[Xmca-l] Re: Sad news-- Jerry Bruner has died

[mike cole]

Hard to argue with the power of three's, Larry!
mike

On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 7:00 AM, Lplarry <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:

> David,
> This way of composing three (zones)
> The invisible zone, the transitional zone, and the visible or phenomenal
> zone creates a mental image that is very helpful.
> The transitional zone implies a medial position as a place where mediation
> and meaning (significance) as *potential* exists.
>
> Can this medial place be the place James Ma is elucidating using Peirce’s
> concept of (abduction) where hypothesis originate?
> I am way over my head hear, but find this response to James resonates and
> produces my wondering ways
>
> Sent from my Windows 10 phone
>
> From: David Kellogg
> Sent: June 17, 2016 3:37 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Sad news-- Jerry Bruner has died
>
> James:
>
> I think that Vygotsky's zone of proximal development can be seen as
> involving the transitional zone between the visible and the invisible, as
> you say. But the zone involves a transition from the invisible to the
> visible. Take for example a class I observed this week. Some Korean sixth
> graders are learning the ability to read fluently, by skipping over large
> blocks of text, perhaps only noticing the initial and final letter, forming
> a testable hypothesis about the letters in between, comparing with leading
> and following context and moving on where this is adequate. The teacher
> teaches this by giving an impossible task--the kids have to read a long
> text about playing music to vegetables--five or six pages long. They then
> stand up, one by one, and are given random passages with the sections
> blanked out.They have to read the passages aloud and fill in the missing
> blocks of text as best they can. When they fail, the teacher rings a bell
> and they must sit down, having lost points for their whole team. The kids
> are allowed to help each other (making hypotheses visible) but they are not
> allowed to check the book (what's in the book stays in the book). It is
> really the SAME reasoning as the functional method of dual stimulation, but
> reversed. The functional method of dual stimulation allows the child to
> INTERNALIZE the meaning making process by transferring it first from
> interpersonal modes of mediation (instructor led) to extramental modes
> (using signs) to "vraschevanie", or intro-volution. With the zone of
> proximal development, we are EXTERNALIZING it; we are making still immature
> functions visible by offering mediation, and with the functional method of
> dual stimulation we are making visible functions invisible.
>
> I can't understand the difference between "best explanation" and "final
> solution". It seems a distinction without a difference to me, like the
> difference between voting for Donald Trump and supporting him.
>
> I can't agree with the Barthesian inversion of Saussure's location of
> linguistics as part of semiotics. Semiotics and linguistics both deal with
> meaning. But semiotics includes types of meaning which are not linguistic.
> Can you think of any linguistic meaning which is not semiotic? I can't.
>
> David Kellogg
> Macquarie University
>
> On Mon, Jun 13, 2016 at 3:27 AM, Ma, James (james.ma@canterbury.ac.uk) <
> james.ma@canterbury.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > There are at least three points I’d like to make regarding the concept of
> > scaffolding:
> >
> >
> > First, scaffolding is an act of semiotic mediation. To some extent it
> > resembles Ruqaiya Hasan’s “visible mediation” – which is deliberate and
> of
> > which interactants are aware. James Wertsch coined the term “explicit
> > mediation”, in which stimuli involved are not only intentional and overt
> > but also non-transitory. However, the very essence of scaffolding is to
> > reduce and eventually diminish itself when a novice has achieved what is
> > expected of him, although it may reappear depending on the needs of the
> > novice. For me, this is where scaffolding differs from Vygotsky’s ZPD (of
> > course ZPD is used in more of a didactic, instructive context).
> >
> >
> > Second, through the prism of Peircean abduction, scaffolding can be seen
> > as involving inference to best explanations – which means the more
> > experienced social partner trying to work out how best to assist the
> > novice. Possible effective solutions are best in themselves but there is
> no
> > point in finding out a final solution – as Umberto Eco would say this is
> > “unlimited semiosis”, which means semiosis perpetuates itself in the
> > realisation of meaning potentials. If I were to theorise scaffolding
> based
> > on Peircean iconicity, scaffolding is imbued with iconic signs in all
> > semiotic forms – verbal, non-verbal, visual, gestural and auditory etc.
> >
> > Third, Roland Barthes in his “Elements of Semiology” (1967) inverted the
> > Saussurean classification of linguistics as part of semiotics. To me, the
> > Barthesian rearrangement of semiotics as part of linguistics offers a
> tour
> > d’horizon of the multimodality of communication and representation in
> > modern times. Language is thus in its most productive sense, encompassing
> > the entirety of semiotic resources – and this can, arguably, assist in
> > extending disciplinary boundaries and hence augment semiotic
> construction.
> > In the meantime, the word-forming potential of other modalities enriches
> > language as a linguistic modality because other modalities can all be
> cast
> > into words. For me, this is a dynamic two-way exchange (between
> linguistics
> > and semiotics) that deserves considered attention, if we are to further
> > explore scaffolding within the CHAT research paradigm.
> >
> >
> > James
> >
> >
> >
> > _____________________________________________
> > James Ma PhD MA BSc FHEA
> > https://canterbury.academia.edu/JamesMa
> >
> >
> > NEW PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLES
> >
> > Ma, J. (2016). Semiotising the student perception of learning outcomes in
> > British higher education. Social Semiotics. Taylor & Francis.
> > http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2016.1189234
> >
> > Ma, J. (forthcoming, March 2017). “Good packaging can be misleading”: A
> > semiotic analysis of intersubjectivity as theory of mind between mother
> and
> > child during shared reading. British Journal of Educational Psychology.
> > Wiley.
> >
> >
> > PUBLICATIONS IN T&F MOST READ COLLECTIONS OF 2015
> >
> >
> >
> http://explore.tandfonline.com/page/ah/most-read-2015/language-and-linguistics-25-most-read-2015
> >
> >
> >
> http://explore.tandfonline.com/content/ed/class-of-2015/educational-research-history-of-education-education-policy-leadership-2015
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> > on behalf of Lplarry <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> > Sent: 11 June 2016 16:06
> > To: Kindred, Jessica Dr.; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Sad news-- Jerry Bruner has died
> >
> > I have watched the video of Bruner describing the arc of his personal
> > development and noticed the centrality of the way hypothesis channel our
> > actions in the actual world. Bruner hypothesizes two dominate ways of
> > knowing (science and narrative) both of which generate hypothesis.
> >
> > Holding the reality that our hypothesis can both constrain and afford
> > human actions I want to mention James Ma’s exploration of Peirce’s notion
> > of *abduction* to elaborate Bruner’s relation between hypothesis and
> > actuality.
> > In James’s article in Mind, Culture, and Activity: (2014) vlome 21:4
> > (374-389) exploring the synergy of Peirce and Vygotsky he explores the
> > concept of abduction as central to hypothesis *generating* constraints
> and
> > affordances. (see page 380).
> > Here is a summary.
> >
> > Abduction is “the process of forming an explanatory hypothesis”.
> > The interpretation of signs (which is sign action) IS a *generative
> > process* resulting in sparking (meaning potentials) through semiotic
> action.
> > That is, the abductive process of hypothesis formation (cognition)
> > PROVides *space* for continuous representation of an object ( a Peircean
> > object is the formation of *true meaning*).
> > James hears echos of Baldwin’s *genetic logic* within this exploration of
> > hypothesis generation (abduction) as the process of sparking meaning
> > *potentials* that *awaken* or *emerge* into actuality.
> >
> > The other Peircean notion of *vagueness* or being *opaque* seems to be
> > implied in abduction.
> > For example Bruner’s notion of (scaffolding) when intuitively generated
> is
> > a vague, opaque hypothesis *travelling* toward becoming a clarified *true
> > meaning* (an object) which for Peirce was a continuous process of
> > generating (meaning potential) which enters actuality.
> > I read in this notion of abduction a central theme in Bruner’s video
> > podcast, and wanted to spark a dialogue with James Ma’s project to travel
> > towards *multimodal* cognition.
> > In particular word-image complimentarity.
> > James references Valsiner and Rosa with respect to the role of language
> in
> > cognition. They pointed out a contemporary *tendency of dependence* on
> > language as “the only way of dealing with *meaning and sense*
> > James is calling us to go deeper into multimodal processes that includes
> > language as a mode but extending this mode to include multimodal
> semiosis.
> >
> > This article sparks deep reflection on the centrality of meaning
> > *potential* as continuously generated.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Sent from my Windows 10 phone
> >
> > From: Kindred, Jessica Dr.
> > Sent: June 11, 2016 6:42 AM
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Sad news-- Jerry Bruner has died
> >
> > Glad I asked. I guess I see it's value as a corrective to the idea of
> > teaching as delivery.
> > ________________________________________
> > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu]
> > on behalf of David Kellogg [dkellogg60@gmail.com]
> > Sent: Friday, June 10, 2016 7:48 PM
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Sad news-- Jerry Bruner has died
> >
> > It's possible to interpret Professor Bruner's email as hubris on several
> > counts:
> >
> > a) It assumes that he was the first to use this metaphor. It's not clear
> to
> > me that this is the case--a number of people used it and Peter Langford
> and
> > Renee van der Veer have included Vygotsky in this number, although I have
> > not seen evidence of this at all.
> >
> > b) It assumes that it was a good label for the phenomenon he is
> describing.
> > This is not clear to me either, as it is a mechanical one, and suggests
> > that knowledge is something entirely external to the child or worse that
> > the child himself is the work in progress.
> >
> > c) It suggests that Bruner is a prophet to whom accurate, correct,
> > influential "intuitions" come out of the blue, his hand made strong by
> the
> > hand of the Almighty. This slights a lot of the painstaking work that
> > Bruner did; like Mike he came out of a rigorously behaviorist training,
> > which like Mike he had to transcend rather than simply (like most of us)
> > disdain without first mastering (I remember an early work of Bruner's in
> > which he defined development as "the lengthening of the distance between
> > the stimulus and the response").
> >
> > As I said, I don't interpret Professor Bruner's email in that way. Like
> > Rob, I found it helpful, but mostly because it emphasized the random,
> > aleatory, and not very well thought out quality of the metaphor.
> >
> > I think where we really disagree is on the nature of that metaphor--I
> don't
> > agree at all that it has been a useful tool for thinking about learning,
> > much less about development, and it has been a very blunt instrument for
> > thinking about the zone of proximal development.
> >
> > I made the point before that Vygotsky measures the ZPD in years, but
> nobody
> > else does. One important reason that nobody else does is that people have
> > assimilated the ZPD to scaffolding, which is manifestly (in Bruner, Woods
> > and Ross and also in Acts of Meaning) about an instantaneous assimilation
> > of a ready made solution.
> >
> > Over the last few weeks I have been translating the lecture on the Crisis
> > at Three from Vygotsky's lectures on pedology. Now, if you read the
> > material in Volume Five of the English Collected Works of LSV, you will
> be
> > very disappointed. Vygotsky begins the lecture with the statement that he
> > is going to examine the crisis from three points of view: neoformation,
> > line of development, and zone of proximal development. Then he says that
> > before he does any of these things, he wants to examine a good deal of
> > factual material (this is a typical move for Vygotsky--he never wants to
> > impose his categories on the material and instead prefers to allow them
> to
> > emerge from it, having given us some advance word of what to expect). The
> > editors of the Collected Works claim that the "factual material" is taken
> > from Elsa Kohler (one of the great unsung heroes of child development and
> > also gay rights, who lived openly with her lover in Nazi occupied
> Vienna).
> > On the face of it, though, it's just the "Seven Stars"--a folk theory in
> > Russia which corresponds to our folk theory of "terrible twos" and
> > "threenagers". And then the material ends, without any further mention of
> > the neoformation, the line of development or the ZPD.
> >
> > Without Galina Korotaeva, this would be the end of the story. But
> > Korotaeva's edition of the "Lektsii' po pedologii" has a lecture "The
> > Crisis at Three and the Crisis at Seven" which for all the world appears
> to
> > take up precisely where the material in the Collected Works left off
> > (Vygotsky begins by referring back to the "Seven Stars" and noting the
> > unkept promise!). In fact, this appearance is misleading: the lecture in
> > Korotaeva's edition dates from a year BEFORE the material in the CW. But
> it
> > seems very likely that Vygotsky gave this course ("Foundations of
> > Pedology") more than once in the last two years of his life, and so I
> think
> > we can nevertheless read this as an early version of the continuation of
> > the CW material. Here Vygotsky really does talk about the neoformation
> > ("hypobulia"), discuss lines of development (tantrums where the child
> > appears to act contrary to his own wishes, refusing to do things he
> > actually wants to do, and insisting on doing things that he doesn't
> really
> > care about or even dislikes). Then LSV says:
> >
> > Остается ответить на последний вопрос: что же делает это поведение
> ребенка
> > гипобулическим и выделяет от волевого поведения ребенка дошкольного
> > возраста? То противоречивое положение, которое сказывается в том, что
> > ребенок делает эти отношения другим мотивом своей деятельности, оторвано
> от
> > своих собственных желаний и фактически делает вопреки собственным
> желаниям.
> > Иначе говоря, получается парадоксальное явление, когда существенным
> > содержанием 3-летнего кризиса является дифференцировка воли от аффекта.
> >
> > "What remains is to reply to the last question: What does this hypobulic
> > behavior of the child offer, and what does it prefigure for the
> volitional
> > behavior of the child in preschool age? The contradictory position that
> > affects the child offers this different relative motive for his own
> > behavior, divorced from his own inclinations and facutally acting
> contrary
> > to his inclinations. In a word, what transpires is a paradoxical
> phenomenon
> > where the essential content of the crisis at three consists in the
> > differentiation of will from affect."
> >
> > What is the last question? I think it's the question he asks at the very
> > beginning of the material in the CW--what is the zone of proximal
> > development for the Crisis at Three? And here the answer is most clear:
> > it's the NEXT zone of development, that is, the actual zone of
> development
> > for the preschool years (ages 3-7), i.e. it's not and never has been
> > scaffolding.
> >
> > David Kellogg
> > Macquarie University
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Jun 11, 2016 at 7:12 AM, Kindred, Jessica Dr. <jkindred@cnr.edu>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > I am unclear about how the idea of hubris has come into this. Humility,
> > > okay. Metaphor, clearly. Temporary, yes, as in the literal meaning of
> > > scaffolding, so too its metaphorical extension. But enduring, clearly,
> > too,
> > > as a tool for thinking about learning.
> > > ________________________________________
> > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> ]
> > > on behalf of David Kellogg [dkellogg60@gmail.com]
> > > Sent: Thursday, June 9, 2016 6:08 PM
> > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Sad news-- Jerry Bruner has died
> > >
> > > I think one of the few advantages of being dead is that a critical
> > > evaluation of one's work as a complete narrative product then becomes
> > > possible. This is why I think the idea of a memorial issue for Jerome
> > > Bruner makes such great critical sense (and it's also why a memorial
> > issue
> > > for Ruqaiya Hasan, the anniversary of whose death is in two weeks time,
> > > makes sense). Bruner would have welcomed that, not in hubris but in
> > > humility.
> > >
> > > I have a rather different interpretation of the email that Rob Lake
> > > circulated: I thought it was a good example of Bruner's humility, not
> his
> > > hubris. "Scaffolding" was a highly influential metaphor--but I think
> that
> > > by saying that it was just a labeling intuition out of the blue Bruner
> > was
> > > emphasizing that it was a metaphor. Metaphors are misleading: they tell
> > us
> > > a good deal about the relationship between forces but they tell us
> > fictions
> > > about the nature of the force itself. So for example the "scaffolding"
> > that
> > > Bruner wanted to emphasize was temporary: it was something to be taken
> > > down. But in th einterpretation of "scaffolding" it has become
> > hypostatized
> > > and a permanent fixture of interaction. Worse, it has become identified
> > > with the ZPD, which it resembles not at all.
> > >
> > > I would say the same thing about his ideas of narrative. Bruner was
> prone
> > > to wild enthusiasms, and his enthusiasm for narrative as the very
> source
> > of
> > > self is one of these. Yes, I suppose the life of Bruner is now a
> > narrative.
> > > But from his point of view ,the really interesting part is what
> happened
> > > before it became one.
> > >
> > > David Kellogg
> > > Macquarie University
> > >
> > > On Fri, Jun 10, 2016 at 1:53 AM, Bella Kotik-Friedgut <
> > > bella.kotik@gmail.com
> > > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > I am now in Portugal at EVC 4 Vygotsky conference. I shared with the
> > > > audience my memories of J.Bruner's visit to Moscow. It was
>
>


-- 

It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an object
that creates history. Ernst Boesch