The primary goal of this dissertation project is to investigate the relationship between the socialization of language and the socialization of morality. More particularly, this study takes a discourse-grammar and linguistic anthropology approach to investigating the interdependent relationship between (a) the cultural socialization of moral concepts and practices and (b) the language socialization of modality and abstract metaphors.
The cultural socialization part of this study begins with recent findings by neurological studies of the prefrontal cortex which indicate that there is a sensitive period for the development of social and moral development from around 10 to at least 15 years of age. These studies also indicate that the particular social and moral values and practices we develop depend on physical and social interaction with others in our community; this interaction can also be understood as a kind of fully embodied socialization process. The linguistic part of this study begins with less recent and much more meager findings by linguistic researchers that seem to indicate that the mature development of a "full" modal system occurs over time and with experience, and does not reach full maturity until at least the age of nine but probably well beyond the age of 12. Based on both the neurological and linguistic findings, this research project is guided by the hypothesis that there is in fact a direct and important synergy which is taking place between (a) the cultural socialization of moral values and practices; (b) the linguistic socialization of modality as a complex system of deontics, epistemics and conditionals; and (c) the cultural and linguistic socialization of abstract metaphors in order to integrate cognitive, behavioral and linguistic expressions of moral values and practices.
Subject ages for the study range from 11-14; activities include movement as well as speech. Data collection focuses on the videotaping of naturally occurring classroom and rehearsal activities. Video data will be digitized, transcribed and micro-analyzed for movement as well as speech. Linguistic analysis will examine what modal and metaphorical forms are used, how they are used together to form a highly complex semiotic system, and how the linguistic socialization of this modal system is related to the socialization of social and moral concepts and practices among members of the same community.
