Contrarian Instincts # 1: MERCER, Words and Minds...

Book: Mercer, N. (2000). Words and Minds: How We Use Language to Think Together. Routledge. [Chapters 1-4]

First of all, I want to stress the fact that I enjoyed reading these first four chapters of the book, and it made me think a lot, which is usually a characteristic of a good book. I think this is a great introductory reading to start a reflection on language and on its use in dialogical settings. I really like the fact that the author presented a wide range of conversations, taken from a variety of real-life settings, and I enjoyed a lot the paragraphs on language and persuasion.

I tried to follow the author’s line of thought, but I came to the conclusion that I don’t agree with the main assumption of the book. In my view, “collective thinking” (p. 103) does not exist! While I may agree with a vision of “language as a tool for thinking”, I don’t agree with the idea of “language as a tool for thinking together”:

“Our use of language for thinking together, for collectively making sense of experience and solving problems.” (p. 1)

And:

“Language is a tool for carrying out joint intellectual activity” (p. 1)

Referring to the “solving the crosswords together” example, the author states:

“Using the tool of language, the three people together transform the given information into new understanding.” (p. 2)

It is important to note that the people in the example are using words to discuss about words, and language in this case is the meta-topic. I don’t see a sign of “new understanding”. It looks more like a sequence of words activating a mnemonic function. Shared information, not language, is the key to the solution of the problem. The power here is in the minds of the participants, in their ability to link ideas. The role of language, in this context, is to “translate” and “transfer” those ideas to the other people involved in the discussion. Language, in my view, is an iconic system, it’s the “money” with which you can buy and sell ideas, concepts, commands, desires, etc.
Language is the vehicle, not the agent, and if we agree with that, I think that we cannot agree with the thesis of book.

Another statement I strongly disagree with is that:

“Few, if any, major achievements in the arts, sciences or industry have been made by isolated individuals.” (p. 3)

I will quote just a few names: Dante, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Archimedes, Mozart, Edison, Tesla…

In more than one point in the book, it looks like the author is trying to “sell” us the idea that:

“Almost always, significant achievement depends on communication between creative people. (p. 3)

And you see this "selling" sensation emerging very clearly when he quotes the “literature of the Brontës” (p. 3) as an example of “creative collectives”. What about the 99.9% of the “non-collective” writers? He takes an exception and presents it as an example of a general rule.

On page 5 the author argues that:

“The act of communicating is always a joint, creative endeavour.” (p. 5)

On page 6 he states that:

“Language is designed for doing something much more interesting than transmitting information accurately from one brain to another: it allows the mental resources of individuals to combine in a collective, communicative intelligence”. (p. 6)

And on page 15 he insists:

“Language […] is not simply a system for transmitting information, it is a system for thinking collectively”. (p. 15)

I don’t think that language is a system for “thinking collectively”. And just like the term “interthinking” (p. 16), it sounds more like a catchy phrase…

I think that knowledge is an individual achievement that can be shared in a situated context, and it lives independently from the language. I use language when i want to communicate or share something. I also think that my “inner language” is different from the “external language”. I have to put my inner language in a "translator" to share it with other people. Therefore, if misunderstanding happens, it’s largely due to the non-perfect character of language and of this “translator”.

I may position my language, and my flow of thoughts, to welcome you into the discussion, still we are not thinking together. About the “dancing together” example: the fact is that we can dance with many partners, still, we are one dancer. Doing something together, in my opinion, is an extremely situated phenomenon and there is no such thing as “thinking together”. The author himself states that:

 ““context” is created anew in every interaction between a speaker and listener or writer and reader” (p. 21). 

And, by the way, I don't agree with the idea of a context that excludes the surrounding elements (p. 19 and p. 44), and I think that we should also consider “the inner context”, which may not be shared.

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Minor glitches: 

The year of death of Vygotsky is 1934, not 1933 (p. 10). On p. 65 the author quotes “elaborations”, as a technique used by teachers which was discussed before, but this is really the only instance in the whole text. I think that on p. 67 the author is talking of “Concordancers” (not “Concordances”), referring to a particular type of software. Last, but not least, I don’t like the way the author introduces “autistic disability” in the discourse, on page 103.

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On page 20 the author states that:

“According to systemic linguists, a text […] has its context of use defined when it is generated, and so carries the stamp of its intended function in its form.” (p. 20)

My question is: what if a text is created to be delivered in another place and/or time? 

Personally, I don’t like the term “Cumulative Talk” (p. 31). I see conversation, reading, listening, like a “clarifying” activity, not a cumulative one. It looks like the process  (for example, two friends sharing information) is confused with the “cumulative construction of knowledge”.

On page 102, the author, on the three kinds of talk discussed (“cumulative”, “disputational”, “exploratory”) affirms that:

“No system of categories could ever really do justice to the natural variety of language, and even short stretches of dialogue may have characteristics of more than one of each of these types of talk. But this categorization is nevertheless useful for making sense of the messy, category-defying reality of conversation.” (p. 102)

In my opinion, it is not a very useful categorization: either we find falsifiable categories fitting all kinds of linguistic interactions, or it’s just “an exercise of style”. This is even amplified by the following quotation reported by the author, that sounds like a very nice, euphemistic and justificatory way to say “I don't know”:

“Rupert Wegerif has elegantly expressed it: in exploratory talk, the instant, uncritical “yes” of cumulative talk and the instant, self-defensive “no” of disputational talk are both suspended.” (p. 102)

On the same page the author states that:

“We can use language to join our intellects in an uncritical, non-competitive and constructive way.” (p. 102)

Constructive and uncritical? I don’t think so… :-)