Language, Society and Consciousness; Ruqaiya Hasan; Jonathan Webster - Equinox Publishing

Contributing Author

Ruqaiya Hasan† [+–]

Macquarie University

Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.

Read her obituary here

Edited by

Jonathan J. Webster [+–]

City University of Hong Kong

Professor Jonathan Webster is Honorary Professor at Macquarie University, and Professor at the City University of Hong Kong (retired). He was the Director of The Halliday Centre for Intelligent Applications of Language Studies (2005-2021), and Head of the Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics, City University of Hong Kong (2005-2011). Professor Jonathan Webster is the Founding Editor for Linguistics and the Human Sciences published by Equinox, and Managing Editor for WORD. Professor Jonathan Webster is also the Editor of 36 books on topics in Systemic Functional Linguistics.

The chapters of this volume explore the intimate relations of society, language and mind: the development of each of these depends on the contribution of the other two. In this sense they are co-genetic: mind has recently been described by the famous neuro-scientist, Susan Greenfield, as ‘personalized brain.’ The development of human mind depends on what it experiences; for human beings, experience goes beyond sensation: it is made of meaning, and interpretation/meaning, in turn, is construed by the various semiotic modalities, of which language is perhaps the most flexible and most pervasive. But language has itself evolved in the course of attempts to reach an ‘other.’ By shaping the nature of communication, human relations shape also the nature of language; meanings exchanged in verbal interaction become a major force in shaping forms of consciousness; and our consciousness reveals itself in our cultural practices, our ways of being, doing and saying.

Series: Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan

Table of Contents

Preliminaries

Contents [+–]

Ruqaiya Hasan†

Macquarie University

Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.

Read her obituary here

The chapters of this volume explore the intimate relations of society, language and mind: the development of each of these depends on the contribution of the other two. In this sense they are co-genetic: mind has recently been described by the famous neuro-scientist, Susan Greenfield, as 'personalized brain.' The development of human mind depends on what it experiences; for human beings, experience goes beyond sensation: it is made of meaning, and interpretation/meaning, in turn, is construed by the various semiotic modalities, of which language is perhaps the most flexible and most pervasive. But language has itself evolved in the course of attempts to reach an 'other.' By shaping the nature of communication, human relations shape also the nature of language; meanings exchanged in verbal interaction become a major force in shaping forms of consciousness; and our consciousness reveals itself in our cultural practices, our ways of being, doing and saying. Contents page

Acknowledgements [+–]

Ruqaiya Hasan†

Macquarie University

Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.

Read her obituary here

The chapters of this volume explore the intimate relations of society, language and mind: the development of each of these depends on the contribution of the other two. In this sense they are co-genetic: mind has recently been described by the famous neuro-scientist, Susan Greenfield, as 'personalized brain.' The development of human mind depends on what it experiences; for human beings, experience goes beyond sensation: it is made of meaning, and interpretation/meaning, in turn, is construed by the various semiotic modalities, of which language is perhaps the most flexible and most pervasive. But language has itself evolved in the course of attempts to reach an 'other.' By shaping the nature of communication, human relations shape also the nature of language; meanings exchanged in verbal interaction become a major force in shaping forms of consciousness; and our consciousness reveals itself in our cultural practices, our ways of being, doing and saying. Acknowledgements

Editor’s Preface [+–] 1-2

Jonathan J. Webster

City University of Hong Kong

Professor Jonathan Webster is Honorary Professor at Macquarie University, and Professor at the City University of Hong Kong (retired). He was the Director of The Halliday Centre for Intelligent Applications of Language Studies (2005-2021), and Head of the Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics, City University of Hong Kong (2005-2011). Professor Jonathan Webster is the Founding Editor for Linguistics and the Human Sciences published by Equinox, and Managing Editor for WORD. Professor Jonathan Webster is also the Editor of 36 books on topics in Systemic Functional Linguistics.

The chapters of this volume explore the intimate relations of society, language and mind: the development of each of these depends on the contribution of the other two. In this sense they are co-genetic: mind has recently been described by the famous neuro-scientist, Susan Greenfield, as 'personalized brain.' The development of human mind depends on what it experiences; for human beings, experience goes beyond sensation: it is made of meaning, and interpretation/meaning, in turn, is construed by the various semiotic modalities, of which language is perhaps the most flexible and most pervasive. But language has itself evolved in the course of attempts to reach an 'other.' By shaping the nature of communication, human relations shape also the nature of language; meanings exchanged in verbal interaction become a major force in shaping forms of consciousness; and our consciousness reveals itself in our cultural practices, our ways of being, doing and saying. Preface

Introduction

Introduction [+–] 3-17

Ruqaiya Hasan†

Macquarie University

Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.

Read her obituary here

Introduction to the interrelations of language, society and consciousness and the research to date.

Section 1

Editor’s Introduction: The sociosemiotic mediation of mind [+–] 18-20

Ruqaiya Hasan†

Macquarie University

Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.

Read her obituary here

The chapters of this volume explore the intimate relations of society, language and mind: the development of each of these depends on the contribution of the other two. In this sense they are co-genetic: mind has recently been described by the famous neuro-scientist, Susan Greenfield, as 'personalized brain.' The development of human mind depends on what it experiences; for human beings, experience goes beyond sensation: it is made of meaning, and interpretation/meaning, in turn, is construed by the various semiotic modalities, of which language is perhaps the most flexible and most pervasive. But language has itself evolved in the course of attempts to reach an 'other.' By shaping the nature of communication, human relations shape also the nature of language; meanings exchanged in verbal interaction become a major force in shaping forms of consciousness; and our consciousness reveals itself in our cultural practices, our ways of being, doing and saying.

1 Basil Bernstein: an exceptional 1924–2000 [+–] 21-47

Ruqaiya Hasan†

Macquarie University

Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.

Read her obituary here

Bernstein possessed a fearless imagination, which for the best part of half a century he devoted, with great originality, to the exploration of a question which has sometimes been described as the fundamental theoretical question of classical sociology: ‘how does the outside become the inside and how does the inside reveal itself and shape the outside?’

2 Society, Language and Mind: the metadialogism of Basil Bernstein’s theory [+–] 48-67

Ruqaiya Hasan†

Macquarie University

Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.

Read her obituary here

This chapter is concerned with a number of questions: What does it take for theories to engage in dialogue? Could any linguistic theory dialogue with Bernstein’s sociology? Could any sociology dialogue with Halliday’s linguistics? If not, how do we explain this selectivity? This chapter is intended as a continuation of reflection on this general problem.

3 Speech Genre, Semiotic Mediation and the Development of Higher Mental Functions [+–] 68-105

Ruqaiya Hasan†

Macquarie University

Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.

Read her obituary here

It is hope that the development of this chapter will reveal that an exploration of the relations between the three concepts invoked in the title – ‘speech genre’, ‘semiotic mediation’ and ‘the development of higher mental functions’ – is relevant to some of the foundational issues in linguistic theory.

4 On the Social Conditions for Semiotic Mediation: the genesis of mind in society [+–] 106-129

Ruqaiya Hasan†

Macquarie University

Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.

Read her obituary here

The aim of this chapter is to make a contribution to the approach inaugurated by Vygotsky’s pioneering work. To achieve this end, in Section 2, a brief account of Vygotsky’s theory of the ‘genesis of human mind’ will be presented. Human mind for Vygotsky is a developing phenomenon; it moves from elementary, less evolved functions, having a biogenetic foundation, to higher, more evolved functions, with a sociogenetic foundation. The active agent in this developmental move is the process of ‘semiotic mediation’ – an expression which, in effect, captures the deep meaning of social interaction. In this way the theoretical framework lays a firm foundation for bringing together the natural and the social.

5 Semiotic Mediation and Three Exotropic Theories: Vygotsky, Halliday and Bernstein [+–] 130-156

Ruqaiya Hasan†

Macquarie University

Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.

Read her obituary here

In this chapter the story of three specialisations will be woven together. The three human concerns whose interconnectedness forms the focus of this chapter are: consciousness, language and society.

Section 2

Editor’s Introduction: Coding orientations and forms of consciousness [+–] 157-159

Ruqaiya Hasan†

Macquarie University

Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.

Read her obituary here

The chapters of this volume explore the intimate relations of society, language and mind: the development of each of these depends on the contribution of the other two. In this sense they are co-genetic: mind has recently been described by the famous neuro-scientist, Susan Greenfield, as 'personalized brain.' The development of human mind depends on what it experiences; for human beings, experience goes beyond sensation: it is made of meaning, and interpretation/meaning, in turn, is construed by the various semiotic modalities, of which language is perhaps the most flexible and most pervasive. But language has itself evolved in the course of attempts to reach an 'other.' By shaping the nature of communication, human relations shape also the nature of language; meanings exchanged in verbal interaction become a major force in shaping forms of consciousness; and our consciousness reveals itself in our cultural practices, our ways of being, doing and saying.

6 Code, Register and Social Dialect [+–] 160-193

Ruqaiya Hasan†

Macquarie University

Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.

Read her obituary here

The main aim of this paper is to examine the notions ‘code’, ‘register’ and ‘social dialect’. Each of these categories is without doubt relevant to the field of sociolinguistics; at the same time, their recognition adds valuable dimensions to theories regarding the nature of language. The examination of these concepts, therefore, raises issues which appear to be of fundamental importance both to sociolinguistics and general linguistics.

7 Semiotic Mediation and Mental Development in Pluralistic Societies: some implications for tomorrow’s schooling [+–] 194-214

Ruqaiya Hasan†

Macquarie University

Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.

Read her obituary here

It is the aim of this chapter to begin an exploration of the concept of cultural activity in relation to semiotic mediation by using the modality of language.

8 Ways of Meaning, Ways of Learning: code as an explanatory concept [+–] 215-227

Ruqaiya Hasan†

Macquarie University

Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.

Read her obituary here

The aim of this chapter is to show the power of the concept of code in explaining systematic variation in the meanings people habitually mean, an enquiry which was inspired by Bernstein’s writings on the relations of coding orientation to knowledge distribution in modern societies.

9 Reading Picture Reading: a study in ideology and inference [+–] 228-255

Ruqaiya Hasan†

Macquarie University

Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.

Read her obituary here

Going beyond the information given is something we human beings do quite spontaneously and unconsciously. We engage in this activity with an ease that might persuade us to believe that making inferences on the basis of the information in hand inheres in the genetic make up of the human species. It may well be that the belief is justified to some extent: we may by nature be predisposed to reasoning of the type: given that A is the case, then B must follow from it. The value of such a genetic trait is obviously enormous for the survival of the species. But the actual act of inferential reasoning as a whole – which is what, after all, impinges on our life – involves much more than this formula suggests. Inferential reasoning is complex and like most complex processes it cannot be accounted for purely on the basis of our species specific endowments.

10 The Ontogenesis of Ideology: an interpretation of mother child talk [+–] 256-274

Ruqaiya Hasan†

Macquarie University

Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.

Read her obituary here

This chapter is concerned with the ideology of woman’s work – that is to say the system of ideas that surrounds the work women do in the privacy of their homes.

Section 3

Editor’s Introduction: Language and society: conflict or co-genesis? [+–] 275-276

Ruqaiya Hasan†

Macquarie University

Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.

Read her obituary here

The chapters of this volume explore the intimate relations of society, language and mind: the development of each of these depends on the contribution of the other two. In this sense they are co-genetic: mind has recently been described by the famous neuro-scientist, Susan Greenfield, as 'personalized brain.' The development of human mind depends on what it experiences; for human beings, experience goes beyond sensation: it is made of meaning, and interpretation/meaning, in turn, is construed by the various semiotic modalities, of which language is perhaps the most flexible and most pervasive. But language has itself evolved in the course of attempts to reach an 'other.' By shaping the nature of communication, human relations shape also the nature of language; meanings exchanged in verbal interaction become a major force in shaping forms of consciousness; and our consciousness reveals itself in our cultural practices, our ways of being, doing and saying.

11 The Disempowerment Game: Bourdieu on language [+–] 277-336

Ruqaiya Hasan†

Macquarie University

Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.

Read her obituary here

The four issues to be discussed in this chapter are as follows: (i) that Bourdieu’s view of linguistics and his reading of Saussure’s text are, both, ‘monocular’. To the extent that these limited readings are presented as definitive, they are misleading; (ii) that Bourdieu’s view of language as a semiotic is akin to that of a formal linguist’s, such as, say, Chomsky; it fails to appreciate crucial features of language as a semiotic system; (iii) that his ‘spontaneous socio/linguistics’ is largely equal to what Saussure called ‘external linguistics’; since external linguistics, like internal linguistics, is only half the story, it fails to present a convincing model of the relations of language and society; (iv) that if Bourdieu’s view of language is accepted as the point of departure for pedagogic action, its deficiencies will inevitably result in a less than satisfactory programme for literacy education, denying pedagogic action any role as a liberating force.

12 Bourdieu on Linguistics and Language: a response to my commentators [+–] 337-353

Ruqaiya Hasan†

Macquarie University

Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.

Read her obituary here

The chapters of this volume explore the intimate relations of society, language and mind: the development of each of these depends on the contribution of the other two. In this sense they are co-genetic: mind has recently been described by the famous neuro-scientist, Susan Greenfield, as 'personalized brain.' The development of human mind depends on what it experiences; for human beings, experience goes beyond sensation: it is made of meaning, and interpretation/meaning, in turn, is construed by the various semiotic modalities, of which language is perhaps the most flexible and most pervasive. But language has itself evolved in the course of attempts to reach an 'other.' By shaping the nature of communication, human relations shape also the nature of language; meanings exchanged in verbal interaction become a major force in shaping forms of consciousness; and our consciousness reveals itself in our cultural practices, our ways of being, doing and saying. This chapter is a response to the critique of the previous chapter on Bourdieu.

End Matter

References [+–] 354-371

Ruqaiya Hasan†

Macquarie University

Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.

Read her obituary here

The chapters of this volume explore the intimate relations of society, language and mind: the development of each of these depends on the contribution of the other two. In this sense they are co-genetic: mind has recently been described by the famous neuro-scientist, Susan Greenfield, as 'personalized brain.' The development of human mind depends on what it experiences; for human beings, experience goes beyond sensation: it is made of meaning, and interpretation/meaning, in turn, is construed by the various semiotic modalities, of which language is perhaps the most flexible and most pervasive. But language has itself evolved in the course of attempts to reach an 'other.' By shaping the nature of communication, human relations shape also the nature of language; meanings exchanged in verbal interaction become a major force in shaping forms of consciousness; and our consciousness reveals itself in our cultural practices, our ways of being, doing and saying. References

Index [+–]

Ruqaiya Hasan†

Macquarie University

Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.

Read her obituary here

The chapters of this volume explore the intimate relations of society, language and mind: the development of each of these depends on the contribution of the other two. In this sense they are co-genetic: mind has recently been described by the famous neuro-scientist, Susan Greenfield, as 'personalized brain.' The development of human mind depends on what it experiences; for human beings, experience goes beyond sensation: it is made of meaning, and interpretation/meaning, in turn, is construed by the various semiotic modalities, of which language is perhaps the most flexible and most pervasive. But language has itself evolved in the course of attempts to reach an 'other.' By shaping the nature of communication, human relations shape also the nature of language; meanings exchanged in verbal interaction become a major force in shaping forms of consciousness; and our consciousness reveals itself in our cultural practices, our ways of being, doing and saying. Index

Ruqaiya Hasan’s Language, Society and Consciousness is a powerful demonstration of the need for a unified framework, bringing together linguistics, sociology, and biology for understanding the social semiotic nature of minded beings. This volume provides subtle and revealing readings of a galaxy of other leading thinkers at the same time that she poses questions and provide answers that will impact on our future thinking about linguistic and social development and change for years to come. This book is a must for all those who are interested in these arguments.
Paul J. Thibault, professor in linguistics and media communication, Høgskolen I Agder, Kristiansand, Norway