Mind, self, and consciousness as discourse

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New Ideas in Psychology 24 (2006) 63–81 www.elsevier.com/locate/newideapsych

Mind, self, and consciousness as discourse Shi-xu Institute of Discourse & Cultural Studies, Zhejiang University, Zijingang Campus, 310058 Hangzhou, China Available online 1 September 2006

Abstract The present paper argues for the essential relationship between discourse and the human mind. Drawing upon the critical insights from a range of social sciences including Cultural Psychology and Discourse Studies, I outline in the first part of the paper a discursive account of the mind—of cognition, emotion, self and consciousness and the like: the human mind is constituted in text and talk which are situated in cultural and historical context. The discursive account is based on a social constructionist view of the human cultural world as meanings constructed primarily through linguistic communication in order to accomplish interactional purposes. The central argument here will be that our thinking and feeling are discursive by nature and in origin. Specifically, our minds are (a) derived from, (b) constrained by, (c) utilized in (d) modelled upon, (e) distributed through, and (f) begun with discourse. In the second part, I try to show how, in modern Western linguistics, metaphors from the natural sciences have come to define, and become part of, ‘‘the human mind’’ itself. r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction In recent years various language-oriented approaches to the human mind have increased our awareness of the role that language plays in the study of the human psyche. And yet, because of differences in the foundational notion of what ‘‘language’’ is, the question of the relation of mind to language is far from settled. Moreover, even under the general heading of ‘‘language’’ as discourse, i.e. language use—where the present endeavour is subsumed— there are conceptual differences with respect to mind as well (e.g. is mind theoretically part of discourse or is that a question to be deferred?).

E-mail address: [email protected]. 0732-118X/$ - see front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.newideapsych.2006.06.003

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In this paper, I attempt to provide an account of mind as essentially discursive. By ‘‘mind’’ are meant such human properties as consciousness, cognition, emotion, self, and the like. ‘‘Discursive’’/ ‘‘discourse’’ is used to refer to meanings, social and cultural context, strategies and so on that are realized through linguistic symbols (or linguistic communication). Thus, the central thesis here, more specifically, is that the human mind is a special meaningful element or dimension of discourse. This means that notions of mind (and for that matter, opinions, attitudes, emotions, memory) are to be viewed as culturally embedded ways of making sense, or making meanings, and socially consequential ways of saying things.1 In other terms, the very assumption that there are such things as cultures and minds, whether it is made theoretically, commonsensically, or empirically, is attributable to tropes of discourse from specific historical and cultural contexts. I term this discourse-constituted psychological world ‘‘the discourse of mind’’ (DM). At the same time that I provide theoretical arguments I shall also supply empirical examples to illustrate those points. As part of the concern underlying the present proposal, I will indicate how the goals of studying DM can be usefully and critically applied to society. The basic argument for this thesis will be six-fold. The reality of our thinking and feeling, as in our real-time individual and social experience, is derived from, constrained by, utilized in, distributed through, modelled upon and begun with culturally differentiated discourse—so mind does not exist outside of the realm of semiotic practice, discourse in particular. Of course underlying these discourse-oriented arguments is a fundamental notion of discourse, which stems from the general framework of language research (Shi-xu, 2005). Here ‘‘language’’ is defined as ‘‘discourse’’: primarily linguistic-symbolic activity in the social context. Discourse, ordinary as well as scientific, is understood, not as truth-bearing but sense-making and reality-constitutive. It may be noted that in one sense the object under research here is not the same one that psychologists study. For, here the domain of inquiry will be the speaking and writing, in which meanings, concepts, categories and evaluations of the human inner experience, taken-for-granted or otherwise, are embedded. In another sense, the topics or objects of inquiry that mainstream psychologists are concerned with (e.g. the individual, or the universal, or cognitive-affective structures and processes) will be subsumed theoretically under the current framework, i.e. as part of our discourse-research domain. So when dealing with the discourse of mind, I am not merely studying ‘‘rhetoric,’’ shunning the issue of the reality of mind. The present research should have implications for both theory and practice. On the one hand, study of the discourse of mind may shed light on what ‘‘mind’’ does and the organizing role of its socio-cultural context. On the other hand, explications, in terms of properties of discourse, of the taken-for-granted in scientific psychology may reveal the origins and nature of mind. Specifically, they may highlight the discursive, rhetorical, social-interactional qualities of the ontology of ‘‘mind.’’ Further, this discursive theory of mind may have relevance to other human and social disciplines as well, especially where minds are usually not part of the theory but are treated as independent entities. 1

Similarly inner experience is reflected in other semiotic modes as a meaning, a way of sense-making. What Winston is doing in the following passage from Orwell’s novel 1984 illustrates this point: ‘‘He knew it and they knew it, and he could see the knowledge in their faces. There was no reproach either in their faces or in their hearts, only the knowledge that they must die in order that he might remain alive [y]’’ ( p. 32, emphasis mine).

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2. Kinds of discourse of mind There are currently at least three general types of paradigmatic notions, or discourse, of the human mind. First of all, there is a notion of mind as having an independent existence and as being individualistic in nature, as has by and large characterized traditional Western psychological discourse. It is a notion that can be traced back through Cartesianism to Platonism. Second, in more recent years, Cultural Psychology (CP) has argued instead that mind and culture interpenetrate each other and that it is the interrelation between the two that should be the proper domain of research. Third, Discursive Psychology (DP) has drawn attention to the social-functional nature of ‘‘psychological’’ data and recommended discourse as the central topic of analysis. Because these intellectual trends form important reference points and, in the latter two cases, provide inspirations, for the current theses, I shall briefly outline them here. 2.1. Modern Western psychology Modern Western psychology has been characterized by individualization in theory and, consequently, idealization in research practice. In this view, mind is ‘‘the central information-processing mechanism’’ hidden behind observable behavior. Within this tradition, a language-related approach would proceed from the assumption that language is a window onto mind and therefore use the former as a tool to describe the latter. Take the classic individualistic kind of psychology—for example, Aphek and Tobin’s (1990) semiotics of fortune telling; Karl Bu¨hler’s (1990) communication theory; Heider’s, 1958 theory of making sense through language use; Jan Smedslund’s (2004) theory of language; or Wierzbicka’s (1999) semantics. Here attempts are made to elevate ordinary conversations and specify the formal structures of language in the organisation of psychological phenomena. However, from the point of view of the social and cultural context of language and human conduct, this psychology is based on a wrong presupposition about the nature of language (see ‘‘Discursive Psychology’’ below). Although the foregoing presentation may be rejected as a caricature, it remains a fact that is has led to little understanding of human conduct in real-life circumstances, even less to educational reform or resolutions of sociocultural conflict (Bruner, 1986; Wertsch, 1991, pp. 1–5). 2.2. Cultural psychology A major challenge to mainstream psychology is the (re)turn to CP. This is a resurgence of the cultural understanding of psychology, which dates back to Humboldt, Boas, Sapir and Whorf. It is most forcefully formulated by Cole (1996a), Wertsch (1991), Jahoda (1992), and Shweder (1990); cf. Gumperz and Levinson (1991, 1996). The central thesis is that on the one hand psychology does not exist in a cultural vacuum but is fashioned and penetrated by cultural elements and on the other the cultural environment is an intentional world and infiltrated by human desires and designs. The connection between culture and psychology is ‘‘seamless’’ (Shweder, 1990). Similarly, it has been argued that there is an externalized cognition partaking of physical objects, language use and social interaction (Gumperz & Levinson, 1991, pp. 614–615).

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Specifically, on the one hand, human minds are variable across cultures. That is, they differ in form and meaning from community to community. They have particular habits and patterns of thinking, constrained by concepts, categories and evaluations that originate in the traditions of the communities. The Protestant and Catholic communities in Northern Ireland, for instance, may have different perceptions of their (group or individual) identity, because of the process of cultural development or enculturation. For individuals are not merely inward-looking—they are oriented towards the Other and social interaction. When I think of myself or of how to act, even in private, I have to place myself in relation to some culturally organized community of individuals or groups or norms of behaviour. More than two decades of cross-cultural research support this thesis of cultural diversity. How does the enculturation actually take place? A typical discussion can be found in Cole (1996b; cf. Shweder, 1990). Endorsing the position of early Russian cultural–historical psychologists, Cole (1996b, p. 60) points out the central importance of what he calls the ‘‘cultural medium’’ for interaction between human minds and so also for understanding of the relationship between mind and culture: Although the Russian cultural–historical psychologists, like many of their contemporaries (e.g., Bergson, 1911/1983), spoke of mediation through tools, they were thinking not only of hammers and needles, but of signs, symbols, and language. All mediators are double sided; they partake of and constitute the borders between the individual and the social, what is ‘‘in the mind’’ and what the mind is in. [y] the cultural–historical approach to mental actions emphasizes that as a result of the process of enculturation, human minds come to interact indirectly, in/through the cultural medium they share. Hence, understanding how the cultural medium structures the interaction of minds is crucial for comprehending the relation between culture and cognitive development. Given the highly metaphorical, non-specific language in which ‘‘mediators,’’ ‘‘borders,’’ ‘‘the cultural medium,’’ ‘‘the interaction of minds’’ and so on are couched, however, a firm and clear research domain remains to be carved out. Furthermore, since there is no clear conception of the metaphorically loaded objects of research, a theoretical framework has yet to be formulated. 2.3. Discursive psychology One of the major inputs for the present deliberation is DP (Antaki, 1988, 1994; Billig, 1987; Edwards & Potter, 1992; Harre´ & Gillett, 1994; Parker, 1989, 1992; Potter & Wetherell, 1987; Shotter, 1993). Because it is impossible to do justice to individual writers in a reference here, I shall only mention a few general characteristics of this dynamic trend. Within DP there appear to be at least two broad kinds of social constructionist orientation. Rejecting the decontextualized approach to human conduct and the associated representationalist view of language in mainstream psychology (recall the section on modern Western psychology above), it studies the discourse in which mind is constructed and used in the social context, drawing on insights from ethnomethodology, conversation analysis and pragmatics and deferring a prior theory of mind. Here special attention is paid to the ways that versions of mental experience are formulated and to the social functions that they fulfil. As opposed to orthodox psychology, this approach represents a major advancement in methodology because of its sensitivity to the context and complexity of

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discourse. But, more significantly, it represents a re-orientation in analysis. It breaks away from the traditional preoccupation with the mental mechanism and embraces as the object(ive) of research mind-in-discursive-action, as may be found in conversation, speech acts, on so on. In language studies, it also identifies an important domain of research, viz. discourse on and about thoughts and feelings, because hardly any systematic account has been offered as yet. The other kind of social constructionist orientation starts with what might be called an anti-Cartesian, semiotic theory of mind: mind envisaged as symbol use and discourse (Bakhtin, 1981; Billig, 1987; Gergen, 1994; Volosˇ inov, 1986, Chapter 3, 1987; Vygotsky, 1978, 1986; Wertsch, 1991; cf. Harre´ & Gillett, 1994).2 There is nothing ‘‘in our mind’’ other than symbolic discourse—nothing but structures (e.g., categories) and processes (e.g., argumentation) which are derived from discourse. The mind-discourse can be both public and private and is accessible (e.g., as social practice) when required. Billig (1987) for instance, drawing on classical rhetoric, argues that thinking is basically debating between two opposing positions and that therefore to study the human mind is to study argumentative discourse and related ideologies (as historically derived, power related, common sense). As no theoretical distinction is considered necessary in this approach between ‘‘internal’’ and ‘‘external’’ discourse, ‘‘observable’’ public discourse becomes a suitable focus for analysis. It may be realized that these discursive-psychological approaches rely on a notion of ‘‘discourse’’ (ultimately, of ‘‘language’’) that needs to be made explicit. They have tended to assume, implicitly and eclectically, concepts of language and discourse from conversation analysis, pragmatics, and certain versions of discourse analysis. A more inclusive, dynamic view of human language needs to be made explicit, in which discourse is seen as both constituting reality and changing it. Moreover, there has been a tendency to refuse to consider second-order—psychological—questions. Notable among these are how to contribute to psychological well-being, and how mind is interconnected with culture (recall the section on ‘‘cultural psychology’’ above).

2 In their ‘‘second cognitive revolution,’’ Harre´ and Gillett (1994) draw upon Wittgenstein’s understanding of language as symbol(ic) use and suggest that the subject matter of psychology should be the ‘‘discourses, significations, subjectivities, and positionings [regardless of what these terms mean], for it is in these that psychological phenomena actually exist’’ (p. 22). On the other hand, however, they seem to assume another— philosophical, or at least non-discursive—level of the human mind: ‘‘We will therefore identify a person as having a coherent mind or personality to the extent that individuals can be credited with adopting various positions within different discourses and fashioning for themselves, however intentionally or unintentionally, a unique complex of subjectivities (essentially private discourses) with some longitudinal integrity. In this sense, there is a psychological reality to each individual. [y] And to be a psychological being at all, one must be in possession of some minimal repertoire of the cluster of skills necessary to the management of the discourses into which one may from time to time enter’’ (pp. 25–26, emphases mine). Here one might wonder how to relate symbolic use of language mentioned earlier with the ‘‘unique complex of subjectivities,’’ ‘‘psychological reality’’ ‘‘skills,’’ and so on. Furthermore, one might wonder how these clearly philosophically reified, ‘‘unique’’ properties are then connected with their context when they write, ‘‘The difference between the mind or personality as seen in this way and the traditional view is that we see it as dynamic and essentially embedded in historical, political, cultural, social, and interpersonal contexts. It is not definable in isolation’’ (p. 25). They are trying to bring together essentially incompatible frameworks. Moreover, in either case, one still has to decide and define how the discourse of mind might differ from other kinds of discourse; otherwise all discourse becomes the domain of the study of mind.

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2.4. Social constructionist linguistics: a theoretical preamble The notion of mind that this paper is devoted to spelling out is derived from a framework for language study that I have called Social Constructionist Linguistics (SCL; cf. Shi-xu, 1999, 2000). SCL is ‘‘social constructionist’’ in at least two related senses: It contains as its meta-theoretical rationale a social constructionist critique of modern Western linguistics, and it offers an alternative social constructionist framework of language. Before embarking upon SCL itself, let me clarify the notion of ‘‘social constructionism’’ that I am using in this connection. 2.5. Social constructionism Like many versions of social constructionism (SC), the present one can be traced to Berger and Luckmann’s (1967) sociology of knowledge, according to which, our world is constructed out of social practices and arrangements. However, unlike the other kinds with their specific objects of knowledge (Pearce, 1995), the present framework is concerned with the social human world, as opposed to the material natural world.3 It is a world of beingmeaningful, meaning-giving and meaning-making. And the rule governing this world is not solely ‘‘the ultimate truth,’’ but morals or norms for speaking and writing, or more generally for (inter)action. This social human world is equivalent to what Sismondo (1993, p. 547) terms ‘‘social projects, whereby such things as cities, economies, legislation and knowledge are constructed by many people interacting, possibly with differing or conflicting goals.’’4 Thus the present form of social constructionism will have no quarrel with what Potter (1996) has called the ‘‘furniture/death argument,’’ because it deals with arguments concerning other—social, human—subject matter alone. With particular reference to the subject matter of the present paper, it is concerned with emotion, cognition, self, consciousness—indeed, with the reality of mind. One anthropological work is particularly amenable to and to a large extent consistent with our discourse approach Geertz’s book The Interpretation of Cultures (1973) has already become a classic of social science. In the following I shall provide a gist of the ideas that are central to our discourse studies of culture. Geertz’s semiotic approach is a reaction on the one hand against ‘‘subjectivism,’’ wherein culture is viewed as a psychological phenomenon. On the other, it rejects ‘‘objectivism,’’ wherein culture is assumed to be patterned observable behaviour. Geertz argues that both misconstrue cultural phenomena. Violin playing, for example, neither reduced to the player’s knowledge and skills nor to the violin. Culture, according to Geertz, is essentially a semiotic, symbolic or meaningful phenomenon, ‘‘webs of significance’’ that human beings have spun themselves and in which they are ‘‘suspended’’ (p. 5). Consequently, the task of the anthropologist is to interpret it; hence anthropology should be an interpretive science (see. p. 15). The term ‘‘interpret’’ implies that the researcher’s subjective dimension is in his/her investigation and conclusion; similarly, the accounts provided by informants are also subjective (pp. 9, 20). Further, the term may be understood to take account of the fact that anthropology is a 3

However, the boundary between the two is not clear-cut and may be subject to rhetorical maintenance (Gieryn, 1995). 4 Another near parallel would be what Parker (1992) categorizes as the ‘‘epistemological sphere’’—things we give meaning to and talk about (cf. Burr, 1995, p. 86).

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form of (literary) writing (pp. 16, 19) and as such it involves reconstructing data (p. 9). The term further implies that what is interpreted is meaning (instead of predictive laws), and it suggests that an anthropological interpretation is not the singular truth but incomplete and contestable. What does interpretation involve specifically? Geertz uses various terms to explicate it, perhaps inconsistently in some cases. It is, says Geertz, ‘‘explication’’ (p. 5), ‘‘thick description’’ (as opposed to ‘‘thin description’’, p. 7) of what people do. But what is ‘‘thick description’’—which has become a catch phrase? The anthropologist should try to determine the ‘‘social ground and import’’ of ‘‘symbolic action’’ (p. 9); or ‘‘what it is, ridicule or challenge, irony or anger, snobbery or pride, that, in their occurrence and through their agency, is getting said’’ (p. 10) or done; a people’s culture’s ‘‘normalness without reducing their particularity’’ (p. 14); or ‘‘the flow of social discourse’’ (p. 20). Other expressions for thick description are: ‘‘to clarify what goes on in [y] [particular] places, to reduce the puzzlement [y]—to which unfamiliar acts emerging out of unknown background naturally give rise’’ (p. 16), or ‘‘tracing the curve of a social discourse; fixing it into an inspectable form’’ (p. 19). Further, thick description requires the anthropologist to pay special attention to the participant or actor’s own perspective, or to ‘‘construct actor-oriented descriptions’’ (p. 15), hence ‘‘the verstehen approach’’ or ‘‘emic analysis.’’ (pp. 14–15). Another special quality of thick description is its specificity: ‘‘The important thing about the anthropologist’s findings is their complex specificness, their circumstantiality. It is with the kind of material produced by long-term, mainly (though not exclusively) qualitative, highly participative, and almost obsessively fine-comb field study in confined contexts [y]’’ (p. 23). There seems a broader—proactive—aim in Geertz’s interpretative anthropology: to ‘‘converse with’’ the people one studies (p. 13) or, in other words, ‘‘the enlargement of the universe of human discourse’’ (p. 14). From the above, it appears that Geertz conceptualizes culture as a piece of discourse (see also p. 18). To study culture is ‘‘like trying to read (in the sense of ‘construct a reading of’) a manuscript—foreign, faded, full of ellipses, incoherencies, suspicious emendations, and tendentious commentaries [y]’’ (p. 10). Other times, he considers it as the context (p. 14) in which things of interest can be rendered intelligible. But it should be grasped that the central thrust of Geertz’s thesis is (explicitly) a late Wittgensteinian one: to study culture is to study the meaning of what people do (p. 17). For culture is articulated in and through social actions and its meaning is found, not in intrinsic relationships between signs and other signs in social isolation, but in their use in social actions. Geertz projects a relative picture of culture and cultural studies, but he explicitly rejects relativism in anthropological research. It seems that for him the criteria for ‘‘appraisal’’ (p. 16) should be the ones that distinguish ‘‘winks from twitches and real winks from mimicked ones’’ (p. 16), or that distinguish better guesses from worse ones (p. 20). However, on this issue he seems to be particularly vague: ‘‘It [appraisal] is not against a body of uninterpreted data, radically thinned descriptions, that we must measure the cogency of our explications, but against the power of the scientific imagination to bring us into touch with the lives of strangers’’ (p. 16). 2.6. Social constructionist linguistics When one takes a discursive approach to opinions and to the human mind more generally, it should be realized that one operates under a general theory of discourse,

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consciously or inadvertently. It is necessary, therefore, to make clear the notion of discourse at the outset. The present study of opinion is conducted within the framework of Social Constructionist Linguistics (SCL), an inter-disciplinary language research program designed for the study of culture and mind (cf. Shi-xu, 1999, 2000). This is neither an entirely new or unique framework nor an existing tradition. It is rather a program in the remaking. And I must acknowledge that it has been inspired by many ideas and insights in the language-oriented social and human sciences (Billig, 1987; Caldas-Coulthard & Coulthard, 1996; Cole, 1996a; Edwards & Potter, 1992; Fairclough, 1989, 1995; Gergen, 1994; Grace, 1987; Harris, 1981; Kress, 1991; Potter & Wetherell, 1987; Shweder, 1990; Van Dijk, 1993; Wertsch, 1991; Wodak, 1996, to name but a few). The most important feature of this work is the attempt to construct a notion of language through which we can study culture and mind together and search for critical and helpful insights and strategies. It is not possible to give a full account of this here; I shall only briefly outline the notions of discourse, the discourse of mind and the discourse of opinion. 2.7. Discourse In SCL, it is reasoned that real human language should be defined as linguistic– symbolic activity in the social context; such activity is referred to here as ‘‘discourse,’’ or alternatively ‘‘linguistic communication.’’ The concept of discourse has been variously characterized in different traditions, but, in the present framework, three properties are highlighted with reference to the particular issues of truth, the Self–Other relation, and human reality. First, because of the primarily moral, meaningful and performative nature of our social and cultural world, discourse does not mirror reality and therefore cannot be assessed in terms of truth (Austin, 1962; Wittgenstein, 1968). Rather, discourse constructs and acts upon reality, by means of its own resources, in light of the norms and rules of particular speech communities, with ideological purposes and consequences. Second, discourse is a process and product of the interplay between two sub-themes: the Self and the Other. That is, on the one hand is the notion of individual or group agency— the discourse of Self, so to speak. On the other hand is the discourse of Other, which includes such meaningful components as: (a) linguistic resources (e.g. words, metaphors, and grammar); (b) social others—the second, third and generalized persons (i.e., ‘‘you’’, ‘‘he/she/they,’’ or a potential interactant); and (c) the cultural ways of discourse production and interpretation. Here it is important to emphasize that the linguistic, social and cultural Other interacts with the speaking Self dialectically. Third, and the most importantly, discourse is co-constitutive of our human-social reality (‘‘co’’ is used to emphasize that the one entity cannot exist without the other; each is ‘‘constitutive’’ through concepts, categories, and other meaning-making processes of discourse). In particular, the cultural and psychological dimensions of our reality are understood interpenetrate each other in and through the medium of discourse. 3. Discursive co-constitution of mind Having defined our foundational notion of discourse and its interconnection with the social human world generally, we are now in a position to tease out how exactly the human mind fits in. The central thesis I will be advocating is that, to reiterate, mind is coconstituted by discourse. The prefix ‘‘co’’ is used both to allow for psychological reality and

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to deny its independent, universal existence. It implies a dialectical relationship of mind to discourse—mind is made up of discourse, and discourse is made up of mind—and an indeterminate boundary between mind and discourse, though my emphasis is on the latter. Furthermore, ‘‘co’’ is used to suggest that discourse is one semiotic mode amongst others in which mind operates—but it is the most important one. For this thesis, I find my arguments in five specific loci. Mind is (a) derived from cultural (meanings of) discourse; (b) constrained by discourse; (c) utilized by discourse; (d) modelled upon discourse; (e) distributed in discourse; and (f) begun with discourse.5 Taken individually, none of the following arguments is entirely new. What I have wanted to do is to align them in one place so as to form a distinct understanding of mind and to consolidate the foundation for discursive study of psychology. In the final section, I shall suggest that to understand people’s minds and to improve their psychological wellbeing is to engage with discourse. 3.1. Derived from (cultural) discourse First, the very idea that there is a thing called ‘‘mind’’ (or that we ‘‘have minds’’) and that it has such and such a property is a meaning that arose from culturally differentiated discourse (Billig, 1995, p. 57; Danziger, 1997; Simons, 1989). In many cultures of the world, people have a way of talking about mind and in the various cultural and historical contexts; yet the definitions and classifications of mind in particular languages are different. This cultural diversity in discourse meanings about what constitutes mind attests to the discursive grounding and origins of mind. Modern Western scientific psychology, for example, can be traced back to at least the Cartesian philosophical discourse of mind and body three and a half centuries ago (Harre´ & Gillett, 1994, p. 4). To retain its object of research, Western psychology has also often resorted to metaphors, presuppositions and other discursive strategies (Soyland, 1994). The Freudian conscious and unconscious, as Volosˇ inov’s (1987) critical analysis reveals, are really like each other and they are both discursively produced. Freud divided up the human mind into a set of hidden layers to which ordinary people have no access, but that notion of the human psyche is contradicted in other cultures. The notion of ‘‘cognition’’ in modern Western psychology, similarly, can only be given an artificial translation like ‘‘Ren-zhi’’ (‘‘perception-knowledge’’); it does not have a counterpart in Chinese professional discourse or it would have different significance. Everyday language, too, contains a good deal of common sense and maxims about what mind is and does, e.g. in the discourse of novelists, politicians, lovers, players of games (Ryle, 1949, pp. 319–330; Heider, 1958). Often, concepts and categories of mind are presupposed in discourse and these presuppositions differ from period to period and from community to community. For example, the Chinese concepts ‘‘Qin-Cao’’ or ‘‘Xin-Suan’’ can only be awkwardly translated into, say, English. The Chinese classical thinker, Meng Zi (‘‘Mencius’’), had very different notions of ‘‘mind,’’ ‘‘will,’’ ‘‘propensities,’’ and ‘‘feelings’’ from those that prevail in the West (Richards, 1932). Danziger (1997) reports that Western ‘‘motivation’’ would not constitute a coherent concept or topic in Indonesian psychological studies. The emotion of ‘‘anger’’ in one Filipino tribal culture is necessary 5

Some (elements) of the arguments below are interrelated and therefore may have to be repeated for the sake of logic.

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for the conception of life (Rosaldo, 1980). What Self is/means in one cultural setting may have different significance from that in another. Similarly, the notion of ‘‘central information-processing mechanism’’ is but a product of the discourse of the modern computer age. 4. Introduction: the inter-infiltration of culture and mind One of the central themes I want to develop in the SCL programme is that culture and mind are constructed and co-constituted by discourse. In this part I shall therefore outline the arguments for the interpenetration of culture and mind, drawing on recent work in Cultural Psychology (Shweder, 1990), and cross-cultural psychology (Cole, 1996b), as well as ideas from other disciplines. Towards the end I shall indicate why it is essential and necessary for us to move on to formulate a discursive theory of culture and mind. The relation between culture and mind has to do with the notions of the individual and the environment, of nature and culture, of subjectivity and objectivity, and a host of others. Throughout the history of Western scholarship, mind has by and large been construed as residing in the individual. Culture, on the other hand, has been thought of as either a set of beliefs and norms of behaviour (‘‘knowledge’’) or a set of entities out there. In the social and human sciences, approaches to culture have tended to ignore mind (think of anthropology) and, conversely, approaches to mind have tended to ignore culture (think of psychology, even ‘‘cross-cultural’’ psychology). But there is no mind without culture and vice versa. Culture is subject to individual interpretation; it is what Shweder (1990) calls an ‘‘intentional world.’’ Mind, on the other hand, is a cultural product in that it is interpreted differently across cultures. They interpenetrate each other. Behind these central themes of SCL and of culture-and-mind-in-discourse in particular are two major sets of assumptions. On the one hand, I take it as basically true that culture and mind interpenetrate and are interdependent upon each other. On the other hand, I assume that discourse is linguistic–symbolic activity that makes meaning for and gives meaning to our human experience. The three worlds interpenetrate, saturate, make up, depend on, one another, but discourse is regarded as the principal mode in which the social and the individual experiences exist and develop. 5. The intentional world: cultural psychology I shall approach the issue of the interrelation of culture and mind from two tacks, viz. culture on the one side and mind on the other. In this section I shall try to argue that culture is interpretive (or intentional), diversified (or variable) and exists in individual–social practice. It is in these senses that culture is penetrated by mind. Many anthropological studies have suggested that this is the case. Culture is imbued with human concepts, categories, desires, goals, wants, etc. Dogs are beloved pets in some communities but may be eaten as food in others. Pets and food are human intentional categories. Why do different kinds of weather seen from the window mean different things to people? Why does the abuse of some species of land animals cause more outrage than say the damage to marine life forms caused by polluting the oceans?

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Culture is not a set of propositions and norms (such that they can be shared by members); rather it is diversified in that it is interpreted or understood variably with different members of a community. People may not agree on every aspect of a culture. Do the people in Northern Ireland have a distinct identity? Do they have one, two, or three different identities? Culture consists in individual– social practices or activities. The Irish people are renowned for being warm and friendly. Is each and every Irish person like that? In all times and circumstances?

6. The diverse mind: cross-cultural psychology In this section, I wish to argue that human mind is variable across communities, Otheroriented and distributed in social practice. For these reasons, mind may be said to be infiltrated by culture. For instance, more than two decades of cross-cultural research support this thesis. Our thinking or mind is interconnected with other individuals or groups, or the Other. When I think of myself, even in private, I have to place myself in some sort of community of other individuals. Mind is often habitual or patterned; this also means that it is constrained by concepts, categories and assumptions. These habits or constraints have their origin in the history of a community. People may tend to think that Protestants and Catholics behave in such-andsuch a way, though this may not be true in reality or practice. Mind is distributed in social practices and jointly constructed through social interaction. Some accountants in China can use the abacus to do certain calculations faster than a computer can. Resuming playing the piano or riding a bicycle after long years of disuse requires more of ‘‘doing it’’ than knowing it. On a most common, everyday level, what and how we think in real time is always tied to some specific activity and situation, in public or private. Often our thoughts are subject to challenge, negotiation and change through social interaction. It will have been realized from my exposition so far on the characteristics of culture and mind that they share one central feature: they exist only in the actual doings of real individuals or groups of them. This leads me to the major theme of this book: The mode of existence and interaction of culture and mind is social practice; in particular, it is language use or discourse. To say that such things are discursive, however, we must first of all clarify the notion of discourse, which we shall do in the next part.

7. Research questions on culture and culture as interlocked Ponder on the following questions: Are weeds or the ocean detached from our concepts and emotions? Do all the people in Northern Ireland agree on their identities? Are cultural norms always followed? Can you think of yourself without thinking about others or groups of them? Why are our expectations about other (groups of) people sometimes frustrated?

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7.1. Working definitions ‘‘The discourse of mind’’ refers to that dimension of language/discourse in and through which individuals or groups, across human cultures, make present, maintain, utilize or change the human individual and/or collective interior— thoughts, emotions, self, consciousness and the like. ‘‘The discourse of culture’’ refers to that dimension of language/discourse in and through which individuals or groups, across human cultures, make present, maintain, utilize or change the origin, ethnicity, nationality, gender, age, patterns of thinking and acting and the like of a particular group of people associated with a particular geopolitical place and a particular historical time. These dimensions of discourse are thus special kinds of meaningful components of language/discourse. And they can be explicitly or implicitly expressed. It should be noted that these definitions are not meant to close their boundaries; they are merely working definitions, starting points for detailed empirical and critical research. Indeed these two kinds of discourse may be inextricably bound up with each other and other kinds of discourse. For example, ‘‘I don’t think that I am entirely Chinese; I have assimilated values from other cultures’’ is a mixture of different kinds of discourse. The full complexities of these notions will have to be worked out both theoretically and empirically. 7.2. Constrained by (formal and conceptual) discourse The very notions that people have minds and that their minds are not merely organized in particular ways attributable to culturally originated discourse. It can be further argued that descriptions or accounts of minds are susceptible to or mediated by the properties and resources of culture-specific discourse. Or to put this quite simply, what is said and what can be said about mind are constrained by the available resources, formal as well as conceptual. That is, because discourse has its own properties, it will impose them upon the mind that is the object of its ‘‘description.’’ It should be pointed out that mind is constrained by discourse, not in the SapirWhorfian sense in which mind is fixed by decontextualized linguistic structures, but in two specific situated senses. First, the context of existing ways of speaking about mind in a culture—concepts, categories, evaluations, etc—constrain the range of possibilities of constructing mind. A second, closely related point is that the construction of mind is restricted by the variety of linguistic resources available. Thus, the theories and common sense of mind that are disseminated through stories, conversations, (text)books, journal articles and so on, are shaped to some extent by (the context of) the linguistic tools and the kinds of narratives that are available—and permissible—in the relevant culture (Foucault, 1970). For example, our sense of self, its nature and organization are also carved out for us in our discourse, and learnt from early on in our life. Certain vocabulary, syntax and ways of speaking in the following section from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll, 1971) illustrate the discursive nature of our ‘‘inner self’’: (1) (2) (3) (4)

‘Come, there’s no use in crying like that!’ said Alice to herself, rather sharply; ‘I advise you to leave off this minute!’ She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it,) and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into

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her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people. ‘But it’s no use now,’ thought poor Alice, ‘to pretend to be two people. Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!’ (pp. 38–39)

There are two persons in oneself: one speaker can talk to one listener (line 01); one can command the action of the other (02); one can give something to the other (03); one can act upon the other (04, 06); one can act against the other (07); there is really only one person(ality) (08); and one outer (respectable) person is made up of quantities of the inner self (10–11). Up to 06 it can also be seen that inside a person there is an active person and a passive person. So these notions, qualities, and relations of the Self and identity are carved out in the grammar as well as particular ways of talking, so that forms of discourse organize the sense of Self. Furthermore, the present instance is a children’s story and from here it might be suggested that these early forms of discourse have an important role to play in the development of Self-identity. Thus, it may be asserted that mind is defined, shaped, and infiltrated—mediated—by the characteristics of discourse. 7.3. Utilized through (interpersonal) discourse Mind is an object of (discursive) construction that is contested and utilised for social goals and effects. There is nothing intrinsic to or inherent in mind that requires our discourse about it. People use language to convey their inner life as part of their normal, routine business. In other words, aspects of particular mental states are required to fulfil the purposes of their practical tasks. ‘‘I am concerned, ‘‘in my opinion,’’ ‘‘he knows that,’’ ‘‘I did that becausey’’ and such like can be mobilised to accomplish particular goals. For example they may be pragmatically motivated to persuade and influence others. Our thinking is for speaking, according to Harre´ and Gillett (1994) following the later Wittgenstein (cf. Edwards, 1997 for the notion of category). Moreover, as we share our inner experiences with others we are also concerned with our own image and our relation with others. Because of the social orientations, it should be pointed out that versions of inner experience can be suppressed, maintained, or changed. Therefore it may be said that feelings and thoughts, be it in the scientific–psychological world or commonsensical context, are oriented by such social considerations. From the following courtroom conversation (borrowed from Drew and Sorjonen, 1997) it may be seen that the nature of emotion and whether having it or not have practical consequences for specific situations. (The exchange takes place during a murder trial. Defendant D is charged with being an accessory to murder; her boyfriend, Larry, shot dead a friend of his/theirs, after an altercation during which the friend/victim stabbed and wounded Larry. She is being cross-examined by the prosecutor, DA.) 01 02 03 04

DA: D: DA: D:

And you had strong feelings over Larry at that time? Yes (.) I was his girlfriend at the time. You were upset because he was stabbed? I was not upset.

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05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

DA: D: DA: D: DA: D: DA: D: DA: D: DA: D: DA: D:

You weren’t upset? You were happy? No. You had no feelings at all about the wound that he had. I was concerned about what was going on. Did you feel sad that he was wounded? I don’t know. You don’t know how you felt? I mean you could have been happy? No. You know you didn’t feel happy? I gue::ss. But you don’t know if you felt sad or not? I felt ba:d some. ((Voice breaks)) You felt ba:d some. You do remember. Yes, I felt bad some.

But the use of psychological experience is not confined to ordinary discourse; it is also an important part of scientific discourse: ‘‘What seems to me particularly exciting about the present period in linguistic research is that we can begin to see the glimmerings of what such a theory might be like. [y]’’ (Chomsky, 1981, p. 4). 7.4. Distributed in (social) discourse As may become evident from the reasons put forward above, mind does not just reside in the individual. It is distributed socially, particularly in social discourse—linguistic production and interpretation by participants in a culture. From our earlier general understanding of discourse as joint social activity, a similar conclusion would follow, viz. that the human mind is encountered in social discursive interaction (cf. Sampson, 1999, p. 3). Further, thinking relies on semiotic activity or practice—in particular, linguistic, textual and discursive activity or practice—for its existence and functioning. In recent anthropology, mind has been seen as existing in discursive practice as well as in cognitive tools or intentional objects, such as computers or abacuses (Gumperz & Levinson, 1996). Sharing states of mind, collective remembering, emotional appeals, and so on and so forth are rife in our discourse. 7.5. Modeled upon (public) discourse To the notion of mind as public social discourse, one might object by saying, ‘‘Do you not think when you are not engaged in such discourse?’’ or ‘‘Do deaf and dumb people not have thoughts and feelings?’’ The answer to such questions is that the ‘‘private’’ mode of thinking and feeling takes public discourse as its context. That is, it relates to, models upon and reacts against public discourse. Another way of describing this relationship is to say that the private mode of thinking is ‘‘dialogic’’ to public discourse in the Bakhtinian sense; that is, thinking is oriented in one way or another to other kinds of voices in the background. Our private thoughts and feelings are formed, changed, planned, etc., in and through concepts, categories, metaphors and other meaning-making resources available in public discourse. For example, notions of time as a cultural product, often linguistically

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defined, guide our ways of thinking. ‘‘At two o’clock I have an appointment with John; at two thirty I have another with Alison, followed by a fifteen minute interview with students.’’ Without the linguistic and textual frames of time, our thinking about such things would be blurred and our plans screwed up. Soliloquies, monologues or other uses of inner voice in literature are a good piece of evidence. The major difference between private and public discourse lies merely in the kind of context, intrapersonal or interpersonal. It is the thesis of Volosˇ inov (1986, Chapter 3) that the inner world is a symbol-using, semiotic, one and that the difference between outer and inner speech is merely quantitative (cf. Vygotsky, 1986; Bakhtin, 1981). Harre´ and Gillett (1994) have claimed that private thinking is ‘‘derived from public discourse.’’6 Harre´ and Stearns (1995, p. 2), similarly, suggest that ‘‘The psychological universe is a continuously modulating public and private discourse.’’ Consistent with this view, it has been argued that our thinking is organized around certain genres or discursive types, such as argumentation (Billig, 1987), explanation (Antaki, 1988) and narrative (Bruner, 1992; see also papers in Baltes and Staudinger, 1996).

7.6. Begun with (child) discourse Finally, from the point of view of the (onto)genesis of concepts and categories—the basis of thinking—it may be seen that the human psyche is born out of talk (Bakhtin, 1981; Harre´ & Gillett, 1994, p. 27; Luria, 1979; Vygotsky, 1978, 1986). That is, concepts and categories in early life do not come before talk, or for that matter, after talk; they come along with it. More precisely, acquiring concepts and categories toddlerhood or childhood means to learn to talk coherently or in patterns—presumably a process of becoming competent participants in a culture. Consistent with this role of child language development as social activity, it may also be noted, the recent change of intellectual climate has already put the notion of individual knowledge at an impasse. To illustrate the current point, I would like to use a personal example. When my son Sander was around 18 months of age, and he picked up a non-toy object to play with (e.g. a watch), I often asked him, ‘‘Is this a toy?.’’ He’d reply, ‘‘No.’’ Then I’d say, ‘‘Then you don’t play with it. Give it to me.’’ And he’d comply without a problem. So I had assumed that he had formed the category of ‘‘toys’’—until one day, it occurred to me to ask: I: Sander: I: Sander:

(Pointing to a toy car): Is this a toy? No. (Pointing to a doll) Is this a toy? No.

This experiment shows that what Sander has acquired is not a mental category of ‘‘toys,’’ versus ‘‘non-toys,’’ so much as it is a pattern of speaking. That is, as soon as that particular question arose, he’d respond that way in speech. Eventually, learning to grasp that concept will mean that he will have to learn to talk appropriately. Therefore there is no sharp distinction to be made between concepts/categories and ways of talking. 6

However, that fails to recognize the possibility that our public discourse may draw upon our inner voice and verbal thought (as a strategy for example).

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Sophisticated concepts, too, begin with talk. At the age of around 20 months, Sander would say ‘‘Knives are very dangerous!’’ ‘‘Scissors are very dangerous’’ on hearing the words ‘‘knife’’ and ‘‘scissors,’’ or seeing those objects. At the age of two and half, I heard him say ‘‘Wash hands before meal’’ on hearing ‘‘meal is served.’’ These examples mean, not necessarily that he has fully understood the meaning of ‘‘dangerous,’’ or the reason for washing hands, but that he is learning to use appropriate ways of talking in particular kinds of situation. 8. Conclusions and research goals The multiple foundations of mind in situated linguistic communication highlighted above make it futile to try to distil human minds from discourse (cf. Wertsch, 1991, pp. 12–13, following Vygotsky and Bakhtin; Volosˇ inov, 1986, Chapter 3). A similar idea is furnished by Grace (1987, p. 10) when, in describing the relationship between language and thinking, he says, ‘‘That it is impossible to draw a clear line between thinking, i.e. bringing a thought into being, and encoding the thought, i.e. putting it into words.’’ Given these various strands of consideration, let us proceed to defining what mind really is. ‘‘Mind’’ is that meaningful dimension of discourse in and through which individuals and groups make present, maintain, utilize and change the human individual and/or collective interior— cognition, emotion, self, consciousness and the like. In this sense, it is a special kind of meaning-making and meaningful product and process of discourse as a whole (cf. Mead, 1977, pp. 153, 161, 195; Goffman, 1959). Still another way of saying this is that mind is coconstituted in discourse. What constitutes mind I call the discourse of mind (DM).7 It should be emphasized that human minds as described here are not merely text and talk about mind, but also a functioning process of mind itself. This discursive notion of mind is not simply a shift of research focus or interest (from ‘‘mind’’ to ‘‘discourse’’), but, rather, a theoretical re-constitution of mind. It is tempting, but erroneous, to think that taking mind to be a property of discourse is a form of reductionism. For, as I have argued, especially in (A), the very idea that there is a mind originates in cultural discourse. Analytically, DM may be distinguished into sub-categories, say ‘‘‘emotive discourse,’’ ‘‘opinion discourse,’’ ‘‘attitudinal discourse,’’ ‘‘memory discourse,’’ and so on, according to a culture’s meaning system as well as the analyst’s interest (see below). Such subcategories will be interrelated with one another, however: it would be hard to make a sharp distinction between opinion discourse and attitudinal discourse (Shi-xu, 1995), or between identity discourse and attributional discourse (Shi-xu, 1999). Furthermore, DM may be linked with other kinds or dimensions of discourse, such as the discourse of social relations or culture; ‘‘I don’t feel Chinese at all’’ mixes meanings of psychological and cultural experience. DM as a whole and its subcategories vary in reference and significance from one cultural context to another, e.g. the notions of ‘‘Self’’ in European and Asian cultures. It is not just that the construction and significance of DM are framed by a culture-specific context, but DM is capable of (re)shaping that cultural context as well. Thus, for social-interactional or cultural reasons, DM may be implicitly or explicitly 7

Incidentally, this step will not just be useful for guiding empirical psychological analysis, but it will be interesting to linguistics and discourse studies as well. For in these disciplines ‘‘’mind’’ has usually been treated as a separate, often explanatory, category, instead of as a constituent part (for exceptions see Lemke, 1997; cf. Gumperz & Levinson, 1996).

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formulated in discourse; however, creative or resistant ways of speaking about one’s inner experience can in turn affect the cultural environment. The current conception of mind is intended, really, to be conducive to the study of real human minds that is both instructive to academic researchers and helpful to society. Let me, finally, say a few words about how such an unabashedly ambitious project might begin. On the one side, we need to try to delimit and distinguish, in principle, DM from other dimensions of discourse. Obviously when people are engaged in discourse, not everything that they mean, or are concerned with, is their own state of mind or others’. In this connection, we should further classify DM into subcategories, e.g. perceptual vs. emotive. In this regard, we should pay far more attention than has been the practice hitherto, to cultural members’ own experience and understanding. Important insights can also be gained by researching the interplay between DM and other dimensions of discourse, especially the discourse of culture. For, as we have shown in previous chapters, culture plays a penetrating role. Thus, it will be rewarding to examine exactly how constructions of culture (and of groups, ethnicity, gender, etc.) come to interact with the text and talk of inner experiences. Such endeavors will effectively identify the proper site or object for psychological and socio-cultural studies. The real challenge to such a project—indeed to any academic work—is how such a theory can contribute to a good society and a good life—not least, how it can confront pressing social issues. Given the realization of DM as purposeful and consequential activity, for example, we should attempt to make transparent such social orientations—the goals and effects of people’s reports on their minds. In particular, we should try to reveal those instances of mind-constructive production and interpretation that negatively affect people’s lives. By the same token, we should help people enhance their critical awareness in this regard by highlighting the social and ideological framing of minds. Given the understanding of DM as joint, constructive and reflexive process, researchers and analysts should become more conscious of playing an active, ‘‘transformative’’ role in people’s ‘‘mental’’ life. For example, we should try to create, develop and transform individual and collective ways of thinking and feeling by undermining detrimental visions or versions of individual and social experience and furnishing new ways of speaking and writing. References Antaki, C. (1988). Analysing everyday explanation: A case book of methods. London: Sage. Antaki, C. (1994). Explaining and arguing: The social organisation of accounts. London: Sage. Aphek, E., & Tobin, Y. (1990). Semiotics of fortune telling. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Oxford: Clarendon. Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). In M. Holquist, Trans. C. Emerson, & M. Holquist (Eds.), The dialogic imagination: Four essays. Austin: University of Texas Press. Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1967). The Social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. Allen Lane: Penguin. Bergson, H. (1983). Creative evolution. New York: Holt (Original work published 1911.). Billig, M. (1987). Arguing and thinking: A rhetorical approach to social psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Billig, M. (1995). Discourse, opinions and ideologies: a comment. In C. Scha¨ffner, & H. Kelly-Holmes (Eds.), Discourse and Ideologies (pp. 54–59). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd. Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bruner, J. (1992). The narrative construction of reality. In H. Beilin, & P. Pufall (Eds.), Piaget’s theory: Prospects and possibilities (pp. 229–248). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

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Shi-xu (2005). A cultural approach to discourse. Houndmills, England: Palgrave Macmillan. Shotter, J. (1993). Conversational realities: Constructing life through language. London: Sage. Shweder, R. A. (1990). Cultural psychology—What is it? In J. W. Stigler, R. A. Shweder, & G. Herdt (Eds.), Cultural Psychology: Essays on comparative human development (pp. 1–43). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smedslund, J. (2004). Dialogues about a new psychology. New York: iUniverse. Simons, H. W. (1989). Rhetoric in the human sciences. London: Sage. Sismondo, S. (1993). Some social constructions. Social Studies of Science, 23, 515–553. Soyland, A. H. (1994). Psychology as metaphor. London: Sage. Van Dijk, T. A. (1993). Principles of critical discourse analysis. Discourse and Society, 4(2), 249–283. Volosˇ inov, V. N. (1986). Marxism and the philosophy of language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Volosˇ inov, V. N. (1987). Freudianism: A critical sketch. (Trans. by I. R. Titunik & Ed. with N. H. Bruss). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). In M. Cole, et al. (Eds.), Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language (Trans. newly revised and ed. by A. Kozulin.) Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Wertsch, J. V. (1991). Voices of the mind: A sociocultural approach to mediated action. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Wierzbicka, A. (1999). Emotions across languages and cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wittgenstein, L. (1968). Philosophical investigations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell (Original work published 1953.). Wodak, R. (1996). Disorders of discourse. London: Longman.

Further reading Edwards, D., & Potter, J. (1990). Nigel Lawson’s tent: Discourse analysis, attribution theory and the social psychology of a fact. European Journal of Social Psychology, 20, 4–40. Edwards, D., & Potter, J. (1995). Attribution. In R. Harre´, & P. Stearns (Eds.), Discursive psychology in practice (pp. 69–84). London: Sage. Orwell, G. (1989). London: Penguin Books. (Original work published 1949.). Sala, S. D. (Ed.). (1999). Mind myths: Exploring popular assumptions about the mind and brain. Chichester: Wiley. Sh-xu (1997). Cultural representations: Analyzing the discourse about the Other. New York: Peter Lang. Stam, H. J. (1989). What distinguishes lay persons’ explanations from those of psychologists? In W. J. Baker, R. van Hezewijk, & S. Terwe (Eds.), Recent trends in theoretical psychology, Vol. II (pp. 97–106). Berlin: SpringerVerlag. Tyler, S. A. (1995). Prolegomena to the next linguistics. In P. W. Davis (Ed.), Alternative linguistics: Descriptive and theoretical modes (pp. 273–287). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.