Sayma Reza 1. Define and explain language and vocal gesture.

In the book, Mind,Self and Society, mead described the mind and the self as a social process where the development of self is tied with the development of language as a part of social behavior. there are indefinite signs and symbols which serves as the purpose of what we refer to as language. mead divided communication into two phases. one is the the conversation of gestures and the other one is significance gesture or language. although physical gestures are considered as significant symbol , vocal gesture of language plays a crucial part in communication through significant symbol. conversation in physical object can be carried out through just a glance of an eye or the attitude of the body but unlike language, it does not translate it into an articulate speech. this is why language is so crucial in communication. Mead added the behaviorist's point of view on gestures to demonstrate the importance of language in communication. Behaviorists like Wundt described gesture as a behavioral responses of animal to stimuli of other organisms. he gave an example of the barking dog as a process of stimulus and response. as the dog starts to bark at another for, the other dog either barks back or runs away. the act of the dog becomes the stimulus to the other dog for his response (42). however dogs do not understand the meaning of the barking gesture. they simply

response through symbols without "significance". According to Mead, for a gesture to have significance, it must mean the same thing for both organisms and the meaning should involve the capacity to anticipate how other organism will response to the symbols and gestures. in order for symbols to have what Mead refers to as "significance", there need to be a vocal gesture of language which animals seem to lack. vocal gestures are brought out through word or phases and the person uses the vocal gesture response the same way as the person hearing it. for example, if a person is crossing the street during a busy hour, the other person across the street may shout out saying, "Don't walk!". as he shouts out, he will hear his vocal gesture the same way as the person crossing the street except he is more aware of it since he is the one directing the gesture to the other person. Mead further states that, Gestures become significant symbols when they implicitly arouse in the individual making them the same responses which the explicitly arouse, or are supposed to arouse, in other individuals (MSS, 47). He also tells us that, "the critical importance of language in the development of human experience lies in this fact that the stimulus is one that can react upon the speaking individual as it reacts upon the other (MSS, 69). a gesture could be walking over someone and screaming, "Ahhh", when the other person being shocked responses by saying, "Ohh!". there are no thinking required for this gesture which took place. Mead doesn't deny Wundt's explanation of stimulus and response because a lot of things that we do everyday are automatic. for example, when we wake up

in the morning, we stretch and yawn . we don't remind ourselves everyday that we have to yawn and stretch because we are awaken now. however, in order to have significant gesture, there need to be an implicit arousal from he person making it to explicit arousal in the other person receiving it. when the gesture reaches the situation where the symbol answer to a meaning in the experience of the first individual and which also calls out the meaning in the second individual, it is then what we call language (46). The function of the gesture is to make adjustment in a social act and the significance gestures makes far more adjustments then the non significance gestures. in addition, what makes Vocal gestures significant is that it allow individuals to hear their own gestures in the way that others hear them. it not only makes it possible to speak to others with the same meaning but it also allows the person to speak to himself when others are not present.it is through the use of vocal gestures one is able to bring back an experience on itself through speaking and hearing at relatively the same instant. in terms of Wundt's doctrine, the dog barking at each other was an example of a conversational gesture but the dogs were not talking to each other or conveying an idea to the other dog. the gesture in dog barking or a man shaking his fist in someone's face may call out for several different response. however this is only the beginning of gesture where the other people only know what you are going to do about about an action. it doesn't involve thinking. in order for the gesture to be significant, in humans, there need to be a

psychical state of similar idea between those two people unlike the Wundt's example of the barking dog. it is through the significant gesture of language one is able to fully develop the mind. as Mead states, a body is not a self until it has developed a mind within the context of social experience and to develop the mind, there need to be communication by conversation of gesture in a social process. it is through language which creates set of symbols through which individual communicates in a measurably identical manner with different individuals. in order to have an effective communication, all these symbols has to mean the same thing to all individuals. however, depending on the person, different stimulus can mean different things and the individual will act according to what it means to them. An example Mead talks about in the book is the example of number of people lifting weights. if the cooperative process requires different responses then the individuals will call out different responses amongst others. although language carry universal symbols which is identical for all, conversation of gestures does not carry symbol which is universal. individuals will response as it is required in that certain situation through significant gesture of language. Mead further states that in terms of vocal gesture, imitation plays an important part amongst birds and human. human often imitates new dialect when they enter a new culture or stay there for a long time. without even realizing it consciously, the individual imitates and adopt the dialect. this is also true in

many case when the individual imitates a person of whom they admire. however, such imitating mannerisms are not seen in lower forms of animals. although one can teach vocal gesture to a sparrow, there need to be a continuous repetition of that word for that sparrow to imitate. the imitation of vocal gesture only belongs to humans and are not seen in lower animals. imitation gives no origin to the language. it only reproduce what it sees other organism doing mechanically impossible. going back to the significant gestures, vocal gestures are not just imitation of a sounds which it hears calling out but it is a stimulus to some sort of response. thus, it is a conversational gesture only when one persons attitude brings out a response in another attitude in the other person with a corresponding note. only if a sparrow calls out a note to a canary which it understands and responds accordingly,the sparrow then influence the canary as well as influence himself by hearing his own note. the sparrow makes use of the phonetic vocal gesture of the canary through a common note and vise versa. this is why vocal gesture is important. however in the example of the dog fight, there are no use of imitation. one dog responses to the stimulus that it gets from he other dog. as the dog attacks the second dog and ready to spring at the other dog's throat, the other dog then responses by changing his position and perhaps attacking the first dog before he can attack. thus, a clear conversational gesture is present in this reciprocal shifting of the dog's behavior. Mead further points out that if vocal gesture refers to the use of vocal element as stimulus to a certain reply then the effect of the vocal

element should result in an arousal when he hears his own voice. a lion that roars and creates certain fear among other animal but does not seem to frighten himself as he hears himself roaring. the fear among other animal is not mostly a vocal response but a fight or flight response. however, in terms of birds vocal gesture, it is evident that the stimulus of one vocal gesture certainly calls out another vocal gesture in the song of birds. this creates twice as much emphatic on vocal gesture since it creates a response to oneself as well as other birds. Vocal gesture is probably the most important gesture of all. when one makes an facial expression such as a irritating face, the other individual may interpret it differently. however, when a person uses language to express himself, he not only hears himself but also catches himself using some tone. the meaning is always presented as the person hears the words .he is then able to catch himself and correct the expression which would create certain response on the other indivisual. the use of physical gestures are mostly seen in actors who looks at the mirror to examine himself before making an expression. this is the only way one can use the facial expression as a significant gesture. by using the mirror, the person can then respond to his own gesture as well as the response of others. in order to have a successful vocal gesture, one constantly need to reply to the self as the other person reply in a conversation. like watson says, thinking is vocabulization.without understanding the meaning of the vocal gesture, one is unable to make a response in a

conversation because it is not possible to respond in a conversation if one doesn't understand the meaning of the other person's expression. moreover, language is an essential part in the development of human experience where the stimulus is one that react upon the speaking individual as it reacts upon another person.