diachronic/synchronic axis |
Working Definition:
The point at which times in the past intersect with times in the present.
Disciplinary Definitions:
"Episodic memory does exactly what the other forms of memory do not and connot do—it enables the individual to mentally "travel back into her personal past." . . .
"Episodic memory has evolved from other forms of memory, and obeys the basic time relations of its constituent mileposts: The individual does something at Time 1 and remembers it at Time 2. But episodic memory differs from all others in that at Time 2, its time's arrow is not more an arrow, it loops back to Time 1"
Tulving, E. (1998). Neurocognitive Processes of Human Memory. (265)
"Synchrony and Diachrony. Although the term "synchrony" and "diachrony" entered conventional linguistic terminology only with F. de Saussure, they can be defined independently of the Saussurian theses. A linguistic phenomenon is said to be synchronic when all the elements and factors that it brings into play belong to one and same moment of one and the same language (that is, to a single language state). It is diachronic when it brings into play elements and factors belonging to different states of development of a single language." Ducrot, O., & Todorov, T. (1983). Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Sciences of Language. [emphais mine. I use this distinction analogously with respect to personal histories and worldviews.]
"diachronic/synchronic. (Gk 'through/across time' and 'together time') a term coined c.1913 by Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). A diachronic approach to the study of a language (or languages) involves an examinatin of its origins, development, history and change. In contrast, the synchronic approach entials the study of a lingistic system in a particular state, without reference to time. The importance of a synchronic approach to an understanding of language lies in the fact that for Saussure each sign has no properties other than the specific relational ones which define it within its own synchronic system." Cuddon, J. A. (1991). The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory.
Comments:
Following Ducrot and Todorov, I do not include "the Saussurian theses" in my working definition of the diachronic/synchronic axis. Saussure's emphasis on studying language as a synchronic system without linking it to its diachronic past, thus simplifying the nodes in the system turns a dynamic process into a static grid.
I argue (from a practical perspective) that our memories are organized (at least in part) in terms of relations between the past and present, that is, with respect to a diachronic/synchronic axis. In recalling our past histories, we follow a diachronic chain of events that is networked to a present point in time. For example, the thought of my wife can easily evoke the time when we first met. In other words, my understanding of my wife is networked in my personal history in a synchronic/diachronic matrix from which I can retreive various memories. The past, in this sense, has a paradigmatic relation to syntagmatic-synchronic moments in time—my past experiences involving my wife frame my present understanding of her.
This relationship has to be understood in terms of a distinction such as plot/story. A story (as a chronological narrative) can be told in segments that occur at different points in time. A reader typically understands the plot by locating each event in a story (chronological) sequence.
Notes
See Schacter, D. L., Wagner, A. D., & Buckner, R. L. (2000). Memory Systems of 1999. In E. Tulving & F. I. M. Craik (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Memory. Oxford: Oxford UP.
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last revised:
June 13, 2007
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