Page 191 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

168 Communication and Evolution of Society

definitions are called for. On the level of the personality system
we can delimit three structural dimensions from one another:
cognition, speech, and interaction. This means that the individual
develops structures and corresponding competences which make
possible (a) operations of thought, of cognitively processing ex-
periences, and of instrumental action; (b) the production of
phonetically and grammatically well-formed sentences; and (c)
interactions, as well as consensual regulation of action conflicts.
On the other hand, communication in language (and, in a differ-
ent way, strategic action as well) requires an integration of struc-
tures from more than one of these dimensions. For this reason,
the structures of utterances in language—going beyond the {nar-
rowly} linguistic—are not easy to analyze. The significance of
the medium of language is evident; in it individual and social
consciousness are combined.
On the level of the social system we can, if I am not mistaken,
specify distinctive elementary deep structures for productive
forces and for the forms of social integration. Forces of produc-
tion incorporate technical and organizational knowledge, which
can be analyzed in terms of cognitive structures. The institutional
framework and the mechanisms for conflict regulation incorporate
practical knowledge, which can be analyzed in terms of structures
of interaction and forms of moral consciousness. World views,
by contrast, are highly complex formations that are determined
by cognitive, linguistic, and moral-practical forms of conscious-
ness; the composition and the interplay of the structures is not
fixed once and for all.
The attempts at rational reconstruction have hitherto flourished
primarily in areas in which elementary deep structures are easier
to isolate: in linguistics, that is, in phonetic and syntactic theory;
in anthropology, insofar as it is concerned with primitive kinship
systems (mythological world views are accessible to structuralist
analysis to the degree that they are still enmeshed with structures
of interaction); ‘? and finally, it is also fruitful in psychology,
insofar as it is concerned (in the Piagetian tradition of research)
with the ontogenesis of thought and of moral consciousness.”
Attempts at reconstruction have been less successful in areas in
which several structures work together: this can be seen in prag-