[xmca] Well's more manageable in small pieces

Tony:

Thank you for putting the breaks on and putting the article in more
digestible pieces. Initially, I would like to point out two interesting
excerts, " discursive mediation differs from tool mediation in that instead
of being brought to bear directly on the object of action, it takes the
form of a transaction between the human participants with respect to the
object of their action." Also in speaking about Engstrom's triangle Wells
writes, " in both cases (literature v. spoken and written text) the
intended outcome is of an "ideal" rather than a material kind (Cole, 1996),
and the action involves a transaction between participating subjects rather
than on a material object."

I take this to mean that Wells is trying to bring into light that when
people communicate in a goal oriented sense they may have the 'ideal' in
mind but in the material sense there is no representation of this 'ideal'.

Any comments before I go further?

eric

                                                                                                                               
                      Tony Whitson
                      <twhitson@UDel.E To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
                      du> cc:
                      Sent by: Subject: Re: [xmca] Some comments on Gordon's article
                      xmca-bounces@web
                      er.ucsd.edu
                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                               
                      09/29/2007 08:59
                      AM
                      Please respond
                      to "eXtended
                      Mind, Culture,
                      Activity"
                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                               

On Sat, 29 Sep 2007, David Kellogg wrote:

> ... Gordon Wells is trying to DEconstrue the word "discourse", to turn
it from a thing back into an activity.

I think there's a hazard here for discussing this particular article. In
most contexts, David's rendering would be fine; but in this particular
context, I think Gordon is pointedly arguing that discoursing should be
understood
NOT as an ACTIVITY, but as OPERATION (a distinction that has a
particular significance in CHAT).

I think it will be tricky to be careful about this kind of terminology in
discussing this article, but unnecessary confusion could result if we
don't try to observe such distinctions from the outset.
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Received on Mon Oct 1 09:06 PDT 2007