INTERIOR THINKING (EXPOSING AUDIENCES TO MINDS)

Dimension 1: First Person

Class 1: The Grammatical First Person The strings stereotypically associated with a mind on the page involve first-person (typically singular)

self-reference, the speaker or writer's use of I, me, my, or mine. Self-referential pronouns individuate a point of view from all the mentalities and objects outside of it. Although a writer may establish point of view in the absence of first person or self-referential pronouns, self-referential pronouns, singular or plural, are sufficient to indicate that a message has a point of view.

Nonetheless, first person pronouns are not by themselves sufficient to estab-lish a point of view that is personal or subjective. Impersonal and intersubjective technical reports can contain first person. A scientist or engineer can refer to him or herself (I or my or we) only to indicate that his or her individual consciousness is present. Consider the following:

101. I often use facts about Einstein’s laws in my work.

Writers can make first person self-reference without being visibly idiosyn-cratic, subjective, personal, or controversial. Moreover, even when writers never use it explicitly, the first person is arguably implicit in all writing. In her 1979 book White Album, Joan Didion observed that, from the start, “writing is the act of saying I, of imposing oneself upon other people.”

Some style manuals admonish writers never to use the singular first person I.

This admonishment is an example of prescriptive grammar with little descriptive foundation. Unless a writer makes a conscious practice to follow the prescription, or a publisher expressly forbids it, the first person singular pronoun is, we have found, ubiquitous across all types of writing. With external pressure, writers can avoid it, but to do so can cause its own awkwardness and infelicity. Compare the colloquial 102 against the more awkward 103:

102. I believe it’s the right thing to do.

103. The present writer believes it’s the right thing to do.

First person singular pronouns, in summary, individuate a mind without specifying it or imbuing it with historical particularity. For further specification and historical particularization of a self, other words must be recruited — some-times with the self-referential pronoun, somesome-times not — to particularize and specify an historical self. We now turn to various string classes furnishing such recruitments.

Class 2: Self-Disclosure One of the surest ways English particularizes a first person consciousness is to frame it within a simple past or future. The result is a first person consciousness that self-discloses.

104. I went to the store daily.

(simple past retrospective) 105. I’ll go to the store daily.

(future resolve)

The past tense went signals an individual that has historicized him- or herself.

The writer of 104 offers individuation as a way of particularization, framing a unique life from a reflective vantage. The future I’ll go (105) signals a resolve for future action. In contrast to a past or future that provides a particularizing histor-ical frame, the present generic (106) dampens the effect of particularization by moving from a unique mental act (e.g., retrospection or resolve) to a ritual that implicates the actor without revealing his or her inner mind.

106. I go to the store daily.

(present generic)

The present generic go signals a routine or habit in which the writer partici-pates. Example 106 provides a survey response to help a questioner understand classifications (e.g., shoppers), but not the expression of a unique historicized self.

Class 3: Autobiographical Reference Speakers and writers achieve auto-biographical particularization when their first person utterance resonates with a sense of historical continuity reflective of historical identity. We may think of the historical particularization of first person as autobiographical when it is accom-panied with a more habitual and continuous past verb phrase (I would often), a temporally displaced past reference (I used to), a more time-bound specific action (I used the Kodak flashbulb), or a time-bound recurring reference (during World War II, I used to go…).

Autobiographical strings combine self-referential pronouns and the perfect aspect (have, had) with past phrases like used to, or with continuous temporal adverbs like always.

107. I used to go to the story daily

(I don’t anymore. The practice is over.) 108. I had (always) gone to the story daily.

(I don’t anymore…something happened to change that practice but that event is not specified. Compare with string 109 ).

109. Before Jake died, I had (always) gone to the store daily.

(I don’t anymore…Jake’s death put an end to that).

110. I have (always) gone to the story daily.

(still do)

These various strings prime the impression of a speaker or writer tapping from autobiographical memory. A major difference across strings 107-110 as autobio-graphical reports is that the writer of 110, relying on the present perfect have, recalls a phase of life that continues through the present.

Refashioning simple self-reference into the particularity of an individual life can also be achieved when self-referential pronouns are combined with the future

tense. In this case, an historical life is not recalled but anticipated and personally willed. Consider by way of contrast:

111. I see you all the time.

(present generalization) 112. I’ll (get to) see you all the time.

(future contraction; expression of desire; autobiographical) 113. I will (get to) see you all the time.

(future; expression of desire; autobiographical) 114. I will (tend to) see you all the time.

(generalization of the present-in-future)

In 111, a present tense self-reference inhibits the perception of a subjective or historical self. The writer comments about bumping into the reader with a high frequency of occurrence while making no subjective commentary about this hap-penstance. In 112 and 113, the writer relies on the future to convey the private volition of a historical self. Note that in 114, a string that can overlap in surface form with 112 and 113, the writer projects a present generalization into the future.

The present generic “tend to” reduces the personal and willful sense of will into an impersonal statistical regularity. The effect of 114 for the reader thus repro-duces the effect of 111 but with future projection. Although a complex array of impressions, all of these various strings illustrate how tense specification can combine with self-reference to root particular, historical, and autobiographical selves on the page.