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Dear Klaus,

Maybe language is failing us in this situation. You see aspects of my post
as beside the point. I'm glad that you were clear. Maybe I'm wrong, so
here's my quick summary.

In this thread, I believe that Terry notes design activity is central to the
discussion and later states that the activity can be carried out with or
without language. Lubomir sees conceptualizing as central to the discussion,
with language being a tool used to communicate that process. And if I've
read you correctly, in your reply to Lubomir, you view language as core to
conceptualization and relational activity as core to the concept of design.

You state: 
>the poets i know struggle with new metaphors to guide their articulations,
>considered by others as poetry. without acceptance by others, it may be
>considered uninspiring or gibberish -- regardless what caused it.

I agree with Terry that language as the keystone to design activity is
limiting, and I agree with Lubomir that language is sometimes a tool for
translation. I agree with you that language as conceptual and relational is
also sometimes core to the idea of design. But I also call the relational
aspect into question as you present it above. Having been rejected by his
peers, Van Gogh was no less brilliant.

You state that Terry, Lubomir, and I are looking for some kind of objective
certainty. I don't know what Terry and Lubomir are looking for, but what I'm
looking for is evidence that calls assumptions into question when those
assumptions don't seem to fit the evidence --which leads me to an objective
uncertainty about language.

That objective uncertainty extends to your example about the difficulties
students have with drawing when they can't name parts. I'm sure that you're
familiar with "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" and what happens for
those students when they quit trying to name any parts--they often become
proficient. 

Further, a few years back, I conducted a pilot study of struggling learners
and expert learners trying to master visual composition. This was a think
aloud protocol. The struggling learner could verbalize her design process
with ease, but she didn't have command over that process. The expert learner
constantly fell silent. In the activity of designing, the expert learner
struggled only when he tried to find words for what he was doing. Now this
is only an "n" of 2, and doesn't lead to objective certainty. But it does
make me question the pedestal on which language has been placed.
Categorizing creativity and all forms of organization as language seems to
me to potentially rob core aspects of design activity and design itself of
its sui generis nature.

I would argue that modality preference can be hypothesized not just as a
preferred way of receiving information, but also as a preferred way of
creating information. I'd like to see more work on this idea. On the one
hand, modality preference suggests that receiving information, the
relational process, can sometimes be accomplished without language. On the
other, creating information can sometimes be accomplished without language
as well.

Finally, you say:
> identification takes place in conversations, is relational, and when we
> discuss design we use language relationally, not cognitively.

Of course the discussion between stakeholder and designer is relational.
That part of the process often relies on language. Sometimes language is
most likely a tool for understanding another process, and at other times it
lies at the core of invention. But the stakeholder agrees with that
identifier only when the designer meets the stakeholder's needs. In meeting
those needs, design engages in a process that is cognitive and kinetic and
verbal and non-verbal. I'd compare it to the atom, which can be observed as
a wave and a particle. To call it only a wave, or most importantly a wave,
or to say that the particle aspect of the atom is really a vave, is to
undermine exploration. So, you are right, a person can call himself jesus
crist and it's just a name -- a tool for identification that won't be
accepted without some underlying, and perhaps unnamable competence.

I hope that we have some common ground.

Best wishes,

Susan


On 9/25/09 12:52 AM, "Klaus Krippendorff" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> dear susan,
> 
> i understand, i think, what you are objecting and i agree with you that
> there are other sensations besides what can be articulated in language.  but
> this is a bit besides the point.  you mention modality preferences and i
> presume you differentiate between preferences for language, touch, smell,
> etc.  these distinctions are not preferred but stated in language and
> investigated accordingly. modality preferences are explanations for why some
> people observe or respond differently according to the modalities we have
> distinguished.  modality preferences are explanation of phenomena that the
> observed subjects may not be aware of and able to articulate = have no
> access to without the researcher's language.
> 
> you mention that there are things we know without language.  my favorite
> example is face recognition.  it is difficult to describe someone's face to
> someone else so that the latter can pick the described face out of a mass of
> faces -- unless there is an outstanding feature, like an eye patch, green
> hair, or no nose. but after knowing jane and mary, we can distinguish
> between them by their face, not by asking for their name.  but note that
> here a  face helps us not to confuse jane with mary, which is not part of
> the face but of what we know about jane and mary.
> 
> a friend if mine is an art teacher who teaches drawing.  when students make
> mistakes or feel it doesn't capture the essence of a face they rarely can
> articulate why is this so.  my friend found that most mistakes are made
> where we do not words to describe it.  students can draw a nose, the eyes, a
> mouth, but what they have difficulties translating from what they see is,
> for example, the relationship between a nose and the cheek for which there
> are no words to describe it.  the point is that we see and distinguish the
> parts of faces through the words we have for them and become very uncertain
> where we don't have names for it.
> 
> but all these phenomena are besides the point we were discussing -- as i
> understand it.  design as an activity may rely on a lot of intuition,
> non-articulable senses, and what makes a good designers is not necessarily
> describable with some precision.  however, professional designers do
> identify themselves as designers to each other and to their stakeholders who
> in turn may affirm or deny their claim for the word designer to be
> acceptable in the ongoing conversation.  saying i am jesus crist, doesn't
> make me jesus crist, unless a lot of people treat me as jesus crist.
> identification takes place in conversations, is relational, and when we
> discuss design we use language relationally, not cognitively.
> 
> note that design is more abstract than, say, the shoes i am wearing, which
> is more abstract than the feeling of wearing them.  you feel that feeling
> but may not be clear about what it consists of until you can tell yourself
> or someone, that they are too short, not wide enough, or pressing on a
> particular part of your foot.  when we are talking of what designers do, how
> we define design, we don't just feel but argue, bounce opinions off each
> other, all of which takes place in conversations.
> 
> i think you, terry, and lubomir are looking for some kind of objective
> certainty, a language of ideally accurate representation.  i am looking for
> language as interaction that produces how we see each other, who we are
> consequentially, and that let us justify our designs to others whom we need
> to work with.
> 
> klaus