[Xmca-l] Re: Leontyev's activities

[Larry Purss]

Anti,
I have downloaded Annika's paper and will listen to how she weaves together
CHAT and frame analysis.
Two quick comments.
Greg asked about how we understand *agency* and if there are alternatives
to *sovereign possessive agency* that continue to confirm *agency* but a
less emphatic agency more receptive to emerging and participating within
conversations. He also asked if settings or contexts also exhibit *agency*
I believe this concept of agency has relevance.
2nd
Metaphors may not be merely *vehicles* to carry *sense*. Metaphors may
actually *be* ways of thinking [as modes, genres, tropes, or kinds].
Therefore Goffman's metaphor of *framing* biases us to modes of *seeing*
and *perceiving* what PREVIOUSLY FORMED and this framing guides our
anticipations going forward.

John Shorter is *turning* our attention away from *framing* [not as
misleading but as biased to understand as picturing]
He is suggesting there is another realm [what he calls a third realm] that
has remained invisible in plain sight.
He calls this realm *conversational realities* which he suggests is entered
through alternative metaphors AS *talking*.
The central metaphor of *voice* as distinct from the metaphor of *framing*.
Voice as metaphor moves to Bahktin and dialogue as emerging within micro
processes.  Mike cautions we are referring to different time scales.
Shorter is also calling our attention to what is hidden in plain view. When
talking we pay attention to processes of collaboration [Andy's 3 types]. I
find Shotter's turning our attention to this third realm [captured in the
metaphor of voice] adding a realm to Goffman's  metaphor of framing [as
previously FORMED frames]

If these two alternative metaphors are making distinct a difference then a
gap opens within which agency may enter as creative reflection.
Question 1 on agency I hope can be further elaborated
Larry




On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 7:32 AM, Antti Rajala <ajrajala@gmail.com> wrote:

> Lubomir, thanks for suggesting symbolic interactionism as a frame of
> incorporating these ideas. Anna-Maija Puroila discusses the legacies of
> Goffman in her dissertation (in Finnish) and mentions that there are many
> competing and contested interpretation's of Goffman's work. Some say that
> his work was structuralist but more often he is associated with symbolic
> interactionism, ethnomethodology, or phenomenological sociology. Where
> would activity theory fit in among these?
>
> To me Goffman's student's Goodwin's ethno-methdological approach seems
> partly compatible with CHAT. In his paper, Action and embodiment within
> situated human interaction (2000), Goodwin writes:
>
> "This emphasis on cognition as a public, social process embedded within an
> historically
> shaped material world is quite consistent with both Vygotskian perspectives
> and
> recent work in the social and anthropological study of scientific and
> workplace practice
> ..., but adds to such perspectives an equally strong focus on the details
> of language
> use and conversational organization."
>
> Like Goodwin, I believe that this attention to details of language use and
> conversational organization, and to embodied interactions, in particular,
> can enrich CHAT analyses. After all, in many classical CHAT work, we mainly
> see analyses of spoken interaction. Greg, to me Goodwin's work on
> professional vision gives an elaborate account on the relationships between
> meanings and sensory fabric. In particular, in my case of students in a
> bird-watching field trip the way he analyzes expert-novice interaction is
> very valuable. I can, for example, see lots of highlighting on the part of
> the bird expert.
>
> Goodwin's focus on the practices of seeing seems to me very compatible with
> Leontiev's theorizing of sensory fabric as constituting and being
> constituted of action. Yet, in Goodwin's work the socio-emotional issues
> brought in with the Leontiev's personal sense - in line with what Larry has
> written - seems to be given less attention in Goodwin. I wonder whether
> Goodwin's approach contradicts Leontiev's approach that emphasizes such
> internal issues as goals and motives. In my understanding
> ethnomethdologists do not usually focus on goals and such.
>
> The Gothenburg center lead by Roger Säljö has explored ethnomethodological
> inspired aspects of Goffman in relation to their version of sociocultural
> perspective. See e.g the dissertation of Annika Lantz-Andersson:
> https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/2077/19736/1/gupea_2077_19736_1.pdf
>
> Greg, Greeno has theorized the ways in which frames "create certain
> affordances that solicit various types of behavior (whether 'cognitive',
> 'emotional', or some other emically named type)." To my knowledge Greeno's
> work here focuses more on cognitive aspects and not that much on emotional
> aspects. He uses the notion of positioning in association with frames
> (which he relates to Goffman).  "This refers to ways in which an individual
> is
> entitled, expected, or perhaps obligated to participate in interactions of
> an activity system, such as a classroom or an experimental session
> involving interaction with a computer program." (see, A Theory Bite on
> Contextualizing, Framing, and Positioning: A Companion to Son and
> Goldstone, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07370000903014386)
>
> Greg wrote:
> "I might add to this that Goffman speaks of the way in which motivations
> are, to a certain extent, entailed by frames (yes, "to a certain extent" -
> this does not mean the frames determine them!). Thus, frames bring with
> them motivational relevancies as much as individuals do!"
>
> I wonder if this interplay between collective frames and individuals can be
> conceptualized with meaning and sense. Object of an activity is framed in
> terms of collectively shared meanings. Yet, each individual develops a
> personal relationship to the object, that is, a personal sense.
>
> By the way, thanks Mike for pointing out this overstatement of stability
> with respect to meanings. This has bothered me a lot, too. A colleague of
> mine even asserts that sense is never shared enough to become legitimately
> called a shared meaning in Vygotsky/Leontiev sense.
>
> Antti
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 3:01 AM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I agree, very clearly statements of the sense/meaning relation, along
> with
> > the Mandelshtam line, " I forgot the thought I wanted to say, and
> thought,
> > unembodied, returned to the hall of shadows."
> >
> > In the quote here, I think LSV is somewhat overstating the stability of
> > meaning across contexts; yes relative to the microgenetic processes of
> > sense making capturable with
> > modern technologies, but not totally "context independent." Even
> dictionary
> > meanings change, as LSV was well aware from his interest in the history
> of
> > words in relation to their appearance in children's vocabularies in
> > ontogeny.
> >
> > Keeping the simultaneous relevance of several time scales in mind in
> these
> > discussions seems really important, as hard as it is to do.
> > mike
> >
> >
> >
>