WHAT’S IN A NAME? PRINT AS A COMPLEX SYSTEM OF SIGNS

Like many parents, I was fascinated by how our children learned to write their names. The name, it seems, provides a particular challenge, motivation, mystique for the child: this is a bit of writing in which they are positively interested. So there is no lack of enthusiasm for writing it, no lack of energy, and boundlessly many opportunities. Names can be written by themselves, providing endless fascination, and in a society in which ownership, possession, is crucial, it is especially often written on something, with something, to show who did it, owns it, or who should be its owner.

In Figure 4.1 is a sequence which traces one child’s constant

practice, experimentation, and new shaping. It is clear to me that this is creative activity, transformation, and not, decidedly not, copying. There is no question of lack, error, of ‘not yet good enough’; the task is to understand, by retracing it, what principles the child has brought to bear, and are at work, what processes of analysis have been applied.

This sequence spans a period of just over one year, from November 1993 to December 1994 (from the age of 4 years to 5 years and 1 month). Emily’s writing of her name, over that period, represents, as I suggested in Chapter 3, her reading of her name. The changes recorded here are therefore the continuously new signs which she produces as a result of her transformative action in reading. Each reading, it seems, produces a slightly different analysis, which leads to new ways of writing her name. Each new way of writing represents the insights she gained from her preceding analysis, represents therefore a change in her knowledge. Of course, and this is crucial, these writings (as are the readings) are also the product of affect; her enthusiasm and

involvement is coded as much in her writing of her name, or of individual letters in it, as it is coded in the drawing ‘My birthday’ (Plate 4). And just as in her drawing of the camel (Figure 2.3) her excitement—‘A camel has that much humps’ she said, holding up four fingers, with her thumb tucked in—is coded in the exuberantly excessive number of humps, so it may well be that her affective interest is coded in the exuberantly excessive number of bars which characterize her early forms of the capital letter E. But, and this is an important ‘but’, the bars on the E are quite Figure 4.1 ‘Emily’

likely to code her interest in ‘numerosity’: an instance which might tell us that it is impossible to separate affect and cognition.

So let me begin with that. It is a question which preoccupies her for six months at least. The important point is: what has she ‘read’? Has she read something like There are many bars on the letter E, coming off from the longer line’, in the way in which in many counting systems still in use in the world there are three number terms: one, two, many? Has she been satisfied by representing ‘many’ as an accurate representation of reality—as would someone in the counting system with three terms? Or has she simply not been interested enough to be precise at this point, recognizing that there were many, but not fussed about accuracy— as when the police are asked to estimate the size of crowds at a rally or demonstration? Or is it an expression of exuberance, of affect—as when I say, ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes’ to a suggestion that is particularly pleasing to me?

It is impossible to know; but we do know that she never has fewer than three bars, she is precise about the fact that there are no fewer than three, so there is imprecision in one direction only. She clearly has a quite specific meaning. In the absence of certainty we can do two things: insist that there is a meaning (somewhere around ‘many’), which is supported by the fact that she never has fewer than three; and that that meaning represents her interest. Both force us to enquire further.

In the first three drawings of her name a number of issues seem to preoccupy her: (a) How many elements are there in my name? (b) What is their shape? (c) What is their spatial orientation? (d) What is their size? And (e) the issue of sequence of the elements, their order(ing)? The answer to the first question (a) is: either four or five. The answer to (b) will take much longer to be developed; in fact it has no answer in a real sense; it has an answer only in a conventional sense, namely that adults in the world around her will be satisfied at a certain point, not far removed from the form she produced in December 1994. In a real sense, she still has not stopped ‘experimenting’ now, a year on, even though adults around her may lose interest in that form of experimentation, which may seem ‘merely stylistic’. The issue of spatial orientation (c) (which way is ‘up’ for E, for instance?) is settled, for E as for the other letters, by the following month.

There is a point which arises here: what is it that makes spatial orientation easier to settle for the child, than the shape of the letters (‘How many bars on the E?’) or of other factors? Is it a simple matter? More obvious? Less open to experimentation, clearer to read in one way only? I have no answers, but I think that this

opens up very important general questions about writing, reading, perception, creativity, which apply much later on just as much as they do here, although perhaps not quite so visibly.

The fourth question, that of size (d), seems not to prove very problematic for the child. This is interesting in one way because even when she writes her name on unlined paper she is able to keep the size of the letters in approximately the right proportions to each other. The order of sequence of elements (e) is, similarly, not such a big problem, from the evidence here. It is solved by March, considerably earlier than the letter-shape, which is settled by May. I am somewhat puzzled by this: on the face of it it should be quite difficult to sort out such a relatively complex thing. (How long does it take you to remember another or a new identification number for one of your credit cards; have you ever managed to forget it, or to get the sequence mixed up?) Two possibilities suggest themselves to me; and both may in fact apply. One is that she remembers her name as a Gestalt, as a whole entity. The other is that she associates letters with sounds, and that she therefore matches letter-sequence to sound-sequence, matches the Gestalt of the letter-shape to the Gestalt of the sound-shape of her name. This speculation may provide us with a crucial clue about how a child can make an inroad into the connection between the visual shape of a letter, and the oral shape of a sound. The Gestalt of the sound-shape of her name, it may be, provides a mnemonic for the Gestalt of the letter-shape of her name.

So several questions are posed by the child and are answered quite quickly; with differing implications. Some questions remain, and new ones are opened up by the next sequence, the twice written name, in December 1993 (4). (The two shapes were drawn together, in the way shown here.) The two new questions opened up here are, a question (f) around directionality, and the question which seemed not an issue in November, (g) what exactly are the elements? In November the five letters of her name are established; in December the I is missing, replaced by a repeated E. The issue is not, obviously, about the number of letters, there are five here, but about what they are. Again we can speculate about the repeated letter. Is it aesthetic or affective considerations—either it looks good to finish this way; or, it gives a completed look; or, ‘I’ll have an E twice as it defines my name’ which led her to this? Sequence is settled, even if ‘wrongly’ at this stage: both forms have the same sequence.

The other new question is that of directionality: while the sequence of the letters was an issue in November—‘Is it Y E I M,M I E Y, or L I M Y E, or does it matter anyway, as long as I’ve got all

the elements here?’—now it is settled. The sequence is E M YI E, and it is written from left to right. Directionality stays as an issue for the next ten or eleven months, in one form or another. In the sequences from March until October, she decides to write from right to left. This decision is, in one sense, doubly surprising: having made the ‘right’ decision about directionality earlier, she then changes it; and as a left-handed writer (then as now, at the age of 6), it might seem easier, more ‘natural’, to write from left to right.

Again, it might be said that these are ‘accidents’. I find that a deeply unsatisfactory approach, for it tells us nothing; it actually prevents thought and analysis on our part, and prevents us from understanding the child’s intelligent activity, and her cognitive work. For another thing, it is an accident that befalls very many children in alphabetic cultures. That of course could be linked to ‘development’, either directly through a Piagetian account, of the ‘unfolding’ of cognitive/mental stages, or to other forms of mental development. Again, it tells us very little: it forecloses further inquiry. It is also the case that these are accidents, or developmental stages, not experienced by all children, even in alphabetic cultures.

The ‘accidental’ account, and I think the ‘developmental’ one also, are ruled implausible by several factors. One, the issue of directionality affects not only the whole block of letters, the letter Gestalt, it works more subtly. Second, directionality, sequence and linearity, which are all closely related phenomena, are treated as entirely discrete matters by this child. Together these should force us to think that one plausible explanation is that there are particular kinds of logic at work here, kinds of thinking which we may understand in part already, and others that we have no real idea about—yet.

To deal with directionality first. When Emily decides to move from a left-to-right writing direction to a right-to-left one as in the examples from March 1994, this affects not only the sequence of letters, it affects the individual letter-shapes as well. So the ‘flicks’ on the bottom of the i, and l, ‘should’ go to the right, if they were written ‘correctly’. But the principle she applies is clearly an overriding one here—‘one thing to the left, everything to the left’ might be the slogan, at this stage at least. This happens even when linearity is ignored, as in the first of the two examples from May 1994 (7). The direction is still right to left. In the example from October 1994 (10) she has made the decision to change directionality (though she still writes left-handedly), for letter- shapes and for letter-sequence. The ‘flicks’ on the l and the y now

go to the right, even though this is ‘wrong’ in the case of the y. By November, directionality is beginning to be settled; for both letter- shapes and letter-sequence (11). The ‘flicks’ go where they should, and the words are written from left to right. This clearly needs to be settled finally, as an issue for each instance, and so in the example from December 1994 the capital j is still pointing right (12). The second December example (13) convinces me that she now has this issue fully sorted out. Again, as in the example from May (7), linearity is ignored (because there was a painting of a candle on the right which blocks the space, a similar situation as happened in May, where there was a drawing to the left), but sequence and directionality is preserved: the writing-sequence is left to right for the By, for the first two letters of Emily, Em for the next two letters, il, underneath, and in an imagined continued sequence, for the last letter y. All the ‘flicks’ go in the right direction.

It may be that when she initially switches from the left-to-right to the right-to-left directionality that that happens because direction isn’t something that bothers her as a factor. If that is the case we know that when she changes back, to the ‘right’ order it is something that she has focused on. In either case, there are things to be recognized here, and understood.

My second point is about the separateness of linearity, sequence, and directionality. In the first March example (5), even if not in the December 1993 one (4), she has established the sequential order of the letters. And that sequence stays. The examples of May (7) and December (14) may suggest that this is not so; in fact they demonstrate that sequence is absolutely established, and not just as a specific concrete feature; it is now a cognitive fact. Both are written in the sequence E m i l y. In the May example she went below the line for i, l, and then, as there was no further space below that, above the initial E, m, to write the γ. And the same happened with the December example. ‘Sequence’ exists now, for her, as an abstract cognitive/ conceptual category: its ‘mere’ implementation on a page is, very nearly, an incidental matter.

My arguments about directionality are exactly the same. Right- to-left or left-to-right are established in the May and the December examples as abstract cognitive/conceptual categories; the fact that she has to start several times (three times in May, four times in December) in the direction she wants to go, simply illustrates how firmly and abstractly this is established.

There are issues of style that might be discussed: for instance, why does she put that ‘stick’ on her ms from October (10) on (a

fashion which persisted for another year!). These issues should be explained in the same terms as I have attempted here: ‘style’, in other words, is not an explanation. Is that stick a question of ‘affect’, another way for her to assert her identity?

But I want to conclude this section with two other comments. One is to point to the complexity of factors involved, most of which are generally overlooked, as are the questions that follow from them. Of course teachers will point out that the ‘hook’ on the l or y go in one direction or another; but that is not focused on as a highly significant, abstract, cognitive/conceptual matter. That approach leaves both the problem and the achievement unrecognized. The other point is to say that any explanation of this process which points towards notions such as copying, imitating—and its very many versions: ‘acquiring knowledge of the shapes’, ‘practising the shapes’, even some versions of ‘learning the letter-shapes’—is misunderstanding the intelligent actions of children in a deep way. The actions, the processes, the cognitive and affective work done here is deeply transformative, and creative. It represents each individual’s own path into the convention-laden system of lettered representation, shaped by the individual’s work with the already culturally formed stuff around them. It explains why reality may be so different for each individual even when the surface of their practice often looks the same.

DRAWING PRINT: A CHILD’S VIEW OF