SOMETHING ABOUT THE ALPHABET

An alphabet is a standard set of letters (basic written symbols or graphemes) which is used to write one or more languages based on the general principle that the letters represent phonemes (basic significant sounds) of the spoken language. This is in contrast to other types of writing systems, such as syllabaries (in which each character represents a syllable) and logographies (in which each character represents a word, morpheme or semantic unit).

A true alphabet has letters for the vowels of a language as well as the consonants. The first "true alphabet" in this sense is believed to be the Greek alphabet, which is a modified form of the Phoenician alphabet. In other types of alphabet either the vowels are not indicated at all, as was the case in the Phoenician alphabet (such systems are known as abjads), or else the vowels are shown by diacritics or modification of consonants, as in the devanagari used in India and Nepal (these systems are known as abugidas or alphasyllabaries).

There are dozens of alphabets in use today, the most popular being the Latin alphabet (which was derived from the Greek). Many languages use modified forms of the Latin alphabet, with additional letters formed using diacritical marks. While most alphabets have letters composed of lines (linear writing), there are also exceptions such as the alphabets used in Braille, fingerspelling, and Morse code.

Alphabets are usually associated with a standard ordering of their letters. This makes them useful for purposes of collation, specifically by allowing words to be sorted in alphabetical order. It also means that their letters can be used as an alternative method of "numbering" ordered items, in such contexts as numbered lists.

The English word alphabet came into Middle English from the Late Latin word alphabetum, which in turn originated in the Greek ἀλφάβητος (alphabētos), from alpha and beta, the first two letters of the Greek alphabet. Alpha and beta in turn came from the first two letters of the Phoenician alphabet, and originally meant ox and house respectively.

The term "alphabet" is used by linguists and paleographers in both a wide and a narrow sense. In the wider sense, an alphabet is a script that is segmental at the phoneme level—that is, it has separate glyphs for individual sounds and not for larger units such as syllables or words. In the narrower sense, some scholars distinguish "true" alphabets from two other types of segmental script, abjads and abugidas. These three differ from each other in the way they treat vowels: abjads have letters for consonants and leave most vowels unexpressed; abugidas are also consonant-based, but indicate vowels with diacritics to or a systematic graphic modification of the consonants. In alphabets in the narrow sense, on the other hand, consonants and vowels are written as independent letters.[14] The earliest known alphabet in the wider sense is the Wadi el-Hol script, believed to be an abjad, which through its successor Phoenician is the ancestor of modern alphabets, including Arabic, Greek, Latin (via the Old Italic alphabet), Cyrillic (via the Greek alphabet) and Hebrew (via Aramaic).

Examples of present-day abjads are the Arabic and Hebrew scripts; true alphabets include Latin, Cyrillic, and Korean hangul; and abugidas are used to write Tigrinya, Amharic, Hindi, and Thai. The Canadian Aboriginal syllabics are also an abugida rather than a syllabary as their name would imply, since each glyph stands for a consonant which is modified by rotation to represent the following vowel. (In a true syllabary, each consonant-vowel combination would be represented by a separate glyph.)

All three types may be augmented with syllabic glyphs. Ugaritic, for example, is basically an abjad, but has syllabic letters for /ʔa, ʔi, ʔu/. (These are the only time vowels are indicated.) Cyrillic is basically a true alphabet, but has syllabic letters for /ja, je, ju/ (я, е, ю); Coptic has a letter for /ti/. Devanagari is typically an abugida augmented with dedicated letters for initial vowels, though some traditions use अ as a zero consonant as the graphic base for such vowels.

The boundaries between the three types of segmental scripts are not always clear-cut. For example, Sorani Kurdish is written in the Arabic script, which is normally an abjad. However, in Kurdish, writing the vowels is mandatory, and full letters are used, so the script is a true alphabet. Other languages may use a Semitic abjad with mandatory vowel diacritics, effectively making them abugidas. On the other hand, the Phagspa script of the Mongol Empire was based closely on the Tibetan abugida, but all vowel marks were written after the preceding consonant rather than as diacritic marks. Although short a was not written, as in the Indic abugidas, one could argue that the linear arrangement made this a true alphabet. Conversely, the vowel marks of the Tigrinya abugida and the Amharic abugida (ironically, the original source of the term "abugida") have been so completely assimilated into their consonants that the modifications are no longer systematic and have to be learned as a syllabary rather than as a segmental script. Even more extreme, the Pahlavi abjad eventually became logographic.

Forty four million people have watched this video:

WHERE'S MY SECURITY BLANKET?

Winnicott

My attention has been drawn to Donald Winnicott, an English paediatrician and psychoanalyst. It is stated that he was especially influential in the field of object relations theory. He is best known for his ideas on the true self and false self, and the transitional object.

Bearing in mind the adage “Well, there’s this nurse…”, Winnicott’s observations and theories emanate from his preoccupation with paediatrics. His discourse is derived from that perspective - context. These observations, and in particular object relations theory, are of some importance and should be borne in mind when reading signs of identity. 

Winnicott thought that the "True Self" begins to develop in infancy, in the relationship between the baby and his/her primary caretaker (Winnicott typically refers to this person as "the mother"). One of the ways the mother helps the baby develop an authentic self is by responding in a welcoming and reassuring way to the baby's spontaneous feelings, expressions, and initiatives. In this way the baby develops a confidence that nothing bad happens when s/he expresses what s/he feels, so his/her feelings don't seem dangerous or problematic to him/her, and s/he doesn't have to put undue attention into controlling or avoiding them. S/he also gains a sense that s/he is real, that s/he exists and his/her feelings and actions have meaning.

Winnicott used the term "True Self" to describe a sense of self based on spontaneous authentic experience, a sense of "all-out personal aliveness" or "feeling real". The "False Self" was, for Winnicott, a defence designed to protect the True Self by hiding it. He thought that in health, a False Self was what allowed a person to present a "polite and mannered attitude" in public. But he saw more serious emotional problems in patients who seemed unable to feel spontaneous, alive or real to themselves in any part of their lives, yet managed to put on a successful "show of being real". Such patients suffered inwardly from a sense of being empty, dead or "phoney". True self is sometimes referred to as the "real self".

For Winnicott, in the False Self, 'Other people's expectations can become of overriding importance, overlaying or contradicting the original sense of self, the one connected to the very roots of one's being'. Winnicott thought that such an extreme kind of False Self began to develop in infancy, as a defence against an environment that felt unsafe or overwhelming because of a lack of reasonably attuned caregiving. Winnicott used the term "good enough" to refer to what he thought of as optimal parenting; he thought that babies need parents who are usually emotionally attuned and able to empathize with the baby, but not perfectly so. The danger is that 'through this False Self, the infant builds up a false set of relationships, and by means of introjections even attains a show of being real'. The result can be a 'child whose potential aliveness and creativity has gone unnoticed...concealing an empty, barren internal world behind a mask of independence'. Yet at the same time the 'Winnicottian False Self is the ultimate defence against the unthinkable "exploitation of the True Self, which would result in its annihilation"'.

By contrast, the True Self is rooted in, and '"does no more than collect together the details of the experience of aliveness" - this means the body's life-sustaining functions, "including the heart's action and breathing"'. Out of this the baby creates the experience of reality: a sense that '"Life is worth the trouble of living". In the baby's nonverbal gesture which '... expresses a spontaneous instinct', the true self potential can be communicated to, and affirmed by, the primary care giver.

'The False Self in its pathological guise prevents and inhibits what Winnicott calls the "spontaneous gesture" of the True Self. Compliance and imitation are the costly results'. Some would indeed consider that 'the idea of compliance is central to Winnicott's theory of the false self', and add, paradoxically, that 'concern for an object is easily a compliant act'. Where the mother is not responsive to the baby's spontaneity, where instead 'a mother's expectations are too insistent, they can eventually result in compliant behaviour and an impaired autonomy', as the baby has 'to manage a prematurely important object....The False Self enacts a kind of dissociated regard or recognition of the object; the object is taken seriously, is shown concern, but not by a person'.

Object relations theory describes the process of developing a psyche as one is growing up, in relation to others in the environment. Based on psychodynamic theory, the theory object relations suggests that people relate to others and situations in their adult lives as shaped by family experiences during infancy. For example, an adult who experienced neglect or abuse in infancy would expect similar behaviour from others who remind them of the neglectful or abusive person from their past (often a parent). These images of people and events turn into Objects in the subconscious that the person carries into adulthood, and are used by the subconscious to predict people's behaviour in their social relationships and interactions.

Internal objects are formed by the patterns emerging in one's repeated subjective experience of the caretaking environment which may or may not be accurate representations of the actual, external others. In the theory, Objects are usually internalized images of one's mother, father, or primary caregiver, although they could also consist of parts of a person, for instance an infant relating to the breast, or things in one's inner world (one's internalized image of others). Later experiences can reshape these early patterns, but Objects often continue to exert a strong influence throughout life. Objects are initially comprehended in the infant mind by their functions and are termed "part objects." The breast that feeds the hungry infant is the "good breast," while hungry infant that finds no breast is in relation to the "bad breast." With a "good enough" "facilitating environment" part object functions eventually transform into a comprehension of whole objects. This corresponds with the ability to tolerate ambiguity, to see that both the "good" and the "bad" breast are a part of the same mother figure.

A transitional object, comfort object, or security blanket is an item used to provide psychological comfort, especially in unusual or unique situations, or at bedtime for small children. Among toddlers, comfort objects may take the form of a blanket, a stuffed animal, or a favorite toy.

EXPRESSION OF INTEREST

I have today sent off this Expression of Interest to Falmouth University as it was the penultimate day to do so.

Research Degree - Expression of Interest             

Research Proposal

(please provide a brief research proposal of no more than 500 words, this should include a proposed project area of research; the objectives of the research; a possible methodology relevant to the topic; identification of a possible research question; clarification of the research project importance)

To explore how identity is written. An examination of the presentation of identity through the use of text and any other medium which can be read, i.e. how writing performs identity.  The research is as much an examination of reading as it is of writing. Written identity must be perceived as such.

‘…it is the reader’s task to perceive the providential design which has arranged the events in the order in which the work presents them and with the results which it describes. Yet it is the design that justifies these events and results and gives them a meaning.’

From George Dumézil, The Destiny of a King, (1973) University of Chicago Press.

Notions of identity are seen in even the smallest number. The moment one steps out the front door one is confronted with signs and displays of identity. The number on the front door, the street name, the registration numbers on the vehicles parked in the street, the colours of windows, doors, bricks, railings, bill boards, etc., almost everything serves to identify.

The house number makes quite a few claims. One company selling door numbers provided a bit of social history and philosophy in its pitch. This is from Filante Products web site:

 “…Through a simple sign next to a road, on a building or on a billboard, you can convey an important message about who you are, where you are from and lots of other vital information,… Names are, in fact, all around us. They provide us with a way of signalling something to others without speaking… they can be important indicators as to who you are, where you live and even what you believe in.”

Can ‘what do you believe in’ be revealed through the simple choice of a house number? Do you even want to reveal who you are? There seems to be an inevitable reveal the moment any sign/writing is displayed. Certain European cultures are instantly identified by a simple house number, e.g.:

France

Spain

                                                  

Germany

This is merely the kernel of an idea for research. Written identities are found in all forms of media and communications – music, film, television advertising etc. – and are perceived in different ways in different cultures. In her lectures on Writing as Social Practice, Prof. Roz Ivanic states:

“…writing as a social practice can be understood as several layers embedded in each other: writing is multimodal text; writing is a cognitive and creative process; writing is a physical and material process; writing is situated, purposeful social interaction; and writing is culturally, politically and historically located […] writing is not done for writing's sake, writing is done to achieve something else, writing is purposeful, goal-directed and culturally shaped".

In short, writing performs. This is an examination of how the writing of identity performs, how that identity is perceived and what is its significance in European culture. This will involve some considerable travel and research in various European countries. The outcome will be a video record of the research into displays of identity, accompanied by a dissertation.

I am building an extensive bibliography at present. Also see blog entries from 15/01/2013 at:

http://fbuffnstuff.blogspot.co.uk/      

If accepted we will be off in the VW California to do the research. Tee hee.

SYMBOLIC INTERACTION

A few ideas gleaned from todays musings, all of which contribute to the concept of performance writing about ‘writing identity’

Goffman

Erving Goffman believed that when an individual comes in contact with other people, that individual will attempt to control or guide the impression that others might make of him by changing or fixing his or her setting, appearance and manner. At the same time, the person the individual is interacting with is trying to form and obtain information about the individual.

Symbolic Interactionism is a social theory that focuses on the analysis of the patterns of communication, interpretation and adjustment between individuals. The theory is a framework for understanding how individuals interact with each other and within society through the meanings of symbols. Both the verbal and nonverbal responses that a listener then delivers are similarly constructed in expectation of how the original speaker will react. The on-going process of Symbolic Interaction is like the game of charades; only it is a full-fledged conversation.

Blumer

Herbert Blumer (1969) set out three basic premises of the perspective:

•    "Humans act toward things on the basis of the meanings they ascribe to those things."

•    "The meaning of such things is derived from, or arises out of, the social interaction that one has with others and the society."

•    "These meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things he/she encounters."

Mead

While establishing the idea of self, George Herbert Mead introduced a distinction between the ‘I' and the 'me', respectively, the active and socialized aspects of the person. The "me" is a similar concept to Cooley's looking-glass self. An example of these concepts is the Pygmalion effect whereby a person (I) behaves to match the sense of self (me) they derive from others, in a form of self-fulfilling prophecy.

There are five central ideas to symbolic interactionism according to Joel M. Charon, author of Symbolic Interactionism An Introduction, An Interpretation, An Integration:

1-    "The human being must be understood as a social person. It is the constant search for social interaction that leads us to do what we do. Instead of focusing on the individual and his or her personality, or on how the society or social situation causes human behaviour, symbolic interactionism focuses on the activities that take place between actors. Interaction is the basic unit of study. Individuals are created through interaction; society too is created through social interaction. What we do depends on interaction with others earlier in our lifetimes, and it depends on our interaction right now. Social interaction is central to what we do. If we want to understand cause, focus on social interaction.

2-    The human being must be understood as a thinking being. Human action is not only interaction among individuals but also interaction within the individual. It is not our ideas or attitudes or values that are as important as the constant active on-going process of thinking. We are not simply conditioned, we are not simply beings who are influenced by those around us, we are not simply products of society. We are, to our very core, thinking animals, always conversing with ourselves as we interact with others. If we want to understand cause, focus on human thinking.

3-    Humans do not sense their environment directly, instead, humans define the situation they are in. An environment may actually exist, but it is our definition of it that is important. Definition does not simply randomly happen; instead, it results from on going social interaction and thinking.

4-    The cause of human action is the result of what is occurring in our present situation. Cause unfolds in the present social interaction, present thinking, and present definition. It is not society’s encounters with us in our past, that causes action nor is it our own past experience that does. It is, instead, social interaction, thinking, definition of the situation that takes place in the present. Our past enters into our actions primarily because we think about it and apply it to the definition of the present situation.

5-    Human beings are described as active beings in relation to their environment. Words such as conditioning, responding, controlled, imprisoned, and formed are not used to describe the human being in symbolic interaction. In contrast to other social-scientific perspectives humans are not thought of as being passive in relation to their surroundings, but actively involved in what they do."

Herewith a little lecture provided by you-tube