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Malcolm Manning Eligible Member // Teacher
IDOCs » Use of Language : Levels of Abstraction
The starting point is a photograph of a diagram entitled "Levels of Abstraction" which conveys is something about the relationship of language to experience. I find myself returning to it again and again both implicitly as something to be aware of in my own teaching and explicitly as a tool to give to students. In the accompanying text, I will try to explain how to read the diagram. The diagram was introduced to me in a Body And Earth workshop by Caryn McHose and Andrea Olsen.
2012.06.09

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The diagram is easiest read from the bottom up.

...

WIGO is simply "what is going on"

Silent Felt Sense is how we experience what is going on in ourselves before the experience enters language, as sensation, feeling, movement and kinesthetic thinking.

The wiggly line is the boundary we cross into language - both linguistic thinking and verbal expression

The first layer is that of description - eg. the sun is shining

The second layer is that of evaluation, interpretation, judgement and attitude - eg. the sun is shining and I feel happy 

The third layer is that of generalisations and conclusions - eg. I am often happy when the sun shines

 …

What feels important to me is to recognise the fullness of the process from what is going on right up until any generalisation/conclusion. 

It feels to me like the foundation for the evaluative and generalisation layers is the descriptive and its base in lived experience. I sometimes notice a tendency in myself and in students to skip over some of the stages; literally, to jump to conclusions.

What I think this diagram helps with is to remember to connect my thoughts expressed through language with my felt sense of what is going on. To ground my thinking in the present moment, in my body.


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