Dear all,

First I want thank you all for your wonderful feed back and never the 
less encouraging response. Your reactions have moved me a bit further in 
bordering the scope of my research regarding to the relationship between 
language and design. I would like to rephrase my inquiry:

/I am looking for comparative studies between language and design as 
sign systems, focusing on aspects of universal "grammar" (a discrete 
combinatorial system) or the inner workings/ mechanisms that allow the 
production of acts of speech (say for example, a sentence/statement) 
within these systems./

The way I treat design in my work is along the lines of Suassure's 
Langue & Parole. Parole being an act of speech, Langue being the system 
which allows this act to become/ be produced. Meaning - we have the 
design (act) of the product (Parole) and the design (Langue) the system 
which allows the specific design act to take place.

In that regard the creation of design is being treated as the creation 
of syntagm, where a paradigm set is worked with certain rules or within 
code in order to produce a meaningful statement.

Also:

/I am looking for information (publications, projects etc.) dealing with 
Jakobson's model of communication in various disciplines of design.//
/
I'd appreciate knowing any leads (works, projects, researchers, papers, 
publication) on the subjects above that you might be aware of.

With kind regards,

+++
Yoad David Luxembourg

Designing the Intangible,
Design Metaphysics

www.yoad.info

On 2-6-2013 22:47, Klaus Krippendorff wrote:
> dear david,
>
> what i meant by abstraction from ordinary use of language goes back to what saussure did in conceiving linguistics as the science of a system of grammatical rules which is not polluted (my term) by the contingencies of actual language use, mainly because the latter tends to be context or situation specific. this was a move for the convenience of describing abstract generalizations at the expense of how language is used.
>
> chomsky and pinker have as you note rooted these abstractions, e.g. UG or L, in the biological makeup of human beings, as evidenced in the fact that children are predisposed to particular forms of articulations without having to learn them from their environment. this is not wrong but useless to understanding what humans do in language, for once, nobody has ever shown the cognitive mechanism in the brain that is supposed to account for the genetic predisposition, it is all abstracted from behavior. for another the bridge between UG, L and grammar is pretty far removed from your trying to link them to design.
>
> it is a mistake to maintain a strict dichotomy between abstract nativism and empirical pragmatism. evidence for the overwhelming presence of the latter in what we do is the existence of a multitude of languages,  some similar for historical reasons, others not, but all of them provide evidence of people to cope in their culture and with the rather different artifacts they design.
>
> i have no doubt that language, its grammatical structures and semantic interpretations (see benjamin whorf), but especially the language games, speech acts, and performed narratives (see wittgenstein, austin, and searle) say much about how we design (see krippendorff 2006, the semantic turn). but banking on the universalist claims of linguistic nativists seem to me a fruitlessly abstract undertaking.
>
> my suggestion is not to buy into that theory rather stay on the ground of practices of living, speaking and designing. sorry to be not more encouraging.
>
> klaus
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Luxembourg
> Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2013 7:00 PM
> To:[log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: the relationship between Design and language according to linguistic nativist perspective.
>
> Dear Klaus,
>
> Thank you for your email, I am not sure  whether to reply off list or on list, as I (due to my short period in the list) cannot judge the relevance of this subject to other readers.
>
> My research's starting point  in the work of Prof. Andy Dong. In my answer I will try to follow his terms and descriptions.
>
> " The cognitive capacity  for language (aka Linguistic competence ) remains one of the most contested theories  of human development. a key question is  whether language is innate in the sense of Universal Grammar (UG) shared by all humans, suggesting that UG is encoded genetically, or whether language is purely an empirically evolved
> (human) phenomenon. In the one camp are the so-called Linguistic Nativists, starting with Noam Chomsky and more recently Steven Pinker with his book The Language Instinct. In the other camp  are the empiricists , most forcefully argued by Geofrey Sampson and his response to Pinker's Book specifically and Nativism broadly, in his book The Language instinct debate." Dong (2009, p.175-6)
>
> This paragraph is the reasoning behind my choice of words.
>
> I do not understand your use of the verb 'to abstract' in your question.
> I am not sure I am the authority to decide or indicate what is ordinary linguistic practices are.
>
> I myself am more inclined towards Pinker concept of 'Mentalese' which suggest a strong link between the structure of language and the structure of thought.
>
> Josef Greenberg together (if i may use this term) with Roman Jakobson pioneered the field of Universal Linguistics and mass comparison of languages. I believe Greenberg's Universal Patterns can suggest, metaphorically speaking,  a thing or two about design.
>
> Through abductive reasoning I am working and creating a description of Design (or maybe better term is Design Competence) along the approach taken by Pinker. I am interested in putting the relationship between design and language into a serious debate by making a small first step.
>
> David
>
> source:
> Dong A.(2009) the language of design. Springer-verlag Ltd. London
>
> +++
> Yoad David Luxembourg
>
> Designing the intangible,
> Design Metaphysics
>
> On 1-6-2013 21:34, Klaus Krippendorff wrote:
>> joad,
>> i am not sure what you mean by nativist perspectives when you cite linguists who deliberately abstract from ordinary linguistic practices.
>> klaus
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Jun 1, 2013, at 2:09 PM, "Yoad David Luxembourg"<[log in to unmask]>  wrote:
>>
>>> Dear all
>>>
>>> As a part of my PhD investigations I am abductively constructing design according to nativist point of view of language/linguistics. This is done in order to examine the relationship between the human capacity of design and of language and open it for debate. My position is based substantially on Andy Dongs work - (2009) The Language of Design. Springer- Verlag Ltd., London. I am interested to know about any projects, articles and essays that connect between design and the works of Chomsky (UG, GG) Pinker (linguistic nativism - as argued in his book 'The Language Instinct') and the field of universal linguistics (pioneers by Josef Greenberg).
>>>
>>> I know this maybe tough to understand, I am having hard time trying to explain this project in the most short and concise method. If something remains unclear please mail me personally and I will try and elaborate on my work.
>>>
>>> Many thanks!
>>>
>>> David
>>>
>>>
>>> +++
>>> Yoad David Luxembourg
>>>
>>> Designing the Intangible,
>>> Design Metaphysics
>>>
>>> www.yoad.info
>>>
>>>
>>>
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