Jim wrote:
>So I guess I'm wondering, if for you, activity subsumes language, to what
>extent, for me, can linguistics, or better semiotics, subsume activity?
Jim, How can semiotics subsume what Jay referred to last winter or
spring as the not-yet-semiotic? Are you supposing that the
not-yet-semiotic can be systematized in some way?
Also, David referred to " the messiness
>of interacitons with tools. It assumes that the potential in the moment or
>in the future is never a matter of choosing from a finite pool of meaning
>potential.
Jim, would you consider the meanings that CAN be made within a context of
situation to be of some "finite", some determinate, range....? or
(anyone with math background) would a theory of probabilities (which
is what I take "meaning potential" to be about) preclude the problem of
finite-ness?
*
David wrote:
>
>So, as you say, one issue for theory building is
>>how to represent the new in relation to the old...
--- >That relation, it seems to me, is historical, but a history that involves >very complex social interactions and cannot be read off texts alone....--- >It would be difficult to locate the where and when, the genesis, of the >"idea" (field choice) (appropriation) of using sexually explicit material >in eye-level bus adverts, among all this tenor of meetings taken and >reports exchanged, and so on, this array of genres written and otherwise, >this complex of large and intersecting networks of activity and the >conflicts and contradictions and exertings of power within among them over >whether or not to appropriate the material for the bus ad.David, What, in all this tenor, counts as activity, not text, as Jim defined text (instantiation of some semiotic system)? As I understand the above, you are referring to the relations among texts -- the historical relations linking texts to one another. Is that what activity theory subsumes, the relevant intertextual field, historicized? (I assume that there is not, in that "array of genres written and otherwise" events that cannot be factored into the making of meaning. Or is there...?)
As you two have clarified your positions relative to one another, I've gotten more clear about my confusions.
Thanks for your help. - Judy
.................... Judy Diamondstone diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu Graduate School of Education Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey 10 Seminary Place New Brunswick, NJ 08903
Eternity is in love with the productions of time. - W. Blake