I have ethnographic and quantitative data from two other studies
with similar cohorts conducted in 3rd grade science and art
classes that I'd love to look at in such light (and that would
lend itself to this very nicely, I think) if I ever get the time
with the other work I'm involved in.... As you can see, I don'tt
have this completely thought out yet, so please indulge my use of
this forum as a quest for scaffolding. This discussion has
reawakened my interest in the many facets of prolepsis, so I
thought I'd take a chancer,
and take advantage of the expertise of the mca list members:
The inspiration for this proposed project, in part, is the
following quote. The way I see it, it relates to Stone,
Rommetveit, and others on prolepsis but goes on to add
another dimension that goes beyond mere awareness of
audience to provoking them as prolepsis does...
"At the very heart of the scholar's or artist's thought, even
the one most absorbed in his search, who seems most confined
to his own sphere and face to face with what is most "self"
and most personal there is present some strange anticipation of
the external reactions to be provoked by the work now in the
making . . . The effect of this presence can always be assumed,
without fear of error; but it may be combined so subtly with other
factors of the work, sometimes so well disguised, that it is
almost impossible to isolate it." (Paul Valery in Ghiselin, 1952).
Compare:
Prolepsis is a mechanism that explains how "communication
becomes a bridge spanning two personsU knowledge in that one
must construct the message of the other." (Reid & Stone, 1991)
It attempts to highlight, verbally or Nonverbally, the
communicational dynamics that assist children in adopting new
perspectives on the objects and events in their environment.
Bernstein pointed out that in reflex theory the objects of the
external world are considered signals for reactions that are
arbitrarily connected with them as stimuli.
And his idea of anticipation of future actions " emerging from the
fact that 'scripts' of movements seem to be prepared in advance "
has echoes in Rommetveit's notion of prolepsis as elaborated on by
Grice and Stone . . .
Rommetveit (1974) writes that the process of prolepsis actively engages
the listener in meaning-making. He argues (1974) that intersubjectivity
is advanced in proleptic situations. What people observe about their
experiences are "subjective phenomena resulting from selective
abstraction of empirical information" (Reid & Stone, 1991). These
observations then must be made sense of. This is done by making
inferences about how objects and events are related, by inferring what is
not observable, by going beyond the concrete data.
Speakers speak "as if their assumptions (context) are shared
by their listeners, and only later, as the interaction unfolds,
do they provide sufficient specification to allow the listeners
to infer the intended meaning." (Reid & Stone 1993 p.12)
A question, for example, has an assumed premise (Why are you sad?
assumes you are sad)
Creation of meaning, active knowledge construction is more
effective. This process is part of what drives appropriation.
Would it not follow, then , that a teacher who uses this notion of
anticipating the not-yet-actual might have higher achieving
students? What would the implication of this be for Jorge and
Forman's work that found students use more proleptic statements
than teachers?
>> Ellice Forman and I have conducted discourse analysis of
>>classroom interactions over the past three years, and a rather steady
>>finding is that the students, rather than the teacher, are the ones who
>>generate more frequently utterances that, according to Stone=D5s
>>perspective, would be considered proleptic.
Another knot:
Prolepsis, according to Stone, is similar to Grice's (1989)
concept of conversational implicature, consisting of those
implications conveyed "contextually" rather than "logically"
during speaking. (doesn't contextual conveyance also involve a
form of logic? this could lead us into another "abductive,
deductive, inductive" argument - but I think Gary may have his
hands full right now ;-) Grice (1989) points out that, on the
assumption that maxims are generally obeyed, apparent violations
of them serve to convey additional meaning that is not evident in
the utterance. Prolepsis can be seen as a special type of
conversational implicature in which the necessary context is
specified after the utterance. So maybe what I'm really looking
at is conversational implicature and not prolepsis If there is no
additional specification of context, is it prolepsis? Jorge wrote
in his response to Judy that the differences at the classroom level
become fuzzy - I agree. But does prolepsis have to be
obscure?
Perhaps we need to struggle with this more?
- Yet, it is still this same or similar element of anticipation
that characterizes prolepsis, thus it precedes (and possibly
prepares for) internalization. Perhaps this role - prolepsis as
catalyst - needs further exploration? And if this is so -- wouldn't
"prolepsis" also effect semiosis - wouldn't it "ppersuade
us," in a way, to interpret a sign in a certain way? After all,
our expectations often color what we "hear" or "see." I know --
that's another topic -- just can't resist all of these
intriguing tangents.)
Okay - let's try to get back on track here for one more thought...
With the learning process viewed as a dynamic, interpretive
exchange, the novice must be willing to take on the assumptions of
the expert (Vygotsky) suggesting that role relations (including
sex roles) are central to the communication process (Chodorow,
1978 in Gilligan, Ward & Taylor, 1988). Sex-role identity
mediates between cognitive functioning and social interaction
(Nash, 1979, in Wilkinson and Marrett, 1985). So, might it not be
a factor in prolepsis (type, frequency, etc.)?
If you've hung in this far, thanks -- and I do hope you didn't
find this too meandering ...
stephanie urso spina
spinast who-is-at hugse1.harvard.edu