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Tagmemics (Tagmemes: Units-in-context)
http://personal.bgsu.edu/~edwards/tags.html
Linguist, Kenneth L. Pike introduced concepts of "etic" (alien) and "emic" (native) perspectives in language inquiry, i.e., the distinction between "alien" and "native" perspectives on discourse generation and reception, and the necessity of finding the right bridge or "tagmeme" that would yield mutual insight. From the tagmemic point of view, every rhetor's task is inevitably analogous to the kinds of challenges "alien" translators in a new cultural environment encounter: locating a point of entry into a particular language ambiguity, problem, or challenge that will provide a true bridge for non-threatening exchange and that, therefore, might make possible meaningful change. Thus, in tagmemic terms, a rhetorical task involves deliberately leaving behind a default "etic" or outsider's perspective on data under consideration, and employing heuristics (discovery procedures) that assist a communicator in approximating an "emic" or insider's perspective conducive to reaching the projected audience.
Tagmemics and Composition
http://personal.bgsu.edu/~edwards/tag4.html
The tagmemicist basically sees invention--the category which, along with arrangement, style, memory and delivery, formed the basis for classical rhetoric--as the key to the composing process. And he sees invention as essentially a "problem-solving" activity. "Problem-solving" here does not mean "puzzle-solving" but is a concept derived from the work of the Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget.
Piaget posits that humans think in terms of resolving "disequilibriums" in their lives. This process, which begins at a very early age, manifests itself in different strategies which are employed by a person to resolve or eliminate the "disequilibriums" or problems. According to Piaget, all human activities such as play, fantasy, analytical thought--in short, all "creative processes" manifest the same goal, eliminating the disequilibrium or dissonance which a person senses in his life.21 The three conclusions of Piaget which have the greatest significance for the tagmemicist are these: (1) our understanding of ourselves and our world is always subject to revision--we are continually adapting, synthesizing, maneuvering; (2) the activity the mind engages in during these "maneuverings" is, to some degree, accessible to us through inferences drawn from careful observation and experimentation; and (3) these activities/strategies of the mind are acquired through experience.22
Lee Odell writes:
The teacher's role in education is: 1) to help the student learn to recognize those experiences that create dissonance for him; 2) to help the student in his attempt to solve his problem by changing his world, his understanding of the world, or both.25
The Tagmemics matrix
presents a "heuristic" or discovery procedure intended to stimulate and tap that mental process at the center of human behavior. Six maxims towards that end:
* 1) We all view life in terms of repeatable units. Language provides a way of "unitizing" experience. Language is a "set of symbols that label recurring chunks of experience" (Tags)
* 2) People are also able to focus on these experiences as "chunks" in different ways, from different perspectives. Each repeatable unit can be seen as a part of a larger whole, as a unit in itself, or as a system made up of still smaller parts.
* 3) To be understood, a unit must be explained under three rubrics: its contrastive features, its range of variation, and its distribution in larger contexts.
* 4) Take the unit as a given and ask the perceiver to view it from three different perspectives: "as if it were static, or as if it were dynamic, or as if it were a network of relationships or part of a larger network" (p. 122). The unit is not to be looked upon as either a particle or a wave or a field, but can be seen as any of the three at any time.
* 5) If a writer is to be successful in his attempt to persuade, he must communicate in an emic way--that is, he must learn the perspective, manner of expression, et al. of his audience as it were from the inside, as a participant within a system. If he speaks or writes only in an etic fashion, clearly as an outsider, there is little chance of his success. Consequently, the writer must seek out these shared features and again the heuristic procedure defined by Maxims Three and Four provide an adequate means of identifying them.
* 6) Appropriate choice in composition is affected by several different factors, including the structure of the language to be employed, the personality of the writer and the peculiarities of the topic, the audience and the kind of discourse being attempted. Such factors comprise the writer's "universe of discourse," the context of his creative effort.
Meme: /meem/ [By analogy with "gene"] Richard Dawkins's term for an idea considered as a replicator, especially with the connotation that memes parasitise people into propagating them much as viruses do.
Memes can be considered the unit of cultural evolution. Ideas can evolve in a way analogous to biological evolution. Some ideas survive better than others; ideas can mutate through, for example, misunderstandings; and two ideas can recombine to produce a new idea involving elements of each parent idea.
The term is used especially in the phrase "meme complex" denoting a group of mutually supporting memes that form an organised belief system, such as a religion. However, "meme" is often misused to mean "meme complex".
Use of the term connotes acceptance of the idea that in humans (and presumably other tool- and language-using sophonts) cultural evolution by selection of adaptive ideas has become more important than biological evolution by selection of hereditary traits.
Links to other sites on the Web
Tagmemics (Tagmemes: Units-in-context)
Tagmemics and Composition
Planning and Invention
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