MEAD AND THE INEFFABLE*

Recent phenomenologically influenced sociology addresses, in part, the role of language in human activity and calls into question the capacity of language to fully objectify social processes. In this retrospective light the relation of language and experience presented in George Herbert Mead's Mind, Self and Society becomes increasingly problematic. In addition Mead's reference to meaning as an objective phenomenon and his conception of the "generalized other " bear re-examination. This paper has a rather limited and circumscribed goal-to render explicit Mead's treatment of language and meaning in Mind, Self and Society and to briefly discuss some of the difficulties inherent in this aspect of his work. Of particular concern is the possibility that Mead may have understressed the precategorical dimension 1 of human behavior and, consequently, despite some reference to unconsciously generated actions of human beings, placed a perhaps excessive emphasis upon rational and conscious activity. This discussion, however, does not take place in a vacuum apart from recent sociological concerns. Currently, for instance, ethnomethodology has explicitly focused on the taken-for-granted "background expectancies " or "interpretive procedures " which underlie and make possible a sense of social order. Central to this perspective is the idea that the fit between social norms ("surface rules") and situational action is "managed " through tacit reliance on interpretive procedures ("basic " or "deep structure " rules). As a consequence the relationship of widely shared norms and values *This paper has benefited from comments by] onathan Goldberg, ] ay Corzine and anonymous MARS referees. 1