April 24, 2016

April 24, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In “Human Behavior as Language: Some Thoughts on Wittgenstein” (2006)  Ribes-Iñesta writes “The term “language” is the only one that “refers” to itself, and it is a term included in and used in language. This may explain the particular elusiveness of the term and its extended meanings.” I disagree with him. He doesn’t explain why “the term “language” and its extended meanings” continues to be elusive. The reason that “language” has remained elusive is because we don’t realize the extent to which our written words take our attention away from our spoken words. Developmentally, our written words are a function of our spoken words. Our attempts to explain our spoken words with our written words would be more successful, if we first attempted to explain our spoken words with our spoken words. As this would have required a different way of talking, we choose to write about talking more than to talk about talking, because were unsuccessful in changing our way of talking.

Our writings have taken us further and further away from our talking and our technology has increased rather than decreased this process. Another way of describing this process is that our Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB), our negative way of talking, couldn’t address what can only be addressed by our Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), our positive way of talking. There is nothing elusive about SVB, either we have it or we don’t. Once we have it, we are surprised that there is nothing to explain. Since we can directly experience what SVB is, there is no need to first understand or explain it.

Once we have SVB, we can understand and explain it without a problem. As we haven’t had SVB often enough we lose touch with our experience of it and are unable to accurately describe it. As a consequence, we keep having NVB without even realizing it. We often think that we have SVB when in fact we are having NVB. Moreover, our history with SVB is so limited that we even think that it is impossible to have ongoing SVB, conversation in which our positive emotions are reinforced and can continue. Stated differently, the multiple meanings of the term “language” is NOT the problem. Our way of talking is the problem and we can no longer cover this up with our writings.

In SVB we are able to talk about our talking. We experience an interaction in which our understanding continues to increase as we explore our interaction while we speak. As previously stated, both Wittgenstein and Skinner were on the path they were on because of their high rates of SVB. “Wittgenstein (1953) conceived language games as conventions forming part of social practices and relations: “Here the term ‘language game’ is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life (p. 23)” (Italics were not by me, but by Wittgenstein). He emphasizes the word speaking to remind himself as well as the reader that what he has written is really about spoken communication. Although Wittgenstein wrote about a very different kind of speaking than most other people, he didn’t and couldn't specify that he was writing about Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB).

Considering Wittgenstein’s reclusive life-style, it seems quite evident that most of his writing was his attempt to bring out his private speech into his public speech. Thus, it was Wittgenstein’s isolation which gave rise to his writing. “We’re used to a particular classification of things. With language, or languages, it has become second nature to us (1980, p. 678).”  Like many other thinkers, he seemed to have stumbled on SVB by ‘talking to himself’ through his writing. However, it is very clear from his writings that he didn’t find much SVB in his spoken conversations. Wittgenstein often complains that people don’t understand him. However, understanding was never really the problem. His analysis was in fact about SVB, but the blunt manner in which most people talk is NVB. Ribes-Iñesta writes “When people speak, their speech is not the overt manifestation of an abstract grammar that rules and regulates what can be said or not, or how to say things” (italics added by me). What a person says doesn’t depend on what has been written, but it definitely depends on who we are talking with, as we are, after all, each other’s environment. In SVB and NVB we are saying very different things.

What can be said in SVB cannot be said in NVB. The development of our verbal behavior was made possible by our SVB, but was always impaired or made impossible by our NVB. Once we engage in SVB, we realize how often we were involved in NVB.  It is therefore always retrospectively that we recognize NVB as NVB. Ribes-Iñesta comes as close as he can to ‘saying’ the same thing, as he writes: “As I have remarked previously (Ribes, 1991), language as actual behavior has no grammar. Grammar, as an ideal structure of language, is an a posteriori abstraction of products and vestiges of the actual behavior of speaking and writing.” Note that he mentions speaking first. It is also interesting that the definition of a posteriori is relating to what can be known by observation, that is, through listing experience, rather than through an understanding of how certain things work. This relates to how SVB works: experience of sound is primary and our understanding of language is secondary. Wittgenstein writes “Grammar does not tell us how language must be constructed in order to fulfill its purpose, in order to have such-and-such an effect on human beings. It only describes and in no way explains the use of signs (1953, p. 496).” I totally agree, but like to add that how we sound tells “us how language must be constructed in order to fulfill its purpose, in order to have such-and-such an effect on human beings.”

SVB speakers have a different effect on listeners than NVB speakers. Also, the SVB speaker’s “use of signs” is different from the NVB speaker. Although SVB and NVB speakers may use the same words, these words have different meanings because of how they sound. Moreover, the SVB speaker uses different signs than the NVB speaker. SVB speakers vocalize safety signs with the sound of their voice, while NVB speakers vocalize signs which indicate threat.  Thus, the SVB/NVB distinction explains our use of vocal signs.

Ribes-Iñesta comes closer to the SVB/NVB distinction as Wittgenstein as he writes “In fact, grammar is an invention of the language games being played by individuals according to their practical conventions. Grammar is a description—sometimes inaccurate and delayed—of the uses of language as activities articulated within a form of life.” Since he doesn’t know about the SVB/NVB distinction, Ribes-Iñesta is unable to pinpoint that the use of NVB language only makes sense within the NVB community and that the use of SVB language is only articulated within the SVB community.

The SVB community is a different “form of life” than the NVB community. Wittgenstein might have been thinking out loud as he wrote “The rules of grammar may be called “arbitrary,” if that is to mean that the aim of the grammar is nothing but that of the language. If someone says “If our language had not this grammar, it could not express these facts,” it should be asked what “could” means here (1953, p. 497)”. However, it should be stated emphatically: it is due to how we sound that we cannot express certain facts. The question: what “could” means here (?) shows that Wittgenstein was  fixating on the verbal, which is a characteristic of NVB.  Ribes-Iñesta’s explanation, on the other hand, leads to the verbal community.

Ribes-Iñesta’s comes close to describing the SVB community when he states that “Grammar is not the condition that makes language effective or sound. On the contrary, grammar is the consequence of language as a meaningful social practice.” It is only the NVB community which believes that “grammar is the condition that makes language effective or sound.” Although NVB communities are ubiquitous and, like SVB communities, also claim to experience “meaningful social practice”, they have less room for such practices in the same way that SVB communities have less room for the coercive behavioral control that is practiced by the members of the NVB communities. The language that is allowed, that can be produced, that is, what is said in NVB verbal communities, is a consequence of how they say it, of how they sound.