 1978. Pattern, Control and Contrast in Beginning Speech.

Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Linguistics Club. Murray L. and Trevarthen C, 1985. 'Emotional regulation of interactions between two-month-olds and their mothers', in Social Perception Infants, eds T.M. Field and N.A. Fox. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Nadel J. and Camaioni L., 1993. New Perspectives in Early Communicative

Development. London and New York: Routledge. Nelson K., Carskaddon G. and Bonvillian J. D., 1973. 'Syntax acquisition: impact of experimental variation in adult verbal interaction with the child', Child Development, 44, pp. 497-504. Newson J., 1978. 'Dialogue and development', in Action, Gesture and Syl, ed. A. Lock. London: Academic Press. Ninio A. and Bruner J.S., 1978. 'The achievement and antecedents of labelling', Journal of Child Language, 5, pp. 1-16. Painter C, 1984. Into the Mother Tongue: A Case Study in Early Lane Development. London: Frances Pinter. Painter C., 1986. 'The role of interaction in learning to speak and learning to write', in Writing to Mean: Teaching Genres Across the Curriculum, eds .

Painter and J.R. Martin. Melbourne: Applied Linguistics Association of Australia (ALAA Occasional Papers Number 9). Painter C, 1990. Learning the Mother Tongue. 2nd edition. Geelong: Dea University Press. Painter C, 1996a. 'The development of language as a resource for thinking', in Literacy in Society, eds R. Hasan and G. Williams. Lond and New York: Longman. Painter C, 1996b. 'Learning about learning: construing semiosis in the pre-school years', Functions of Language, 3, 1, pp. 95-125. Painter C , 1999. Learning through Language in Early Childhood. London:

Cassell (Continuum 2000). Painter C, 2003. 'Developing attitude: an ontogenetic perspective on APPRAISAL', Text, 23, 2, pp. 183-209. Rogoff B., 1990. Apprenticeship in Thinking: Cognitive Development in Social

Context. New York: Oxford University Press. Rothery J. and Stenglin M., 2000. 'Interpreting literature: the role of APPRAISAL',

in Researching Language in Schools and Communities, ed. L.

Unsworth. London: Cassell.

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Shatz M., Wellman H.M. and Silber S., 1983. 'The acquisition of mental verbs: a systematic investigation of the first reference to mental state', Cognition, 14, pp. 301-21. Snow C.E., 1983. 'Saying it again: the role of expanded and deferred imitations on language acquisition', in Children's Language, Vol. 4, ed. Nelson. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Stenglin M., 1996. Unpacking the Interpersonal Demands of Literary Cr MA Dissertation, Macquarie University. Stern D., Hofer L., Haft W. and Dore J., 1985. 'Affect atunement: the sharing of feeling states between mother and infant by means of intermodal fluency', in Social Perception in Infants, eds T.M. Field and N Fox. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Strapp CM. and Federico A., 2000. 'Imitations and repetitions: what do children say following recasts?', First Language, 20, 3, pp. 273-90. Tomasello M., 1988. 'The role of joint attentional processes in early language development', Language Sciences, 10, 1, pp. 69-88. Torr J., 1997. From Child Tongue to Mother Tongue: a Case Study of La Development in thef Frst Two and a Half Years. Nottingham: Universi Nottingham Department of English Studies, Monographs in Systc Linguistics 9. Trevarthen C, 1979. 'Communication and co-operation in early infancy: a description of primary intersubjectivity', in Before Speech, ed. M. Bullo Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Trevarthen C, 1980. 'The foundations of intersubjectivity: development of interpersonal and cooperative understanding in infants', in The Social Foundations of Language and Thought, ed. D. Olson. New York: Norton. Trevarthen C, 1987. 'Sharing makes sense: intersubjectivity and the making of an infant's meaning', in Language Topics: Essays in Hono Michael Halliday, eds R. Steele and T. Threadgold. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Trevarthen C, 1993. 'The function of emotions in early infant communication and development', in Neiv Perspectives in Early Communic Development, eds J. Nadel and L. Camaioni. London: Routledge. Trevarthen C, 1998. 'The concept and foundations of infant intersubjectivity', in Intersubjective Communication and Emotion in Early Ontog S. Braten. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vygotsky L.S., 1978. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psycho Processes, eds M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner and E. Souberm Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wells C.G. and Robinson W.P., 1982. 'The role of adult speech in language development', in Advances in the Social Psychology of Language, e Fraser and K.R. Scherer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

7 The World in Words: Semiotic Mediation, Tenor and Ideology Ruqaiya Hasan

1 Introduction

It has been customary to talk about children's language development by focusing on children - asking what words and structures they can produce or comprehend at any particular stage of their biological development. If adults are mentioned, this is typically in relation to what specific realization of some linguistic elements they model for the young learners:1 the mastery of language as an autonomous system is what language development has largely been about. A significant advance took place when, in his case study of one child's language development, Halliday (1969, 1973, 1974, 1975) ignored the exclusive preoccupation with linguistic form, focused on the functions of language in children's life, and demonstrated the critical contribution of social interaction to their language development. But while Halliday and colleagues replicating his research (e.g. Painter 1984; Torr 1997)2 have emphasized the importance of children's meaning group (Halliday 1975), the dominant focus of research, even here, has remained on what the children said when, where and how, rather than on the significance of the sayings of the adults with whom the children interact.3 These comments are not intended as a critique but as a brief account of the state of the art. Focus on the speaking subject's language is, after all, the central concern in the study of language development. Nonetheless, it is well to remember that speakers do not speak just because they happen to have language. Saying is activated by speakers' perception of their social context, which implies the development of a near automatized mode of engaging with the socially fashioned universe. Underlying the spoken words are speakers' evaluations, beliefs, desires and intentions: their consciousness and social identity is intimately implicated in their acts of meaning. The development of language and social identity are not two separate processes: they are, in fact, deeply intertwined, each responding to the changing state of the other. This suggests a multiplicity of facets in

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learning how to mean, and Halliday (1980) has identified three of these facets as learning language, learning through language and learning about language.

The aim of this paper is to highlight the most fundamental kind of learning children do through language, and the systematic variation in what they learn correlating with their location in typical modern societies (Cloran 1994, 1999a, 2000; Hasan 1989, 1992a, 1992b; Williams 1995, 1999, 2001). Related to this is a subsidiary aim: to briefly identify the areas where systemic functional linguistics (SFL) needs to develop in order to account for these patterns of variability. Attention to such learning is important because it contributes to the formation of mental dispositions, likely to colour every social action that children will participate in for a substantial part of their growing years and, sometimes, perhaps, throughout their life. I will examine some adult-child casual conversations as this constitutes the major site for such learning. In their sayings, adults model more than words, structures and pronunciation; in fact, they define, at least initially, the child's world, giving it the power of 'reality' and the attraction of new possibilities. This defined world is fashioned in the image of the adult world, a necessary requirement for acculturation. In the literature on language development, children are treated as 'culturally neutral', but cultural neutrality is a brief episode in their life: they very soon become 'culturally specific'. The development of their consciousness begins with the internalization of the world they live in - a process initiated in early infancy (Bateson 1975; Brazelton et al. 1974; Halliday 1973, 1975; Reddy et al. 1997; Trevarthen 1974). Reality is kaleidoscopic, and different representations of the world are construed by persons in different social locations (Bernstein 2000). In this construal, all semiotic modalities are active; language, however, plays a crucial role and, in a very important sense, the world of young children is in the words they encounter in early life. 2 On learning through language: the meaning of semiotic mediation The usefulness of language in learning is hardly ever questioned, but in most approaches to cognition/mental development, the idea of language itself tends to be somewhat questionable. Language is assigned a passive role by being treated as a relay system for individual's thoughts and experiences, as if thoughts exist and experience takes shape independently of language. Rejecting this approach, I adopt the SFL perspective, where language has the active power of construing experience through meaning (Halliday and Matthiessen 1999), and so, of playing a crucial role in the formation of consciousness. This perspective was eloquently argued by Vygotsky (1962, 1978) in his powerful theory of the role of semiotic mediation in the development of 'higher mental functions'.4 The term 'semiotic' obviously encompasses all modalities for meaning, though in his own investigation, Vygotsky singled out language as the most important

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modality in the making of human mind. In this paper, I use 'semiotic mediation' to mean 'semiotic mediation by means of the modality of language'. Language is singled out as the most relevant modality for three reasons: 1 It is in keeping with the dominant Vygotskian practice. 2 Theories of the co-genesis of language and human mind (Boncinelli 2001; Deacon 1997; Greenfield 1997;) provide evidence for the crucial role of language in the development of mind. 3 The aim of this paper is to foreground what children learn by engaging in discourse with adults. Whatever the contribution of the other modalities to discourse, language has to be viewed as the most indispensable in this context, thus making semiotic mediation by means of language central to the concerns of this paper. The semiotic activity of discourse mediates meaning and Vygotsky (1978) convincingly argued the essential connection between linguistic meaning and mental development as, for example, in his discussion of concept formation. This Vygotskian theme resonates well with Halliday's expression 'learning through language'. If the mediation of meaning is the basis for the internalization of concepts, and if meaning is mediated wherever the cultural practice of discourse occurs, it follows that discourse of any order is a site for the semiotic mediation of culturally based mental activity: the question is simply what it is that might be mediated in different kinds of discourses. This interpretation gives the concept of semiotic mediation a breathtaking scope (Hasan 2002a), covering both mundane knowledge mediated in language use in everyday life and esoteric knowledge, mediated typically in specialized discourses of official pedagogy. But in the writings of Vygotsky and his colleagues, as well as in contemporary discussions and applications of the theory, the scope of semiotic mediation has been restricted: it is treated typically as active only in mental activities specifically relevant to official pedagogic practices5 - a limited interpretation, not free of problems (Hasan 1992c, 1995, 2002a). If semiotic mediation is instrumental in the development of mental functions as Vygotsky claimed, then, being based in discourse, it cannot be specialized to the construal of educational knowledge alone: it construes other kinds of knowledge as well. Significantly, the arguments for rejecting the dominant interpretation of semiotic mediation are implied in Vygotsky's own writings. He recognizes two general categories of mental function: 'elementary', rooted in the biogenetic line of development, and 'higher', based in the social line of development, i.e., 'sociogenetic', which are logically semiotically mediated. Sociogenetic/higher mental activity 'breaks away from biological development and creates new forms of culturally based psychological processes' (Vygotsky 1978: 40; emphasis mine, RH). But, clearly, culturally based psychological processes are not limited to mediating only technical/scientific concepts, or 'logical' thinking as in solving syllogistic

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puzzles - tests that Lima's Uzbeki subjects failed (Luria 1976). The primary function of semiotic mediation in the life of young humans is to enable the internalization of cultural designs essential to everyday living (Hasan 2002a). They must learn to recognize ways of being, doing and saying prevalent in their meaning group, so as to act and to anticipate others' actions and reactions, something without which the easy automatized flow of everyday life cannot be maintained. The primary achievement of semiotic mediation - both chronologically and logically - is the construal of such mundane knowledge, which is without doubt sociogenetic. It is irrelevant that educational systems either ignore such knowledge or render it unrecognizable through exotic theorization. What matters is that (i) mundane knowledge is sociogenetic; (ii) so has to be semiotically mediated; and (iii) involves culturally based higher mental functioning (Hasan 1992c). Wertsch (1985:25) cites four distinguishing criteria of higher mental functions, derived from Vygotsky's writing: 1 shift of control from environment to the individual, that is emergence of voluntary regulation; 2 the emergence of conscious realization of mental process; 3 (the social origins and the social nature of higher mental functions); and 4 (the use of sign to mediate ... [them]).

Clearly, mundane knowledge does possess the last two characteristics: its nature and origin are unquestionably social, and it is semiotically mediated. Turning to the first two, since our daily life is not a series of random events, the mental activities for bringing them about must involve the emergence of voluntary regulation; and while their 'conscious realization' would require some effort, this is hardly different from many specialized activities, such as multiplication, spelling, or even concept definition. From this point of view, Luria's Uzbeki subjects were just as capable of higher mental functions as the hypothetical schoolboy in Vygotsky's examples. The difference was not that the Uzbeki peasant was stuck at the biogenetically based elementary mental functioning, while the schoolboy had moved on to the sociogentic, i.e., culturally based higher mental functions; what differentiated them is the kind of cultural knowledge they had experienced, internalized and considered relevant, as Luria rightly pointed out - given their life experience, they had developed different 'habits of the mind', different forms of consciousness. It is important to dissociate the process of semiotic mediation as such from that which it mediates: just as it is important to dissociate the valuation of different categories of knowledge from the objective basis for the categorization of knowledge itself. There may or may not be good reasons for attaching high value to cognitive functions such as the formation of technical concepts, logical thinking, problem solving, inferential reasoning and other such activities highly prized in the world of academic knowledge. However, this cannot be taken as the sum total of higher consciousness, although this is how the cognitive sciences

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conceptualize 'cognition'. By consciousness/mental disposition I mean nothing less in this paper than 'mind' as Greenfield (1997) defines it - a 'personalized brain' whose unique character in each individual is fashioned by their unique experience of living. Since experience of living forms the basis of common-sense knowledge, the beginnings of the internalization of such knowledge would offer the primary manifestations of the development of a child's mind.6 Bernstein (e.g. 1971, 2000) argued that the inclination to learn exotic, disembedded knowledge presupposes a sense of its relevance on the learners' part: to succeed in this enterprise they must have already acquired a favourable mental disposition, which itself is fashioned in the experience of everyday life (Hasan 2001b, 2002a, 2002b). This is not to claim that specialized, uncommon-sense knowledge is irrelevant to mental development: simply that it is secondary in terms of the child's history, and thus contingent on the already established mental disposition. Cognitive studies claim to be concerned with mental development, but judge 'cognition' by the mastery of secondary, specialized knowledge, which is just one aspect of human mind. Ironically, despite its narrower focus, cognition has, metaphorically speaking, hijacked the study of consciousness/mind, so that discussions of mental development turn into studies of the mastery of esoteric knowledge, witness much of neo-Vygotskian literature. Even the term 'learning' has become largely synonymous with the mastery of elements of educational knowledge. In fact, it is almost impossible to discuss any other kind of internalization as an act of conceptualization, or of mental development. 3 Naturally occurring discourse and semiotic mediation

The revival of Vygotskian perspectives on mental development has foregrounded the role of the social in making human minds. The cultural basis of semiotic mediation suggests that while an individual's mind is his/her own 'personalized brain', the process of personalization entails interpersonal relations: as Vygotsky (1978: 57) pointed out, in the development of higher mental functions 'an interpersonal process is transformed into an intrapersonal one'. The definition of self is forged in interaction with others. The crucial part played in this process by semiotic mediation is most clearly manifested in unself-conscious discourse: it is here that interpersonal relations are semiotically created, maintained and changed. The situation is inherently complex: discourse is necessary for semiotic mediation to occur, but semiotic mediation is necessary for the formation of interpersonal relations which, in their turn, crucially influence the course of the development of interaction, thus affecting the outcome of the ongoing semiotic mediation. This is most evident in discourse with young children, still apprentices to their culture. Young children tend mostly to talk with adults: the younger the child, the truer this observation, and in the nature of things, the adults tend to be some kind of caregiver -

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a role still typically assigned to mothers. Thus naturally occurring, everyday talk between mothers and children offers a rich resource for studying the semiotic mediation of emerging minds and personalities. Around 100 hours of everyday talk between mothers and children was audio-recorded for research7 in semantic variation (Hasan 1989, 1992a). The subjects were differentiated into two social groups by reference to their ability to exercise power. The indices used to determine this were derived from autonomy at workplace, e.g. having the power to make autonomous decisions and to control others to execute those decisions, in order to change the work environment materially and/or professionally. The greater such power, the higher the autonomy of the professional. Two social groups were recognized: higher autonomy profession (HAP) families, and lower autonomy profession (LAP). Each group was represented in the research by 12 mother-child dyads. The mean age of the children was 3;8 yrs, six of whom in each group were male and six female. To maintain the natural quality of discourse, the audio-recording was done by the mothers themselves; no outsiders were present. Mothers were informed that the aim of recording was to find out what such young children talk about in everyday life when no one is requiring them to, as in an interview. They were requested not to do anything special to make the children talk, but simply to record their discourse with the child when this occurred naturally in the course of their daily life. We also requested them to vary the time of the recording to capture the routines of the day. On average each mother produced approximately five hours of (real time) recording. For each dyad the talk was embedded within the wider context of three types of material action: mother giving care, e.g. bathing, organizing meals etc; co-operative activity involving both, e.g. playing games, tidying up, etc.; and mother busy, with child present in the location. A sample of over 22,000 messages equally distributed across the three activities for the 24 dyads was subjected to an intensive analysis in terms of semantic system networks designed by Hasan (1983), with each message analysed for up to 70 semantic variables. The results of this analysis were subjected to Principal Components Analysis (PCA), two of which will be discussed below.8 In general terms, the relevant context of this mother-child discourse is obvious from the above comments: the tenor (social relation) is that of mother as acculturated adult and child as cultural novice, both on familiar terms; the mode (of contact) was materially face-to-face, and semiotically through spoken language. The mother-child discourses occurred in the contexts of everyday life which, given the interactant relation, involved caregiving activities as pointed out above. Interestingly, while the general nature of these everyday contexts remained the same, the actual practices varied systematically across the two different groups. 4 The potential of everyday talk: indications from mother-child dialogues

Many human activities are, in principle, capable of being undertaken

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without the intervention of talk. However, in practice, material action, i.e., physically carried out action, and verbal action, i.e., language use, often cooccur. The specific configuration of these two kinds of human actions is significant to the character of on-going talk. Sometimes the verbal action is ancillary to the material action; sometimes it has nothing much to do with it, but is, instead, constitutive of an entirely different activity: the latter activity can, thus, run alongside the material action without significantly affecting its course.9 Many of the activities of giving care to children can be conducted, at least partially, without the assistance of language, thus creating a site where constitutive verbal action becomes possible: while getting the child a snack or dressing him or her to go out, a mother can talk of almost anything depending on her disposition. Certainly there are some restrictions on what can be talked about, e.g. the child's age and the mothers' preoccupations with the material action, but the most decisive factor in determining the character of the discourse appears to be the mothers' mental disposition. What she talks of and how she manages her discourse - i.e., the classification and framing of discourse (Bernstein 1996) - has a flow-on effect on the kind of knowledge semiotically mediated. Here are two extracts from the data.10 Extract 1 01 Mother: 02 Stephen: 03 04 Mother: 05 06 Stephen:

07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Mother:

17

Mother: Stephen: Mother:

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Stephen: Mother: Stephen: Mother: Stephen:

Stephen: Mother:

Stephen:

now Stephen, do you want a sandwich for lunch? yes and some passionfruit and some passionfruit where is the passionfruit? um . . . um the passionfruit is urn . . . um [?] do you know where the passionfruit is? no you were walking around with it what did you do with it? I don't remember is it on the table? let me see . . . it's under the table under the table! yes . . . here it is ok . . . right... peanut butter sandwich? yeah . . . you go to the table and I'll bring it in . . . there aren't many passionfruit out there at the moment why? because . . . passionfruit usually come when it's warm here, you sit here in Nana's seat **why -

THE WORLD IN WORDS Hasan

27 28 29 30 31

Mother: Stephen: Mother:

Extract 2 32 Mother: Karen: 33 Mother: 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

Karen: Mother: Karen: Mother: Karen: Mother: Karen: Mother:

Karen: Mother:

**rn put-

why does Nana like to sit here? I'll put oh it's easy for her to get up if she's sitting there . . . come on, eat your tea please . . . could you put some more in there? . . . [WARNINGLY] Karen! . . . give me it eat your tea [?] mm?

[?put] lemon in it well, eat some tea or you don't get nothing I see how many [? ] there are [TALKS TO HERSELF AS MOTHER POURS DRINK] quick . . . want the lid on it? no

come on, eat your tea less drink and more e a t . . . did you hear what I said Karen? mm

well, do it

[30 messages left out at this point] 81 82 83 84 85 86

87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96

97

Karen: Mother: Karen: Mother: Karen: Mother: Karen: Mother: Karen: Mother: Karen: Mother: Karen: Mother:

165

mummy that haven't got no sauce on it oh you've got plenty of sauce there now now eat it on here oh there's plenty of sauce on your plate Karen you don't need it on every single drop of tea eh?

you don't need it on every little bit [? of tea]? mm

is that [?tea]? that's sauce mm hot sauce no, mint sauce mince? . . . why do you put mince sauce on here for? 'mint' not 'mince'

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98 Karen: 99 100 Mother:

mint this mint? use your spoon or your fork11

Extract 1 begins with ancillary verbal action (1-20): language is used here to assist the material action of getting Stephen's lunch organized. But the mother's verbal action becomes informing as she chats with Stephen (21-31); this informative episode12 presents Stephen the possibility learning about 'passionfruit season' (21-4) and the 'logic in Nana's preference' for a particular chair (26-31). An informative episode is const by constitutive verbal action which offers the addressee the potential of internalizing some element(s) of knowledge, irrespective of the domain to which the knowledge

belongs. In Extract 1, the knowledge pertains to everyday living and appea in sharp contrast to classroom discourse, especially if compared with 'presentation' lessons, which introduce to pupils some concept from specialized domains of knowledge, supposedly for the first time (Butt 2000). However, the boundary between the two categories of knowledge is permeable, as Extract 3 shows: Extract 3 1 Mother: 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Stephen: Mother:

when you plant seeds from mandarins or oranges sometimes you get very strange fruit or sometimes you don't get much fruit at all so you have to plant a tree that's been grafted - that's been stuck on they're special trees that they make by sticking one tree to another tree how do they stick it? well, I think they cut it in a special way they cut them in a special way and they put them together and then they bound stuff around the outside to hold them together till they grow together ... they eventually grow together the same way as when - . . . if you cut yourself the skin grows together again, doesn't it? the two pieces of skin grow together again well, the tree - the two bits of the tree grow back too

Like official pedagogic discourse, informative episodes in everyday talk give information in an explicit way. In other words, the semiotic mediation is explicit in both cases (Hasan 2002a): where at least one of the participants i conscious of the concepts being presented. Further, the information in such episodes is not tied to any immediate practical goal. The latter feature draws them closer to official pedagogic discourse which foregrounds decontextualiz language (Bernstein 1971; Cloran 1994). However, in everyday discours

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decontextualization is often tempered by relating the information to the child's direct experience (Hasan 2001b, 2002a) as in Extract 3, where the mother relates the process of grafting to Stephen's physical experience so as to make it intelligible for him (15-18). But for this, Extract 3 could easily have been (mis) taken as a 'lesson' for young learners on an aspect of horticulture. The episode here is also fairly 'sustained', with 'grafting' elaborated at some length. The quality of sustaining a topic is essential to official pedagogy; however, in local pedagogy the construal of knowledge is fragmented, and the sustaining of topic occurs selectively, as illustrated by Extract 2. The general context for this extract is the same as in Extract 1, though the mother's repeated injunctions indicate that the meal is well past the preparation stage. Of their mother's 24 messages, 12 here directly instruct Karen to 'eat her tea'; seven control Karen's eating in other ways; two are paralinguistic; only the three messages in Column 3 (see Table 7.1) may be said to act as a (minimal) informative episode. It might be thought that in this dialogue there was no opening for engaging in chat; but such openings are often made - one seizes the moment, the stray word, and takes off from there. For example, much could have been made of Karen's puzzlement: is that [?tea]f (91), but Karen's mother simply says that's sauce (92). This certainly gives information which identifies an object, and though the object is present in the context, the identification goes beyond the moment, as does the more specific information in her further corrective comments no, mint sauce (94) and 'mint', not 'mince' (97). Establishing connection with the context is typical to the initiation of decontextualized discourse in maternal talk: by Table 7.1 One mother's construal of mealtime context Eat your tea

Further points of control

Informative episode

come on, eat your tea please (32) Karen, give me it, eat your tea (34-6) well, eat some tea, or you don't get nothing (40-1) come on, eat your tea, less drink, and more tea, did you hear what I said (46-9) well, do it (51) now eat it (83)

mm (38) that's sauce (92) quick! Want the lid on no, mint sauce (94) it? (43-4) 'mint', not 'mince' (97) oh, you've got plenty of sauce there now (82) oh, there's plenty of sauce on your plate, Karen; you don't need it on every single drop of tea (85-6) you don't need it on every little bit (88) mm (90) use your spoon or your fork (100)

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making use of generalizations and explanations, mothers provide information which transcends time, but the topic itself invariably arises from something right there in the immediate situation (Hasan 2001b). However, the informative episode in Extract 2 is not sustained: in fact, it could hardly be more minimal. While it offers the possibility of internalizing some knowledge, the knowledge consists of a category label. This minimal informative episode in the talk (91-100) presents at least three occasions for sustained informing action, as is clear from Karen's puzzled questions. If Karen's mother does not make use of this possibility, it is because her view of 'what goes' in this context renders such verbal action irrelevant. The analysis of her discourse with her child elsewhere shows that she habitually maintains strong classification of contextual boundaries: for her, mealtimes are for eating meals, bathtimes are for bathing (Hasan 1992a), and bedtimes for being in bed, not for doing anything else (Hasan 1992b). By contrast, Stephen's mother's classification of context is considerably weaker. Far from a random phenomenon, this difference between the two mothers is indicative of an orderly variation. Cloran (1994, 1999a) found that LAP mothers were relatively less likely to sustain topics long enough to allow explicit construal of concept(s); those from the HAP group were more likely to do so. The implication is that children in this latter social location will have participated in discourses that are much closer to the official instructional discourse. One might be tempted to conclude that the difference between the two groups of children lies in what they know, i.e., the content of their knowledge. At one level this is true. At a deeper level, though, more crucial differences are being mediated: in experiencing different fashions of speaking (Whorf 1956), the two groups will form different mental habits, different orders of relevance and, in the end, through these ways of saying and meaning, different conceptions of their own identities will have been mediated. To substantiate this large claim, I will examine some other patterns in child-adult discourse. These patterns are made up of semantic features, each of which by itself might appear quite insignificant, but in combination with others they become powerful indicators of habitual ways of meaning. These ways of meaning mediate more than 'meets the ear'. Extract 4 1 Karen: 2 3 Mother: 4 5 6 Karen: 7 Mother:

how did you get that?** you didn't get out of [?] I walked over and got it didn't you see me? nup you must be blind

Extract 5 1 Mother: 2

d'you love daddy? ... d'you love daddy?

T H E W O R L D IN W O R D S

3 4 5 6 7

Julian: Mother: Julian: Mother:

8 9 10 11

Mother: Julian: Mother: Julian:

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169

mm [= AFFIRMATIVE] d'you love Rosemary? no why don't you love Rosemary? [JULIAN LAUGHS] why don't you love Rosemary? [JULIAN CONTINUES TO LAUGH] you're a [?rat-bag] [REALIZES CHILD WAS TEASING] I do [?] who else do you want me to love?

In Extract 4, the mother's question didn't you see me? (5) is realized b negative interrogative; and this is a pretty obvious fact. Such questions have the semantic feature [assumptive] and questions with this attribute typical imply the speaker already knows what the answer should be. Here, the assumed answer is something like yes I saw you go out. Failing to give t answer Karen is told you must be blind (7), implying otherwise you would hav

seen me go out. It might appear to be too subtle an interpretation for a sm child. But Extract 5 presents evidence to the contrary, for here Julian's who else do you want me to love? (11) may be understood as: / infer from your question that you believe I should love Rosemary; so I wonder who else you thi

ought to love, which shows that Julian had got the point of why don't you Rosemary (6, 7). So, the habitual use of [assumptive] questions implies belief that the enquirer knows the addressee's mental map - what the addressee should be able to see or hear, how they should react to persons, objects and events, what they should know or believe to be the case. A presupposition exists of close resemblance between the speaker's and addressee's mental life. Since, in this view, the other's mind is an open book, the need to 'reach the other' verbally is less urgent: under these conditions, verbal communication may appear less relevant. Contrast this feature with the semantic feature [prefaced]: the two are diametrical opposed. Extract 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

6 Mother: Kristy: Mother: Kristy: Mother: Kristy: Mother:

can you try and remind me to ring Pam this afternoon? mm [= YES] why? I'm going to ask her if she'll mind you one night next week mm 'cause I'm going out to dinner with some of the ladies from the playgroup because Sue is leaving pardon?** pardon? I'm going out with some of the ladies because Sue is leaving

170 12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

27 28 29 30

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE Kristy: Mother: Kristy: Mother: Kristy: Mother:

Kristy: Mother: Kristy: Mother: Kristy: Mother

mm did you know that they are going to leave? no they've been building a house mm oh they haven't been building it somebody else has been building it for them and it's nearly finished and they're going to move to their house in May why in May? they're going to wait until the end of the school term mm because Cathy goes to school now and then she will change to her new school after **the holidays **mm if they'd moved earlier she'd only go to the new school for a week or two and then they'd have holidays you see it would mess it up a bit for her

The mother's question did you know that they are going to leave? (13) ha

the semantic feature [prefaced], realized by a variety of projected interrog ative. This question differs importantly from are they going to leave? latter asks about the state of the world - is something about to happen in it or not; the former asks about the addressee's state of knowledge — do yo or don't you know something. {Prefaced] questions clearly imply th unlike the asker of the [assumptive] question, the speaker here does no assume knowledge of the addressee's mental map. The habitual use of the feature [prefaced] carries the implication that individual participants a unique: their sensations, reactions, knowledge or belief cannot be taken for granted. There is little or no assumption of similarity in the mental life of the interactants. Logically, then, such speakers would be quite unlikely to ask [assumptive] questions. It is in this sense that these two semant features are diametrically opposed. But there is more to this story. Semiotic action is extraordinarily complex, and particularly so at the level of meaning, because most semantic features carry an intricate web of presuppositions and implications. The interpretation of utterances consists in 'reading' the meanings that are explicitly construed, as well as inferring the implied ones. I use the features [prefaced] and [assumptive] to deve this observation. A necessary presupposition for smooth and continued semiotic interaction, e.g., everyday talk, is the existence of shared knowledge between the interactants. With the habitual use of [assumptive], the source of suc knowledge is expected to lie in resembling selves; by contrast, the negation of this expectation is a condition for the habitual use of [prefaced]. Th poses a problem: how to counteract the absence of shared knowledge? One

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possible solution is to make sayings such that they render the required information accessible. These contextual pressures, which arise from the speakers' conception of their social relation to the other, activate the choice of linguistic devices for elaboration. One such device is the semantic feature [related]. Messages with the feature [related] amplify the meaning of the message (s) to which they are related by making them more precise or by developing some aspect of their meaning. A good example is the mother's answer to Kristy's why in May? (21). It begins with they're going to wait until the end of the school term (22). She could have stopped there, but she goes on to produce six more [related] messages (24-5, 27-30), which develop the first message in her answer to make explicit the reasoning that supports Cathy's parents' decision to leave in May at the end of the school term (22). Further, if verbal communication is viewed as essential to meaning sharing, this calls for attention to other's sayings. In the present context, this means not ignoring questions, but being [responsive] to them, and providing [adequate] answers by addressing the question's query point. So the habitual use of the semantic feature [prefaced] is highly likely to 'attract' a cluster of other semantic features, namely, [related] messages, [responsive] and [adequate] answers. Since the feature [assumptive] is diametrically opposed to [prefaced], the cluster of semantic features it attracts is highly likely to be the converse of that just discussed. With less value attached to language as a means of sharing knowledge, attending to the other's discourse is not an imperative: questions can be ignored; their meaning need not be amplified; answers could be minimal rather than detailed; so the feature [related] is highly unlikely to be chosen. I have thus identified two clusters of semantic features; each has a nucleus [prefaced] or [assumptive] which acts as the pivot, attracting other semantic features. The clustering together of 'sympathetic' elements around one nucleus is not unique to the semantic level. At the lexicogrammatical level, strong lexical nodes act as a 'magnet' for specific collocates. The node's inner nature supports predictions about what will go with what. The same is true of semantic features: a strong 'semantic node' attracts other predictable semantic features, particularly because such nodes relate directly to the construal of context, more specifically to the component called tenor. Just as lexical clusters became visible through large-scale analysis of lexis, so various semantic clusters have emerged from the statistical results of the semantic analysis of a large amount of data in my research. The two clusters discussed above have particular relevance to questions and answers. Table 7.2 displays the result of the analysis of over 2000 questions mothers asked their children, and their own answers to the children's questions. The major contribution to the statistically highly significant semantic variation between the groups HAP (dominating) and LAP (dominated) is made by the features foregrounded by *; the remaining features, due to their low loading, are relatively irrelevant in the context of questions and answers. The foregrounded features are precisely the ones that make up the clusters discussed above. Note the negative loading of feature [assumptive],

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Table 7.2 Attributes of mother's questions and answers Question and answer attributes

PCI

Q(prefaced)* A(related)* A (responsive)* Q(related)* A(adequate)* Q( assumptive)* Q(confirm) Q(ask) Q(explain) Eigenvalue % variance

0.69 0.68 0.67 0.65 0.56 0.52 0.37 0.21 0.32 2.72 30.2

(H > L: p < .0003)

implying that high scoring subjects are highly unlikely to display it in their discourse. The feature [prefaced], by contrast, has the highest loading: th high scoring subjects are highly likely to have this feature in their discourse. Further, [related] questions/answers are highly likely in their discourse, an they are very likely to provide [responsive], [adequate] answers. Since choice of the feature [assumptive] has a significance diametrically oppose to [prefaced], this implies mothers habitually using the feature [assumptiv are very unlikely to display the feature [related]: instead of being responsv to the questions, they are likely to ignore the questions and be inclined to provide either minimal or inadequate answer. But what have the above results to do with children's language development, or with the emergence of their identities, or with the formation of consciousness? As a short answer to these questions, see Table 7.3, which shows the PGA result of children's questions and answers in terms of the same semantic features. That the two groups of children are following the maternal trend in ways of meaning to a significant extent is quite obvious. The realizational relation of semantics and lexicogrammar would argue that adults' talk has contributed to the development of both their ways of saying and their ways of meaning. As to the shaping of their social identities, the results suggest that the presuppositions and assumptions found in their mothers' discourse are becoming relevant to children's discourse as well, who unmistakably indicate the same attitude to the other. The maternal ways of asking and answering questions are significant in positioning children as discursive partners. In the dominating HAP group children are given greater discretion, treated as partners - individuals with equal rights. These perceptions become a part of their mental disposition, setting up expectations of discursive rights and obligations: Hasan (1989) has referred to this mental disposition as individuated informativeness. In dominated LAP group, the maternal discourse positions children as not yet

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Table 7.3 Attributes of children's questions and answers Question and answer attributes

PCI

A(related)* Q( related)* Q(confirm)* Q(prefaced)* A(adequate)* Q( assumptive)* A(responsive) Q(ask) Q(explain) Eigenvalue % variance

0.74 0.63 0.60 0.58 0.55 0.51 0.34 0.12 0.00 2.37 26.4

(H > L: p < .009)

mature, therefore needing supervision. It is logical with this view to give them less discretion: they are not so much equal partners in discourse as needing to be guided into appropriate forms of behaviour considered legitimate by the mother. At the same time, with the assumption of an intuitive knowledge of the other's mental map, there is an absence of personal distance between them, which encourages a disposition of personal trust. Interpersonal relations thus assume greater significance th 'objective' information, which is so highly valued in the dominating classes. In view of these interpretations, the clusters of semantic features identified above are best seen as formative motifs:13 their function is to play a ro in forming identities and social relations. A formative motif is a duster semantic features which are related to each other by a logic that underlies their config-

urative rapport.^ Such clusters are made up of meanings that are hel together by a logical necessity, each cluster being built around one strong node, which bears some contextual presupposition giving rise to a set of implications. For a cluster to function as a formative motif, it is not just some localized meanings - e.g. the meaning of items such as did you know do you think, do you remember — that are relevant, but rather what is im by their use as preface: it is the implied meanings that appear to be mo relevant to a semantic cluster's capacity to function as formative motif. T occurrence of the cluster in the discourse is typically prosodic. all releva features of a cluster cannot be found in the same or contiguous message(s); the elements of the cluster are dispersed throughout the discourse; they have no syntagmatic order. These characteristics of the semantic cluster have important consequences. The prosodic realization of the clusters makes them invisible, and their role in the mediation of social identities and mental dispositions calls for a deep understanding of the nature of semiotic acts. This means that formative clusters are a means of invisible semiotic mediation, where interactants

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very rarely, if ever, aware of the nature of what their discourse is mediating, even though the significance of some feature may be recognized. Julian, for example, recognizes the implication of his mother's [assumptive question, but it is highly unlikely that she sees it as part of a device capable of playing a crucial role in the formation of his consciousness. So far as speakers are concerned, the very presence of formative motifs in their ow discourse may never rise to the level of awareness. In their habitual use of the clusters of semantic features, speakers are not aware of doing anything special, extraordinary or noteworthy, they are simply speaking their social location, and their ideological stance - their unselfconscious, everyday casual discourse is a 'natural' expression of who they are, what they consider relevant. It remains now to say a brief word about the relation between what I have called informative episode and formative motifs. These are not two

separate phenomena: as the indicators of the speaker's ideological stance, formative motifs have a pervasive effect on the classification and framing the discourse. Underlying the sustained informative episodes is the cluster semantic features with the nucleus [prefaced]. Functioning as a format motif, it mediates an orientation to individuated informativeness. Returr example, to the sustained form of informative episodes which medi knowledge of some kind explicitly. The mothers producing such episodes - where knowledge, concepts, reasoning are laid out in front of the child (often in response to the child's question as, for example, in Examples 3 and 6) - do not just make information accessible; they are also engaged in the semiotic mediation of a mental disposition, a social identity, even if unbeknownst to the speakers. The experience of receiving sustained explicit information in emotionally supportive environments develops in these children an orientation towards decontextualized knowledge (Hasan 2001b, 2002b). It becomes an aspect of their mental disposition, colouring their mental activities. This achievement of invisible semiotic mediatio likely to be far more significant in the life of these children than the actual elements of knowledge acquired through explicit semiotic mediati Knowledge is a replaceable commodity, and is easily replaced every day Santa Claus is fact one day, fiction the next - but the mental disposition and the sense of social identity that the adult's discourse develops in the child is something that requires extraordinary circumstances to diverge from its established course. The study of children's development thus takes us to their experiences, which invariably involve adults. And in the wake of the adults come issues associated with living in society. This, in today's world, often means pluralistic societies, where hierarchies, inequalities and differentiation are the other face of belonging to a particular group. To the extent that semiotic mediation is culturally based, it cannot be impervious to these social/cultural phenomena.

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5 Social relation and the mediation of mental disposition: concluding remarks The last section has attempted to present the complex nature of the interplay between social relations, semantic characteristics of discourse, and the working of semiotic mediation. The results in Tables 7.1 and 7.2 indicate that the critical principle for explaining the orderly variation in the management of discourse is the social positioning of the speakers. The expression social positioning of speaker takes us to the notion of tenor in SFL's context theory. This theory is rich and offers, at an abstract level, an account of the co-genesis of language and society as shown in Figure 7.1. But when it comes to details of description, the relationships that are formulated in the greatest detail in SFL are those towards the right margin of the figure. In particular, the theory tells us a good deal more about context of situation than about context of culture. If context of situation is to context of culture as text is to the system of language, then, by analogy, so far as context theory in SFL is concerned it is like having the theory of text, but without an ability to show its relation to the theory of language system, which is clearly far from desirable. In the description of context of situation, three aspects have been long recognized in SFL (Halliday et at. 1964): 1 Field, i.e., social action: what is going on? 2 Tenor, i.e., social relation: who is taking part in the goings on? 3 Mode, i.e., social contact: how the speaker and the addressee encounter each other, both materially and semiotically.

Note: Culture instantiated in situation, as system instantiated in text. Culture realised in/construed by language; same relation as that holding between linguistic strata (semantics: lexicogrammar: phonololgy: phonetics). Cultural domain and register are 'sub-systems': likeness viewed from 'system' end. Situation type and text type are 'instance types': likeness viewed from 'instance' end.

Figure 7.1 Language and context; system and instance (Halliday 1999: 8)

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All three are relevant to the nature and management of the discourse, but tenor, i.e., social relation, is perhaps the most important component in understanding the relevance of social positioning to semiotic mediation. I see social positioning with its intimate relation to ideological stance as a powerful concept for linking tenor in the context of situation to the most fundamental principles for the organization of societies in the context of culture. 'Ideology,' as Bernstein (1996: 30; my emphasis, RH) tells us, 'is a way of establishing relations. It is not a content, but a way in which relationships

are made.' It is their ideological stance that makes the mothers in the reported research view the contexts the way they do, the way they establish their relationship with their child; the organization and character of their discourse, i.e., the details of their social practice, are a realization of who they are, and how their own personal identities were formed. But in the current state of the development of context theory, it is not at all obvious how these relations can be described. SFL needs to develop a principled way of describing the instance - i.e., the context of situation - so that it is evident what the underlying system is like. Admittedly, the description of culture as system is not an element of the study of the nature of language. My concern is not with arid field demarcations, but rather with how to describe context of situation in a way that sheds light on both the similarities and the differences between contexts, such as those relevant to Extracts 1 and 2, or those on the basis of which the occurrence of a particular formative motif'may be predicted. The solution to these problems needs much time and effort; it is nonetheless an urgent requirement for a model whose object of study is language as social semiotic. Notes 1 For some examples, see Beveridge 1982. 2 See the contributions of Halliday, Matthiessen and Painter in this volume for a more detailed account of aspects of the SFL approach to language development. See also Halliday (in press) for further information. 3 More accurately, Painter (1989, 1999) did go beyond words and sentences into the adults' role in modelling genres as well as in the development of children's cognitive abilities. I will comment later on the popular conceptualization of the term 'cognitive', a central aspect of which to my understanding is the main concern of Painter (1999). 4 Higher mental functions are sometimes also called 'higher consciousness' (cf Vygotsky 1978). 5 In his writing on infants learning to mean, Vygotsky (1962, 1978) indicates the power of this concept, e.g., in his discussion of how, through semiotic mediation, the infant comes to recognize a specific physical action, not as mere movement, but as 'gesture', a particular semiotic device for signalling an intersubjective meaning. 6 Lave (1997) has highlighted some crucial differences between

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knowledge acquired in the living of life and the disembedded knowledge of designed instruction. 7 The research was directed by Hasan with the help of Cloran and funded by Australian Research Council and Macquarie University Research Grant. For details, on assigning social group status, see Hasan (1992a); for all methodological aspects, see Hasan (1989), Cloran (1994). 8 The rationale for sample selection, some details of semantic analysis and discussion of PCA will be found in Hasan (1989, 1992a; 1992b; Cloran 1989, 1994). 9 An account of the analysis of human action relevant to discourse organization is presented in Hasan (1999) and Butt (2001). Comments on actions in this paper are based on Hasan (1999, especially the systemic choices in Figure 1). 10 For a discussion of larger portions of the dialogue to which Extract 1 belongs, see Cloran (1999b). Transcription conventions are shown below: 7 do you know etc.

indicate message number (here 7) in this extract;

(?I wasn't)

segment unintelligible; enclosed is best guess on the basis of context and co-text;

**no **you hurt . . .

wording paired by message-initial double star indicates point of speech overlap;

you didn't -

this message was left incomplete and/or interrupted by next speaker;

didn't you?**

question followed by double star indicates no time was allowed for response;

[?]

this segment was unintelligible; no clues to help interpretation;

[PETE CRIES]

situational information based on recorded information.

let me see...

longer pause than expected in ongoing speech tempo

11 The full dialogue to which this extract belongs is found in Hasan (2000). 121 have referred to this way of talking as the 'informative mode' (Hasan 2002b). On reflection, 'informative episode' may be better, since 'mode' could be confused with 'mode of discourse', which refers approximately to what I call 'contact' (Hasan 2001a). 13 Hasan (2002b) referred to this as 'formative mode'; 'formative motif is preferred to avoid confusion with 'mode' in 'mode of discourse'. 141 use 'configurative rapport' with apologies to Whorf (1956) in a different context from his to convey the meaning that there is a 'natural' prehension in the terms of the cluster.

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pp. 98-118. Halliday M.A.K., 1975. Learning How to Mean: Explorations in the Developme of Language. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday M.A.K., 1980. 'Three aspects of children language development: learning language, learning through language, learning about language', in Oral and Written Language Development: Impact on Schoo (Proceedings from the 1979-1980 Impact Conferences), eds Y.M. Goddm M.M. Haussler and D.S. Strickland. International Reading Association and National Council of Teachers of English. Halliday M.A.K., 1999. 'The notion of 'context' in language education', in Text and Context in Functional Linguistics, ed. M. Ghadessy. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Halliday M.A.K., in press. Language in Early Childhood: Collected Works M.A.K. Halliday, Vol 4, ed. Jonathan Webster. London: Continuum. Halliday M.A.K., Macintosh A. and Stevens P., 1964. The Linguistic Science and Language Teaching. London: Longman. Halliday M.A.K. and Matthiessen C.M.I.M., 1999. Construing Experienc through Meaning: A Language-based Approach to Cognition. London: Casse. Hasan R., 1989. 'Semantic variation and sociolinguistics', Australian Journal of Linguistics, 9, 2, pp. 221-75. Hasan R., 1992a. 'Rationality in everyday talk: from process to system', in Directions in Corpus Linguistics: Proceedings of Nobel Symposium, ed. J Svartvik. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Hasan R., 1992b. 'Meaning in sociolinguistic theory', in Sociolinguistics Today: International Perspectives, eds K. Bolton and H. Kwok. New Yor Routledge and Kegan Paul. Hasan R., 1992c. 'Speech genre, semiotic mediation and the development of higher mental functions', Language Sciences, 14, pp. 489—528. Hasan R., 1995. 'On social conditions for semiotic mediation: the genesis of mind in society', in Knowledge and Pedagogy: The Sociology of Bas Bernstein, ed. A. Sadovnik. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Hasan R., 1999. 'Speaking with reference to context', in Text and Context i Functional Linguistics: Systemic Perspectives, ed. M. Ghadessy. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Hasan R., 2000. 'The Uses of Talk', in Discourse and Social Life, eds S. Sarangi and M. Coulthard. London: Longman. Hasan R., 2001a. 'Wherefore context? The place of context in the system and process of language', in Grammar and Discourse Analysis, eds R. Shaozeng, W. Guthrie and I.W. Ronald Fong. Macau: University of Macau Publication Centre. Hasan R., 2001b. 'The ontogenesis of decontextualised language: some achievements of classification and framing', in Towards a Sociology o

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Neves, B. Davies and H. Baillie. New York and Oxford: Peter Lang. Hasan R., 2002a. 'Semiotic mediation and mental development in pluralistic societies: some implications for tomorrow's schooling', in Learning for Life in the 21st Century, eds G. Wells and G. Claxton. Oxford: Blackw Hasan R., 2002b. 'Ways of meaning, ways of learning: code as an explanatory concept', British Journal of Sociology of Education, 23, 4

pp. 537-48. Lave J., 1997. 'What's special about experiments as contexts for thinking', in Mind, Culture and Activity: Seminal Papers from the Laboratory of Huma

Cognition, eds M. Cole, Y. Engstrom and O. Vasquez. Cambridge Cambridge University Press. Luria A., 1976. Cognitive Development: Its Cultural and Social Foundation

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Painter C, 1984. Into the Mother Tongue: A Case Study in Early Lang Development. London: Frances Pinter. Painter C, 1989. 'Learning language: a functional view of language development', in Language Development: Learning Language, Learning Cultur (Meaning and Choice in Language: Studies for Michael Halliday), eds R

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Butterworth. London: Psychology Press. Torr J., 1997. From Child Tongue to Mother Tongue: A Case Study of Languag Development in the First Two and a Half Years. Nottingham: Department o English Studies, University of Nottingham. (Monographs in Systemic Linguistics 9).

Trevarthen C, 1974. 'Conversations with a two-month-old', New Scientis 62, pp. 230-5. Vygotsky L.S., 1962. Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Vygotsky L. S., 1978. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychologi

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8 Two Forms of Human Language Russell Meares and Gavin Sullivan

1 The Conversational Model

The ideas in this paper have emerged from a project concerning those people who are currently given the unsatisfactory diagnostic label of borderline personality disorder (Stevenson and Meares 1992; Meares, Stevenson and Comerford 1999). When the study began, there was little scientific evidence upon which to found a theoretical basis for the therapeutic approach. The theory which eventually evolved has been called the 'Conversational Model' (Hobson 1985), where conversation is defined as 'the action of living or having one's being in a place or among persons' (OED). In this model, the sense of personal being, or self, arises, and is manifest, in conversation (Meares 2000). The starting point in this theoretical development was the simple proposition that our patients had suffered a disruption in the development of personal being, or self. This proposition can be derived from statements of the patients themselves, whose central complaint is often one of a painful sense of personal emptiness. They say such things as 'I'm just an outline, with nothing inside'. Although these people, not infrequently, function well in an occupational capacity, their close relationships are difficult - tumultuous in some cases, absent in others. This observation suggests that forms of consciousness, i.e., fluctuations in the state of self, exist in the context of particular forms of relatedness. This matter will be touched upon later in this paper when the notion is put forward that the form of language used in a particular conversation manifests and constitutes not only a form of consciousness but also a form of relatedness. The extremes of relatedness are intimacy and alienation (Meares 2000). The idea that forms of consciousness are mingled with forms of relatedness resonates with the Hallidayan 'metafunctional principle that language simultaneously construes experience and enacts interpersonal, social relationships' (Halliday 1995: 70). It will become evident, as this

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paper progresses, that there are resonances between Hallidayan principles and the 'Conversational Model'. In starting with the idea that our subjects had suffered a disturbance of self, we first had to define what we meant by this word. Second, since we were postulating that its development had been disrupted, the task was to build, as far as possible on empirical data, a schema for the development of self. We chose as our starting point William James's definition of self (Meares and Hobson 1977). James described what he called a 'duplex self (James 1892: 176). This unified experience has two aspects which can be discriminated in it. One aspect, or pole, is that of awareness. The second pole is made up of those events of inner life of which we are aware, that flow of images, ideas, memories, imaginings and so forth, which James called the 'stream of consciousness'. As a shorthand, he called the pole of awareness the T, and the stream of inner events, the 'me'. In taking this dualistic form of consciousness as 'self, we are suggesting that 'self is only one of a number of possible forms of consciousness. Moreover, one is not always aware of inner events. Consciousness may, at times, be focused entirely on the outer world. A dualistic consciousness is experienced in a situation of threat. Our hypothesis depends on the notion that those with borderline personality are deficient in the development of dualistic consciousness and exist, for more of their lives than undamaged people, in a state of adualistic consciousness (Meares 1993, 2000; Meares, Stevenson and Gordon 1999b). 2 Secrecy and the discovery of self The next step, in starting to build a schema for the development of the Jamesian self, was to discover when it first appeared in human life. Incredibly, this had never been studied. The experience which is most fundamental to human existence had been ignored on the implicit grounds that it lay beyond the scientific pale. Consequently, we had to investigate the matter. Since an awareness of the movements of inner life is conceived in adult life as private and known only to those experiencing them, in this way differing from the events in the outer world which are publicly known, we assumed that the child's attainment of the concept of secrecy would herald the discovery of the experience of innerness. Our study (Meares and Orlay 1988) depended upon the responses of 40 children in a preschool to a picture of two young people, called Cathy and Paul, one of whom appears to be whispering in the ear of the other. The investigation began with the question: 'What are Cathy and Paul doing?' The children often replied with 'whispering'. The next question was: 'Why do they whisper?' Young children might reply with: 'To sound like the

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grass rustling'. Older children said: 'To tell secrets' or something similar. An example of a typical conversation is given later. Our findings suggested that children first understood the nature of secrecy at about four years of age. The age range was between three and five years. This finding was supported by a later study from Stanford indicating that the child discovers the experience of the stream of consciousness at four, five or six (Flavell et al. 1993). These data, together with those from indirect studies, which investigate the child's so-called 'theories of mind', suggest that the dualistic form of consciousness which James called 'self emerges at about four or five. 3 An evolutionary perspective

Following the establishment of the age at which dualistic consciousness emerges, a preliminary schema for the development of the Jamesian self could be constructed. Before doing so, the Jamesian duplex self of the T and the 'me' had to be elaborated since it was clear that the child had an T and a 'me' well before the age of four. The child has competent processes of awareness, i.e., an T, soon after birth (Bower 1974). A 'me' can be demonstrated at about 18 months when the child can point to a photo or mirror and say: 'That's me' (Amsterdam 1972; Lewis and BrooksGunn 1979). This recognition shows the emergence of 'identity' who-me-is-in-relation-to-the-world. We were concerned with a third thing, the 'myself, who appears in the following sentence: T was not myself when you saw me last.' This sentence implies the variability, the potential fluctuations in this experience, consistent with the notion that we experience multiple forms of consciousness which are different in subtle ways, although extremes of difference, between dualistic and adualistic, can be identified. We assume that dualistic consciousness of the kind described by James is unique to the human primate. In using the words T, 'me' and 'myself as shorthand for immensely complicated systems, we can say that all primates have an T. Most primates, however, do not have a 'me' in the way we are conceiving it here. They treat their mirrored image as another monkey, a rival or intruder. Only the higher primates, such as chimpanzees, preen before the mirror, demonstrating an awareness that what they see is a reflected image of themselves (Kellog and Kellog 1933). Only humans, we suppose, have developed the experience of 'myself (Meares and Coombes 1994). The background to the project includes an evolutionary perspective, developed from the theories of the great neurologist Hughlings Jackson, who had influenced Sigmund Freud. Jackson pioneered the concept of the 'duplex self which James elaborated. He believed that this 'double' consciousness - 'double' was a word he liked - was unique to the human species. Furthermore, he considered that it arose as a consequence of a coordination of the fundamental elements of brain function more complex than the networks underpinning 'lower' forms of consciousness. Finally,

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he considered that the organization of the brain was decreed by evolutionary history, and that the most recently evolved aspects of this organization were the most fragile, the most ill-developed, and the most easily overthrown by environmental impacts. Our hypothesis concerning borderline personality disorder is that the state of consciousness typical of those suffering borderline personality represents a subtle retreat down the evolutionary pathway. Second, we suppose that this 'dissolution', as Jackson called it, is a consequence of the disadvantageous circumstances of these individuals' early lives (Meares 1999; Meares, Stevenson and Gordon 1999b). In working towards a schema for the emergence of self, we followed the view, implicit in Jackson's theory, that 'the development of the individual follows the evolutionary trajectory of the species' (Halliday 1995: 48). 4 Conversational play

In searching for the developmental origins of 'myself, we were helped by the so-called 'law' of Pierre Janet, the French psychiatrist who had developed a hierarchial model of mind indirectly influenced by Jackson. With James Mark Baldwin he proposed that those higher mental functions, which we in adult life sense as 'inner', first appear in the outer world as actions (Van der Veer and Valsiner 1994: 354). What could be the activities which are the necessary forerunners to the stream of consciousness? The answer lies in the form of this experience. The stream of consciousness is non-linear. It moves capriciously, shifting according to association and analogy, sometimes jumping from one thing to another without apparent purpose. The activity which resembles the form of this inner experience is play. We suppose, then, that those happenings which occur in the child's life between birth and, say, four, which allow and foster the emergence of 'myself, include play. The process begins soon after birth when the mother characteristically sets up a game with her baby in which she talks to the infant, pretending he or she can understand and converse. This 'conversational play' (Meares 2000: 15—21) develops quickly, so that by two to three months the baby is joining in. This new game, which Trevarthen (1974) has called a 'protoconversation', depends upon the mother (we are using this term to refer to all caregivers) is playing a role which is rather like a double of her child. She is more than a mirror, since her responses in gaze, facial expression, and vocalization, which are finely co-ordinated with those of her infant, are somewhat amplified (Penman et at. 1983). Although the protolanguage is without words and grammar, and is made up of phonology and meaning alone, the rhythms, the reciprocity, and general patterning of this engagement, which is pleasurable to both partners, resembles the more complex, and linked, patterning of conversation in actual language. (For detailed related discussion of this point see Halliday, this volume; Painter, this volume.)

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4.1 Symbolic play and inner speech

The child's progression towards selfhood involves a development in the forms of play. The kind of play with which this paper is most concerned is associated with the use of language. Jean Piaget (1951) called it symbolic play. It arises around the age of 18 months, when actual words first begin to be uttered. The scene of symbolic play is beautifully described by Piaget (1959 [1926]). The child is immersed in play with toys, or other objects, with the absorption of an adult who is lost in thought. He or she appears to be oblivious of others, yet aspects of the child's chattering which accompanies the play suggests that he or she senses that there is someone else there. Some of the utterances seem to be addressed to an illusory presence. The child might say, for example: 'He can get up there, can't he? He's clever, isn't he?' (for another example, see Piaget 1959 [1926]: 242). The child's language, which to an objective observer is a monologue, more nearly approaches the form of a curious kind of conversation (Kohlberg et al. 1968), which resembles the older child's conversations with imaginary companions (Watkins 1990), and the rare experience in adult life, which Jung called a colloquy (Jung 1959: paragraphs 236, 237) of a conversation with inner voices, associated with religious figures such as Ignatius Loyola. At this age, although a lexicon is being formed, syntax is elementary here in comparison to its later and full multifunctional form. As Halliday puts it: Language emerges epigenetically in a definable sequence (as a phonologicalsemantic complex before the appearance of syntax) and in dependence on interaction with other individuals in the environment. (Halliday 1995: 50)

Self appears in similar, parallel and related sequence. Symbolic play is a feature of that stage of life before the age when the concept of 'innerness' is formed. It has been suggested that it is the immediate and necessary precursor to self as the stream of consciousness (Meares 1990, 1993, 2000). It shows the embryonic form of this experience in the outer world. This play, although apparently solitary, also involves a kind of conversation. In addition to its conversational structure, the child's language which accompanies symbolic play has a peculiar form, which Vygotsky (1962) described. He considered that this speech form has a structure which is quite different from that of ordinary conversation, or what Piaget called socialized speech. It shows abbreviations, it jumps, and it is not grammatical in the conventional sense. It moves by analogy, resemblance, and other associations. Vygotsky considered that this form of speech is an 'entirely separate speech function. Its main distinguishing trait is its peculiar syntax'. Compared with social speech, it 'appears disconnected and incomplete' (Vygotsky 1962: 138-9). It is to a large extent 'thinking in pure meanings. It is a dynamic, shifting, unstable thing, fluttering between word and thought' (p. 49). One of Vygotsky's most telling insights was that this form

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of language which accompanies symbolic play and apparently other 'egocentric' activity (in Piaget's terms) becomes the basis of 'inner speech' and does not simply disappear with greater maturity. Vygotsky was thus able to clarify why the social origins of egocentric speech are crucial to the development of a person's inner life. There is a 'basic semantic peculiarity of inner speech - the way in which senses of words combine and unite - a process governed by different laws from those governing combinations of meanings' (p. 147). Vygotsky called this singular way of uniting words an influx of sense. 'The senses of differen words flow into one another - literally 'influence' one another - so that the earlier ones are contained in, and modify, the later ones' (p. 147). This is a process very like that of 'condensation' which, as Freud had pointed out, is characteristic of dreams. The child in talking in this way is manifesting not only a form of consciousness but also a form of relatedness which was described by Piaget: What he says does not seem to be addressed to himself but is enveloped with the feeling of a presence, so that to speak of himself or to speak to his mother appear to him to be one and the same thing. His activity is thus bathed in an atmosphere of communion or syntonization, one might almost speak of the 'life of union'! (Piaget 1959 [1926]: 243)

This description suggests that the child's chatter during symbolic play is underpinned by a dim and background sense that someone else is there, which is a consequence, we suppose, of the earlier experience of 'atoneness' with the caregiver in the protoconversation, and subsequently, who behaved in a way which is so connected with the child's personal reality that he or she is experienced as part of that reality. Smolucha's (1992) study suggests that the child's private language is strongly influenced by the child's history of his or her conversational interchange with the mother. The 'at-oneness' implicit in the child's inner speech resembles the intimate relatedness of mature life. Vygotsky's notion of 'inner speech' has attracted considerable interest but only a limited amount of scientific inquiry. Most studies concern the child's speech which is not meant to be heard. Unfortunately, not all of these studies maintain Vygotsky's distinction between the form of language accompanying symbolic play and speech. In these studies, frequently focused on the child being asked to perform a task such as the solution of a puzzle in a concentration task, 'inner speech' is simply 'private speech'. In these cases, although the speech is solitary, it may have the form of social discourse. Kohlberg et al. (1968) suggest that private speech is likely to be complex. They identify seven types of private speech. The child of, say, three years of age, does not usually use inner speech. He or she is engaged with those around, using 'socialized speech' and is not absorbed in the solitary play of an older child. In this engagement, the child is outer-oriented rather than attending to that which is embryonically inner.

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The language can be conceived as linear in that it is triggered by events in the environment, including the stimuli of the body, and directed towards them. The child, for example, asks for nurture, reassurance, or information. This form of speech has a clear purpose, is logical, and is obviously adaptive. The grammar is conventional. The relationship with those to whom the child turns shows a clear distinction between him or her as subject and the other as object. (The child's oscillations between these different forms of relatedness, often with the same person, may be very swift.) In that this language is an aspect of who-this-child-is-in-the-world, and in relation to others, we may say that it is a part of a system of 'identity' whereas 'inner speech' has a different function. We suggest that this function is to represent states of selfhood, and so to bring them into being. This possibility is not canvassed by those currently writing on Vygotsky's inner speech. Rather, the focus has been upon the supposition that inner speech has the purpose of self-regulation. Studies such as those of Frauenglass and Diaz (1985), which concerned the child's speech during semantic and perceptual tasks, cast doubt on this supposition. Watkins (1990), in a very interesting review, is also critical of the notion that selfregulation is the function of inner speech. However, other studies, for example involving puzzle tasks, appear to support the self-regulation hypothesis (e.g. Beherend et al. 1999). Against the notion that private speech has the function of selfregulation, when this is understood as task related, is the finding of Krafft and Berk (1998) that the incidence of private speech is much higher during open-ended activities and, especially, fantasy play where the goal of the task is not imposed on the child. Piaget himself, however, implied that symbolic play, and the language associated with it, had a purpose beyond coping with immediate environmental concerns. He wrote of the child that: 'It is indispensable to his affective and intellectual equilibrium, therefore, that he have available to him an area of activity whose motivation is not adaption to reality but, on the contrary, assimilation of reality to the self, without coercions or sanctions' (Piaget and Inhelder 1977: 492). However, 'symbolic play is not merely an assimilation of reality to the self, as is play in general, but an assimilation made possible (and reinforced) by a symbolic "language" that is developed by the self and is capable of being modified according to its needs' (ibid.: 493). Piaget does not go as far as our proposal that symbolic play, and the language that goes with it, has the function of representing, and so, of helping to bring into being, a sense of self. Nevertheless, this idea is a reasonable extrapolation from his distinction between the zones of 'reality' and 'self. The child's chatter during his or her solitary play with toys typically tells a story of a symbolic kind, which represents an aspect of the child's sense of personal existence. It is a part of an embryonic narrative of self, which becomes increasingly complex.

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The stage of symbolic play marks the first step in the development of the human capacity to use symbols in order to speak of things which are not immediately in the world. 5 Co-ordination of the two language forms

The child's apparent monologue, which accompanies symbolic play, disappears somewhere around that age when the experience of inner life is beginning to develop. Vygotsky believed it is internalized to become 'inner speech'. This notion of 'internalization' of a speech form receives some confirmation from a study by Flavell et al. (1997). They compared groups of four year olds, five year olds, six to seven year olds, and adults to test the hypothesis that four year olds have little knowledge of inner speech. Their results were consistent with this hypothesis. With this internalization, the two languages become co-ordinated. We might also say, while recognizing the abstraction, that 'identity' and 'self have become linked up, so that in the usual circumstance, they are bound together. They can be figuratively conceived as Janus-faced - one facing out and the other facing in. In unfavourable circumstances, however, identity and self may become disconnected, so that the individual lives, as it were, a split existence. With the co-ordination of the two language forms (see Table 8.1) ordinary conversation consists of 'linear' social speech in which is embedded elements of a 'non-linear' language to do with inner life. The mixture varies greatly. Legal documents consist entirely of the 'linear' form. The 'non-linear' language is not found in pure form, in adult life, except in certain forms of poetry, and in the novels of Joyce and his successors. Table 8.1 The two human conversations Inner Speech

Social Speech

1. Non-linear 2. Non-grammatical 3. Analogical, Associative 4. Positive affect 5. Non-communicative 6. Inner-directed 7. Intimate 8. Self-related

1. Linear 2. Grammatical 3. Logical 4. Variable affect 5. Communicative 6. Outer directed 7. Non-intimate 8. Identity-related

The linking up of these zones is evident in the conversation of a little girl who understands the notion of secrecy. The example comes from the study previously mentioned. Example 1

Girl (5.2 years): What are Cathy and Paul doing? Don't know.

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Are they playing? Playing a game. How do they play? She tells him a secret.

What's a secret? / don't know any, but I can make one up.

Make up one, then! Um (whispers). We're going to the beach tomorrow, we'll build a sandcast and when we knock it down, guess what's inside?

Do I have to guess? Yes! Shells? No.

Goggles and flippers? No! Surfboard? Egg? No! No!

I give up. Promise you won't tell? Yes. Inside the sandcastle is a princess!

Can I tell anyone at all? No! If you could tell one person, who would it be? No one!

Can I tell your mummy? No, nobody AT ALL!

This little girl is showing an extraordinary complexity of mental operations. First, she lives in the public or social domain. She plays a game with the interviewer, acting out the essentials of the concept of secrecy in her whispering and in her command that what she tells must not be revealed. She also draws on private experience where she conjures up the image of the beach and the hidden princess, who, perhaps, is part of a larger fantasy that concerns herself. The child co-ordinates the public and private domains so that they are unified and seamlessly connected. In this conversation, the child draws on her imaginative life, something of her inner world, which is made 'outer' in revelation to the other. In this way, her conversation shows an essential element of intimate relatedness, the intimate being that which is 'inward' (OED). This leads to the conception of intimacy which we are using here. It is independent of sexuality, and not equivalent to confession or incontinent revelation. Rather, it is a way of talking in which 'inner speech' is prominent. This child, in telling of the princess, not only talks in a way which is intimate, but she also displays an aspect of her system of self. Self, to

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rephrase a postulate put forward earlier in this paper, cannot be considered independent of a relationship in which it is embedded. The amount of inner speech apparent in conversation is, of course, very variable. At an extreme, analogous to legal language, it is almost absent. In this case, not only are there few markers of self, but also the form of relatedness is non-intimate, even one of alienation. This is typically the state of patients suffering the borderline condition (Meares 1993, 1997, 2000). These observations lead to the idea that self exists as part of a dynamism, in which a particular state of consciousness arises out of the brain's interplay with the sensory environment. Since the most important part of the sensory environment, in terms of the experience of self, is the social world, the dynamism can be restated in the following way: a particular state of consciousness, manifest in language, arises in the context of a particular form of relatedness, mediated by conversation. Any change in any one of the components of this system will cause an alteration in the whole system leading to a different form of consciousness, form of relatedness and style of conversation. Language, when used naturally, is an aspect of a larger 'eco-system' (Halliday 1995: 78). As Halliday notes: Language is not the outward and imperfect manifestation of some idealized entity called mind. It is an evolving eco-semiotic system and process, constituting the most recent phase of evolution of the mammalian brain. (1995: 82)

The language which arises out of a particular state of consciousness cannot 'correspond to' or map the entire complexity of that experience. It makes a selection, in this way 'construing' it, to use Halliday's term. To take a simple example, a particular state of consciousness may be associated with a mixture of feelings including both apprehension and excitement. The language chosen to express this state might include the excitement but not the apprehension. In this way, it 'shapes' the reality of that experience in a manner suggested by the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. The language which arises out of this state of consciousness now has a reciprocal effect on that state, the brain activity which underpins it, and the form of relatedness that it mediates. 6 Towards a scientific study of self The notion of a co-ordination between two different language forms in ordinary conversation allows us to make a study of the experience we call 'self, an experience which, although it is at the core of human existence, has been neglected in scientific terms on the grounds that there is no suitable instrument by which it can be 'observed'. Linguistic studies of a particular kind provide this instrument. Words, or more particularly, language as it is used in specific types of contexts, become the markers of self, and the means of charting the changes, the distortions, the waxing and waning of this experience in particular situations and individuals. They allow, for example, the hypothesis to be tested that 'self is stunted in borderline personality disorder.

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This hypothesis is supported by the findings of Harre and Gillett (1994) who considered the structure of language used in autobiographies of borderline patients. They wrote: When talking to such individuals, one finds that they are poor at articulating or understanding the events of their lives and the relationships among them. They tend to have a very limited discursive context within which to negotiate and elaborate their responses to life events, (ibid.: 175)

Put another way, their discourse reflects the 'constriction of consciousness' observed by a pioneer investigator of this disorder, Pierre Janet (1901). Such a form of discourse is likely to have been lifelong. Borderline patients have, in a typical case, experienced a childhood of abuse and neglect. Beeghly and Cicchetti studied the lexicon of maltreated children and suggested that these children, in an attempt to control their anxiety, may modify their language (and perhaps even their thinking) to prevent the anxiety engendered by certain aspects of language and discourse in general. (1994: 24; see also Cicchetti and Toth 1995)

The particularities of language also provide a means of charting the maturation in the self system, from its early to later forms. Findings presented by Quigley (2000, 2001) are of this kind. She used the way the children of five, eight and twelve years of age told their 'life stories' in order to demonstrate increasing complexity of the self system with age. Measures used included the transitivity - intransitivity dimension and modal auxiliaries. These words - which include can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should, must and ought (to), along with their negated forms - suggest, in a broad sense, the 'zone of irrealis', to use an expression of Garbutt (1997). Whereas the consciousness of the young child, and the borderline patient, appear to be constituted by the environment, maturation involves increasing freedom from the environment, demonstrated in language which points to something which does not yet exist, that which is 'unreal', a possibility. The emergence of these language forms in the borderline patient represent steps beyond 'stimulus entrapment' (Meares 1993, 1997). Studies now emerging from our department, working with linguists at Macquarie University, Sydney, suggest that a new and, in our view, exciting area of research is developing in which self can now be 'observed' by means of linguistic study. Since the dimensions of self are various, the strategies of possible linguistic investigation are numerous. They include analyses of the transitivity dimension (Henderson-Brooks 2000), of cohesion (Samir 2001) and of the complexity of the spatio-temporal dimensions of individual experience (Garbutt 1997). The systemic functional linguistics of Halliday seems peculiarly suited to this kind of study. On the other hand, as Halliday notes (1995: 77), mainstream linguistic philosophy of the twentieth century is not. Implicit in this philosophy is the 'misstep' that 'language is principally a means of

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communication'. There is a failure to recognize the two zones identified by Piaget, and to realize that, as Karl Jaspers put it: All life reveals itself as a continuous interchange between an inner and an outer world. (1962: 12)

It is the interplay between these two zones which produces the third, the zone of what we are calling 'myself. It is 'realized' in language. References Amsterdam B., 1972. 'Mirror self-image reactions before age two', Developmental Psychology, 26, pp. 738-44. Beeghly M. and Cicchetti D., 1994. 'Child maltreatment, attachment and the self system: emergence of an internal state lexicon in toddlers at high social risk', Development and Psychopathology, 6, pp. 5-30. Behrend D., Rosengren K. and Perlmutter M., 1999. 'A new look at children's private speech: the effects of age, task difficulty and parent presence', in Lev Vygotsky: Critical Assessments: Thought and Language, e P. Lloyd and C. Fernyhough. New York: Routledge. Bower T., 1974. Development in Infancy. San Francisco: Freeman. Cicchetti D. and Toth S., 1995. 'A developmental psychopathology perspective on child abuse and neglect', Journal of the American Academy of Adolescent Psychiatry, 34, 5, pp. 541-65. FlavellJ., Green F. and Flavell E., 1993. 'Children's understanding of the stream of consciousness', Child Development, 64a, pp. 387-96. FlavellJ., Green F., Flavell E. and GrossmanJ., 1997. 'The development of children's knowledge about inner speech', Child Development, 68, pp. 39-47. Frauenglass M.H. and Diaz R.M., 1985. 'Self-regulatory functions of children's private speech: a critical analysis of recent challenges to Vygotsky's theory', Developmental Psychology, 21, 2, pp. 357-64. Garbutt M., 1997. Figure Talk: Reported Speech and Thought in the Discourse Psychotherapy. PhD. Macquarie University, Sydney. Halliday M.A.K., 1995. 'On language in relation to the evolution of human consciousness', in Of Thoughts and Words: Proceedings of Nobel Symposi 92, The Relation between Language and Mind, Stockholm 8-12 August, 199 ed. S. Allen. London: Imperial College Press. Harre R. and Gillett G., 1994. The Discursive Mind. London: Sage. Henderson-Brooks C , 2000. An Investigation of the Language of a Person wit Borderline Personality Disorder During Psychotherapy. BA (Hons). Macqu University, Sydney. Hobson R.F., 1985. Forms of Feeling: The Heart of Psychotherapy. London Tavistock. James W., 1892. Psychology: Briefer Course. London: Macmillan. Janet P., 1901. The Mental State of Hystericals. London: Putnam.

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Jaspers EL, 1962. General Psychopathology. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Jung C.G., 1959. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious: The Colle

Works Vol 9. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Kellog W.N. and Kellog L.A., 1933. The Ape and the Child. Toronto: McGr Hill. Kohlberg L., YaegerJ. and Hjertholm E., 1968. 'Private speech: four studies and a review of theories', Child Development, 39, 3, pp. 691-736. Krafft K.C. and Berk L.E., 1998. 'Private speech in two preschools: significance of open-ended activities and make-believe play for verbal self-regulation', Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 13, pp. 637-58. Lewis M. and Brooks-Gunn J., 1979. Social Cognition and the Acquisition of Self. New York: Plenum. Meares R., 1990. 'The fragile spielraum: an approach to transmuting internalization', in The Realities of Transference: Progress in Self Psychology, ed

Goldberg. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press. Meares R., 1993. The Metaphor of Play: Disruption and Restoration in the Borderline Experience. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson. Meares R., 1997. 'Stimulus entrapment: on a common basis of somatization', Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 17, 2, pp. 223-34. Meares R., 1999. 'Hughlings Jackson's contribution to an understanding of dissociation', American Journal of Psychiatry, 156, 12, pp. 1850—5. Meares R., 2000. Intimacy and Alienation: Memory, Trauma and Personal Bein

London: Routledge. Meares R. and Coombes T., 1994. 'A drive to play: evolution and psychotherapeutic theory', Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 28, pp. 56-67. Meares R. and Hobson P., 1977. 'The Persecutory Therapist', British Journal of Medical Psychology, 50, pp. 349-59.

Meares R. and Orlay W., 1988. 'On self boundary: a study of the development of the concept of secrecy', British Journal of Medical Psycholog

61, pp. 305-16. Meares R., Stevenson J. and Comerford A., 1999. 'Psychotherapy with borderline patients, part I: a comparison between treated and untreated cohorts', Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 33, 3,

pp. 467-72. Meares R., Stevenson J. and Gordon E., 1999. 'AJacksonian and biopsychosocial hypothesis concerning borderline and related phenomena', Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 33, 6, pp. 831-40.

Penman R., Meares R., Baker K. and Milgrom-Friedman J., 1983. 'Synchrony in mother-infant interaction: a possible neurophysiological base', British Journal of Medical Psychology, 56, pp. 1-7. Piaget J., 1951. Play, Dreams and Imitation in Childhood. London:

Heinemann. Piaget J., 1959 [1926]. The Language and Thought of the Child. London:

Routledge and Kegan Paul.

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PiagetJ. and Inhelder B., 1977. 'The semiotic or symbolic function', in The Essential Piaget, ed. H. Weaver. New York: Basic Books. Quigley J., 2000. The Grammar of Autobiography: A Developmental Accoun

Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Quigley J., 2001. 'Psychology and grammar. The construction of the autobiographical self, Theory & Psychology, 11, pp. 147-70. Samir H., 2001. Resonance in Therapeutic Conversation and the Emergence of S

Masters thesis. University of Sydney, Sydney. Smolucha F., 1992. 'Social origins of private speech in pretend play', in Private Speech: From Social Interaction to Self-Regulation , eds R. Diaz and

Berk. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc. Inc. Stevenson J. and Meares R., 1992. 'An outcome study of psychotherapy in borderline personality disorder', American Journal of Psychiatry, 1 pp. 358-62. Trevarthen C, 1974. 'Conversations with a two-month-old', New Scienti, 62, pp. 230-5. Van der Veer R. and Valsiner J., 1994. The Vygotsky Reader. Oxfo Blackwell. Vygotsky L.S., 1962. Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Watkins M., 1990. Invisible Guests: The Development of Imaginal Dialogues

Boston: Sigo Press.

9 Changing the Rules, Changing the Game: A Sociocultural Perspective on Second Language Learning in the Classroom Pauline Gibbons

1 Introduction

The title of this paper suggests what might appear to be an odd analogy between playing a game and the educational process as it is played out in the classroom. I want to suggest, however, that both are played out according to taken-for-granted rules which for most of the time are unquestioned and normalized, and to argue, to echo van Lier's words, that by 'deliberately manipulating and changing interactional structures in the classroom' we can 'change the rules of the pedagogical game in fundamental ways' (van Lier 1996: 158). I will draw on aspects of socio-cultural theory and systemic functional linguistics (SFL) to suggest how changes in some of the unspoken 'rules' of classroom discourse - the interactional structures themselves - are points of leverage which, when altered or modified, can lead to broader educational change: to more dialogic classrooms where both teachers and students are positioned as active participants in the learning process, and where knowledge is coconstructed rather than transmitted. I suggest that such classrooms increase the contexts and opportunities for children's language development. When we play a game, we don't usually think about the rules at a conscious level. Equally, when we take part in a familiar activity - such as attending a conference for example - we don't consciously think about how to behave. We recognize the genres, and, as participants in the culture in which they occur, we have internalized the social norms by which the goals of those genres are reached. Of course, we do think about rules when we are learning a game, or trying to codify one. But if we change the rules of an established and codified game, then, as van Lier suggests, we change the nature of the game itself. When my sons were very young, and after having learned the basic moves of chess, they 'invented' new moves for each of the

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chess pieces. Though their game continued, they were, of course, no longer playing chess, because by changing the means by which things get done, we also change the nature of what happens, and ultimately the activity itself. This paper examines teacher-student interactions in a classroom where most of the children come from a language background other than English. These children were not only still developing English, their second language, but were also learning in it and through it as well. In these content-based classrooms, the construction of curriculum knowledge needs to progress hand in hand with the development of the second language. Usually, children with little English very quickly become adept at using it in ' here-and-now' contexts, where interactions occur face to face and often relate directly to what is occurring in the immediate situation, such as, for example, a game in the playground. However, as a number of researchers have shown, children who appear fluent in English in such contexts may still have difficulty in understanding and using the registers associated with academic learning in school (Collier 1989; McKay et al. 1997; Cummins 1996, 2000). The registers associated with academic learning traditionally code knowledge in ways which are linguistically unfamiliar to many students. They tend to be more 'written-like', more abstract and less personal, contain more subject-specific language, be more lexically dense and be more structured than the face-to-face 'everyday' language with which students are familiar (Martin 1989). As Martin points out, for example, in relation to science discourse, 'it codes an alternative perspective on reality to commonsense [knowledge], a perspective accumulated over centuries of scientific enquiry' (Martin 1990: 86). Literacy in science has to be considered from both the point of view of the knowledge being constructed and the genres that, in Martin's terms, 'package' that knowledge. Similarly, development of literacy within any subject in the school curriculum involves learning to control the registers - the specific technical language and grammatical patterns — and generic structures particular to that subject. Vygotsky's notion of spontaneous and scientific concepts, discussed later, offers another perspective on academic language learning. Other related theoretical distinctions between what can be thought of as 'everyday' and 'academic' language have been made by Bruner (1975), Canale (1983), Donaldson (1978), Olson (1977), Bereiter and Scardamalia (1981), Biber (1986) and Mohan (1986). The focus of this paper is on how certain kinds of interactions between teacher and students construct sites for second language development, and, more specifically, how these interactions support learners in the development of a new academic register - that of school science. 2 Activity, action and operation

I want first to situate the discussion which follows within a broader framework of analysis and, drawing on Wells, to consider the classroom 'as

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a site for human activity' (Wells 1999a: 169). The notion of activity as an organizing principle of human behaviour is central to socio-cultural theory. On the basis of ideas initially put forward by Vygotsky, Leont'ev (1981) suggests a tri-stratal account of joint activity in its cultural context in terms of activity, actions and operations. Activity is realized through actions, which are in turn realized through a set of operations. An activity is driven by its motive, an action by its goals. Thus it is through action that activity becomes a reality. To apply this to an educational context, we can view education itself as the broadest level of activity; this in turn is carried out through the actions of teachers and students (the teaching and learning events by which the curriculum is enacted), which are in turn realized through certain operations, (the day-to-day discourse of the classroom). Classroom discourse is thus the means by which educational actions and the activity of education unfold; it is the major semiotic tool that participants make use of to achieve the particular goals of the actions. Engerstrom (1991), situating activity more specifically within its cultural setting, uses the notion of 'rules' which govern the tools seen appropriate within the culture, and argues that in the case of education, these cultural tools may lead to 'the encapsulation of school learning' (ibid.: 243). The illustrative texts which follow support the notion that changing the means of education - the kind of interactions that occur in the classroom - has the potential to change the activity of education itself. By virtue of being goal directed, educational 'actions' - the teaching and learning events themselves - require participants' focus of attention. By contrast, the stratum of 'operations' is frequently below the level of the conscious attention of the participants. Thus the way that interactions in the classroom are carried out (as opposed to the content of what is being talked about or the actions that are going on at the time) is, like the rules of a game for experienced players, not normally the focus of teachers' or students' conscious attention. Enter a staffroom and you are likely to hear teachers talking about what they are going to do in their classrooms, the teaching activities, the resources they will use, or how they will assess a particular piece of learning. But it is rare to hear discussion about the process of talking with children, for example what teachers do when they set up and participate in a particular conversation, what role they play, how they respond to what children say or how they position students as learners. This is hardly surprising, since the way that teachers and children talk together is usually (unless something untoward occurs) below the level of conscious attention. It is normalized and unquestioned, like the rules of a game for a competent player. Somewhat ironically though, it is through this largely unconscious verbal behaviour - what is allowed, encouraged or constrained - that the teacher's implicit theory of learning is played out. One of the features of this normalized classroom talk is the three-part interactional sequence which has come to be known as the IRF or IRE pattern - Initiation, Response, Feedback/Evaluation (first noted by Bellack et al. 1966, and later by Sinclair and Coulthard 1975). This pattern

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describes a three-part pattern of teacher-student interaction whereby a teacher initiates an exchange (usually a question), a student responds, and the teacher then evaluates the response, usually in terms of the 'correctness' or otherwise of what the student has said. The teacher's question is frequently a display question: it is asked not to gain unknown information, but for the purposes of a student indicating what they know (or don't know). The answer to such a question is frequently 'prescripted': the teacher has in her head what the expected answer should be, and the student's response is expected to conform to this script. Though this may be a somewhat stereotypical account of the typical exchange, it is nonetheless generally viewed as a fairly accurate representation of the major discourse pattern of the classroom and many researchers have commented on its ubiquitous presence in classroom talk (see, for example, Mehan 1979; Edwards and Mercer 1987; Cazden 1988; Lemke 1990; Mercer 1995). There has been both support and critique of the use of the IRF structure. Mercer (1995) argues that it is effective in marking knowledge and understanding that is to be considered significant. Others have argued that the final move by the teacher functions as a built-in repair structure (Newman et at. 1989). In the second language classroom the restricted nature of the IRF structure may sometimes facilitate the role of the student, since the teacher's question often offers strong clues about the kind of response that is required. In addition, taking part in a less structured conversation may be daunting for a student who has to work out not only what to say but also how to handle turntaking processes (van Lier 1996: 152). Others are critical of its overuse. Lemke argues that the effect it gives of participation is illusory: 'high on quantity, low on quality' (Lemke 1990: 168), and that it makes it difficult for teachers to hear how students talk about a topic: most of what students say tends to fit, or be made to fit, into the thematic pattern set up by the teacher, and so 'students have little opportunity to make semantic connections in their own terms' (ibid.: 32). And as later discussion points out, it has also been critiqued for the lack of affordance it offers for second language development. However, exchange structures in themselves cannot be described as 'good' or 'bad'; the issue is rather how justifiable a particular exchange may be in terms of the goals of the actions within which it is situated. Thus it may be highly relevant in some contexts, but not in others (see van Lier 1996 for detailed discussion of the relevance and constraints of this kind of talk in terms of second language development, and Cazden 1988). The major intent here is to present the IRF sequence as an example of how operations can become normalized and unquestioned by participants, and to suggest the importance of holding such operations up for inspection. We may then find that for some purposes and in some contexts there are other and more appropriate means by which educational actions can be played out.

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3 Ideologies of learning Debate about the goals and means of education has to date largely been constructed through two seemingly very different ideologies which can be referred to in broad terms as the 'transmission model' and the 'progressive' or 'child-centred' model (Cummins and Sayers 1995; Wells 1999b). These pedagogic approaches, which in some ways present very different views of the roles of teacher and learner, have been critiqued from a range of perspectives which, for lack of space, I will not elaborate in detail here. I will note, however, a feature which the two ideologies have in common, since it is central to the argument of this paper. As Wells (1999a) has argued, even though they may view learning and the role of the teacher in fundamentally different ways, both traditional and progressive ideologies share what is essentially an individualistic notion of learning. Both ideologies conceptualize the learner as independent and self-contained, and knowledge is viewed as an individual possession which occurs within individuals rather than something constructed between them. It is unsurprising, therefore, that neither ideology recognizes the collaborative nature of meaningmaking, or what Wells has referred to as collaborative sense-making, and this is perhaps one reason why the study of classroom talk in general remains less well theorized than the study of classroom literacy. This is not to be critical of teachers rather it points to the inadequacy of the two most dominant models for teacher development, program planning and reflective practice. 4 A social view of language and learning

An alternative model of teaching and learning, and one which has the potential to transcend the often unproductive debates between 'teacher—centred' and 'learner—centred' education, can be found within the kind of learning partnership theorized by Vygotsky, whose work since the 1980s has begun to exert a major influence on Western education in Western Europe, North America and Australia. This view, broadly referred to as socio-cultural or socio-historical, together with the work of other Soviet cognitive theorists such as Luria (1981), Leont'ev (1981) and the literary theorist Bakhtin (1981), sees human development as intrinsically social rather than individualistic, a theory reflected in the interpretations of this work by many scholars and educationists (see for example Wertsch 1985; Tharp and Gallimore 1988; Moll 1990; Wells and Chang-Wells 1992; Mercer 1995, 2000; Hall 1998; Wells 1999b, 2000; and Lee and Smagorinsky 2000). Central to this theory of learning is Vygotsky's notion of the zone of proximal development or ZPD, referring to the distance or the cognitive gap between what a learner can do unaided and what they can do with help (Vygotsky 1978). It is this assisted performance which is seen to provide the educational basis for student development. Assisted performance can be seen most obviously in the learning of concrete actions (such as a young child learning to dress itself). But it is

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also significant in the development of cognitive processes (such as reasoning and problem solving) and here too it is the result of participation with others in goal-directed activity. The child initially engages in joint thinking with others through the talk that accompanies, directs and reflects on the problem-solving and social participation required in everyday social activity (a process illustrated also in the studies of Halliday (1993) and Painter (1984, 1998) of early language development). Vygotsky suggests that this external, social dialogue is gradually internalized to become a resource for individual thinking and problem solving, or what he refers to as 'inner speech' or 'verbal thought'. The child's external dialogue with others later becomes an inner personal resource for thinking and for further problem solving. Learning thus involves not simply learning items of knowledge, but also being able to use this knowledge in other contexts, to help solve new problems: it means learning how to think, not learning what to think. In Vygotskian terms, then, learning occurs through supported performance and in the context of joint activity, and development, including language development, is seen as intrinsically social and educational. To a significant extent, children's development is the result of the experience of education, defined in its broadest sense, (that is, not confined to the formal classroom), rather than a prerequisite for educatio to occur. Learning leads development: it is not simply dependent on it. And it follows that if external dialogue is a major resource for the development of thinking, educators must take seriously the nature of the talk in which children are engaged in the classroom. Broadly congruent with a socio-cultural view of learning are the socialsemiotic approaches to language development suggested by Halliday and other linguists working in this tradition (see Wells 1999b; Foley 1991; Halliday, Hasan, Painter and Williams, this volume). While mentalist accounts suggest the talk that children hear around them functions primarily as a trigger for language acquisition and a testing ground for their developing hypotheses, functional approaches present the view that children learn to use language in interaction with others for a range of purposes and in a range of cultural and situational contexts. In the school context, talk takes on its major significance in relation to the ways of thinking and discourse of the specific subjects or disciplines encountered in formal education. To be a scientist or a historian or a mathematician is to be able to participate in the discourse of scientists or historians or mathematicians. To 'learn' those subjects is to be apprenticed into the modes of discourse and the ways of meaning that constitute them. In the process of schooling, learners are expected to progress in their understanding of the world from what Vygotsky terms 'spontaneous' concepts, which are the ontological categories forming the basis for an individual's intuitive knowledge of the world, to an understanding of what he terms 'scientific' concepts, which are systems of relations formulated by the culture and which allow for conscious manipulation of the expressions of

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relations between objects (for related discussion, see Butt, this volume). This systematicity is explicitly articulated through the discourse of the classroom. Writing of the dual role of classroom discourse in the development of understanding and of literacy, Wells suggests that teacher-student discourse needs to include 'forms that, with the assistance provided by the teacher, gradually incorporate the essential features of the discourse of the particular discipline' (Wells 1992: 291), a process which the texts below illustrate. Thus in this view of language development, the language of teachers and carers remains of great significance for the continuing development of language associated with academic learning, even though many of the major milestones of language development have been passed by the time children start school. Although, as innatists would argue, learners are predisposed to learn language, functional theories of language (paralleling socio-cultural theories of learning) suggest that whether they do learn it, and the purposes for which they will ultimately be able to use it, are dependent on the social contexts in which they find themselves. In short, what and how we learn depends very much on who we share meanings with and the kinds of meanings that are made. 5 Talk in Classrooms

The illustrative texts which follow are taken from a science lesson in an upper primary classroom where for all but two of the children English was a second language. The class was a mainstream one, that is, not a specialized 'ESL' class. Most children had been born in Australia, five were first generation migrants, with two very recently arrived. The teacher, with whom I had had a long professional relationship, was an experienced ESL teacher who had also worked in a consultancy role within the education system, but who had now chosen to return to teaching as a mainstream classroom teacher. The texts occurred after a lesson in which children had carried out a number of group experiments, with each group performing a slightly different experiment. In the lesson which followed, from which the texts are taken, each group reported back to the class what they had learned. Not surprisingly, while the children had had little difficulty in talking together about what they were doing in the face-to-face context of the group work, they had considerably more difficulty in reporting what they had done to their peers who had not shared in their experiences. The reporting context required them to reconstruct what they had done through language alone, and thus to use more written-like and explicit language demanding a greater range of lexicogrammatical resources (see Martin 1984 for discussion of the 'mode continuum', and Gibbons 2002 for a discussion of classroom implications). Halliday (1993) refers to this reconstruction of past events not shared by listeners as the ability to impart unknown meanings and sees it as a major developmental step for mother-

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tongue learners. We might assume it is an equally demanding context for young second language learners. In the classroom context, I have referred to these reporting episodes as 'teacher-guided reporting' (Gibbons 2001, 2002 and forthcoming) to signify the critical role played by the teacher in the reporting process. As children reported what they had done, she requested clarification, made explicit to the speakers what additional textual or semantic information was required, or directly recast what they were saying — strategies which led to more registrally appropriate texts. It is this jointly constructed discourse that I suggest can provide an important site for second language development. The discussion of each text will focus on the opportunities learners are being given to develop a second language. The examples illustrate the collaborative nature of meaning-making and of knowledge construction, and the active but differential roles of both teacher and student in the learning process. They also indicate the significance of both the lexicogrammatical and discourse choices made by the teacher in relation to the possibilities for second-language development. Particularly important in Examples 3 and 4 is the fact that quite small changes in the IRF structure - the 'operations' level of education - led to quite major changes in the discourse as a whole, changes which are particularly significant in terms of the opportunities offered for second-language development. In the transcription, each pause of approximately one second is represented by one dot, two seconds by two dots and so on. Simultaneous talk is indicated by underlining, and marked emphasis by bold type. Since full stops are not used, a forward slash (/) is used to facilitate the reading of the transcripts where meaning may otherwise be unclear. In Example 1, the teacher invites Charbel to tell the class what his group had learned about the behaviour of two bar magnets in relation to the position of the poles. Example 1 Students

Teacher what were your results?

when we put it on one pole . . em faces the other one it doesn't stick but when we turned the other one around . it sticks together OK can I just clarify something? you've got two magnets? they're in line/when you put the two together yes Miss

like that (demonstrating) they

{nods)

attracted to each other/ they stuck to each other/ is that right? OK can you then tell me what you had to do next ?

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when we had em the things the first one like if you put it up in the air like that. the magnets you can feel . feel the em . that they're not pushing? when you turn the magnet around? you felt that pushing and if we use the other side we can't feel pushing OK so when . . they were facing one way . . they/ you felt the magnets attract and stick together/ when you turn one of the magnets around you felt it. repelling . . or pushing away . . OK thank you well done Charbel In many ways this is a very typical classroom text: the teacher re-represents, recasts or recontextualizes children's experiences in a way which fits the broader pedagogic objectives of the curriculum. A closer look at the discourse itself suggests how this process occurs. Having taken as a starting point what the student is able to contribute, and repeating the lexical items he has used (stuck, pushing away), she models the language he will later b expected to use (attracted, repelling). Her version of events remains clos related to the students' version - the teacher's alternative thematic items construct the same semantic relations through the repetition of the same thematic pattern: they stick together/ they attracted each other; you can feel th

not pushing/ you felt it repelling. In this example, the equivalent words al receive marked emphasis. Lemke refers to this as 'local equivalence' within the thematic pattern being built up (Lemke 1990), the equivalent words occupying corresponding 'slots' in a similar grammatical construction. This appropriation and recoding by the teacher of student meanings depends on her contribution being contingent on the student's contribution, that is, responding to it in ways which closely relate the two moves, by extending or clarifying in some way what the student has said. The notion of contingency is discussed more fully later in this paper. The text as a whole can be interpreted as an expert working within the learner's ZPD, with the teacher taking as a starting-point what the child is able to contribute, but providing access to the language he will later be expected to use, which is thematically related to what he has already said. It could also be speculated that the closeness of 'fit' between each set of contributions offers an insight into how far the student's ZPD is informing the teacher's response. The degree of difference between student-talk and teacher-talk can perhaps illuminate the appropriacy of teacher responses in classroom discourse. Too close a match would suggest that students are not being provided with a context in which learning will occur, too great a difference may lead to students failing to understand the teacher's discourse (as an example of the latter, see Lemke 1990).

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However, what the teacher is doing here is not a simple recoding of what the child has said. The shift between 'common sense' and 'technical' lexis is not a simple linear process. What characterizes this text is the 'meshing' of two registers: the everyday talk about the topic which the learner brings to the discussion, and the more scientific, technical language of the science curriculum. If we focus only on the teacher's contributions, they include instances of three distinct 'points' along a developmental continuum. For the purposes of examining the teacher-talk, I have characterized these points as: 'situationally embedded', representing those parts of the discourse which contain exophoric reference and are bound up with and rely on the immediate visual context; 'everyday', representing the informal spoken language familiar to the children; and 'formal', representing the standard lexicogrammar of school science. Similar meanings are thus being made in three ways, and as a result of these mode shifts there is considerable message redundancy, a feature of discourse enabling of second-language

Table 9.1 Mode shifting in Text 1 Student

Teacher

Teacher

(Situation embedded) (Everyday)

Teacher (Formal)

it sticks together like that (demonstrating) they attracted to each other they stuck to each other you can feel . . . that they're not pushing ... if we use the other side we can't feel pushing when they were facing one way you felt the magnets attract and stick together when you turn one of the magnets around you felt it repelling or pushing away

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comprehension (Wong-Fillmore 1985). Table 9.1 illustrates the mode shifting by which this redundancy is achieved: Examining texts in this way offers a micro-perspective on the way in which teacher-student discourse can operate as a linguistic 'bridge' between students' current language abilities and the demands of the school curriculum. The teacher mediates between the children's everyday language and 'common sense' understanding of a scientific phenomenon on the one hand and the more technical language and broader scientific understandings on the other. In Table 9.1 this mediation is realized in the two middle columns which effectively 'span' two registers. Hearing the everyday and more technical discourse used interchangeably offers opportunities for learners to appropriate into their own talk more registrally appropriate language. Indeed, the teacher makes this goal quite explicit at one point in the lesson (see Example 4). Example 1 also suggests the complexity of what second language acquisition theory (SLA) describes broadly (and often in non-linguistic terms) as 'comprehensible input' (see, for example, Krashen 1985, 1988). What this text makes clear is that 'comprehensibility' is not synonymous with 'simplification'; rather, in this example, students are given access to key technical terms in a context where new meanings are made transparent through the incorporation of student meanings. I will suggest later that the kind of register 'meshing' that results in a 'hybrid' register, such as is evident here, is a significant factor in the successful development of new academic registers with young second language learners. Example 2 provides a further example of register meshing. Like the first example, it illustrates how the teacher's contribution hinges on what has been initiated by students. Again the teacher mediates between a student's personal and specific learning and the generalizations that can be drawn from it: both specific and generalized learning is articulated, and the relationship between them is explicitly noted. After all the students had reported back their findings from a range of experiments, the teacher then asked them, again in small groups, to think of some 'general ideas' about magnets, based on what they had found out. The reporting session which followed was based on this small group talk around generalizations about magnets. Example 2

Students 1 A: magnets stick to some kind of metal 2 3 A: all metals 4

Teacher some kinds of metals/are you saying/what does that mean/they don't attract. . they don't attract. . all metals . and I think in the other group . they figured that one out too . . so they

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don't attract and I think maybe that's what you mean (to the othe group)/ they don't attract all metals/ did we have that down/ yesterday? 5 Ss (several) no 6

so that is something new we've learned then?

7 Ss (several) yeah 8

they . don't attract all metals . right Ran a?

9 R: we thought how about if the golden screw is em . gold and the thumb tack . colour gold as well . how come the thumb tack attracted and the gold screw didn't? and we aah thought that they might be different metals . and they . . . 10 that was good/that was very good/ now who else was in that group/ Joseph and Jennifer/that was very good the way they were talking about that 11 SI: I thought of that see here's Rana's argument look . . 12 (demonstrating) same colour . . the magnet/ the magnet didn't attract this (gold screw) . . but it did attra this (thumb tack)

13 J: and we thought 14 15 J: and we thought. that. . it was different. different metals . different kind of metals 16 SI that's lighter 17 A: magnets only stick to some kinds of metals 18 19 A: yes 20

so Joseph what did you think then?

different kinds of metals . so . Amanda read yours again then . it's different kinds of metals . therefore only some metals only some

The interaction is highly explicit, and what is to be learned is clearly marked as significant information, not only by the marked emphasis of key

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lexis and textual markers, but also by the degree of repetition (which is unlike anything that could be conceived of outside the school context and marks this text clearly as 'school discourse'!): they don't attract all metals they don't attract all metals (4); they don't attract all metals (8); it's diferent kin of metals, it's different kinds of metals (16); magnets only stick to some kinds of

metals (17); only some (18); only some (20). The fact that this is 'ne knowledge is also explicitly marked by the teacher: so that is something n we've learned then. In Turn 16 the logical conjunction therefore marks progress of the discussion to this point, and pushes the discourse forward by indicating to the children that this is the conclusion of the argument: what follows is to be considered as the 'point' of the discussion and of their earlier experiments. It is the teacher's response to Rana which is particularly interesting in the light of what I have termed 'register meshing'. The register meshing is here put to a somewhat different use from the way we saw it used in the previous text. The teacher appropriates Rana's contribution, not b recoding it into the more academic register of school science, but by doing the reverse; she unpacks the generalization (that magnets attract only some kinds of metals) by giving a specific example and demonstrating with the materials themselves. The two-way register shifting characteristic of this classroom - from common sense to technical language and back again makes explicit the relationship between two kinds of knowledge and two kinds of meaning. The generalization which the teacher is foregrounding is a 'scientific' concept: only some materials are magnetic. From a Vygotsian perspective this is a 'systematic' concept: it can be used voluntarily. What is unpacked is an everyday concept: the magnet didn't attract the gold screw. As a piece of information this cannot be manipulated in a voluntary manner because it lacks systematicity (Moll 1990). Also, here is a shift in tenor: the appropriation of the student's ideas by the teacher, and the acknowledgement of their source in the discourse (the demonstration is 'named' as Rana's argument) modifies the knowledge asymmetry betwee teacher and students and suggests a greater equality of participant status within the discourse. It is also worth noting that Rana's contribution is fairly unusual in that she initiates a question, a relatively rare event (Webster et al. 1996), and reports on the thinking of the group rather than giving procedural information. The teacher evaluates this positively, foregrounding the quality of student talk, rather than the 'correctness' or otherwise of the information. In Example 3 Julianna is attempting to explain that a magnet still attracted a nail even when a piece of aluminium foil was between the magnet and the nail; however, the foil itself was not attracted. Example 3 Students Teacher 1 what did you find out? 2 J: if you put a nail . onto the piece of foil . . and then pick

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it. pick it up . . the magnet will . . . . that if you put a . nail . under a piece of foil . and then pick . pick the foil up with the magnet. . still . still with the nail . . under i t . . . it won't 3 it what? 4 J: it won't/ it won't come out what won't come out? 5 6 J: it'll go up wait just a minute . . can you 7 explain that a bit more Julianna? 8 J: like if you put a nail and then foil over it and then put the nail on top . of the foil . . the nail underneath the foil/ Miss I can't say it 9 no you're doing fine I/I can see 10 J: Miss forget about the magnet/em the magnet holds it with the foil up the top and the nail's underneath and the foil's on top and put the magnet in it and you lift it up . . and the nail will em . . . hold it/stick with the magnet and the foil's in between 11 oh/ so even with the foil in between . the . magnet will still pick up the nail . alright does the magnet pick up the foil? 12 J: no Although the student's first explanation (2) is extended, it is very hesitant. At Turn 3 the teacher could have closed the exchange (as she doe eventually in Turn 11), by recasting what Julianna is attempting to say. Instead she increases the demands made on the student as interactant by asking a question in order to determine the process to which the student is referring: it what? (3) (i.e., it won't do what?). Such a move places the responsibility of clarification onto the student. When the student's meaning is still not explicit, the teacher asks a further question, this time to elicit the missing participant: what won't come out? (5). (i.e. what thi won't come out?). Here is perhaps a further instance of a teacher working within the learner's ZPD, with the student operating at the outer levels of her abilities in English (note her comment: / can't say it). In this contex the teacher's two questions are precisely formulated to indicate to the

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learner what information is missing from her account; though the scaffolding is minimal it is critical. Julianna's final contribution (10), however, (and compared with her initial attempt), is more explicit, a more complete and comprehensible piece of information, and the least hesitant, incorporating the key fact that the foil was between the nail and the magnet. The text as a whole operationalizes Swain's notion of 'pushed' or 'stretched' language (Swain 1985, 1995) and supports her contention that interaction mediates learning, it is not simply an outcome of it (Swain 2001). As is evident from the visual layout of the transcript alone, the student talks here far more than the teacher throughout the sequence. Yet because of the finely tuned nature of the teacher's scaffolding, which directs the student's attention to how her wording can be made more explicit, the text is characterized by student rather than teacher reformulations. Also, the teacher's choice to hold back from any recontextualizing of student meaning until the eleventh turn results in increased opportunities for negotiation of meaning: consider, for example, what opportunities for learning would have been lost if the teacher had said in turn 3 what she eventually says in turn 11. In this example, this increase in negotiation of meaning is achieved by a small but significant adaptation to the IRF exchange. Here, in place of the teacher's F move, which frequently either evaluates what the student has said or gives the expected answer, there is what Wells (1996) calls a 'pivot' move, which functions to extend the student's answer. Rather than closing down the discourse, as often occurs in the third move of a single IRF exchange, a pivot move extends the discourse by continuing what Hall (1998) refers to as the 'participatory rights' of the student. This occurs through moves which are 'prospective' (Wells 1996), that is, by moves which require a further response through a demand for information. In this text a pivot move occurs three times - realized twice by the questions and once in the request for the information to be repeated. Making the feedback move more prospective in this way modifies the IRF exchange in ways which foster collaborative and jointly constructed stretches of dialogue. In relation to second-language development, these longer sequences allow time for the student to have several attempts at explaining what she is trying to say, a process which encourages pushed or stretched language (Swain 1985). In such sequences the 'division of labour' typical of the IRF exchange, where the teacher does most of the talking, is redistributed, with the student rather than the teacher taking responsibility for making what she says more explicit to her audience. In this study, written texts from the students suggest the significance for language development of this kind of negotiation of meaning, in that the negotiated interactions between teacher and student were reflected in the lexicogrammatical choices of the children in their journal writing, indicating some take-up of the new register (Gibbons 1998, 2001, forthcoming). Example 3 is a tangible example of

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how changing the rules - making a very small change in the normalized interactional pattern - can have a significant effect in determining the direction in which the discourse can move and thus potentially on the nature of the educational process itself. Example 4 is a further instance of the effect of a pivot move on the student's use of language. At this point, the teacher expects the students to have appropriated aspects of the new register, now referred to explicitly by the teacher as scientific language. Example 4 Student

Teacher Michelle what did you find out?

M. we found out that the south and the south don't like to stick together now let's/let's start using our scientific language Michelle M: the north and the north repelled each other and the south and the south also . . repelled each other but when we put the/when we put the two magnets in a different way they/they attracted each other This text also illustrates how school discourse represents a particular form of communication: words are not only in a general sense a means of communication between people, but are also themselves the object of study. Here the teacher directs the student's attention to particular ways of meaning and the systematic relationships between meanings and wordings that constitute an organized system of knowledge. 6 Discussion A number of points can be made about these interactions. First, they are characterized by the quality of contingency, that is, the way in which an adult judges the need and quality of assistance required by the learner on the basis of moment-to-moment understanding. Vygotsky's notion of the ZPD demands that the more knowledgeable participant must understand and be responsive to the learners's notion of the task and the (here linguistic) resources that they bring to it. Thus the teacher must consider the semiotic tool of language through which both participants negotiate ideas and the previous knowledge and the ways of meaning by which the learner brings understandings to the task. Contingency thus requires interactants to be oriented towards collaboration and symmetry: contingent discourse is anchored within the shared agenda of the participants (van Lier 1996). The interactions discussed in this paper are characterized by

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what van Lier refers to as a Janus-like quality: they look both towards the current language abilities of the children and forward to the more academic language of the curriculum. Such interactions relate new material to known, set up expectancies for what may come next, validate (show respect and value) both preceding and following utterances, and promote intersubjectivity (van Lier 1996: 184). Such intersubjectivity tends to reduce overt power relations, since it requires 'a constant oscillation between one's own role as an actor ... and the role of one's counterpart in interactions' (Markova 1982). Contingent discourse depends also upon the adult's ability to recognize what Halliday refers to as the learner's 'challenge zone', a notion not unlike the construct of the ZPD. Referring to the principle of filtering whereby learners decide what is and what is not on their agenda, he suggests 'children will attend to text that is ahead of their current semiotic potential, provided it is not too far ahead' (Halliday 1993: 105). One of the ways that classroom discourse can be responsive to the need to be 'ahead but not too far ahead' of learners' current semiotic potential is through the kind of register meshing which these texts illustrate. Through the bringing together of children's and teacher's conceptual and linguistic systems, students' contributions to the discourse are progressively transformed through these hybrid registers into the specialist discourse of the school curriculum. Such hybrid registers would appear to have a significant mediating role to play in second-language development in the school context. As these texts would suggest, a pedagogy which positions students as active and successful interactants, and where classroom talk is collaboratively constructed, appears more likely to provide the kind of discourse contexts which are enabling of second-language learning. But, as Hall points out, language learning does not depend only on students' abilities, or their knowledge and skills or motivation for learning. Rather it is 'tied to the teacher's motivation for and interest in providing her individual learners' with 'official participatory rights' to engage fully in the opportunities for exhibiting and building on their knowledge and skills in their classroom practices' (Hall 1998: 308). But this can only come about when there is a particular orientation by the teacher towards what counts as valued knowledge. If knowledge is seen as something held by the teacher which must be transmitted to students, there is little motivation or justification for according much air space to hear and probe a student's view of things. How far learners are given increased participatory rights is therefore dependent on the pedagogical and interactional role the teacher adopts, the kinds of responses she makes to students' contributions, and ultimately her own epistemological orientation. I suggested at the beginning of this paper that the operations level of the activity of education is usually routinized and unquestioned. I conclude with suggesting that we need to hold these routines up to scrutiny, just as we do the more visible aspects of syllabus design and

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programme development. Focusing attention on the discourse of the classroom can help to discover those points of 'leverage' (Wells 1996) which have the potential to impact profoundly on how the activity of education is realized in the day-to-day work of classrooms. In the words of van Lier: Starting by a close examination of interaction itself, and transforming it according to sound pedagogical principles, would necessarily (though not instantaneously) bring about a transformation of the institution itself. Reform thus occurs from the bottom up, one pedagogical action at a time, (van Lier 1996: 158)

The examples in this paper serve to suggest some of the ways in which the interactions between teacher and students determine the nature of the educational process itself. Whether education happens, or doesn't happen, depends largely on the opportunities for learning that are offered through the discourse in which children are participants. In classrooms where there is a dual focus on both the development of a second language and the construction of curriculum knowledge, a closer focus at the level of operations - the rules of the game - can provide one of the keys to an appropriate pedagogical response to the language development of young second-language learners. References Bakhtin M., 1981. The Dialogic Imagination, Four Essays by M.M. Bakht Holquist ed. and C. Emerson (trans). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Bellack A., Kliebard H., Hyman R. and Smith F., 1966. The Language of te Classroom. Columbia: Teachers College Press. Bereiter C. and Scardamalia M., 1981. 'From conversation to composition: the role of instruction in a developmental process', in Advances in Instructional Psychology. Vol 2, ed. R. Glaser. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Biber D., 1986. 'Spoken and written textual dimensions in English: Resolving the contradictory findings', Language, 62, pp. 384-414. Bruner J., 1975. 'Language as an instrument of thought', in Problems Language and Learning, ed. A. Davies. London: Heinemann. Canale M., 1983. 'On some dimensions of language proficiency', in Issues in Language Testing Research, ed. J. Oiler. Rowley, MA: Newbury Hou Cazden C, 1988. Classroom Discourse: The Language of Teaching and L Portsmouth NH: Heinemann. Collier V., 1989. 'How long? A synthesis of research in academic achievement in a second language', TESOL Quarterly, 23, pp. 509-3 Cummins J., 1996. Negotiating Identities: Education for Empowerment Diverse Society. Ontario CA: California Association for Bilingual Education. Cummins J., 2000. Language, Power and Pedagogy: Bilingual Children Cross-fire. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

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Cummins J. and Sayers D., 1995. Brave New Schools: Challenging Cultural Illiteracy through Global Learning Networks. New York: St Martin's Press. Donaldson M., 1978. Children's Minds. Glasgow: Collins. Edwards D. and Mercer N., 1987. Common Knowledge: The Development o Understanding in the Classroom. London: Methuen.

Engstrom Y, 1991. 'Non scolae sed vitae discimus: towards overcoming the encapsulation of school learning', Learning and Instruction, 1, pp. 243-59. FoleyJ., 1991. 'Vygotsky, Bernstein and Halliday: towards a unified theory of LI and L2 learning', Language, Culture and Curriculum, 14, 1, pp. 17. Gibbons P., 1998. 'Classroom talk and the learning of new registers in a second language', Language and Education, 12, 2, pp. 99-118. Gibbons P., 2001. 'Learning a New Register in a Second Language', in English Language Teaching in its Social Context, eds C.N. Candlin and N

Mercer. London: Routledge. Gibbons P., 2002. Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning: working with ESL Children in the Elementary Mainstream Classroom. Portsmouth NH

Heinemann. Gibbons P., forthcoming. Bridging Discourses in the ESL Classroom. Londo

Continuum. Hall J., 1998. 'Differential teacher attention to student utterances: the construction of different opportunities for learning in the IRF', Linguistics and Education, 9, 3, pp. 287-311.

Halliday M., 1993. 'Towards a language-based theory of learning', Linguistics and Education, 5, pp. 93—116. Krashen S., 1985. The Input Hypothesis: Issues and Implications. London:

Longman. Krashen S., 1988. 'Five hypotheses about second language acquisition', in Issues in Second Language Learning, eds T. Quinn and T. McNamara.

Geelong, Victoria: Deakin University Press. Lee C. and Smagorinsky P., 2000. Vygotskian Perpectives on Literacy Resear Constucting Meaning Through Collaborative Inquiry. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press. Lemke J., 1990. Talking Science: Language, Learning and Values. Nor NJ: Ablex. Leont'ev A., 1981. 'The problem of activity in psychology', in The Conce of Activity in Soviet Psychology, ed. J. Wertsch. Armonk, N.Y: Sharpe. Luria A., 1981. Language and Cognition. New York: Wiley. Markova I., 1982. Paradigms, Thought and Language. New York: Wiley. Martin J., 1984. 'Language, register and genre', in Children Writing, Stu Guide, ed. F. Christie. Geelong, Victoria: Deakin University Press. Martin J.R., 1989. 'Technicality and abstraction: language for the creation of specialised knowledge', Writing in Schools. (B Ed course reader), ed. Christie. Geelong: Victoria: Deakin University Press. Martin J.R., 1990. 'Literacy in science: learning to handle text as technology', in Literacy for a Changing World, ed. F. Christie. Victoria: A

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McKay P., Davies A., Devlin B., Clayton J., Oliver R. and Zammit S., 1997. The Bilingual Interface Project Report. Canberra: Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs. Mehan B., 1979. Learning Lessons. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Mercer N., 1995. The Guided Construction of Knowledge: Talk Amongst Teache and Learners. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Mercer N., 2000. Words and Minds: How We Use Language to Think Togethe London: Routledge. Mohan B., 1986. Language and Content. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Moll L., 1990. Vygotsky and Education: Instructional Implications and Applications of Sociocultural Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge Universit Press. Newman D., Griffin P. and Cole M., 1989. The Construction Zone: Workingfo Cognitive Change in School. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Olson D., 1977. 'From utterance to text: the bias of language in speech and writing', Harvard Education Review, 47, pp. 257-81. Painter C , 1984. Into the Mother Tongue: A Case Study in Early Language Development. London: Frances Pinter. Painter C , 1999. Learning Through Language in Early Childhood. London: Cassell [Continuum 2000]. Sinclair J. and Coulthard R.M., 1975. Towards an Analysis of Discourse: th English used by teachers and pupils. London: Oxford University Press. Swain M., 1985. 'Communicative competence: some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development', in Input in Second Language Acquisition, eds S. Gass and C. Madden. Cambridge MA: Newbury House. Swain M., 1995. 'Three functions of output in second language learning', in Principle and Practice in Applied Linguistics: Studies in Honour of H. G Widdowson, eds G. Cook and B. Seidlehofer. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Swain M., 2000. 'The output hypothesis and beyond: mediating acquisition through collaborative dialogue', in Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning, ed. J. Lantolf. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tharp R. and Gallimore R., 1988. Rousing Minds to Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Van Lier L., 1996. Interaction in the Language Curriculum: Awareness, Autonomy and Authenticity. London: Longman. Vygotsky L.S., 1978. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychologil Processes, eds M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner and E. Souberma Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Webster A., Beveridge M. and Reed M., 1996. Managing the Literacy Curriculum. London: Routledge. Wells G., 1992. 'The centrality of talk in education', in Thinking Voices, th Work of the National Oracy Project, ed. K. Norman. London: Hodder a

Stoughton.

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Wells G., 1996. 'Using the tool-kit of discourse in the activity of learning and teaching', Mind, Culture and Language, 3, 2, pp. 74-101. Wells G., 1999a. 'Language and Education: Reconceptualising Education as Dialogue', Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 19, pp. 135-55. Wells G., 1999b. Dialogic Inquiry: Towards a Sociocultural Practice and Theo of Education. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wells G., 2000. 'Dialogic inquiry in education: building on the legacy of Vygotsky', in Vygotskian Perspectives on Literacy Research: Constructin Meaning through Collaborative Inquiry, eds C. Lee and P. Smagorinsky Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wells G. and Chang-Wells G.L., 1992. Constructing Knowledge Together Classroom as Centers of Inquiry and Literacy. Portsmouth.NH: Heineman Wertsch V., 1985. Culture, Communication and Cognition: Vygotskian Perspectives. Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press. Wong-Fillmore L., 1985. 'When does teacher talk work as input?', in Input in Second Language Acquisition, eds S. Gass and C. Madden. Rowley MA: Newbury House.

10 How our Meanings Change: School Contexts and Semantic Evolution David G. Butt

1 Introduction: semantic structure as 'cultural DNA'

This discussion offers a closely worked demonstration of how human cognitive development can be construed as the convergence of cultural and linguistic opportunities. Such a construal contrasts with those approaches that give a predominantly mentalist account of human cognitive development. I offer this demonstration to encourage other investigations of the rhetorical resources which teachers (and others) use as they mentor children in the core mental tools of our cultures. Such resources are often latent patterns in that they fall outside the 'bandwidth' of any one analytical tradition. My emphasis is not meant to disparage the importance of different approaches, but rather to highlight the inseparability of cultural, semiotic and cognitive processes. Systemic functional linguistics enables me to treat this inseparability. Learning is viewed here as a change of 'meaning potential'. As such, there is no appeal to any a priori categories of mind. I am not claiming that a priori categories do not exist, nor that we must discount the view of natural transitions (viz. Piaget's 'genetic epistemology', 1971). What I am highlighting is the degree to which changing social and semiotic practices can supply an explanatory account of the complexity which underlies humans talking and thinking (Butt 1985 [1989]). Consequently, the task of this paper is to draw out one of the crucial semantic changes that occur within one crucial stage of the apprenticeship in my own culture: the crossing between primary and secondary education. The specifics of any social network can be seen to have a direct bearing on the forms the apprenticeship can take and, in particular, on how far the apprenticeship ultimately encompasses experience out beyond that immediate social network: to experiences tied to other social memberships with specific entry conditions; to 'distant' economic and material orders of community experience; and, therefore, to different orders of abstraction in the day-to-day business of working, problem solving, talking and thinking.

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These issues of apprenticeship, membership and meaning, I will explore by focusing on data from this crucial transition to formal learning - the shift to 'high' school around 12 years of age. This transition is the 'strait' to specializations beyond; and those specializations are the community's conventional route to the memberships of professions and of policymakers. Such memberships, by necessity, transcend the local networks and the local meanings into which we are first socialized. Increasingly, in the trajectory of a life history, the meaning-making must be transportable that is, freer of localistic assumptions and dependencies. As a result, the influence of standardized written practices on speech becomes stronger in that it is both the medium of the new learning and an immediately accessible coding for trans-contextual semantic style. It is not that anyone wants to 'talk like a book'; it is that some topics cannot be construed, objectified, quantified and (in other ways) pursued solely in the terms of local meanings. While the demands of the immediate speech context (the 'pragma' of classical Greek) will involve certain choices as a consequence of the spoken and deictic parameters, the cultural pressure to move beyond the immediate appears inexorable. With this general picture - by examining the 'semiotic logic' of the situation - one can see how the meaning-bearing artefacts of cultural history become a kind of 'cultural DNA' (Gell-Mann 1994: 292, in which the term is attributed to Hazel Henderson): what we speak becomes what we think and enact; and our brains are, inevitably, the embodiment of that history of social enactments. To the degree that human cultural evolution provides strong accounts of human cognitive development, alternative genetically based speculations need not be invoked, nor even pursued. The complexity of language, and the complexity of what we as humans do through language, have created a situation much like a new version of William Paley's watch (Dawkins 1991). The astonishment experienced by those trying to track the intricate relations in texture, or those interpreting human achievements in mathematics or technology, tends to encourage an inverted argument for design — namely, that no system of relations or mechanisms of change that humans can conceptualize will ever be plausible in describing the potential of human brains. Such attitudes, including the view of Chomsky (1975), pass the responsibility back to the 'mysterium tremendum'; namely, how can we explain a one-off genetic event? (See, for example, critical analysis of Chomsky's views in relation to evolution in Toulmin 1972: 465ff). The argument of this paper is to suggest that along with a myriad other small clarifications, we can build up a useful account of how certain crucial forms of complexity in human behaviour evolve, thereby leaving less rhetorical space to both the Paleys and the Chomskys. 2 Semantic and grammatical statements: two pictures of how we mean

Imagine, for the sake of my argument, that linguistics had not been preoccupied with grammaticality in the particular way it has been over the last

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40 years, but with semantics, that is to say, with: semantic structure; coherence and cohesion in texts; the mapping of options available to speakers in particular cultural contexts; and the growth of those options over three crucial forms of change - the changes of socio-semantic history (phylogenesis), the changes viewed in individual life histories (ontogenesis), and the changes that arise, choice by choice, stage by stage throughout a text (logogenesis). Such a semantic focus would have involved grammar. How could it be otherwise when grammar provides the very core of our meaning-making? Furthermore, grammar is the organizational basis of any choices we have as speakers of a language. One cannot undertake such a semantic project, then, without a central role for grammar. But, in linguistics, there was a strange inversion. It was as if grammar could be studied autonomously, that is, as if the whole semantic purpose of the grammatical organization could be 'put on hold', or, more zealously, could be formalized out of the circle of relevance. No doubt, to the astonishment of many future historians of science, this autonomous syntax was not only conceded by many to be a useful undertaking (perhaps a surprising thing to non-linguists), but, for a period, it was also taken by so many to be the very hallmark of what it is to study human language, with the study of interaction and meaning banished beyond the new official borders of the discipline. Linguists have, perhaps, now come out of a period of quasi-axiomatic linguistics, when abstractions never had to undergo a test against experience, merely against the unchecked intuitions of a dominant group. The project may have been worth trying - to find the limits of formalizing speech - but the error was in claiming and maintaining that it was the only project worth trying in linguistics! We can ask ourselves how different might the evolutionary debates appear had the linguistic input been centrally concerned with meaning and with the increasingly complex forms of our meaning making? What, we might ask, would have been the phenomena with which such a linguistics would be most concerned? And would such phenomena, the 'objects' of study, be studied in the social contexts which meanings are themselves continuously constructing? Or would study lead to 'objectification' and decontextualization, charges that are often levelled at linguistic methods? The role of a systematic approach to semantics can be illustrated from a range of sources, in fact, from any or all the sub-disciplines of the subject. But a brief example from child language development brings out the interdependency of semantic and grammatical investigations and the impoverishment involved in their separation. When Emily (under three years) greets her father returning early Sunday morning from sport, she is dressed - a marked state of affairs - and says: I was thinking.... in my room, (1) if I put my shoes on, (2)

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we might go round to Jennie's (3) We need to hold two pictures of meaning-making alongside one another here in order to encompass what the child is enacting. As a sequence of three clauses, this opening gambit from the child can be interpreted as three depths of dependency a (3a (3(3 albeit in the order a (3(3 3a: "the child" is projecting a reported thought about going to her aunt's house. She even shores up the grammatical weight of the projecting clause by adding the delayed circumstance: 'in my room'. This naturalizes and materializes the mental process by giving it a circumstance - for the grammarian, unbeknown to Julia, this makes the clause less easy to categorize as a mere framing device. For her, it lends the messages the solidity of an observation or proposition, rather than the tenuousness of a proposal. The 'if clause, on 'shoes', is thematized3 so as to concede a controversial issue before the message of main negotiation. And the modalized 'we might go round to Jennie's' expresses the nub of her purpose and meaning, but in the dependent (3 clause of her reported thought. We arrive at two versions of the meaning, crucially non-congruent (see Figure 10.1). The semantic structure and the grammatical structure are played off

Figure 10.1 Visualizing non-congruence between semantics and lexicogrammar

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against one another in a kind of counterpoint. The meaning, as Firth (1968 [1956]: 108) pointed out, is the contribution of the different strata, not of semantics alone. We need to see both strata here as part of the content plane, following Halliday (1992), and Hjelmslev (1953) before him. The notion of realization is crucial here - each picture of structure, by itself, belies the child's meaning-making. With the two pictures together, we can work towards a clearer idea of the exchange, the child's development, and the social order into which she is being trained. Treating the child's language as an indirect speech act, or as grammar alo reinforces all the fallacies of the content/form split which have undermined a fuller determination of the role of language in developmental studies, cognitive modelling and stylistics, among other applications of linguistics. 3 Modes and motivations of semantic complexity Aspects of the key notion of semantic complexity can be investigated by analysing a number of passages from crucial stages of our socialization our growing traffic in texts, within and across social networks. I am regarding such stages - critical transitions - as benchmarks of the cultural apprenticeship that our society now requires. Such benchmarks provide evidence of increasing semantic complexity in our day-to-day messages, not just in the specialized registers of science and technology. The ontogenetic rites of passage can be invoked, then, as indices of what Sapir (1921) referred to as the 'drift' of a language - our community's changing semiotic profile. The analysis of what people negotiate - their semiotic rites of passage - must be a primary source of evidence concerning the phylogenetic changes of communication and norms of meaning-making. This is no more than to claim that the changing requirements of apprenticeship tell us about the evolving character of those in the guild. One critical transition for many cultures can be characterized as that between primary and secondary education. All Western developmental theories treat this period (between the ages of 11 and 13) as a benchmark of education and socialization (as the change at school itself indicates). The challenge, however, is not to view this transition as simply a stage of physical and cognitive maturation, since the scope and ramifications of the intellectual changes are not fixed, but may be better characterized as a function of the cultural tools to which the child is properly apprenticed. In this paper, I am concerned with the changing semantic pressures on children and the ways in which their meaning potential changes in meeting the new demands of problem solving and behavioural expression (from drawing parallel lines to holding to your role in a planned move in sport). While Piagetian approaches emphasized a 'natural' transition to formal operations, the crucial role of cultural tools is strongly emphasized across a variety of exponents of what is now called 'cognitive science'; Vygotsky (1962, 1978) emphasizes the way new mental tools revolutionize

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the preceding mental operations of the child (when you learn algebra, you can never see addition/division etc. in the same light again); Bruner has urged the importance of the 'prosthetic devices' of culture (1986: 41) in denning what we do, not just in the service of existing tasks (see 1985: 23, 1999: 151-2 in which he debates the translation of Vygotsky's quotation from Bacon); Richard Gregory, a specialist on brains and vision, writes of 'conceptual tools' which extend our potential from an evolutionary perspective (1981: ch 12); and Daniel Dennett discusses how tools make us 'Gregorian creatures' - beings with extended potential (after the insights of Gregory; see for example Dennett 1996: lOOff). The philosopher Karl Popper proposed a related idea with his notion of World 3 - knowledge without a knowing subject (1976: 186ff). More comprehensively in relation to symbolic behaviour, Halliday (1986) has taken up a languagebased, longitudinal perspective of children's schooling and their transition to high school. Children are challenged by a new construal of ideational meaning, namely, in step with the way specialist knowledge is presented in terms of abstract, second order 'things', quite out of alignment with the agentively direct modelling of the grammar of early childhood; for example, 'the velocity increases', 'a capability for rapid deployment of ... 'the glass crack growth rate', and even the relational markedness of 'the dinner was followed by a swim'. Halliday's (1994: ch 10) observations concerning ideational metaphor in the deployment of grammatical categories can be interpreted as an index of the demand that the culture makes of its initiates (note that strategies of interpersonal metaphor are a feature of very early socialization; see Painter, this volume). Essentially, in our 'standard average European' semiotic system, as Whorf has set out (1956), the child has to embark on a new interpretation of the world - one in which the 'dominants' are complex entities that must be quantified and characterized by symbolic attributes (i.e., the attributes derived from the place a concept holds within a theory, whether of a specialized or of a folk provenance). We can, for instance, talk about a psychosis or a tantrum or a wobblie- they are render as 'things' even though they refer to a span of behaviours that might have been expressed by sequences of verbs. The pattern, as noted by Halliday, often involves the movement of semantic specificity away from verbal groups to a cognate nominal; hence, do a dance, have a bath, give a lau etc. The pattern is as clear in 'glass crack growth rate'(Halliday 1993) as it is in 'chuck a wheelie/do a wheelie' (in a car). In short, we construct an experiential domain of 'misplaced concreteness' (Whitehead 1929: viii) but a concreteness that serves us well as a heuristic, cognitive map for dealing with the transactions we must make with the world, in particular, as we move to comparative measures - the strength of a bridge, the yield o a strain of wheat, the uptake on a new product and so forth. There are many reasons for tracking changes in this particular band of cultural apprenticeships. First, the age group (10-14 years) is at a considerable distance from the period that the Chomskyan era focused

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upon (i.e., 2-4 years). Any crucial shifts in the uses of language - with a consequent reorganization of relations between grammar, semantics and context - cannot but be challenging to the theories of the language instinct bloc. For example, such findings of significant change might force a reconsideration of what it means to be grammatical and the degree to which the latter depends on being social. Second, this focus on a sociocognitive rite of passage suggests that we ought to reconceptualize variation: crucial differences are likely to be demonstrable not only between the current, putative, cultural traditions, but also between those within a community whose purchase on the changed semantic potential is marked, whether by degree or by organizing principles/priorities (these being key issues in relation to variation as theorized by Bernstein with coding (mentation (1990, 1996) and Bourdieu (1990) with habitus). A third reason for the focus on the high school transition arises from the fact that we are creating a universe of experience that is moving further and further away from our human senses. Our senses cannot report on many of the common topics/objects of our talk. The distance between topical objects and experiential report is not a condition peculiar to new kinds of work in an increasingly technologized society. Every human relationship in a technologized community is, I argue, currently adapting to the semantic pressures: • of quantification (of the terms of discussion) • of abstraction (away from natural objects and perceptual evidence) • and of a focus on hypothetical or heuristic objects (including estimates, predictions and virtual modelling). The full demonstration of these drifts or vectors in cultural activities requires a corpus-based exercise that I can only illustrate here. Such a project would examine the linguistic character of intensifying mental tools, in particular those that have a wider registerial distribution as social, economic and scientific specializations become naturalized into the talk of a wider group of, for example, investors, techno hobbyists, political lobbyists, serious sports participants, self-help commentators and science popularisers (with all the resulting cross-disciplinary metaphors). A straightforward illustration can be found by considering the unlikely candidate of sport - one hardly expects sports to be in the leading edge of any movement towards abstraction or hypothesis (given that sport appears to be a context in which semiosis is ancillary to physical action). But changes are in evidence across the board. Television now gives the average viewer more data than even professional coaches would have had access to a decade ago; for instance, histograms setting out each play of the ball against time and other factors like territory and 'fumbles', etc. All this can be multiply expressed by ingenious graphics, only some of which are virtual (and, therefore, less demanding interpretatively); for example, one models a kicker's position and angle to the goal posts, along with the announcement of all the relevant angles and distances (by way of

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predicting the probability of the success of the kick - given the statistical history of the player for kicks of this kind, by season, or by whole career). Cricket, and even surfing (namely, tidal charts, weather conditions) involve expert forms of quantification and prediction. These issues of intensifying abstraction/quantification can be followed up through various sources, including my own summary of a research project (Butt 2000a), components of which are drawn on below. 4 Abstraction by degrees

In a project , 'Abstract Tools in Classroom Talk' (Australian Research Council funding, Butt, Cloran and Hasan 1989-92), we arrived at a graded interpretation of abstraction in the semantics of messages. The degrees of abstraction along this cline culminated in a focal concept: critical abstraction. A critical abstraction is any concept which brings out the options in ways of envisaging and encoding a phenomenon, with the emphasis here on the consequences of semiotic strategies more broadly (e.g. whether to use iconic, verbal, numeric, algebraic, musical, or even ostensive, modes of setting out results and relations). The general characterizations of increasing abstraction helped to raise issues relevant to semantic complexity. There is evidence in the forms of actual messages, in the relations between those messages and other messages, as well as between messages and salient contextual parameters, as to how semantic density can vary. Correspondingly, through our linguistics, we should be able to display those changing relations of meaningful form and contextual relation. It is for this purpose, precisely, that I wish to investigate the school texts - their analysis offers a chance to dissect and interpret the rites of passage into a new zone of cultural pressure, one in which there is a widening gulf between perceptual 'self-evidence' and the knowledge that formally constitutes a school subject. As knowledge must supervene many different varieties of local meanings, it has to be unhinged from any one set of local circumstances (it must be, as Bernstein has called it, 'decontextualized' (1990: 60-1)). This development of new, derivational contexts for meaning is often expressed through an analogous 'decoupling' between the semantics and the lexicogrammar (as explained by Halliday (e.g. 1995)). Such matters have been set out in the literature on ontogenesis (Derewianka 1995; both Halliday and Painter, this volume). In essence, we have a crucial juncture in the life histories of humans when the modelling of experience has to be 'made over' - first in the relation between context and semantics, and then in the selections between semantics and lexicogrammar. We can now try to determine the evidence as to how changing contexts can be seen to make changing demands, and how the changing grammar might provide evidence as to just what social and cognitive developments are likely to be taking place. This implies that the changing use of the linguistic system, from text to text, offers the possibility of a kind of reverse

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engineering- that the functionality or purpose can be 'read off by the choices that went into the making. This approach we worked through painstakingly in a number of clear and not-so-clear examples, across different school subject areas. As a benchmark for the issues of the project, we tested our linguistic explanations on a number of lessons which had produced a eureka element in their unfolding (i.e., in which the students appeared to experience a discovery). For instance, such an outcome was produced by the lesson from which we took the following extract: a geography teacher for Year 7 (13 year olds) is introducing the idea of a 'topographic map'. The concept has been difficult for the students, who nevertheless have become relatively proficient with the ideas of grid-lines, eastings, northings, etc. as well as with the procedure of reading off positions on a map. The teacher touches on each of the steps in the lower order interpretation of maps - namely, establishing positions by co-ordinates, etc. - and then she introduces the new concept: the interpretation of contour lines. For the students to interpret the conventions of a topographic map, they have to understand the basic idea of maps in a new way; in fact, increasingly the teacher takes them back to the first principle of maps; and then she changes the concept of map from location alone to include 'topography or landform', examining contour lines and contour intervals in terms of landforms of the same height above sea level and of relative steepness. The students do not share the main concept - the generative principle - and exert more and more pressure through their enquiries. This forces the teacher deeper and deeper into her explanatory strategies, ultimately producing at message 376 ff: Example 1 376 That's as if we're looking straight down on it 377 That's what you've got to remember 378 All of these lines and things as if — are using like maps 379 We're looking straight down on them. 380 So really what contour lines are trying to do is put something that is three-dimensional 381 The surface of the earth is three-dimensional 382 It has height, width and length 383 onto a two-dimensional surface. 384 The map only has width and length, 385 It doesn't have height. 386 So we're putting a three-dimensional thing onto a two-dimensional surface. 387 And we achieve that through the use of contour lines . . . OK? This discourse 'piece' constitutes a figure of speech, a trope, a rhetorical movement which we will consider further (below) in terms of the various strata of a linguistic model. 'So we're putting a three-dimensional thing

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onto a two-dimensional surface': in this formulation, and in the elaborated version (messages 380-6), we find an example par excellence of a teacher bringing students up to a higher order of abstraction, up to a new way of seeing the activity in which they are engaged. This intellectual 'stepping up' for the students is actually achieved by going to the most basic principle of flat mapping: 381 'The surface of the earth is threedimensional, 382 It has height, width and length, 384 The map only has width and length, 385 It doesn't have height'. The contour lines of the topographical map address this discrepancy between the dimensions of reality and the dimensions of the model. There is, first of all, the specific site of this piece of rhetorical choreography- the traditional notion of trope ('swerve') is appropriate. It reminds us of the basis of argument in social action: the speaker has to move the audience from one position to another, albeit in mental space. We need to account for exactly how this progression was realized, how the resources of the language enabled the speaker to bring out the complex relations between social actors, conventions and modes of representation. To appreciate such relations, it is necessary to encompass all the following aspects of meaning in the core message or formulation: • The matrix message (i.e., the overarching structure) is cast as an equation. • The terms of the equation are themselves messages. • The equation is of the intensive variety, with token and value roles associated with unique definition. • The embedded clauses that constitute the terms of the equations are themselves material processes (or quasi-material) - they are cast as forms of 'doing'. • These forms of doing are agentive, but the agent is not animate but 'artefactual'- it is as if the map itself is striving ('trying' to put three dimensions on two). • The message has a crucial interpolation - the structure has to accommodate an expansion of two attributive clauses (these have their own logical order at the same time that they expand the group: 'three dimensional ...'). • The complex message is, in its totality, only one step in a rhetorical move - an ensemble of standardized shifts in an argument which, if understood, provides the essentials of the explanation (in a kind of recapitulation, or summative climax). In all the emphasis on abstraction, first, one needs to note that the messages 376-87 exhibit a movement from practical operation to elaborated exemplum. It is not theory in a socio-material vacuum. Second, and following from the last point, the language involves indexical signs - the teacher refers to the immediate context of the students themselves ('That's as if we're looking straight down on it'). Third, the crucial linguistic formulation that sets out the nub of the lesson in social science (i.e., messages

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380-3) is realized in a complex verbal equation with special implications for cultural analysis: 380: So really [ [what contour lines are trying to do ] ] is [ [put something [ [that is three dimensional] ] onto a two dimensional surface]] This identifying structure has itself a number of relevant characteristics: • It defines precisely or uniquely (by contrast with attributive structures, which indicate only class membership and which do not give the option of making the class term into the grammatical subject; namely, 'The world is three-dimensional'; 'He is a student'). • It affords considerable choice about thematization (packaging up a whole clause in the roles of Theme/Subject/ldentified). • It sets up a structure in which there is a change of symbolic address, a structure which takes a linguistic element and bestows upon it a new role in the discourse and the cultural activity. In this message, to ' [ [put something ... surface] ]' is the Token - the potentially manifest behaviour to which the pupils may focus their thinking. And it is given the role in the discourse, the Value, of being exactly '[[what contour lines are trying to do I]'. The Value - in this case, the idealization of purpose - is the interpretation of what may be manifest. It is noteworthy that the text moves between two grammatical tendencies. In the first (messages 376, 378-9 and 386-7), the immediate context involving 'we' is invoked, and this inclusive Subject is Doer or Senser (not merely a term in a verbal equation). This is the grammar of performative commentary - 'let me tell you about the process in which we are currently engaged'. The second tendency involves the semantics of specification, definition and quantification. And these meanings are typically realized by relational processes: a) of the equative kind (exemplified above) as well as b) of attribution (381, 382, 384, 385). There is an ensemble effect here. The choices, taken together, constitute a cultural move, not just a grammatical complex. In fact, the motivation for the interlocking choices can be inferred from the grammatical ensemble, just as the contextual and cultural analysis assists us in predicting (in probabilistic terms) the lexicogrammatical resources to be called up. The grammatical ensemble can be thought of, in the first analysis, as a product of the competing options for achieving the appropriate textual visibility amongst all the semantic elements. We would describe this gloss on the grammatical motivation as textual - the metafunction most associated with packaging up all the elements of the text/context into elements of a clause. While we may concede the importance of such a motivation - the struggle to bring diverse linguistic possibilities into one textural ensemble - such intra-systemic pressures need to be seen within the cultural task that is being achieved (as best this

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can be inferred). The cultural task is the connection of the language to the socio-material base for which communication is an evolutionary response. The analysis leaves us with a fuller sense of the converging pressures to mean: the semantic structure is complex, but this is not only a result of the grammatical architecture; namely, nested structures in lexically dense groups and clauses (depending on the rank at which we choose to set the measure of density). The meaning is a convergence of pressures for metaphor, indexicality, 'inclusive' interaction, advisory interpolations and extended textual 'packaging'. 5 Semantic trends: phylogenetic 'drift'

Of the many semantic complexities in evidence in the extract 376-87, a number of issues are relevant to cultural tendencies being investigated in this paper. The core of the explanation actually bestows a form of animus on the cultural tool itself. (It is the map that is 'trying to put'). We have, in fact, the 'World 3' of Popper, in which the products of cultural evolution take on an existence and influence to some extent freed of the 'knowing subjects' by which they have been developed and applied. Vygotsky's 'mental tools' (1962, 1978) and the 'social semiotic' of Halliday (1978) are even more relevant to interpreting this semantic strategy. The 'we' of the full trope varies from those instances which appear to apply in the immediate situation of the students to those (in 386/7, e.g. 'And we achieve that through the use of contour lines') in which the 'we' is generalized, or even universalized, into the present state of human tool use in this field of activity - an implicit recognition by the teacher of the cultural responsibility which she bears. This subtle (even subliminal) progression, i.e., from local action towards human culture in general, is a micro-illustration of the theme of so much of Bernstein's work on coding orientation (see Bernstein 1990, 1996; and on the tradition of research and commentary see Cloran 1994; Hasan 1973, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1996; Williams 1995). The message 387, 'and we achieve that through the use of contour lines ... OK?' returns the discourse to the problem from which the class set out, with the circularity functioning as a marker of rhetorical completion. The argument, the explanation and the pedagogical climax have all been 'rounded off. The arrival at the quasi QED changes the tension in the classroom; from this point on, the content is being revised rather than being explored more and more abstractly. These three semantic issues indicate the way in which the organization of thought and the organization of language need to be analysed together - they are different ways of talking about the same semiotic event! To lose this seamless relation (e.g. by abstracting one form of organization and reifying its abstract relations) is to belie the social/psychological fusion of

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semiotic behaviour. Such a fusion has been variously urged by Saussure (1978 [1916]) in his original conception of sign systems, by Vygotsky (1962, 1978) in arguing for the role of mental tools, by Wittgenstein (1974 [1953]) in his critique of idealizations of thought, and by Halliday (1978) in his motivation for 'language as social semiotic'. 6 Three perspectives on change A linguistics of semantic development, as mentioned at the outset of this paper, must theorize three distinct varieties of change: • The change in the profile of relevant textual options, 'moment by moment' as the text progresses for a linear reading - logogenesis. • The changes in the profile of an acculturated community member ontogenesis. • The changes in the meaning potential available to a community - phylogenesis. In my own tracking of semantic complexity, I am trying to bring these three variables into an integrated picture. The essence of this task is to emphasize the relational basis of all semantic processes, following the original Saussurean strictures on what could/could not count as a sign. In practical terms, this means emphasizing the changing relations between structures on different linguistic strata (e.g. between semantic choices and grammatical realisations, as well as between both of these and the generic order of context). So too, in order to ensure that the relationalism is based in the actual material conditions of social change, the stratum of context has to be considered as a complementarity of generic structure potential and of the conditions of speaking (namely, field, tenor and mode) (Halliday and Hasan, 1985/1989). The congruent and non-congruent mappings of structures across these four strata provide the potential for semantic growth and change; for instance, the generic Elements in a debate or quarrel may or may not map directly onto the units of argument or reasoning - the tropes/rhetorical units; so, too, such semantic tropes, with their own component propositions and proposals, may be in various congruent or non-congruent alignments with the clause complexes and clauses of the lexicogrammatical realization; and those clauses can take on different meanings depending on whether or not they are in a one-to-one mapping with the tone group of the phonological stratum. The rhetorical gambit of the teacher in the case of the geography lesson might be described, then, as a series of rhetorical steps - a kind of cultural choreography - in which the semantic behaviour (in all its strategic options) makes possible a shift in cognitive potential for the students. We can see also, I would claim, that semantic and cognitive only serve to ma different orders of abstraction concerning meaning: the new tool power of the students is the ability both to interpret a meaning and to express a

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meaning - namely, to read and to draw the height of landforms from a flat version of those landforms. This choreography can be clearly appreciated when its features are read off from the background potential of networks of semantic contrasts (i.e., contrasting dimensions of semantic behaviour). As is typical of developments in semantics, the initial network developed was specific to the needs of the project, as mentioned above. Based on the analysis of a number of transcripts, from a wide range of topic areas (including science, English, mathematics, and social science), we developed a network of explanatory strategies for classrooms, but one which focused on distinctions of representations rather than, for example, on teachers' evaluations or control (even though these were never totally insulated from each other in the teachers' rhetorical strategies). Such networks cannot be presented, and argued for, in this publication. A fuller treatment of semantic representations in systemic functional linguistics can be found in a number of sources (Cloran 1994; Halliday and Matthiessen 1999; Hasan 1996). My own approach is quite simply to multiply distinctions (recognizable from traditional rhetoric, informal logic and linguistics) and place the distinctions along a scale of phenomena (move, argument, message, term, concept (namely, thesaurus entry), see Butt 2000b). The efficacy of constituency and scale are more difficult to argue in semantics than is the case in grammar or phonology. The main aim, in my view, is to re-enter the networks until the cycles of network distinctions have exhausted the contrasts which are relevant to the analysis being undertaken. Semantics is a netting operation on different scales. For the sake of laying out some of the relevant strategies of meaning above the grammar, I will describe the kind of rhetorical concepts that throw light on the messages in Example 1 (see p.225). Such concepts provide the basis for establishing the similarities and differences between semantic styles. The concepts become the basis for 'seeing' alternatives (thereby establishing the 'valeur' of what has been chosen). • 376-9: A new start on the explanation, a Reorientation, takes an Analogical form; this form demonstrates or shows - it is Ostensive; of the demonstrating options, it also involves actual pointing, i.e., it is Indexical, in that you need to share the socio-material bases of the ostension. • 380-3: An Interim Generalization is proffered (Interim: it is not the final version); and this is a Critical Abstraction - one based on Definition (possibly the most typical verbalization). • 381-2 + 384-5: The Critical Abstraction is interrupted for the Interpolation of qualifying Expansion; this takes the form of a List. • 386-7: The ultimate form of the Generalization is established with the Reprise of elements from the earlier messages. This has the position and character of a Conclusion, albeit informal, and Implicit (there is no explicit announcement of a conclusion), along with a tagged check.

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The use of such modelling resources, I argue, brings us much closer to achieving a conceptual framework by which this instance of semantic complexity (Example 1) can be described and evaluated comparatively. The notion of critical abstraction helps to bring the issues into view, in particular in relation to changes that operate within a specific cultural domain. The 'critical' aspect, then, of the 'critical abstraction' above is the selfconsciousness it produces about the form of representation. It is as if the business at hand is understanding the semiotic centre of the mapping activity - how model-making is conventionalized in relation to landforms and the 'depth' of field that the two-dimensional map has to accommodate. I argue that it is the issue of representation that is central to abstract tools and their linguistic realizations; namely, as critical abstractions. Furthermore, I suggest it is the power of multiple representations which lies behind problem-solving abilities, creative insights and the kind of understanding by principle that we pursue in higher education. Representing a problem in a number of different symbolic modes - e.g. verbally, iconically, numerically, indexically, kinesically, geometrically, musically, etc. - sets up opportunities for seeing new aspects of experience much in the same way that the two 'pictures' we receive from our eyes set up a situation of slight discrepancy, or comparison, thereby providing us with the basis of the human experience of depth, bestowing upon us a world that is not merely two-dimensional or flat (Bateson 1980: 79-80). Every comparison of symbolic forms creates the chance for what Bateson has called 'news of difference' (ibid.). It is news of difference that can be turned to understanding from first principles, understanding that can glean the vast opportunities for connection and analogy between different fields of activity. When the teacher says 'So we're putting a threedimensional thing onto a two-dimensional surface', her formulation reaches out, as a principle, beyond the specifics of her training in social sciences/geography. This observation is as relevant to, say, the graphing of location by Cartesian axes and co-ordinates, the technique of perspective in the work of Brunelleschi and European art and, at a further remove, the photograph and holograph. In fact, the formulation of message 386 could be recontextualized in a number of intellectual contexts and still retain its degree of fit. Such problems with representation occur at all levels, as is shown by an issue reported in the autobiography of Popper (1976: 129). He explains how Einstein debated with him over the experience of time and he interpreted Einstein's argument as hypostatizing space co-ordinates as if a human being actually experienced the space co-ordinate itself rather than seeing it as an arbitrary construction for representing relationships. The critical abstraction par excellence can only be generated by the rigorous examination of a discipline-specific problem; but, when given articulation, such a critical abstraction has a general, interdisciplinary status. The reason for this is straightforward, as mentioned above: the nub

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of an abstract tool is the clarification it offers as to how a problem can be represented; the essence of critical abstraction, therefore, is semiotic. And semiosis is not discipline specific. The wide applications of mathematics provide an analogy - mathematics is not discipline-specific in its relevance, nor in its origins. Maths is itself a domain of semiology (how we use signs); and so we can think of semiotic relations as a wider front upon which we battle for clarifications much as mathematicians work on their more specific (though widening) semantic space. 7 Critical abstraction as cultural tool

When one understands the point made in a critical abstraction, one has the power to go 'beyond the information given' (Bruner's title, 1973). By this I mean there is a potential to 'read off' new facts from the way that the phenomenon has been represented or modelled. A clear instance of this comes from a composite class (Years 5/6) in which the solar system is being discussed and drawn. The teacher is clarifying the relationship between the proximity of a planet to the sun, the time taken to orbit the sun, and the earthly notion of one year (and leap year): Example 2 70 71 72

We're going to work out some new information using the facts that I've already given to you We should be able to work this out from the other information on the table.

The problem is how to encompass in one's imagination the relation between the 88 day orbit of Mercury and the 248 year orbit of Pluto. This emerges for some children (see message 175) when the teacher turns to the scale of iconic representation they are considering (i.e., when they turn from the charts): Example 2 (cont.) 170

T

171 172 173 174 175

C

So even our scaled drawing on the board does show us quite nicely what we are trying to visualize; but we can't even get it as big as it should be. If we really wanted it to show the true relationship we'd need a much bigger board and I'm sure you can imagine if we draw a big circle, right, [what it] would [it] take for the planet... to represent two hundred and two hundred and forty eight years ... It wouldn't even [?fit on the wall]

The children (C) realize some important facts about the semiotic form of the 'pictures' of the solar system with which they are familiar. First, the scale of a diagram could not consistently represent the two extremes of

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Mercury and Pluto. And, second, that the notion of a year is based on experience, but in an arbitrary way - other phenomena could be used as a basis for organizing 'time'. Since planets rotate at different rates and orbit over different distances around the sun, our notions of 'day' and 'year' are very earthbound perspectives. I am not saying, of course, that every Year 5/6 student would appreciate how these facts make measures of time semiotically interesting. Rather, I am showing how the combination of verbal explanation, tables of comparative measures and a diagram 'to scale' all work to clarify a phenomenon. The potential for insight is a product of the cross-calibration of symbolic types - verbal, numeric, iconic. It is important to bring out just how the rhetorical unit grammaticizes the 'demands' and 'actions' of the symbolic order ('the scaled drawing ... does show'), how the unit foregrounds the point of view of the teacher and pupils as visualizers and imaginers, how the conditions shift the talk towards an unactualized, heuristic domain (172 'If we really wanted' 173 'we'd need' 174 'if we drew ... it would take'). And when the teacher says, 172 'If we really wanted it to show the true relationship we'd need', the corollary of this meaning is a crucial semiotic condition; namely, that 'our scaled drawing' misrepresents the relationship even though it shows 'quite nicely what we are trying to visualize'. This is the instrumental character of abstract tools - their importance lies in their operational value, not in their absolute truth. Wordsworth's charge against atomistic science, that 'we murder to dissect', is not as interesting as the symbolic root of scientific thinking - namely that it: • distorts in order to visualize (e.g., single-spread pictures of the solar system) • misrepresents in order to achieve accuracy (e.g., calculus and change) • belies the experience in order to be practical (e.g., frozen sections of 'living' systems). The critical abstraction brings out what one might call the imperative of representation: 'we can't even get it as big as it should be'. The modulation (i.e., the use of 'should', invoking the semantics of obligation) here is again the necessity of Popper's World 3 - the symbolization itself makes demands because it has its own conditions of use. In earlier projects at Macquarie University, Sydney (Hasan, Butt and Cloran, reported in Hasan 1989; Butt 1989: 92ff; Cloran 1989), this kind of imperative was evident even in Kindergarten discourse, often introduced as steps in an action. For example, as a teacher begins a class discussion on shape, she asks the children to sit around in a circle: 'maybe our circle is not as round as it should be'. Here there are two notions of 'circle' operating together: the Platonic notion of 'circle' which is the topic of talk, and the 'circle' of the children's action, which is now measured against the Platonic, (i.e., to achieve the criteria of true 'circleness'). This grammatical balance of conation (want/try), modality (can't, need, should, would), mental

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process (imagine), conditionals, and actions by symbols (drawings as Doers, etc.) needs further exploration. For it is the form of the grammar which schools the students in World 3; it is the grammatical texture which sets out all the nuances and constraints, all the conditions of use, between the human subjects in the evolving symbolic order. 8 The cross-stratal ensemble

What is emerging from these investigations across three strata is a regularity in the ensemble of choices; in fact, it is the regularity of the emerging strategies that suggests the word 'ensemble'. As one turns to other crucial 'explanations' in the corpus, the cross-stratal motifs continue, as well as the systemic variants. The regularities and the systemic variants (which are but regularities in which dimensions change by degree) require analysis that brings out their different orders of complexity and of abstraction. And a first step in this regard is to establish the stratal provenance of consistencies, as well as the specification of the relevant choices according to rank-scale within the stratum of context, or of semantics, or of lexicogrammar, or of phonology (which pertains crucially to these as spoken elaborations). In Example 3, you can see another of those examples that falls close to the canonical pattern (set out in this case merely by lines, 316-46). The summarizing, double-embedded equation is again employed, 316-18. Once again, we can see the interrupting clauses, < < . . . > > , and the revising elaborations (316.1.2 appears to be a second go at 316.1.1, with the teacher redesigning the agentless passive to explicit active). Example 3 316 316.1 316.1.1 316.1.2 316.2 316.3 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327

[ [Well what happens [ [when the eggs are laid llwhen the mosquito lays the eggs ..]] ]] (IS) ... [[the eggs start to develop, < < o k > > Hand they actually - the little mosquito, , inside the egg starts to eat the shell of the egg.]] Now, < < as it eats » it grows, gets bigger. 11 ll It then goes into life of a wigglerll which is the next... part of the cycle. 11 Like we start off as little babiesll and we get to your age nowll then eventually you get to my old decrepit age, 11 ok?ll, soyougetolder.il

HOW OUR MEANINGS CHANGE Butt 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346

235

So the little mosquito changes into a larva, 11 From the larva it goes into the next stage 11 which is a pupa, 11 Like baby, then you have ... um ... child 11 The pupa's like a teenagerll which you people are nearly getting toll and then you get to adults, like myself, 11 ok? 11 So they have a similar cycle of young to children, teenagers, and adults. 11 And everything does all that, 11 even plants go through thatll You have the seed, 11 then you have the small ... seedlings small plant, 11 then you have a maturing plantl I then you're going to say a mature plantl I which could be a tree, 11 ok? 11 So it's grown up through those stages. 11 Right, so we've come to a conclusion [[that all animals go through a life cycle.]]

The equation does not have the same central, axiomatic role that it did for the maps example. The direction is once again Value-Token; but the Value is only the relatively straightforward, but suspenseful: 'what happens when ...'. The Token starts the sequence of manifestations. Here it motivates the two analogical arguments: • the major one: mosquitoes to human lives; • the minor one: plants to growth stages. Rhetorically, we are presented with a 'neat' gestalt, usefully regarded as a systemic variant of, or agnate to, the units of discourse emergent in the preceding examples. We have the same general semantic 'drift' — the direction is towards naturalizing the abstract interpretation. There are, however, notable differences as to how the Equation is functioning ('what happens . . . is') and in the way the Generalizations are formalized. After the first of the analogies, the Interim Generalization ('everything does all that') is proffered, 336-7. After the latter has been consolidated by the minor analogy (338-45), the Conclusion is explicitly punctuated ('Right'), marked ('so we've come to a conclusion'), and universalized ('all animals'). The fact that the teacher embeds the universal statement as Qualifier to the Thing ('conclusion') provides some further evidence of the importance to the teacher of making explicit - of formalizing - the rhetorical process going on. The fact of having a Conclusion is grammatically foregrounded at that stage because that is the stage in the Argument,

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and the lesson. The science teacher is a language specialist in her own right. And, yes, language is an issue across the curriculum. 9 Concluding remarks

The emerging 'drift' of these discourses is further clarification of the semantic core in this cultural activity: the more abstract notion or procedure has to be 'naturalized' into a recognizable type of local knowledge. This is no particular surprise. But its corollary is not so overt, and possibly more significant to the higher learning upon which the children have embarked. The teachers' skills have to work in both directions - not only to ground the general, but also to denaturalize the common sense, so that the conventional arrangements which underpin our intellectual tools are laid bare, and thereby offered up for negotiation to these new members of the 'guild'. The traditional term for guild knowledge comes to mind: an apprentice would be initiated into a 'mystery'. In visual arts, the foreshortening of perspective has to be explained; in natural science, the cosmos cannot be in proportion on any page, and it has none of the co-ordinates or reference points that we use in our finite experience on earth; calculus is a tool for representing change by utilizing smaller and smaller, but static, gradations of difference; we talk about the meaning of a poem rather than the ways people may have constructed meaning through it; historical sequence may, and may not, imply cause in human affairs; the forms of life and culture which preceded us were not trying to become us - one cannot read evolution backwards as design. Explanations around such difficult ideas are not just the pouring of content into available cognitive vessels. An explanation has to displace the local representations, disturb the beliefs that are taken to be self-evident, in essence the belief that common sense is all there is to sense. All this while, at the same time, the experienced teacher tries to reconcile the aspects of this abstraction with common, recognizable, experience. A subtle, potentially contradictory semantic project! And teachers do succeed. It seems to me an unfortunate aspect of the teachers' situation, however, that more linguists have not turned their analysis onto the semantic complexity of such activity, and then onto the cultural and evolutionary significance of such virtuosity in human interaction. Any number of dimensions of a system - like constituency or recursion - are just part of the ensemble effect of meaning-bearing relations. It is not even the meaning potential alone that merits the attention, but the potential to extend the potential. As Halliday (2002) has argued, while a community's meanings may be extensive, they are nevertheless tractable - shared, finite patterns. That is to say, the regularities appear finite, alongside the power of the system to extend its meaningbearing differences infinitely. The relational ensembles discussed here illustrate the ways in which we

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can conceptualize and manage the complexity of open, dynamic, semiotic systems. Such ensembles provide a detailed account of the way in which adaptive, cultural tools become the central, human response to changing evolutionary pressures. The complex semantic relations are the 'cultural DNA' through which tradition and novelty achieve new relations (relations organized around human purposes). This evolutionary role of semantic complexity was envisaged by linguists and by poets before the discovery of the structure of DNA: Language and personality are built into the body, which is constantly taking part in activities directed to the conservation of the pattern of life. (Firth 1957 [1948]: 143)

and The whole race is a poet that writes down the eccentric propositions of its fate. (Stevens 1955: 355)

Notes 1 The convention of using the Greek alphabet to denote dependent clauses is from Halliday (1994). 2 The terms 'proposition' and 'proposal' are used by Halliday to differentiate processes of negotiating information exchange (proposition) vs the negotiation of the exchange of goods and services (proposal). 3 Thematization refers to the process of what is selected as Theme for a clause, where Theme is defined as 'the element which serves as the point of departure of the message; it is that with which the clause is concerned' (Halliday 1994: 37). In English, Theme is realized by the first experiential element of the clause. References Bateson

G.,

1980. Mind

and Nature: A Necessary Unity. Glasgow:

Fontana/Collins. Bernstein B., 1990. Class, Codes and Control, Volume TV: The Structuring Pedagogic Discourse. London: Routledge. Bernstein B., 1996. Pedagogy, Symbolic Control & Identity: Theory, Resear, Critique. London: Taylor & Francis. Bourdieu P., 1990. The Logic of Practice. London: Polity Press. BrunerJ., 1973. Beyond the Information Given. New York: W.W. Norton. Bruner J., 1985. 'Vygotsky's theory and the activity-oriented approach in psychology', in Culture, Communication and Cognition: Vygotskian Perspectives, ed. J.V. Wertsch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. BrunerJ., 1986. Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Cambridge, MA and Londo Harvard University Press. BrunerJ., 1999. The Culture of Education. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press.

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Butt D., 1985 [1989]. Talking and Thinking: The Patterns of Behaviour.

Geelong, Victoria/Oxford: Deakin University Press/Oxford University Press. Butt D., 1989. 'The object of language', in Language Development: Learn Language, Learning Culture (Meaning and Choice in Language: Studies for

Michael Halliday), eds R. Hasan andJ.R. Martin. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Butt D., 2000a. 'Critical abstractions and rhetoric: the latent order of pedagogic discourse', in The Meaning Potential of Language: Mapp Meaning Systemically, eds D. Butt and C.M.I.M. Matthiessen. Mime Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, Sydney. Butt D., 2000b. 'Semantic cycles: structure statements at the level of meaning', in The Meaning Potential of Language: Mapping Meaning

Systemically, eds D. Butt and C.M.I.M. Matthiessen. Mimeo. Departme of Linguistics, Macquarie University, Sydney. Chomsky N., 1975. Reflections on Language. New York: Pantheon Books. Cloran C, 1989. 'Learning through language: the social construction of gender', in Language Development: Learning Language, Learning Culture (Meaning and Choice in Language: Studies for Michael Halliday), eds R.

Hasan and J.R. Martin. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Cloran C , 1994. Rhetorical Units and Decontextualisation: An Enquiry into som Relations of Context, Meaning and Grammar. Nottingham: Department o

English Studies, University of Nottingham. Dawkins R., 1991. The Blind Watchmaker. London: Penguin. Dennett D., 1996. Kinds of Minds: Towards an Understanding of Consciousness

London: Weidenfield and Nicholson. Derewianka B., 1995. Language Development in the Transition from Childhood to Adolescence: the Role of Grammatical Metaphor. PhD. Macquarie

University, Sydney. Firth J.R., ed. 1957 [1948]. 'The Semantics of Linguistic Science', in Papers in Linguistics 1934-1951. London: Oxford University Press. Firth J.R., 1968 [1956]. 'Linguistic analysis as a study of meaning', in Selected Papers of J.R. Firth, ed. F.R. Palmer. London: Longman. Gell-Mann M., 1994. The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and

the Complex. London: Abacus Books. Gregory R., 1981. Mind in Science. London: Penguin. Halliday M.A.K., 1978. Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation

Language and Meaning. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday M.A.K., 1986. Language and Learning: Linguistic Aspects of Education and Scientific Knowledge. Singapore: Singapore University Press. Halliday M.A.K., 1992. 'How do you mean?', in Advances in Systemic Linguistics: Recent Theory and Practice, eds M. Davies and L. Ravelli.

London: Pinter. Halliday M.A.K., 1993. 'On the language of physical science', in Writing Science: Literacy and Discursive Power, eds M.A.K. Halliday and J.R. Mart

London: The Falmer Press.

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Halliday M.A.K., 1994. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. 2nd edition London: Edward Arnold. Halliday M.A.K., 1995. 'On language in relation to the evolution of human consciousness', in Of Thoughts and Words: Proceedings of Nobel Symposiu 92, The Relation between Language and Mind, Stockholm 8-12 August, 199 ed. S. Allen. London: Imperial College Press. Halliday M.A.K., 2002. 'The Power of Language', in Paper Presented at ASFLA Seminar, 'The Importance of Bringing Ernest'. Macquarie University Sydney. Halliday M.A.K. and Matthiessen C.M.I.M., 1999. Construing Experienc through Meaning: A Language-based Approach to Cognition. London: Casse Halliday M.A.K. and Hasan R., 1985/1989. Language, context and text: Aspects of Language in a Social-semiotic Perspective. Geelong, VIC/Oxfo Deakin University Press/Oxford University Press. Hasan R., 1973. 'Code, register and social dialect', in Class, Codes and Control: Applied Studies Towards a Sociology of Language, ed. B. Bernstei London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Hasan R., 1989. 'Semantic variation and sociolinguistics', Australian Journal of Linguistics, 9, 2, pp. 221-75. Hasan R., 1991. 'Questions as a mode of learning in everyday talk', in Language Education: Interaction and Development, eds T. Le and M. McCausland. Launceston: University of Tasmania. Hasan R., 1992. 'Speech genre, semiotic mediation and the development of higher mental functions', Language Sciences, 14, pp. 489-528. Hasan R., 1996. 'Semantic networks: a tool for the analysis of meaning', in Ways of Saying, Ways of Meaning, eds C. Cloran, D. Butt and G. Williams. London: Cassell. H jelmslev L., 1953. Prolegomena to a Theory of Language. Bloomington, Indiana University Publications in Anthropology and Linguistics. PiagetJ., 1971. Genetic Epistemology. New York: Norton. Popper K., 1976. Unended Quest: An Intellectual Biography. Glasgow: Fontana/Collins. Sapir E., 1921. Language. An Introduction to the Study of Speech. New York Harcourt, Brace and Cy. de Saussure F. 1978 [1916]. Course in General Linguistics, trans. C. Bally and A. Sechehaye in collaboration with A. Riedlinger. Glasgow: Fontana/Collins. Stevens W., 1955. 'Men made out of words', Collected Poems. London: Fab and Faber. Toulmin S., 1972. Human Understanding. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Vygotsky L.S., 1962. Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Vygotsky L.S., 1978. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychologi Processes, eds M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner and E. Souberma Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Whitehead A.N., 1929. Process and Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whorf B., 1956. Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings. Cambridg MA: MIT Press. Williams G., 1995. Joint Book-reading and Literacy Pedagogy: a Socio-sema

Examination. Unpublished PhD dissertation. Macquarie University, North Ryde. Wittgenstein L., 1974 [1953]. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: B Blackwell.

11 Ontogenesis and Grammatics: Functions of Metalanguage in Pedagogical Discourse Geoff Williams

1 Grammar, grammatics and intellectual 'tools' In this paper I explore the ontogenesis of abstract thought about language which children might develop by learning to use grammar as an intellectual, semiotic 'tool' in Vygotsky's sense (1986). The research is designed to consider some of the conditions under which young children could genuinely develop 'reflection literacy'1 in the sense Ruqaiya Hasan proposed some years ago (1996a). This is not the usual focus of enquiry about children and grammatical study, of course: the focus is more typically the value of teaching grammar to improve, even simply remedy, children's literacy practices. However, I will attempt to show that there is an interesting and relatively unexplored potential for children to develop abstract resources for thinking about language systematically through meaning-oriented grammatical study. Exploration of this issue is part of a wider enquiry into the ontogenesis of different forms of literate consciousness in schools and in families in a variety of social positions (Bernstein 1990; Goody 1987; Hasan 2001; Luria 1976, 1979; Williams 1999a, 2000, 2001). Vygotsky himself was in no doubt about the value of children's grammatical study for the development of their abstract thought. In Thought and Language he commented: Grammar is a subject that seems to be of little practical use. Unlike other school subjects, it does not give the child new skills. He conjugates and declines before he enters school. The opinion has even been voiced that school instruction in grammar could be dispensed with. We can only reply that our analysis clearly showed the study of grammar to be of paramount importance for the mental development of the child. (1986: 183-4)

He went on to argue that 'grammar and writing help the child to rise to a higher level of speech development' (ibid.). By 'grammar' he clearly meant 'the study of grammar' rather than development of implicit grammatical

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knowledge. However, while effects of writing on children's development of abstract thought are well-documented,2 further actual evidence about the value of explicit grammatical study has been sparse. Results of studies by Harris (1965) and Elly et al. (1976) are often read as conclusive evidence of the ineffectuality of grammar learning in ontogenesis. In considering Vygotsky's claim, which of course is so different from contemporary politically based calls for a return to teaching grammar in schools (Carter 1996), two key questions are: • What grammatical descriptions might be used? • What relations might be constructed between the grammatical descriptions and practical literacy activities from children's points of view} The first question draws attention to the metalinguistic resources which might be introduced to children, and the second to the conditions for semiotic mediation, following Vygotsky (Wertsch 1985, 1991; Hasan 1996b, 2001). Happily, both questions are amenable to empirical research. Perhaps the well-known difficulties children experience with school grammar are more an artefact of the nature of the grammatical description and its relations with purposeful activity than of the nature of children. However, assumptions about 'developmental levels' or 'cognitive immaturity' have typically constrained views about children's abilities to use knowledge of grammar to reflect on how they use language to mean. The general thesis to be explored is that young children's ability to reflect on language is highly sensitive to the metasemiotic resources they are provided with in relation to the tasks and activities they complete through school literacy work. The term 'grammatics' requires some explanation. I use it in the sense Halliday proposed in order to resolve the ambiguity which Vygotsky noted in the quotation above. Drawing attention to the problem of 'grammar' as a term used both for the stratum of natural language and for the study of that stratum, Halliday writes: The problem seems to arise from something like the following. All systematic knowledge takes the form of 'language about' some phenomenon; but whereas the natural sciences are language about nature, and the social sciences are language about society, linguistics is language about language - 'language turned back on itself, in Firth's often quoted formulation ... How does one keep apart the object language from the metalanguage - the phenomenon itself from the theoretical study of that phenomenon? (2002: 384)

The problem is particularly acute in studies of ontogenesis. Halliday goes on to say: As a way of getting round part of the problem I started using the term grammatics - I think the first occasion was in a discussion of ineffability . . . This was based on the simple proportion grammatics: grammar :: linguistics: language. I assumed it was unproblematic: the study of language is called linguistics:, grammar is part of language; so, within that general domain, the study of grammar may be called grammatics, (ibid.: 385-6)

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2 The ontogenesis of grammatics and children's language play

Since discussion of grammatics in school can be rather fraught, it is useful to begin by recalling that children play spontaneously and extensively with language in early and middle childhood and that this play often reveals remarkable reflection on language. Therefore, to propose that very young children might begin to reflect systematically on language in school is not to propose something ontogenetically disruptive. Children obviously play through language from a very early age, making and acting on imaginar worlds. Halliday noticed this kind of play occurring even in protolanguage (Halliday 1975), and it has been the focus of extensive psychological and anthropological discussion (for example, Axline 1971; Bruner et al. 1976 Sutton-Smith 1997). But from an early age children also play on the linguistic system itself, not to create imaginary representations but to explore the linguistic system's characteristics. Through such play children position themselves both as part of the social practices the linguistic system makes possible and, simultaneously, as not entirely subjugated to it (Bernstein 1974) since play enables them to laugh at some of the system's peculiarities, challenge its apparent authority and explore alternative ways of meaning through it. A key question for the investigation of grammatics is, then: could grammatics be studied in school to extend children's natural interest in how language works by using powerful, systematically organized analytic resources? Typically the study of grammar during the first years of school is not like that, of course. It concentrates on children learning to recognize parts of speech. There are two reasons: parts of speech are considered to be analytically basic (which is a highly contestable claim);3 and parts of speech are thought to be simple and concrete enough for young children to learn despite their limited cognitive capacities to reason abstractly about language. Educators do often make grammatical learning 'playful', in fact, by providing games and activities for children to use, but this is an entirely different sense of play. It is play to increase accuracy of recognition and fluency of recall, not play inquiring into the ways things work in language (Bateson 1972; Williams 1999b). Where the study of grammar is related to the exploration of text, it is usually only in the limited sense of illustrating that selected grammatical features occur frequently in selected types of text. As a result, children gain rather fragmentary images of certain grammatical features probabilistically construing a text type, not a systematic understanding of how the same grammatical features realize meanings4 in different ways, such as the text-organizing features Theme and Rheme to be discussed below. Beginning children's study of grammatics with parts of speech poses an important pedagogical problem, which is this: even if parts of speech are agreed to be analytically or descriptively basic to a pedagogical gramma are they developmentally basic in the sense of a productive orientation fro which to begin to draw children's attention to grammatical features? Essentially this is a problem of fit between grammatical description and

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mediation of literate activity in contexts in which children can understand the utility of grammatics. Grammatics, as with language itself, has to assist children in learning how to mean (Halliday 1975, this volume; Painter 1984, this volume). It is a problem about which some children are acutely aware, as is indicated by this exchange between a research associate and one of the 11year-old children in a project I will discuss shortly: Example 1

Interviewer: David: Interviewer: David:

Well, how did you learn things like pronouns, verbs, etc.? Well that was just normal classwork we used to do. In another class? Yes, you've got fifteen words. Now you've got a box. In this box there are nouns and in this box there are adjectives. Interviewer: Right. David: What's this got to do with anything? The teacher would just say 'it's grown up teaching'. We need to find a way of digging out of the current intellectual sand dunes of presumed 'basic' knowledge. One way is to ask how children's attention might be drawn to features of grammatics so that they are actually able to use the features in learning. 3 Learning to attend to grammatical features

Vygotsky's analysis of the function of linguistic signs (and, by extrapolation, metalinguistic signs) in the development of voluntary attention is helpful on this matter (Vygotsky 1978, 1981). He argued that voluntary attention is ontogenetically crucial to mature qualities of abstract thought and defined its development as evolution and change in the means for directing and carrying out attentional processes, the mastery of these processes, and their subordination to human control. (Vygotsky 1981: 194)

His studies of the ontogenesis of voluntary attention suggest precisely how it is that signs used in social interaction initially become the means for internal regulation of attention, logical memory, and forms of abstraction. In other words, how social signs (and metasigns) become the means with which to think. Through interaction, caregivers and teachers indicate to children what aspects of the vast range of possible phenomena in a particular type of situation they should attend to. In doing so they show children orders of relevance of meanings for the use of language in some environment (Bernstein 1990; Hasan, this volume). In the case of grammatics in school literacy, through what a teacher and child jointly attend to with the help of verbal signs the child learns to select, generalize meanings and eventually to develop a reflective orientation to literate practices. Direction of the

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child's attention through the function of linguistic signs in interaction becomes one of the primary resources for the development of ways of meaning (Hasan 1996b). In Vygotsky's theory, 'words' have the primary function of directing attention. But he clearly does not mean words as isolated linguistic features: 'words' are a metaphor for language in interaction, and it is this feature which is the major means through which higher mental functioning develops. (His well-known experiments with sorting tasks involving wooden blocks illustrate this point.) It is language exchanged by socially situated speakers rather than language per se (or specific grammatical terms) which is the mediational means for the development of higher mental functions. Vygotsky's most famous formulation was: Any function in the child's cultural development appears twice, or on two planes. First it appears on the social plane, and then on the psychological plane. First it appears between two people as an interpsychological category, and then within the child as an intrapsychological category. This is equally true with regard to voluntary attention, logical memory, the formation of concepts, and the development of volition. (Vygotsky 1981: 163)

Since the claim has become so well-known, it may be useful to underscore some specific features relevant to the ontogenesis of grammatics. The claim is, of course, much more radical than just a general assertion that social interaction is important for children's development. Rather, his position is that there is an inherent link between forms of social interaction and forms of higher mental functioning in children. In commenting on this issue Wertsch argues: In certain instances he saw an isomorphism between the organization of processes on the two planes, and in all cases he argued that the form of interpsychological functioning has a powerful impact on the resulting form of intrapsychological functioning. (Wertsch 1985: 61) The link between social interaction and higher psychological functioning is inherent because of the specific mediational role of language and, in turn, (meta)language. The term 'interaction' sometimes is dissociated from the materiality of sign use. Though social interaction is the crucial resource for the development of abstract thought, social interaction has this status because it makes available to the child semiosis in action. The details of material practices in sign usage are, therefore, critically important. Perhaps Vygotsky would have had particular sympathy for David's question: what's this [metasemiosis about classes of words] got to do with anything? Making grammatics have something to do with learning how to mean is basic to the development of reflective literacy. 4 Exploring the ontogenesis of grammatics The research data which are the basis for the following argument are drawn from classroom work with four groups of primary school children

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and their teachers in inner-Sydney suburban primary schools. There were two classes of six year olds and two of eleven year olds. The eleven year olds were studied for most of the school year, and the six year olds for a school term each. Additionally, 12 children from one of the classes of eleven year olds voluntarily formed an after-school grammar club in order to continue studying functional grammar in the year following their participation in the research.5 Further details about the background to this research are available in Williams (1995, 1998, 1999b). In this paper the main focus is one phase of work with one of the groups of eleven year olds, though related material from other groups is cited occasionally as evidence for particular claims. The research was developed collaboratively by the class teachers, research associates and myself. The key data are transcripts of the children's interactions with their teacher and in peer conversations, together with samples of their written texts, the visual images they constructed, classroom observations by the research associate and myself, video and still photographs, and the teacher's diary notes.6 In presenting the argument I have introduced more conversational and artefactual data than is usual for both pedagogical and theoretical reasons: pedagogical, because investigations of the efficacy of children's grammatical study typically do not report processual evidence about learning; and theoretical because, following Vygotsky (1978: 58ff), claims for the usefulness of functional grammatics as intellectual tools must rest on evidence about the ontogenetic evolution of learning rather than o data about a final state of conceptual attainment. The exploration begins by looking at some first moves in very young children's study of grammatics to illustrate the accessibility of functional grammatical concepts (Halliday 1994) and to raise the question of relations between the study of grammatics and practical literate activity. I then track through the development and use of two functional grammatical concepts in the eleven year olds' classroom work. Finally, one child's view of the utility of these concepts in editing her draft writing is introduced, giving voice to a child's point of view about grammatics and meaning-making. Our general pedagogic approach has been to embed functional grammatical concepts in collaborative writing and reading activity. Sometimes the focal texts have been playful, Mr Confused's Recipe'for Maki Cheese Sauce, for example, and sometimes texts associated with practic activities that the children were interested in, such as How to make a wo farm.

Studying grammatics while reading and writing texts in order to complete a practical activity creates a potential for children to attend to the grammatical features precisely as they are using the features to complete the activity. As a result, the functionality of the grammatical features is visible in a qualitatively different way from approaches which begin with word class identification, then apply the definitions to the identification of grammatical items in texts. To illustrate, here are the very first moments in

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the study of grammatics for one of the groups of six year olds. The children are engaged in making a worm farm for the school playground and are studying the manufacturer's instructions, which are a typical instance of procedural, or instructional, text. Example 2 7

Teacher: Students: Student: Teacher: Student: Teacher:

Student: Teacher: Students:

What we're looking for today, in this type of writing, is we're looking for something called the process. What are we looking for? Process. Isn't the process how you put the things together? That's good. That's what we're looking at. How you do it... A little bit more focus. So the process... [SETTLES STUDENTS]. It's not a very long word. Any time we have instructions or things that tell us what to do there's always ... Bobby ... process words in them. Process is ... are the words that tell us what we have to do. So the action is in the instruction. The action is in So if I tell Jamie 'Walk to that table', what's the process in that? What does he have to do? Walk.

At first glance this might seem like the familiar primary school activity of identifying verbs as 'doing words' (with a new label). But it isn't the same activity because what 'process' means here, looking from the perspective of text, is not just a particular class of grammatical item, but a 'doing-inclausal-and-textual-context'. As the teacher so neatly expresses it, 'the action is in the instruction'. Attention is directed to a process as a grammatical feature in a context of practical activity involving the semantics of the process: the two are (almost) indivisibly linked. From children's point of view, the evolutionary path of the grammatics opens from practical action. The child's perceptive question 'Isn't the process how you put the things together?' illustrates how important the orientation is. The children then began to examine the focal text and to identify processes, using the text as the viewpoint for the grammatical features.8 Example 3

Teacher:

I'm going to do the first instruction and I want you to see if you can tell me all the processes in that instruction. Listen to it. 'Place the worm farm in a shady place in your backyard.' Jamie: 'Place'? Teacher: What was that, Jamie? Jamie and others: 'Place'?

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Teacher:

'Place'. Do you want to come and highlight for me using a highlighter?

[JAMIE HIGHLIGHTS THE WORD 'PLACE']

Teacher: Students: Teacher: Student:

Good boy. Well done. So 'place'. Is that the action? Is that the process that's happening in that? Yes. Good. It tells us right away that the thing we have to do in this particular step is we have to place the worm farm. Miss, do we put the chair there? [JAMIE USED A CHAIR TO REACH UP TO THE TEXT ON A BOARD]

Teacher:

Teacher: Isabella: Teacher:

I think from now on we'll be able to [?reach]. So let's see now. I'm going to give you the second step. Don't call out. I'm going to ask if you can find what the process is in this, what you have to do. [READS] 'Shred a lot of newspaper.' What do you have to do in this step? Isabella. 'Shred'? Good. That's what you have to do. Good girl. So right away we know that we're shredding. That's what we have to do there. Good girl, Isabella. Good listeners Year One. A bit short though! [REFERRING TO THE NEED FOR THE CHAIR] Okay, Step 3. Are we ready? I'm already seeing hands up. [THE CHILDREN HAVE ALREADY READ THE CLAUSE FROM THE CHART] W e l l done, [READS] 'Soak the newspaper in water.'

Johnny? Urn... What are you doing there? What's the process? I know! Miss? Don't tell him. Do you want me to read it to you again? Student [Johnny] Urn... [READS] 'Soak the newspaper in water.' Teacher: Student [Johnny] 'Soak'? 'Soak'. Good boy. Because it's what you do. What Teacher: does 'soak' mean? Put water in it. Student:

Student [Johnny] Teacher: Student: Teacher:

These data, confirmed by findings from other groups of young learners and across a range of grammatical features, suggest that children do not require a 'basic' grammar of class terms before they are able to begin to think with functional concepts. (For evidence of the accessibility of more complex concepts, see Williams (2000), which discusses children's use of analyses of transitivity features in explorations of stylistics.) Free from

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concerns about accessibility, then, we are able to explore whether or not children can in due course learn to use the concepts to reflect on texts. If children are to learn to do so, they need to develop a sense of the multifunctionality of grammatical features (Halliday 1994). I will illustrate multifunctionality in a brief excursus into a procedural text in an everyday context for adults. Here is the initial set of instructions for learning to use the web page design programme Dreamweaver MX.9 1 Insert the Dreamweaver CD into the computer's CD-ROM drive. 2 Choose from the following options: • In Windows, choose Start> Run. Click Browse and choose the Dreamweaver MX Installer.exe file on the Dreamweaver CD. When the Run dialog box appears, click OK to begin the installation. • On the Macintosh, double-click the Dreamweaver MX Installer icon. 3 Follow the onscreen instructions. 4 If prompted, restart your computer. Examples of the feature Process in main steps 1-4 are 'insert', 'choose', 'follow', 'restart' and 'prompted'. Typically these processes establish the reader's point of departure through their placement in Theme position (notionally, first position). The action the reader has to take forms the orientation to the rest of the message. The processes, therefore, have a dual function, both as the 'action' in the instruction and as the point of departure from which the reader develops an understanding of the message. The process is not necessarily first, however: grammars provide for other features to be selected as Theme if the context requires it (Hasan and Fries 1995). There are two examples even in this short text. Since contexts of web material design require users to select between Windows or Macintosh operating systems before they take any action, in the substeps in 2, it is the system location rather than the process that is thematized: 'in Windows' and 'on the Macintosh' rather than the processes 'choose' and 'double-click'. The processes are backgrounded textually while continuing to make their contribution as 'action' in the instruction. But is it reasonable to expect that primary school children might begin to recognize, let alone use, the multifunctionality of grammatical features? 5 Grammatics with eleven year olds

I now shift focus to one of the groups of eleven year olds, in their final year of primary schooling, and their initial work with Process and Theme. We will track an aspect of their work from first discussions of language to their use of functional grammatics in a literacy task. (Work on Process and Theme formed one small fraction of their work on functional grammatics for the year, of course.) These children were learning in an inner-suburban Sydney class in

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which 15 first languages were spoken by the families, including Arabic, Chaoyangese, Italian, Korean and Mandarin, as well as English. The majority spoke a language other than English as the first language so it was obviously a visible issue to the children, but what we didn't know was whether or not grammar figured much in their thinking. So, to begin their study of grammatics, they were asked to talk informally in small groups about what language was. We were particularly interested to assess the range of language features they noted, and the status of grammatical features within that range. To record their thinking the children were asked to construct a schematic representation, a 'mind map' as their teacher called it, of relations between any language features they knew about. They were encouraged to search for as wide a range of features as possible, to list these and eventually to draw in lines of relation between the features to show 'what links with what'. The teacher refrained from contributing ideas to the conversation but occasionally raised questions with the group to support their formulations. The first lists were reviewed in further discussion in reconfigured groups, and eventually compiled into a visual display of relationships by all the children. The discussions were both wide-ranging and intensive. The children were clearly aware of the personal and social significance of language. For example, they discussed language variation and the relativity of 'correctness' to social formation. Example 4 [LONG PAUSE]

Cd: Cd: Cd: Cd: Cd: Cd: Cd:

Speaking ... So, well, what we should have put for that? Speaking um ... We can't really put speaking properly. Yeah, y'can. 'Cause it might be proper in your language Yeah, [LAUGHS]

[LONG PAUSE]

Cd: U m . . . Tr: What do you mean, 'It might be proper in their language?' Cd: You know like if they're another ... culture, another language then they ... that might be pro ... right in their country? Cd: Like how they use ban[ae]na and we use ... Cd: *That might Cd: *banarna Cd: That might be right. Cd: And tomayto 'n' tomarto. Cd: Would culture be one, do you think? Tr: What do you mean culture? Cd: Another subheading.

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Cd: Tr: Cd: Tr:

Oh sort of but sort of not. Mmmm, it could be couldn't it? Yeah. [LONG PAUSE] YOU mean the different ways that people use language according to their culture? Cd: Yeah.

Later, this same group discussed regional variation more specifically. They had been listing different languages they knew about when one child mentioned Korea, leading to this exchange: Example 5 Cd: Cd: Cd: Cd: Cd: Cd: Cd: Cd: Cd:

^German, French *And Korea, yeah, well North and South Korea. Korea? *There is North and South. *Is that tw ... is that two languages or one? Ouch [IAUGHS] The accent of the North Korean is ... Is it two Ian ... part of languages or one? No it's sa ... the same language but the Korean accent is very different, the North Korean accent is different.

Variation in written genres was a topic that occupied the attention of most groups. They were well aware of differences between types of written text. Example 6

Cd: How about you write ... have you got writing with urn letters and stories? Cd: *Writing. Cd: *No we haven't got writ... Cd: No. Cd: Writing with letters and stories with ... Cd: *No we haven't Cd: *Not really letters, that kind of letters but you know letters? ... which you send in the mail? ... send in the mail? and they connect to writing so you can put... Cd: *Re stories Cd: *stories Cd: Reports Cd: Reports and things. Cd: Reports and recounts. Cd: No Cd: Writing genres, remember? Cd: Yeah

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Cd: Remember, writing genres. Cd: I'll get the spelling of genre for you. I will shortly illustrate their facility in writing one of these genres. However, there was an interesting contrast with this level of awareness of generic types when the children moved to discuss grammar. In comparison, these stretches of conversation were much more fragmentary. Example 7 Cd: Cd: Cd: Cd: Cd: Cd: Cd: Cd: Cd: Cd: Cd: Cd: Cd:

What do you have, what do you have? Um, grammar. Grammar. Yeah we can put more things about grammar. Yeah yeah. Granma? Yeah. Did you say granma? [LAUGHS] Grammar ... not granma, grammar. Like um ... not not vowels. Like vowels. About something like ... verbs. Yeah we did ... yeah we did verbs. Verbs, yeah.

Though 'grammar' frequently occurs as a feature of language through the discourse, the discussion never developed beyond listing parts of speech. The children mention that they have previously used a 'grammar book' as a textbook, but again this is referred to only in terms of parts of speech. There is no evidence of the children linking grammatics with interpretive or constructive literate activity. Given the children's apparent awareness of different text types, we were interested in trying to establish whether or not they could write instances successfully, so we asked them to write an instructional text about a familiar topic. From these data it is evident that, before they commenced systematic study of functional grammatics, they could manage the relevant register demands. John, for example, wrote about how to load a dishwasher, tongue-in-cheek. Example 8 Loading the Dishwasher

What you need: dirty dishes dirty glasses dirty spoons dirty knives dirty forks dishwasher dishwasher powder

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Steps: Put the glasses on the top tray in the dishwasher. If there is some space on the top tray put some small dishes on it. Put the rest of the dishes on the bottom tray. Put knives, forks and spoons in the basket. Put some powder in the dishwasher. Put the dishwasher on. Then unload the dishwasher when it is finished. Similarly, Michaela wrote lightly about controlling anxiety prior to a performance. Example 9

How to keep calm before a performance 1 Tell yourself things like 'Everything will be OK', 'It doesn't matter if I make a mistake', and 'This will be fun'. 2 Try talking to other people in the performance and find out what they are feeling. 3 Do things that will take your mind off the performance like reciting your times-tables in your head or counting backwards from 100. 4 Sitting down in a corner by yourself can sometimes be good, but not always. DO NOT! a) Look through a crack in the curtains, you will probably start worrying about how many people are out there. b) Start crying, it's very hard to get calm again. After they had successfully written the examples of instructional texts, we asked a series of questions designed to draw out the extent of their textual metaknowledge. The first of these was: how did you know how to write t instructions/procedures'?'Here is a representative sample of their respon: Sarswati: In year three I did procedures with Mr M. Also I remember the procedure I did. Alison: I've made a procedure called how to grow a plant. Hiro: I knew how to write because the teacher told me. Marcia: Yes, because I've seen lots of cooking recipes. Penny: I probely leant by cooking books or road maps. Again, we asked them: when you write the steps, is there any special way you do it?

Hiro: Tom: Kahoa: Marcia:

I don't have any special way. No there wasn't. No, because I just do it normally and I don't think there is special ways. Yes. In order.

254 Penny:

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE Yes, you can write it in numbers.

Only one child commented on a grammatical feature of the text type, though even she didn't explicate the functionality of the grammatical feature to the purposes of this text type. Michaela: Yes, I always start each step with a processor (doing word). The use of 'processor' suggests that this student had some prior experience of functional grammatics since the term was not familiar to other children. Let me attempt to provide a summary image of the children's situation prior to beginning to study functionally oriented grammatics. These were children who, nearing the end of their primary schooling, were very engaged in thinking about language. They had made many spontaneous observations and understood a lot about the significance of language in social and personal life. Most were fairly competent in writing the basic types of texts required by the curriculum, and many demonstrated playfulness in both their written and their oral texts. They could also produce some analyses of parts of speech. However, the key point is that these were two quite separate sets of knowledge. In none of the data is there evidence that the children used, or expected to use, knowledge of grammatics in understanding the workings of texts. A deep, if inadvertently constructed, chasm had been fixed between metaknowledge of the grammar and awareness of meaningmaking. To begin their functional grammatical study these children were initially introduced to the concepts Process and Theme through a playful text, Mr Confused's Recipe for Making Cheese Sauce. The text was written to be ver

'unruly', so dysfunctional as to cause the children to laugh at it and want to amend it.10 As they discussed its problems, the teacher introduced the general concepts of Theme and Process, then the significance of the patterning of these grammatical features for achieving meanings appropriate to a register and why this dysfunctional text failed partly because of its chaotic selection of Themes. In Example 10 we pick up a conversation about grammar about two weeks after the children had first learned about Process and Theme. Here we can observe the teacher working to build two sets of relations: relations between the children's initial understanding of parts of speech and the functional concepts, and relations between the functional concepts and effects of their patterning in this type of text. Example 10

Tr: Now some of these words have been highlighted here. Would anybody just explain ... what was ... why those words were highlighted. What was what was um ... something special about them? ... It's much easier for your voice to be heard on the tape if

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we pass this around as well. So urn, Jennifer, why don't you explain, but still use a loud clear voice. Um, they're sort of like doing words, like you put something there, and unload and They're doing words, exactly, and do we have a name for doing words? No. Verbs. Verbs, or we introduced another word as well. ... Peter? Processes. Processes. What type of process is a doing word?

Cdn: [WHISPERING, THEN A PAUSE]

Tr: Call it out. Cdn: Material processes. Tr: OK. Material processes. There are different types of processes ... um, and we did mention ... a couple of them, but we haven't really looked at them carefully. Can anybody remember what a couple of them were. No? Cd: Um, 'take'? Tr: 'Take' is a material process, something you can do. Cd: 'Put'. Tr: That's another one, that's a material process. I ... the question was: are there any other types of processes? Can you remember? I did just mention them very briefly but we didn't talk about them, so I don't expect you to remember really. Michaela? Cd: I think the things that you can ... like you can think, you can't see, think. Tr: Things that ... you can't do them, but you can think, a thinking kind of activity instead of a doing activity. And what do we call those? Cd: Like you can't see [?speaking] Tr: And speaking as well, that's right. And they're different types of processes, not material processes, and we'll go into a bit more er work on that later. Now, what do we notice with the pattern in John's um procedure? And it wasn't just John's, other people's had this pattern too. ... Mary? You can take the tape-recorder and make a comment. Cd: All the ... Tr: A loud voice though because Allan and Hiro are a long way away and it's good for them to be able to hear what you're saying, 'cause they might like to put their hand up and then maybe say the same thing. Cd: All the verbs're at the front er of the sentence ... Tr: Nearly all. Cd: *Uh. Tr: *Lots of the processes were at the front of the sentence. Now we have a name for that, a grammatical name for that. Instead of

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE saying 'at the front', you know, the front of the house, or the front of the the school, or whatever. So what do we say instead? Do you remember the grammatical name for that? ... Nerida, would you like to ... tell us what you think it is? A Theme. A Theme, that's right. What do you call the rest of it that's after the Theme? Do you remember? Call it out. The Rheme. The Rheme, OK, and this is one of the things that we looked at. Lots of good memories in this class, that was two weeks ago. ... And we said that you could [CHILDREN WHISPERING ABOUT PASSING THE TAPERECORDER] choose to put different things into Theme position, that the pattern in lots of procedures was to put the material process in Theme position. But not always. In John's he hasn't always put it in Theme position. In this one he says 'If there is some space on the top tray, put some small dishes on it'. So he has got something else in Theme position there. ... So it's not a rule, you don't have to always do it that way. But it is helpful to the person reading the procedure if there is a pattern telling them what to do next. That's why you read a procedure, to find out how to do something.

The main conceptual resource the children first use here is their prior and simple understanding that a verb is a 'doing word'. Given that they have this understanding, the teacher attempts to reconstruct it by showing them the range of relations into which the terms 'verb', 'process' and 'theme' enter, and some of the semantic effects of a particular configuration of Material Process and Theme. In short, she attempts to bridge the chasm between their class-based understanding of grammatics and their understanding of a particular type of written text. What is at stake eventually is, of course, their ability to use the grammatics to achieve a more comprehensive and abstract understanding of thematic organization across different types of text. 'All the verbs're at the front er of the sentence' is accurate for this text type, but of limited utility when one faces questions of textual organization in other registers. We can observe specific evidence of the qualitative difference in the ontogenetic functionality of 'verb' and 'process' in some discussion of another text. In this case the children are considering the status of 'don't throw'. What is the boundary of the process? Imagine that they were restricted to using class terms to parse this verbal group. What might they say? 'Do' is an auxiliary verb; 'n't' is an abbreviated form of the polar negative adjunct, and 'throw' is a verb - a 'doing' word? If they were confined to thinking about relations between 'parts of speech' at the lexicogrammatical stratum that is fairly much what they would have to say.11 In practice, of course, teachers don't restrict themselves or students to this stratum and do try to use some sense of meaning effects to distinguish parts of speech. So the question of which resources to use to develop

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children's attention to grammatical features actually becomes, in part, a question about the coherence of an account of relations between lexicogrammar and meaning, not one of whether or not to use meaning. Example 11

Tr: Cd: Cd: Tr:

Cd: Cd: Cd: Cd: Tr:

Start at the beginning and work through, [PAUSE] 'Peel'. 'Peel', 'peel' [PAUSE] If you think it's 'peel', that's something you can put in. Make sure that you take it in turns to read the steps so that Thomas can read the next one. What about 'don't throw away the fruit skins and seeds'? Is there one there? *Um, 'throw'. *Um, 'don't throw' ... 'don't throw away'. Well, do you say 'don't'? I mean ... I meant 'throw'. Well, um, actually, *'don't' is part of i t . . .

Cd:

* [INAUDIBLE]

Cd: Tr: Cd: Cd: Tr:

It's 'do not throw' Yeah. *It's telling you what to do. *It's telling you not to ... Yeah, what not to do Julie, yeah.

The concept 'process' enables the teacher to build a particular sense of relationship between meaning and wording. The children's attention is drawn to relations between the 'going-on' in experience, specifically the Event not happening, rather than to a question specific to the lexicogrammatical stratum itself, the question of what classes of grammatical item are present in the particular instance, that is auxiliary verb + negative adjunct + verb. This is why the teacher tries to redevelop the children's understanding of verb as 'doing word' in the interaction in Example 11. Such a concept restricts the children's thinking to internal relations between types of 'word'. In contrast, the idea of process builds out from the lexicogrammatical stratum towards the semantics and includes a consideration of effects of grammatical patterning on the organization and coherence of a whole text. Example 12 provides an instance of the children using the interface between semantics and grammar, this time to understand how processes can comprise words beyond the most obvious 'doing' word. (For contrast, imagine a discussion of the grammatical feature based on phrasal verb and particle.) Example 12

Cd: With 'spread out' um you didn't need 'out' because you can spread butter, spread anything ...

258 Cd::

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Cd: *'Spread' Cd: *'Spread yourself out', er er Cd::

[INAUDIBLE]

Tr: Does 'spread out' mean something different from just 'spread'? Cd: No, two different words, [pause] Cd: Shall I stop, Miss French? Tr: No. Cd: Can I write on the blackboard? Tr: I'll let you in on a little secret here. Just as another group found out with 'do not throw' or 'don't throw', a process doesn't have to be one word. And 11 can think of an example that I'm sure would appeal to you guys. What happens sometimes if you're sick? Cd: Like 'vomit'. Cd: Process ... 'to vomit'. Cd: 'Throw up'. [LAUGHTER]

Cd: You 'reprocess', [HEAVY EMPHASIS ON 'REPROCESS'] The idea that children learn to attend to grammatical features through meaning is, in one sense, a familiar one. It is evident, for example, even in the common sense definition of a verb as a 'doing' word and a noun as the 'name' of a person, place or thing. But there are obvious limitations to these common sensical strategies in terms of the range of items which can be brought to children's attention, the view of language that the commonsense definition implicates, the possibility of building sophisticated understanding of grammar as a multifunctional resource and, most particularly, what children can learn to do with the concepts. It is this question, evidence about the children's attempts to use the grammar in practical editing and interpretation, that is of course crucial to the problem of the ontogenesis of abstract thought through grammatics. The specific claim to be addressed by this evidence is that functionally designed grammatical descriptions, when brought to children's attention interactively and collaboratively through the discussion of meaning features of texts, can become intellectual resources for abstract understanding of language as a meaning-making resource. 6 Children using functional grammar

I will adduce two types of data to briefly illustrate the types of finding we have obtained so far. These are data about children's awareness of text type after they had begun to study functional grammar, and interview data about a child's use of Theme in self-editing. After the 11 year olds had been learning about process type and Theme for some time, together with many other features of grammar, the teacher

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Figure 11.1 First example of children's independently written 'metaprocedure' suggested that they should again reflect on their knowledge of how to write a procedural text by making a poster statement. That is, that they might write a metaprocedure. Figure 11.1 and Figure 11.2 are examples of these texts. This writing represents much more understanding of the generic features in comparison with the children's earlier responses. In particular, the children are no longer reliant on direct, necessarily restricted experience of specific texts. They are able to articulate a more abstract set

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Figure 11.2 Second example of children's independently written 'metaprocedure' of principles for organizing procedural text, including a sense of the usuality of Process/Theme conflation and its purpose. The entity responsible for this shift in understanding could not, of course, simply be functional grammatics. To assume so would be to reduce the sense of semiotic mediation to a crude reading of Vygotsky's 'word meaning': semiotic mediation through functional metasigns rather than word class ones. Systemic functional grammar makes its contribution through complex interactive processes between the teacher and children

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in which functional grammatics is used to make a material difference to activity with texts, enabling the children to look from the immediate practical activity exploring relations between wordings and meanings towards abstract principles of textual practices through grammatical lenses. It would be possible, of course, for teachers simply to say to children 'In the procedural text type start each step with a verb'. This possibility raises the question: would learning a principle expressed in common sensical and word class terms result in a similar level of learning? If we were to answer the question by simply measuring children's performance in writing this type of text, it would appear so. But this is hardly the point. What Vygotsky's notion of intellectual tools suggests is that a concept in functional grammatics such as Theme establishes a potential for development which is denied children who are taught only the local principle of textual organization. It is this sense of being able to move from specific instances, and specific types of instances, to a sense of the potential of the system and then to shunt back to a more abstract understanding of the possibilities in particular instances that is particularly important. (Note in Figure 11.1 the children's 'usually'.) The second example of children's independent use of functional grammatics draws on work which had been developed over a full year with another group of eleven year olds. We will focus on the views of one child, Katarina. This class had begun to learn about Theme/Rheme and Process in a similar manner to the group I have just been discussing. They had been engaged in playful work on a dysfunctional text, practical work editing it, and attending to the co-patterning of Theme and Process in procedural texts. With this understanding they had gone on to discuss clauses, the various types of process around which clauses develop, other experiential constituents of clauses (participants, processes and circumstances) and text-organizing resources such as conjunctions. All this work was embedded in practical activity with texts of different types, including an activity which Katarina refers to specifically - collaborative writing of a recount of a visit to a neighbouring secondary school where some members of the class planned to enrol the next year. This was quite a dynamic and sustained activity, extending over several 45-minute lessons. The teacher recorded the children's first-draft suggestions, then encouraged the children to use their knowledge of Theme and Rheme to edit the text. This, I think, is a clear example of semiotic mediation in what Vygotsky called the 'zone of proximal development' (Vygotsky 1978: 84). However, the important feature is not just the fact that the teacher provided judicious support which enabled the children to achieve more than they could have independently. Rather, it is that the teacher used grammatics in a readily recognizable context of literate activity to enable the children to think about textual organization in ways which otherwise would have been impossible for them.

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At the end of the year the research associate interviewed Katarina about her use of Theme in editing draft writing. Katarina commented that she did not regard herself as a successful writer of English. Her first language was Italian and she believed she had not reached the level of sophistication with written English she needed for successful high school entry. Her teacher, a careful reader and commentator on the children's texts, considered that Katarina's writing had developed considerably in both clausal and textual organization during the year. But what did she herself think? And if she considered her writing to be more accomplished, how had she achieved this outcome? I quote from Katarina's interview at some length. Children's points of view, partial and sometimes faltering though they may be, are important data through which to understand the ontogenetic processes through which grammatics develops. Katarina and the interviewer talked in a quiet corner of the classroom. They had in front of them Katarina's first-draft writing of a visit she had made to the Australian Museum and Hyde Park Barracks, two cultural sites near Sydney's CBD. Katarina had self-edited this text, first by identifying the Themes as far as she could, then marking it with changes she wished to make for her final piece. The focus of the conversation is the changes she'd made. (The full conversation lasted approximately 20 minutes.) Example 13

Interviewer: So how did you ... tell me some of the things that you've ch ... oh yes I can see how you've underlined them. You've used red, have you? Katarina: Yes. Interviewer: What have you used red for? Katarina: I've used red just to underline all the Themes and then I showed Miss French and Miss French underlined all the ones I missed out on. Interviewer: [LAUGHS] Did you miss out on many? Katarina: Yes, I missed out on ... I didn't actually miss out on the actual the actual Theme, but I either went too far or not far enough. Interviewer: Not far enough. Like in this one here you underlined the conjunction but what did you miss out? Katarina: Participant. Interviewer: Yes. Because when there's a conjunction as Theme then we also include the Participant that follows. [The research associate and the child then discuss language and the child's family background for a few moments before turning again to discuss her learning of grammatics.] Interviewer: Well, I suppose we should get back to the recount. We wandered away from that didn't we? So you've really made a lot of use of your understanding, haven't you? Do you think it's been useful?

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Katarina:

Very useful, ['VERY' IS HEAVILY EMPHASIZED] It's made my recounts better than what they would have been if I hadn't learnt about grammar because of, like, different clauses and conjunctions. It's also given me a variety of vocabulary and it's helped me with, like ... I'm not very good at English. I'm better at maths and so it's sort of helps me, you know, get like even with both subjects. Interviewer: Oh, so you really think it's bringing you up as far as your English is concerned. That's good isn't it? And it's good that you went through and underlined the Themes 'cause that's an interesting thing to do. And how did you know to do that? What was the activity you did with Miss French that urn ... Katarina: Um, well when we were doing our Concord recount we sort of did that a little bit and I think it was on sections and so that when we saw we were repeating things we changed it. And I thought that, because I often repeat myself a lot when I'm writing like recounts and so I thought that maybe that would help me and to see what I have to fix up on. And once I did the first paragraph, without underlining the rest of it, I just went through it and I saw like I saw whether there were things I should work on.

7 Concluding comments If they are to develop abilities to reflect systematically on language, children require intellectual tools which enable them literally to see grammatical features in relation to meaning-making practices. It is precisely the absence of this relation which has made learning about grammar so problematic for David and many of his peers in school contexts. Many can, no doubt, learn to identify word classes reliably but this is a very different order of experience from learning to use grammatics for reflection on meaning, as the children's early comments suggest. So fraught has been the teaching of grammar in schools that, until very recently, it has been difficult to voice questions about alternatives to the established developmental paradigm, despite the obvious problems. It is important to focus the precise point at issue: presumably nobody who believes that learning grammatics in school is important is likely to argue that learning about word classes is irrelevant. The question is not whether word.classes should be learned, but whether they should form the basic attention-structuring and activity-mediating resources through which children are encouraged to use grammar to think about textuality. The first issue to be addressed by proposals for an alternative grammatics is, of course, accessibility. So far as we can see, there appears to be little problem in young children beginning to make sense of key functional grammatical concepts, provided they can at first relate the concepts systematically to

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meaning. In fact, after two years their achievements compare favourably with that of many adult learners: some children readily learnt to analyse Token and Value constituents in Relational clauses. (For transcript evidence see Williams (1998)). The ensuing issue is utility. I have attempted here to provide some brief insight into the processes of children using functional grammatical concepts to think about texts at new levels of abstraction. I have argued that the ontogenesis of abstract, systematic thought about grammatics needs to be reconsidered. This is especially so as human cultures evolve increasingly complex meaning-making practices through their social semiotic resources, of which the crucial system is still language. Notes 1 Hasan argues: 'Neither the norms of knowledge nor those of discourse can be treated as stable, arrested at some point in time; change is the only abiding condition for human existence. This puts the emphasis on a qualitatively different aspect of discursive ability than that which underlies pedagogies of action literacy. Participation in the production of knowledge will call for an ability to use language to reflect, to enquire and to analyse, which is the necessary basis for challenging what are seen as facts. So, if our aim is to enable pupils to produce knowledge, then we would need a view of literacy designed to develop these faculties. This literacy will necessarily prioritize reflection, enquiry and analysis. For this reason I refer to it as reflection literacy.' (1996a: 408-9). 2 For related discussion on the phylogenetic effect of writing development see Halliday 1985; Matthiessen, this volume. 3 There are several other senses in which 'basic' is used to justify teaching grammar in early schooling including, particularly, 'morally basic'. Carter (1996) amusingly discusses some examples of statements about grammar and morality by socially prominent persons in the United Kingdom. 4 Realization and construal relations are discussed by Halliday (2002). 5 These now 12 year olds were in their first year of secondary schooling and, therefore, located in several different secondary schools in nearby suburbs. In Australian urban settings, children typically move to a range of secondary schools as they complete primary schooling. 6 The class teacher for these research contexts were Ruth French and Elena Barducci, and the research associates, Dr Joan Rothery and Alison Lockhart. While I am solely responsible for the arguments presented here, the teachers were primarily responsible for making the research contexts such interesting ones and the research associates for the quality of the observational data. 7 Transcription conventions: a pause between one and three seconds

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[long pause] a pause greater than three seconds * simultaneous talk 8 For evidence of another group of six year olds beginning to attend to non-material processes without first learning about words classes see Williams (1998). 9 Macromedia. 2002. Getting started with Dreamweaver MX. San Francisco: Macromedia Inc. pp. 13-14. 10 Mr Confused's Recipe for Making Cheese Sauce 1. You might like to add some salt and pepper. 2. Add the milk slowly. 3. You have to gently heat the butter. 4. The flour is then added. 5. Heat the saucepan first. 6. You can pour the cheese sauce over vegetables or macaroni. 7. The grated cheese should be added slowly. 8. Stir until the butter and flour are bubbling gently. Ingredients: 1 i tablespoons plain flour 1 i tablespoons of butter, margarine or oil 2 tablespoons of grated cheese 1 cup milk 11 Systemic functional linguistic theory models language as a tri-stratal system, comprising semantics, lexicogrammar and phonology/ graphology, with a realizational relation between them. For particularly succinct discussion of this point see Halliday 1978: 38-40. References Axline V., 1971. Dibs: In Search of Self. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Bateson G., 1972. Steps towards an Ecology ofMind. New York: Ballantine Book Bernstein B., 1974. Class, Codes and Control, Volume 1. London: Routledg and Kegan Paul. Bernstein B., 1990. Class, Codes and Control, Volume TV: The Structuring Pedagogic Discourse. London: Routledge. Bruner J., Jolly A. and Sylva K., 1976. Play: Its Role in Development and Evolution, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Carter R., 1996. 'Politics and knowledge about language: the LINC project', in Literacy in Society, eds R. Hasan and G. Williams. London an New York: Longman. Elley W.B., Barham I.H., Lamb H. and Wyllie M., 1976. T h e role of grammar in a secondary school English curriculum', Research in the Teaching of English, 10, 1, pp. 5-21. Goody J., 1987. The Interface between the Written and the Oral. Cambridg Cambridge University Press.

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Halliday M.A.K., 1975. Learning How to Mean: Explorations in the Developme

of Language. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday M.A.IL, 1978. Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation Language and Meaning. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday M.A.K., 1985. Spoken and Written Language. Geelong, Victoria: Deakin University Press. Halliday M.A.K., 1994. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. 2nd Edition

London: Edward Arnold. Halliday M.A.K., 2002. 'On grammar and grammatics', in On Gramma Volume 1 in the Collected Works of M.A.K. Halliday, ed. J.J. Webster

London: Continuum. Harris R.J., 1965. 'The only disturbing feature', The Use ofEnglish, 16, 3, p 197-202. Hasan R., 1996a. 'Literacy, everyday talk and society', in Literacy in Socie eds R. Hasan and G. Williams. London and New York: Longman. Hasan R., 1996b. Ways of Saying: Ways of Meaning, eds C. Cloran, D. t and G. Williams. London: Cassell. Hasan R., 2001. 'The ontogenesis of decontextualised language: some achievements of classification and framing', in Towards a Sociology Pedagogy: The Contribution of Basil Bernstein to Research, eds A. Morais,

Neves, B. Davies and H. Baillie. New York and Oxford: Peter Lang. Hasan R. and Fries P.H., 1995. On Subject and Theme: From the Perspective Functions in Discourse. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Luria A., 1976. Cognitive Development: Its Cultural and Social Foundations.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Luria A., 1979. The Making of Mind: A Personal Account of Soviet Psycholog

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Painter C , 1984. Into the Mother Tongue: A Case Study in Early Language Development. London: Frances Pinter. Sutton-Smith B., 1997. The Ambiguity of Play. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vygotsky L.S., 1978. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychologi

Processes, eds M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner and E. Souberm Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Vygotsky L.S., 1981. 'The genesis of higher mental functions', in The Concept of Activity in Soviet Psychology, ed. J.V. Wertsch. New York: M. Sharpe. Vygotsky L.S., 1986. Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Wertsch J.V., 1985. Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind. Cambridge

MA: Harvard University Press. Wertsch J.V., 1991. Voices of the Mind: A Sociocultural Approach to Mediate

Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Williams G., 1995. 'Learning systemic functional grammar in primary schools', in Australian English in a Pluralist Australia. Proceedings of Styl

Council 95, ed. P. Peters. Sydney: Dictionary Research Centre, Macquarie University, Sydney.

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Williams G., 1998. 'Children entering literate worlds: perspectives from the study of textual practices', in Literacy and Schooling, eds F. Christie an. Misson. London and New York: Routledge. Williams G., 1999a. 'The pedagogic device and the production of pedagogic discourse: a case example in early literacy education', in Pedagogy and the Shaping of Consciousness: Linguistic and Social Processes,

F. Christie. London: Cassell Academic. Williams G., 1999b. 'Grammar as a metasemiotic tool in child literacy development', in Language Teaching: New Insights for the Language Teach,

eds C. Ward and W. Renandya. Singapore: SEAMEO. Williams G., 2000. 'Children's literature, children and uses of language description', in Researching Language in Schools and Communities, ed. L

Unsworth. London: Cassell. Williams G., 2001. 'Literacy pedagogy prior to schooling: relations between social and semantic variation', in Towards a Sociology of Pedagogy: T Contribution of Basil Bernstein to Research, eds A. Morais, I. Neves, B. Davi

and H. Baillie. New York and Oxford: Peter Lang.

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Index abstraction 224-36,241-5,256-8, 261-4 agency 113 Aiello, Leslie 79 animals 6-7 linguistic abilities of 56, 100-2, 106 mental processes in 95-9 vocalizations by 93-4, 103-5 archaeological evidence 73-4 AstingtonJ.W. 98 Bakhtin, M.M. 114 Baldwin, James Mark 185 Bateson, C. 48, 231 Beaken, M. 73 Beeghly, M. 192 Benson, James see Chapter 4 Berk, L.E. 187 Bernstein, B. 162, 176, 223, 228 Bickerton, D. 8, 45, 67, 137, 148, 152 bifurcationism 123 Boden, Margaret 82 bonding 65 borderline personality disorder 9, 182-5, 191-2 Bourdieu, P. 223 brain function 45-6, 73-4, 184 BrunerJ. 221-2 Btihler, Karl 117 Butt, David G. 5-6, 11-12; see also

child-centred education 200 Chomsky, N. 3-4, 8, 15, 152, 218 Cicchetti, D. 192 Clever Hans 101 Cloran, C. 168 cognitive development 12, 162, 217-18 colloquy 186 contextualization and decontextualization 106, 166-7 contingent discourse 211-12 conversation 75 conversational model of therapeutic discourse 9, 182, 185-8 Corballis, M.C. 77-8 cosmogenesis 4, 47, 83 cueing 101-2, 106 culture 70, 159-61 Davidson, I. 74 Deacon, T. 3-4 decontextualization see contextualization Delsemme, A. 73 Dennett, Daniel 222 developmental psychology 137-8, 152 dialogue 70, 148-52 Diaz, R.M. 188 Dunbar, R. 58, 79 duplex self concept 183-4

Chapter 10

Call.J. 97-8 Cartesianism 113-14, 122-5 categories of experience 36 Cavalli-Sforza, L.L. 77 Cheney, D.L. 102

ecosocial semiotic system 113 Eddy, TJ. 97 Edelman, G. 2, 73 Einstein, Albert 231 Eldredge, N. 67 Elly, W.B. 242

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emotion and language 138-43, 152 enculturation 99 Engerstrom, Y. 198 evolution of language 5-7,36,45-6, 67-8 in cosmogenetic perspective 47, 82 phases in 47-85 family groups 64-5 fire, use of 72 Firth, J.R. 220-1, 237, 242 FlavellJ. 184, 189 Foley, R. 56, 64-5, 72 formative motifs 173-4 Frauenglass, M.H. 188 Freud, Sigmund 184, 187

Harre, R. 192 Harris, R.J. 242 Hasan, Raqaiya 7-9, 163, 241; see also Chapter 7

Henderson, Hazel 218 historical linguistics 47 Hjelmslev, L. 3,221 Hopper, Paul 75 ideational meaning 137-40,144-53 passim, 222

individuation 124-7, 130-1 information, exchange of 70-1 initiation-response-feedback (IRF) pattern 198-9, 203, 210 inner speech 186-91, 201 instantiation 5, 23-4, 35, 85 Garbutt, M. 192 interpersonal metafunction and intergenetics 83 personal first principle 137-8, Gibbons, Pauline 10; see also Chapter 9 144-53 Gibson, JJ. 114, 120 IRF pattern see Gillett, G. 192 initiation-response-feedback Gopnik, A. 98 Isaac, Glynn 77 Gottlieb, G. 123 Gould, S.J. 67 Jackson, Hughlings 184-5 Gowlett,J.AJ. 77 James, William 183-4 gradualism 47 Janet, Pierre 185, 192 grammar 15-16, 24-37, 46, 66-7, 219 Jaspers, Karl 193 emergence of 30-4 Jung, C.G. 186 experiential and interpersonal aspects of 32 Koestler, Arthur 82 instruction in 11 Kohlberg, L. 186 as a subject of study 241-2 Krafft, K.C. 188 'grammar-brain' concept 3, 34 Language Research Center 6, 103 grammatical metaphor 147-8 Leakey, R. 6 grammatics 242-58, 263-4 learning through language 159-60 Greaves, William see Chapter 4 Lemke, J. 152-3, 199, 204 Greenfield, S. 8, 162 Leont ev, A. 198 Gregory, Richard 222 Li, C. 74-5 Hall,J. 210,212 logogenesis 219, 229 Halliday, M.A.K. 2-8, 12, 46-8, 58, Lukin, Annabelle (co-editor) see 65-71, 75, 81-6, 113, 137-45, Chapter 1 158-60, 182, 186, 191-2, 201-2, Luria, A. 161 212, 221-4, 228-9, 236, 242-3; see also Chapter 2 McCrone,J. 1 Hare, B. 97 Markova, I. 212

INDEX

Marshall, AJ. 93 Martin, J.R. 197 mathetic meaning 33-4, 56, 65-71, 81 Matthiessen, Christian M.I.M. 3-6, 34, 148; see also Chapter 3

maturation, length of 65 Maynard Smith, J. 68 meaning potential 10-12, 24, 37, 46-50, 56, 59-62, 75-8, 83-6, 121,217 meaning-making 130-1, 203, 218-21, 246, 258, 263-4 Meares, Russel 9; see also Chapter 8 memory 71 Mercer, N. 199 microfunctions 22, 56-62, 65 Middle Paleolithic 77 mind definition of 162 see also theory of mind Mithen, S. 56-7, 67-9, 73-6, 82 mother-child discourse 163-74 mother tongue 32-6 passim, 185 mundane knowledge 161 Mungo Man 78 Murray, L. 138 narrative 71 natural history intelligence 56 natural intelligence 68-9 Nichols, Johanna 77, 79 Noble, W. 74

271

Piaget, Jean 186-8, 193, 217, 221 Pinker, S. 123 play, forms of 186 pointing gestures 117-19 polar and non-polar interrogatives 104-5 Popper, Karl 222, 231, 233 Potts, R. 65 Povinelli, DJ. 97 Premack, D. 94-5 progressive model of education 200 protoconversation 48, 185 protolanguage 3-4,16-33,45-51, 56-62, 139-40, 185, 243 upper limits of 59-62 QuigleyJ. 192 realization of meaning 5 registers 46, 71, 75, 81, 85-6, 197, 205-6, 256 meshing of 206-8, 212 relatedness 182, 188-91 rhetorical resources of teachers 12, 217 Rose, D. 78 Rose, S. 1

Salthe, S.N. 127 Sapir, E. 221 Sapir-Whorf hypothesis 191 Saussure, F. de 228-9 Savage-Rumbaugh, Susan 7, 115-31 scaffolding 152, 209-10 ontogenesis 1, 4, 6, 9-10, 46-50, 58, second-language development 197, 62,71,83,219,221,224,229, 199, 202-3, 210-13 241-6, 258, 264 self Painter, Clare 7-8, 33, 47, 201; see also definition of 183-4 Chapter 6 scientific study of 191-3 Paley, William 218 self-organization 125-6 parts of speech 243, 256 semantic complexity 221, 224, 228-31, Perner,J. 98 236 phatic communion 59 semiotic development 23-5, 35-7, Phillips, Joy 16 48 phonology and phonetics 81 semiotic evolution 52, 65, 70-2 phylogenesis 1, 4, 9-10, 47-50, 56, 62, semiotic mediation 159-63, 166, 174-5 72, 219, 221, 229

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semiotics 1-7, 16-19, 47, 59, 113-14, 127-9,139-40 higher-order 72-83 Seyfarth, R.M. 102 shared experience 71 Shear, Jonathan 3 Smolucha, F. 186 social intelligence 56, 68 social interaction 7, 11, 158, 162 social organization 78, 82 socialization 8-9, 70 sociogenetics 160-1 Steels, L. 67 Stern, D. 138 Stevens, W. 237 stratification of language 5, 35 stream of consciousness 183-6 Sullivan, Gavin 9; see also Chapter 8 Swain, M. 210 symbolic play 186-9 syntax 5-7, 67, 83, 186, 219 systemic-functional linguistics (SFL) 9, 137-8, 144-7, 151-2, 159, 175-6, 192, 196, 217, 230 Szathmary, E. 68

Tomasello, M. 97-8 tools, use of 72, 74 Torr,Jane 33,47 transmission model of education 200 Trevarthen, Colwyn 17, 138-9, 185 trinocular perspective 23 Upper Paleolithic revolution 74-9 vanLier, L. 196,211-13 vocabulary 32, 69 vocal tract 52 Vygotsky, L.S. 11, 152, 159-62, 186-9, 197-201, 208, 211, 221-2, 228, 241-6, 260-1 Watkins, M. 188 Weir, Ruth 15 Wells, G. 197-202 passim, 210 Wertsch,J.V. 245 Whorf, B. 191,222 Williams Geoff (co-editor) 10-11; see also Chapters 1 and 11

Wimmer, H. 98 Wittgenstein, L. 228-9 Woodruff, G. 94 Wordsworth, William 233

teacher-student discourse 201-13 tenor 171, 176, 208 zone of irrealis 192 theory of mind 98-9, 123, 151, 184 zone of proximal development (ZPD) in non-humans 94-8 200, 204, 209-12, 261 Thibault, PaulJ. 2-3, 7, 9, 17; see also Zuberbuhler, K. 93 Chapter 5

Thomson, W.H. 91