[5.2.3]

Community Archives

Archives are essentially archeological bits and pieces collected from among the pool of cultural records. Written documents of a town were at one time deposited in the Arc which stood at the gates, hence the Arch-hives (! ?) of Town Hall. (--some of this taken from Webster's). The trouble with records is the re-; that is, the re-experiencing while processing a record-segment (e.g., reading a letter, thinking about a movie) is not the same of course as the experiencing. Everyone would admit to that. But how many know that the difference can be specified as follows:

This chart depicts the following propositions:

(1) A situation (A1) is the occasion for some experiencing, say something is being noticed (e.g., a car, a stomach ache; a contradiction); this is depicted by t1;

(2) At some later point in time, t2, (either 1/4 of a second or years), another situation, A2, related for any number of reasons to A1, is the occasion for presenting a record of the experiences in A1;

(3) A1 and A2 can be said to be in the propositional relation marked in the chart as t3; this has two aspects as marked by t3.1 and t3.2;

(4) t3.1 is the psychophysical dimension that comprises neurosemantics and psychosemantics, i.e., cultural practices in the conditioning of emotions to social stimuli and which function as particular community practices in socialization and assimiliation (see ETHNICITY in Index); (for "neurosemantics," see Vol. 3 Series I, CCP, J. & G., 1975-77 which deals with the neurolinguisitics of individual variation); (for "psychosemantics," see Chapter 5, Section [5.3.4] which describes a project for the study of our day-to-day relationship to our body (food, exercise, sleep, aches, etc.)

(5) t3.2 is the reciprocal relationship to t3.1 and is symbolic (informational).

To summarize the above, we can say that the record of experience has a propostional relation to the experience, one aspect of which is neurophysiological, the other symbolic. The neurophysiological aspect involves acculturation practices, while the symbolic aspect involves communication.

In the light of this discussion on the chapter of records, the sociocultural features of archives are easier to glean. That is, archives are indexed collections of records; there is thus a propositional relation between events in a community and its archival collections which may be written, taped, cast, memorized, etc.

Songs, poems, children stories, dramatized narratives, prayers are examples of oral archives available in memorizations and practiced rehearsals or performative presentations to an actual or imagined audience. Legal documents, libraries, computer tapes, T.V. tapes, personal letters, blueprints, etc., are inspectable archives (semi-permanent recording). Thoughts, memories, knowledge, intuitions, inclinations, preferences, and other forms of declaration are fleeting records and are only partially available for archival collections! Instead, secondary or interpretive records serve to reconstruct the fleeting records themselves, thus:

In the preceding, "prorecord" is a term we have coined to designate the functional relation between strictly private mental events and their translation into an interpersonal, referential and conventionalized code (linguistic, mathematical, logical, musical, choreographic, phonetic, situational, and so on, see REGISTER MODALITIES, in Concordance Index); "Record" is a term we all know, and "Mores" designates the permative modality of customs, styles, managed appearances, practiced rehearsals, unconscious habits, and so on.

Prorecord, record, and mores are sociopsychological operations or processes; PRORECORD operates within a neurosemantic medium or space (neurophysiology); RECORD operates within an ecological medium (see: eco-systems; eco-nomics; eco-logical-psychology; futuristics); and MORES operates within a performative medium. Thus, the study of archival records encompasses three sociocultural manifolds. These media have their own structural and morphological characteristics. Neurosemantic facts are obtainable through experimental observations (see Chapter 4, [4.2.3.2].) Ecological facts are obtainable through survey techiniques (see Chapter 2). Performative facts are available through notation systems (see NOTATION SYSTEMS in Concordance Index). For further study of these issues consult CHARTS T/1, T/3, T/6, T/7, T/9, and T/20 in Chapter 10)

Theoretically, there are three modalities to the topogram [ARCHIVES]

The first of these, the modality of SUDDEN MEMORY, is racial and transpersonal. It is mentioned by others through such references as the Aikashic Record (Roberts, 1974, 1976; Rampa, 1963), 11super-0onsciousness, 11 Jungian "archetypes," Krishna, and so on. In the poetic voice, such psychothematic studies as Poet Robert Grave's The White Goddess, and Historian of Ideas Lovejoy's Essays in the History of Ideas, are more traditional and literate versions in Western Civilization. In the East, Guru Yogananda's informative Autobiography (1975) provides common everyday documentation of it. Similar versions abound historically as well as in contemporary society (see the local case history report on one of these by student in ethnosemantics, Jackie Litman, 1976). In scientific psychology, famed Neurophysiologist W. R. Sperry has investigated it from the point of view of brain activity and his research appears to be leading to a paradigm switch in that area (see American Psychologist, (November) 1977, 33).

In our own work on the social psychology of community cataloguing and indexing practices, the notation system appropriate for the investigation of SUDDEN MEMORY appears to be the PRORECORD. This involves TOPIC FOCUS processes that generate information data that are then organized and prepared for display or presentation in socialized, interpersonal discourse (=ORTHOGRAPHS). Thus, through an orientational positioning in a setting (=TOPIC FOCUS), the individual prepares for (or, has a "set," "disposition," "habit," etc.) the social activity of

discourse. Varying degrees of preparation correspond to degrees of involvement in a situation. At the minimum level of involvement in an occasion (e. g., sleep or drowsiness), the individual's TOPIC FOCUS is in a habituated neuronal state and reactivity to environmental changes is reduced. In high states of neuronal excitability, the individual's TOPIC FOCUS is potentiated. The minimal state we call semantic satiation while the potentiated state we refer to as semantic generation (For further details on these neurosemantic principles and their function in the account of individual variation and personality, see Vol. 3, Series I, Experiments in Neurosemantics; and Part I, in Vol. 2, Series VI, Collected Works: James, 1958-1978. Background information on "neurolinguistics" will be found in A. R. Luria's work summarized in the November 1977 (Vol. 33) issue of the American Psychologist. As well, the work of famed Experimental Psychologist C. E. Osgood in his classic article on Hullian S-R theory of cognitive processes (Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 1957; more recently, in Steinberg and James, 1971). Finally, the work of super-famous Neurophysiological Psychologist D. 0. Hebb on neuronal cell assemblies and pattern recognition in man and chimpanzees shows the character of particular theories of the notation system we have called PRORECORD (Hebb, 1966; 1949).

It is clear to all concerned, both in and out of the academic and. scientific sub-cultures that the designation person (or "human individual") entails a mechanical neurophysiology as the medium of keeping track of information, i.e., of forming the sensory and social reality of individuals. This is basic as well as universal, hence racial and ethnogenetic (see Appendix for a discussion of the "Genetics of Intellect"). What is less clear is the approach needed to investigate this ethnogenetic process of cultural transmission. Note that the prorecord notation system for cognitive processes is prior to encoding into ORTHOGRAPHIC discourse (discourse thinking,

microdescriptions); hence, the prorecord is pre-topical. The pre-topical includes orientation, topic focus, and phase sequences --these being. neurosemantic components of the ethnosemantic distinctions given in assimilation, membership belonging, style, ethnicity; or the psychosemantic distinctions given in set, pre-disposition, preference, saliency, sensitivity, adjustment, level of adaptation, normalcy, routines, and so on. In the hexagrammatic notation system of ESNOSYS (James and Gordon, 1975-77), the pre-topical trigrammatic component or light trigram (see Appendix) corresponds one empirical proposal for the study of the prorecord. Enculturation, socialization, and assimilation are the ethnodynamic processes that give coherence to community as sociocultural environment. Thus, the study of the first modality of ARCHIVES, namely the prorecord notation system, yields the neurosemantic genetics of ethnicity --viz. the functional coinage of cultural transmission and heredity.

The second modality of ARCHIVES, namely ORTHOGRAPHY, occurs within the medium of ethnosemantics. It allows or empowers, or engenders, or gives rise to, or occasions--these are mechanisms of relation (or "causation") called ethnodynamics--the sociocultural process of literacy (see the social psychology of knowledge in Chapter 6). Thus, units of literacy called ORTHOGRAPHS, function in the community as standard displays or signals about social occasions. For instance, discourse is made up of molecular units called phrases and sentences, which in turn are made up of atomic units called words, which in turn are made up of sub-atomic units called morphemes, and these in turn give us topomorph the latter are ethnosemantic theoretical structures that account for meaning and organized information. The following diagram depicts the levels of functional analysis of ORTHOGRAPHS:

Let us consider a concrete illustration. If you inspect CHART R/9 (in Chapter 10), you will find samples of ORTHOGRAPHS shown in square brackets. Note that the different "PARTS" of the CHART involve a particular kind of setting or graphic environment: for example, a type of ORTHOGRAPH called a (book) chapter opener (PART E(i)), or an opener to an overlay comment to the self in interior dialogue (PART A). These TITLES for situational occasions designate phenomena at the Informational Level in the diagram above. This is the level of social psychology and concerns the study of cultural units of information, i.e., cognitive ethnodynamics. In simpler terms, what leads to what, where, when, and how. These spell out the functional values of the community, namely, ATTRIBUTION (what leads to what), ASSESSMENT (where and when), and JUDGMENT (how). We call this morphotopical trigram the PSYCHODYNAMIC MODALITY OF ORTHOGRAPHS. . This can be seen more fully by looking at PART C of CHART T/2 (also in Chapter 10). You can see that what is known as psychodynamics involves the study of "perception," "recognition," "evaluation," and "transaction." Thus, these are the study components of what we have called "cognitive ethnodynamics," i.e., the social psychology of information units in the community. These units are -dynamic in the sense that they function as motivators, rewards, sanctions, and reinforcers; they are ethno- in the sense that the logic of their valuation is community derived from a local ethnography), and hence define the limits of literacy. For example, science, education and popular literature are channels of expression and communication; "literacy" refers to the catalogued units of information that index their content. The community habitually makes use of discourse engineering products that catalogue the units that count (hence, economics): dictionary, index, glossary, library, archaeology, archives -- these are some common applications showing the pervasiveness of the principle of cognitive ethno-dynamics.

Note (Part C) that ethnodynamics involves the study of "standards" or "norms" and their TITLES by reference to (situational) "meaning," i.e., what is it about (TOPIC); what is its background (FRAME); when is it used (TITLED IMPLICATION or "behavioral consequences").

Thus, to summarize the above, we can say that the second modality of ARCHIVES occurs in the medium of ORTHOGRAPHS whose functional valuations are assigned according to two, independent systems of economics. One, psychodynamics, is pre-topical (I. e., it is "automatic," unaware, habitual); the second, ethnodynamics, is topical. Psychodynamics comprises ATTRIBUTION, ASSESSMENT, and JUDGMENT processes. Ethnodynamics comprises the processes of implication, pre- supposition, and meaning. The latter pertains to situation, the former to occasion. Social psychology is the study of social occasions, hence, it involves the study of psychodynamic processes such as perception and -recognition (ATTRIBUTION), reaction and evaluation (ASSESSMENT), and assertion or move (JUDGMENT). These psychodynamic processes correspond to the acculturation paradigm of ENCULTURATION, SOCIALIZATION, and ASSIMILATION, respectively. Methods in social psychology are given by the study of ARCHIVES. The analysis of archives requires ethnosemantic principles in as much as informational records in any community involves ethnodynamics, that is, the economics of situations-IMPLICATURE, PRESUPPOSITION, MEANING.

The third modality of ARCHIVES is biographical and operates within the medium of consciousness. The method of investigation suitable here is what we call discourse thinking reports. These are a sub-type of microdescriptions in the functional analysis of daily round data. They are operationally produced by engaging the imagination. This is a topic focus, neurosemantic process involving situational orientation habits and routines. Others have treated of this subject under such topics as "inner speech, "inner dialogue," "soliloquy," "talking to one self," "rehearsing in memory," "private speech," "thinking," and so on.

Discourse thinking reports form the constituents of what we call biographic record. This refers to the dramatization of one's conscious awarenesses, or more [simply, the dramatized narrative of one's life episodes. Oral and written channels are available for the expression of discourse thinking reports. One can talk into a tape recorder sequences of one's focus of attention, awareness, consciousness. Or, one can write one's "thoughts" down. In both cases one can distinguish between spontaneous and inauthentic enactments. Spontaneous discourse thinking reports, either oral or written, constitute the biographical record of an individual. Inauthentic discourse thinking reports are managed by frame control; that is, through subterfuge or managed ignorance, one participant knows more about the occasion than the others, and thus is in a position of unequal power for the management of impressions and appearances. This control over the occurrence of phenomena is typical in situational frame-control.

It follows from the above that any social occasion may be managed in unnoticed ways, which is tantamount to saying that noticings about any social occasion are ultimately both managed and partial. Frame-control is an open-embedded series! --see Goffman, 1974).

Biographic record is, thus, the conscious life of a socialized individual. Its perimeter implicates the laws of psychomechanics (see Guillaume, 1964; Gordon, 1976), i. e., the unavoidable dramas of our run-ins on the daily round (see, for example, "Why Can’t They do It Another Way," Chapter 5, Section [5.2.1.2]). Psycholinguist G. Guillaume developed syntactical methods of analysis of linguistic expressions such as to show their psycho-semantic function. He called this method "psychomechanics" to reflect the formal character of natural discourse thinking units. By formal, he was referring to the exact informational field within which the semantic quanta were operating. This "psycho–systematic" system was universal and therefore neurophysiologically grounded. Some current work in linguistics is emerging around this zone of topic (see our discussion of controversial and popular Linguist Charles Fillmore (CHARTS T/7, T/8, and T/11, in Chapter 10). The works of psycholinguist Guillaume, sociologist Goffman, and linguist Fillmore are bringing us nearer to a sociopsycholinguistic technology that will enable us to make advances in psychohistory and in our understanding of consciousness. (For more on the empirical investigation of biographic record and consciousness, see Series I, Vol. 2, in CCP, J. & G., 1975-77. See also super-modern novelist John Barth, 1968, for the further documentation of spontaneous reporting of discourse thinking enactments.)