[Xmca-l] Cultural-Historical Theory vs Cultural-Historical Activity Theory [was Re: CHT vs. CHAT]

Thu Dec 10 21:02:10 PST 2020

Hi Francine (and venerable others),

In a sense this is raising the specter of naming that is vociferously debated about the theories springing from Vygotsky's mind like Athena from Zeus.

"You say A Theory, I say Athena, let's call the whole thing off!"

Yes, what is in a word?

I do not disagree with you about Vygostky's use of the word for understanding what he was trying to understand.

There is a great paper by Holbrook Mahn (UNM) that discusses word-meaning and that the very critical difference is the difference between "unit OF analysis" and "unit FOR analysis". I don't have it at my fingertips but if you press me I can look for it.

I think th ways in which analytical units are referred is a very important distinction in our discussions.

For now and for brevity of typing I'll write UOA vs UFA respectively.

UOA can be anything, which means the unit employed is not necessarily connected to the specific to the general. It can mask an unintended bias. The UFO is more precise because it is specifically a unit that connects to the specific and the general, and by its very existence connects the specific to the general.

I reference the discussion of the water molecule metaphor (not the light on the water, but one about oxygen and hydrogen, do you know the one I mean?), but I cannot recall where in his work I saw him use it. I thought it was in Ch 6 Scientific Concepts in Childhood, but I could not locate it. Maybe others can remember. But it was something like if one can understand the behavior of the water molecule (the unit) one can understand the behavior of oceans (general), but the water molecule can also help to understand the nature of hydrogen and oxygen (the specific), and why combined are not flammable.

Call out to the peanut gallery: Did I get that right?

Based upon the quote you shared, "Consciousness is reflected in the word like sunlight in a drop of water", in reference to my distinctions between UOA and UFA, if the inquiry is to understand consciousness, Vygotsky shows us one must employ the word as the UFA because the word crowns the manifestation of meaning in the mind. If the child does not utter the word, the meaning can't be there, or rather the awareness of the meaning cannot be there. Right?

So to understand the development of higher mental functions it makes sense to use the word as the UFA, because the word, as a unit, ties the specific to the general. In this sense I presume it would be *meaning* [specific] connected to *the word* connected to *awareness* (consciousness) [general].

If one can study the use of the word in the child, one can therefore understand both directions of the specific to the general, meaning for the child and consciousness of the child.

It is quite beautiful and elegant. Though perhaps I have been too simplistic in my explanation about it.

Without meaning to fire up any longstanding controversies (really, I don't wish to do that), my sense is that Leontiev contended that the only unit worth its salt to employ was activity and only activity, which makes a lot of sense in Stalinist Russia. This is not to say that it is not valid. I am not saying that at all. It is a worthy approach to lead an inquiry. But I think it is too much to say it is the ONLY unit for analysis.

If I am a mechanic, I would want a box of tools not just one. If I am working on a car, in one instance I might need a wrench, in another a crowbar and in yet another a screwdriver. What decides the best tool is what indicates and connects the expertise of the mechanic to the context of the engine problem in need of repair.

My understanding is that Vygotsky would not be so rigid about tools for the job, and would say that the unit *for* analysis depends upon that which we wish to study. Therefore, the unit must be carefully chosen. Is it that very unit that the researcher believes is the best unit to direct a study for the purpose of analysis.

For example, in studying a restaurant and how it works, the best unit for analysis would be the order ticket, how it is created and travels (conceptually) from menu to the table to the kitchen to the table(as ordered food) and back again to the table (as a bill). The order connects the specific (this table and its guests) to the general (how a restaurant operates).

But if one were to look at activity, how a restaurant operates gets really complicated, because we have to look at the roles of so many people, the guest, the hostess, the waiter, the busboy, the kitchen help, and even perhaps the guitarist setting the mood music. But what connects all this activity? What do we learn about the restaurant by an extensive analysis of the activity?

However, if the inquiry has to do with how waiters give good service versus bad service, or perhaps understanding expert waiters vs novice ones, the order as th unit for analysis tells us very little, and in that case an analysis of the waiter's activity would be most prominent as the unit for analysis with a secondary understanding how the waiter's activities are connected to all the other activities in the restaurant and how they influence the waiter's activity would be easily revealed.

What you say about Vygotsky's writings was so wonderfully expressed. I confer about the archeological approach necessary when reading his texts. I also agree that it's easy to decontextualize him, and this is the peculiar standing challenge of studying his theoretical thinking about development of mind.

He can be much like a sphynx, or perhaps what is left behind to us in his writings is as cryptic, a Rosetta Stone?

But to reply to your question whether or not the concept of activity in AT is compatible with the word as a unit of analysis? First I would say, a unit *for* analysis must be a conscious choice, and if activity can be held as a legitimate unit, based upon what one wishes to study, it can be highly appropriate, but it need not supplant the legitimacy of using the word as the unit *for* analysis, if the word is an appropriate unit to employ in what one wishes to study.

I have sensed the controversy among the community has to do with a dogmatic approach that units for analysis can only activity. If I am perceiving that controversy correctly, I would disagree with that position. I don't believe Vygotsky was that dogmatic about units either, but that he preferred to use the word for the ways in which thought could be studied through speech and language (obviously, right, just based upon the title of his book...). It has to do with one's particular object of inquiry.

With that in mind, it's folly to say the word is better than activity or vice versa. They are not the same, but different ways to analyze an object of inquiry and the choice also has to do a lot with context, something that is very slippery to contain, or perhaps I should say, generalize.

What do you think about that?

Kind regards,

Annalisa

>From Francine:

If I may retitle the thread that began with the interviews with Huw and Nikolai as Cultural-Historical Theory vs Cultural-Historical Activity Theory.

Vygotsky's unit of analysis is the 'word'. This is clearly stated in "The Genetic Roots of Thinking and Speech" (1928) and in the concluding paragraphs in "Thought and Word"  (Vygotsky's last words from his death bed in 1934) [in Kozulin's 1986 translation Thought and Language, p. 88 and p. 256 respectively]. In the very last paragraph on
p. 256, Vygotsky stated "Consciousness is reflected in the word like sunlight in a drop of water" an analogy that he used earlier in" The Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology " from 1926/1927 ( p. 288 in Volume 3 of The Collected Works , 1997). The word is a unit that is a synthesis of thinking and speech. Note: the consistency in Vygotsky's writings from 1926 through the very last paragraph he chose to finalize his legacy in 1934.

If one wishes to understand Vygotsky's thinking, all we have are his writings. As a neo-Vygotskian no one is bound by what Vygotsky wrote. Reading the actual texts is like archeaology. There has been a trend in Vygotskian studies to deconstruct his texts as if one Vygotsky paper had no connection to another (not seeing the forest for the trees). I see a coherent theoretical 'structure' in Vygotsky's writings - the new paper that my husband Larry and I have in press lays this out (using Vygotsky's own words).

Is the concept of 'activity' in Activity Theory really compatible with the 'word' as unit of analysis?

________________________________
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, December 9, 2020 4:27 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Interviews with Huw L. and Nikolai V.

Henry and venerable others,

I might add that Imagination is something like a self-imposed zone of proximal development, which then becomes concrete if there is motivation to act upon that which is imagined.

Am I correct to say that those who adhere to CHAT see that activity is the *only* unit for analysis, but that Vygotsky did not agree to be that hard-wired about activity as the unit for analysis? That it depends upon the problem one wishes to study. And so perhaps the difference between CHATters and Vygotskians is this understanding of the unit for analysis?

For example, how does one use activity as the unit for analysis if one is studying imagination? Or language? or culture?

If one were to study national anthems, would the *only* way to study them be to examine the activities associated with them? In terms of where they are sung or by whom they are sung? Or could one do an analysis of their notes? their lyrics?

How might that work?

Kind regards,

Annalisa

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