CURRENTLY READING:
Friday, July 30, 2004
Thursday, July 29, 2004
BREASTFEEDING IN PUBLIC -
TOWARDS A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF THE STORY OF AN ENCOUNTER
In an earlier post I reproduced a message I had sent to a Cognitive Linguistics mailing list which related the story of a woman who, while publicly breastfeeding, found herself confronted with a "well-dressed woman in her thirties" who asked "Do you fuck in public, too?".
I'm going to try to "think out loud" about the sociocultural cognitive models underlying this encounter.
I cannot be sure the story is true. I am reasonably sure that when the story was told, however, just about everyone who heard it understood it to depict an intentional verbal assault (or challenge, or rebuke) of a certain sort.
If the remonstrative woman had asked "Do you dream in color?" the remark would, I think, be interpreted as a non sequitur. "Dreaming in color" does not evoke a moral frame. To the extent that telling the story could be said to have a point at all, in that case, it would have to be a point that depended on the context in which it was told. The story, by itself, would not travel very well beyond the situation of its telling.
The fact, given only the minimal context provided in the story (of"a publicly breastfeeding woman"), that the remark is understood to be negative would seem to call for an explanation.
Consider what the story would seem like if the question posed had been "Do you clip your nails in public, too?" Many listeners, I believe, would understand the remark to be some sort of negative comment but, absent a certain manner of delivery, would not judge the degree of negativity to be as great. This version of the story would be comprehensible but somehow puzzling to me.
Now think about the following variations:
a) "Do you defecate in public, too?"
b) "Do you shit in public, too?"
c) "Do you copulate in public, too?"
Example a conveys a more negative attitude than the nail-clipping question but doesn't convey the same level of what I would call vehemence. Besides, as I believe the more vehement example b demonstrates, the negativity is understood to have a somewhat different grounds than the rebuker was invoking. A story culminating in remark c would, I think, be understood in almost the same way that our actual story is understood. "Copulate", however, does not convey the same vividness as does the word "fuck" and therefore, I think, does not convey the same vehemence.
The effect of statements a and b would be to compare breastfeeding to other 'distasteful' aspects of digestion. This is not the point the rebuker is trying to make, in this story. Statement c compares breastfeeding to other 'distasteful' aspects of reproduction but it does not do so with sufficient 'rawness' or 'coarseness'.
This brings us to the description of the woman who delivered this comment; she was described in the story as being "a well-dressed woman in her thirties". The reason for this, I believe, is to establish, through old-fashioned socioeconomic stereotype, that the woman was likely educated and therefore probably had a wide range of choices about how to express herself. The fact that she was in her thirties establishes that she is not from a different generation, not from a "different time" when such an attitude might be more expectable. The effect, therefore, is to make her utterance all the more deliberate and, therefore, strident.
The group of breastfeeding mothers among whom this story was told reportedly felt that the added stridency made the question particularly objectionable. It seems quite possible, however, that ardent opponents of public breastfeeding might interpret the elements of the story the same way but evaluate it differently; the question might seem to be a particularly effective dig.
I believe that that the things we call 'culture' and 'society' are real things, not simply abstractions, and that they are composed of enormous numbers of linked interactions such as the ones represented by this story (both the incident it purports to depict and in the tellings of that incident). I see cognitive linguistics as providing significant tools for the analysis of such interactions. It is for that reason that I thought it important to report the story and to analyze it using exactly the words that were used to tell it.
TOWARDS A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF THE STORY OF AN ENCOUNTER
In an earlier post I reproduced a message I had sent to a Cognitive Linguistics mailing list which related the story of a woman who, while publicly breastfeeding, found herself confronted with a "well-dressed woman in her thirties" who asked "Do you fuck in public, too?".
I'm going to try to "think out loud" about the sociocultural cognitive models underlying this encounter.
I cannot be sure the story is true. I am reasonably sure that when the story was told, however, just about everyone who heard it understood it to depict an intentional verbal assault (or challenge, or rebuke) of a certain sort.
If the remonstrative woman had asked "Do you dream in color?" the remark would, I think, be interpreted as a non sequitur. "Dreaming in color" does not evoke a moral frame. To the extent that telling the story could be said to have a point at all, in that case, it would have to be a point that depended on the context in which it was told. The story, by itself, would not travel very well beyond the situation of its telling.
The fact, given only the minimal context provided in the story (of"a publicly breastfeeding woman"), that the remark is understood to be negative would seem to call for an explanation.
Consider what the story would seem like if the question posed had been "Do you clip your nails in public, too?" Many listeners, I believe, would understand the remark to be some sort of negative comment but, absent a certain manner of delivery, would not judge the degree of negativity to be as great. This version of the story would be comprehensible but somehow puzzling to me.
Now think about the following variations:
a) "Do you defecate in public, too?"
b) "Do you shit in public, too?"
c) "Do you copulate in public, too?"
Example a conveys a more negative attitude than the nail-clipping question but doesn't convey the same level of what I would call vehemence. Besides, as I believe the more vehement example b demonstrates, the negativity is understood to have a somewhat different grounds than the rebuker was invoking. A story culminating in remark c would, I think, be understood in almost the same way that our actual story is understood. "Copulate", however, does not convey the same vividness as does the word "fuck" and therefore, I think, does not convey the same vehemence.
The effect of statements a and b would be to compare breastfeeding to other 'distasteful' aspects of digestion. This is not the point the rebuker is trying to make, in this story. Statement c compares breastfeeding to other 'distasteful' aspects of reproduction but it does not do so with sufficient 'rawness' or 'coarseness'.
This brings us to the description of the woman who delivered this comment; she was described in the story as being "a well-dressed woman in her thirties". The reason for this, I believe, is to establish, through old-fashioned socioeconomic stereotype, that the woman was likely educated and therefore probably had a wide range of choices about how to express herself. The fact that she was in her thirties establishes that she is not from a different generation, not from a "different time" when such an attitude might be more expectable. The effect, therefore, is to make her utterance all the more deliberate and, therefore, strident.
The group of breastfeeding mothers among whom this story was told reportedly felt that the added stridency made the question particularly objectionable. It seems quite possible, however, that ardent opponents of public breastfeeding might interpret the elements of the story the same way but evaluate it differently; the question might seem to be a particularly effective dig.
I believe that that the things we call 'culture' and 'society' are real things, not simply abstractions, and that they are composed of enormous numbers of linked interactions such as the ones represented by this story (both the incident it purports to depict and in the tellings of that incident). I see cognitive linguistics as providing significant tools for the analysis of such interactions. It is for that reason that I thought it important to report the story and to analyze it using exactly the words that were used to tell it.
THE MAN WHO REVIVED THE PARK AT THE END OF THE STREET
Every weekday morning Baslow makes his way to the end of his street past a really lovely garden (called "Bruce's Garden") and through a beautiful small park on his way to the 207th Street station of the "A" train. The park is Isham park. The man who spearheaded the movement to beautify it is named J. A. Reynolds. NY1 recently named him their New Yorker of the Week.
Every weekday morning Baslow makes his way to the end of his street past a really lovely garden (called "Bruce's Garden") and through a beautiful small park on his way to the 207th Street station of the "A" train. The park is Isham park. The man who spearheaded the movement to beautify it is named J. A. Reynolds. NY1 recently named him their New Yorker of the Week.
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
BASLOW MEETS SUBWAY ARTIST MAN
So I got onto the Number 1 train at 42nd Street to head home in early July and it was, surprisingly, not packed. I got a seat right away and, in fact, there was an empty seat next to me. I pulled out my book and began reading. This book takes a lot of concentration so I soon was unaware of what was going on in the subway car. Just before the train reached 72nd Street the guy sitting opposite me slaps a piece of paper, face down, on the seat next to me. I look up in confusion. He's smiling. "Look at it," he urges. So I pick up the paper.
This is what I saw.
So I was telling my story today at work and someone says, "You know, I read a story in the New York Times about a guy like that."So I look it up and this is what I found:
"Faster Than A Speeding Train: Artist Man"
(Only the first few sentences will be readable for free. You'll have to pay if you want to read the whole article.)
So I got onto the Number 1 train at 42nd Street to head home in early July and it was, surprisingly, not packed. I got a seat right away and, in fact, there was an empty seat next to me. I pulled out my book and began reading. This book takes a lot of concentration so I soon was unaware of what was going on in the subway car. Just before the train reached 72nd Street the guy sitting opposite me slaps a piece of paper, face down, on the seat next to me. I look up in confusion. He's smiling. "Look at it," he urges. So I pick up the paper.
This is what I saw.
So I was telling my story today at work and someone says, "You know, I read a story in the New York Times about a guy like that."So I look it up and this is what I found:
"Faster Than A Speeding Train: Artist Man"
(Only the first few sentences will be readable for free. You'll have to pay if you want to read the whole article.)
CONFLICTING MODELS OF BREASTFEEDING
Here is the text of an email I sent to a Cognitive Linguistics mailing list:
I am not a cognitive linguist (not even an academic) but merely an interested onlooker. Please forgive me (and inform me) if this post is an intrusion.
My wife, a lactation consultant, recently heard the story of a woman who was breastfeeding in a park. The breastfeeding mother was approached by another woman (described as "well-dressed and in her thirties") who asked her: "Do you fuck in public, too?"
Having just read Lakoff's "Moral Politics" I began to wonder about the models which underlie this story's comprehensibility. They seem to me to have something to do with breasts-as-sources-of-nurture versus breasts-as-objects-of-sexual-attention and, perhaps, with different models of publicly and privately appropriate behavior.
That, however, is about as far as I have gotten in thinking about this; no further than breastfeeding advocates themselves get when discussing such stories.
Can Cognitive Linguistics shed more light? Does anyone know of work which might help me think further about the matter?
Thank you.
Barry Solow
Here is the text of an email I sent to a Cognitive Linguistics mailing list:
I am not a cognitive linguist (not even an academic) but merely an interested onlooker. Please forgive me (and inform me) if this post is an intrusion.
My wife, a lactation consultant, recently heard the story of a woman who was breastfeeding in a park. The breastfeeding mother was approached by another woman (described as "well-dressed and in her thirties") who asked her: "Do you fuck in public, too?"
Having just read Lakoff's "Moral Politics" I began to wonder about the models which underlie this story's comprehensibility. They seem to me to have something to do with breasts-as-sources-of-nurture versus breasts-as-objects-of-sexual-attention and, perhaps, with different models of publicly and privately appropriate behavior.
That, however, is about as far as I have gotten in thinking about this; no further than breastfeeding advocates themselves get when discussing such stories.
Can Cognitive Linguistics shed more light? Does anyone know of work which might help me think further about the matter?
Thank you.
Barry Solow
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