Re: recursivity

diane celia hodges (dchodges who-is-at interchg.ubc.ca)
Mon, 11 May 1998 10:43:31 -0700

At 6:25 PM 5/10/98, Dot Robbins wrote:

>3. Prolepsis: "when Rommetveit (1974) proposed the notion of prolepsis,
>he was thinking of a speaker who gives the hearer clues for the
>enlargement of common ground without spelling out every detail.
>Proleptic discourse therefore is aware of gaps in understanding and
>invites the less-competent into sharing with the more competent. Whereas
>ellipsis can be dismissive (or at best indifferent), prolepsis is always
>invitational and generous" (p. 182) (Leo van Lier, 1996. Interaction in
>the language curriculum: awareness, autonomy & authenticity. London:
>Longman). This description can be completed with the understanding Mike
>Cole gives to prolepsis, using the example of the child coming into the
>world, and how the child is received--via spoken communication from its
>parents or caregivers; as well, these examples fit very well with
>legitimate peripheral participation.
<snip>

> Within postmodernist
>society, where most everyone attempts to complete two or three things at
>the same time, it would be wonderful to recapture the essence of
>recursivity/reflexivity, prolepsis/prospectivity (together with
>retrospectivity, * Edward Reed. 1996. Encountering the world: toward an
>ecological psychology. New York-Oxford: Oxford University Press) within
>the ZPD-ZPA, and turn that metaphor into a revolutionary tool within
>education. Perhaps a convergence of Freire and Vygotsky. Best regards,
>Dot Robbins

how fascinating Dot - thank you so much - I admit I erred when I referred
to Arnold Gesell's notions of "recursivity"; he was in fact interested in
"recapitulation theory" - quite a different thing from recursivity.

what interests me is your remark about pomo-practices being an effort
to "complete two or three things at the same time;" rather than focussing on
"capturing the essence" of reflexivity/prolepsis as a revolutionary tool -

speaking as a pseudo-pomo mese'f; I think the idea of "two or three things
at the same time" is more of a political practice, where one recognizes the
inter-relationships of institutions, identities, and power relations
in contexts of oppression; orin literature & comparative literature, and
philosophy, the pomo-work address relationships between language and
identity, history and language, signs and signifiers/signified relations
amidst specific cultural practices -

what I understand about this work is a reach towards
interdisciplinary understandings, based on a belief that
no single discipline can possibly
respond to the complex relations of "reality" and "society" or "identity;"
if anything, I find pomos most suspicious of specialized knowledges
or disciplines, as it reflects typically structured boxes of
knowledge, stowed in various faculty-discourses and refusing to
communicate outside the discipline. Certainly the problem with pomo

(and here is why I'm only psuedo-pomo) is the incessant
drive towards more masturbatory reflection, and a kind
of trendiness with incomprehensible writing, so thoroughly
convoluted that it's little more than the "jizz."

If anything, prolepsis, as you describe it Dot,
allows an inclusion of time, which seems to
be an important dimension for cultivating more sophisticated understandings.

Especially interesting is the way this works within,
that we internally organize ourselves recursively,
and organize the world the same way -

I wonder how these cycles overlap - and intermingle,
how our internal imaginings intermingle with external projections -

one would need a *"SpiralGraph" kit to figure it all out!

diane

* an activity from my youth, anyone else remember? the kit included
several differently - sized platic disks which one used to create
circular designs on paper, complex concentric spirals...

"Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right." Ani Difranco
*********************************************
diane celia hodges
faculty of education, centre for the study of curriculum and
instruction,
university of british columbia
vancouver, bc canada

snailmail: 3519 Hull Street
Vancouver, BC, Canada V5N 4R8