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

[Annalisa Aguilar]

Hi Francine, Huw and of course, venerable others,

Bypassing the opportunity to ignite the naming debate that Huw might be inadvertently inviting, and acknowledging that I have not watched the video in question, I am convinced there must be a way to differentiate any old unit of analysis from the unit selected for analysis. I maintain this is key to understanding Vygotsky's work. Keystone might be a better metaphor. Without this understanding, I contend that the arch of the theory collapses. I would be open to hearing from others on this if my affirmation should be disabused.

This has to do with intentionality and how a study is designed; how a study will generalize, its validity, etc. This is a particularly hairy endeavor when dealing with psychology studies of Vygotky's time, or cognitive science studies, as we might know such studies today.

I think a beautiful example of this choosing of units is Edwin Hutchin's Cognition in the Wild (1995) which is a study of navigation, as a cultural practice. The unit for analysis in his undertaking (even if he himself might say "unit of analysis") is the plot fix. Everything is tied together with that unit. That can be witnessed from reading the book, as all the chapters deal with a different aspect of the cultural practice of maritime navigation, but they all tie together with the unit of the plot fix. I have said it sometime ago I think the book is a masterpiece, and I still feel this way.

I maintain that by using the phrase "unit for analysis" a researcher is signaling her conscious intention to choose the unit as connecting the specific to the general. This is an approach that Vygotsky recognizes as the only way to study development of the mind in a child, since children cannot communicate effectively what is going on in their minds or why, and certainly dissecting children to learn what is happening in their brains is an untenable method to legitimately study child development, and would only offer us biological data on brain development really, and that's making an assumption that minds are actually located in brains (they are not). At the same time, trying to avoid the pitfalls of the reflexologists (such as Pavlov) isn't it the case that LSV's assertion that the study of behavior, as is the practice of behaviorism, which reflexology anticipates, will not explain with precision the development of mind in the child. Behavior is too imprecise a unit to indicate thoughts of the subject.

But then what I have worried about with activity theory, is whether it just a refabrication of behaviorism? I do not mean to be flip about that or to disparage AT, because I am not conversant in its approaches. I freely admit that.

It's just I must disagree with connecting activity as a means of identifying awareness in an individual. Expertise can be measured by behavior, but consciousness? I'm not so sure.

What is the indication of a meditating swami's awareness? If the swami is simply sitting, doing nothing? Nothing can be revealed. But if the swami teaches, the words the swami uses will indicate the level of conscious awareness the swami possesses.

The word offers more precision. But again, it depends upon the objective of the inquiry.

Thank you, Francine for locating the molecule quote, and I am remiss that I may have recalled the metaphor clumsily. You have corrected me and in so doing I am feeling the pull to read The Crisis again to refresh my memory.

To Huw's credit it is true that some linguists might be chauvinistic toward their "medium", but that doesn't seem to jibe as a weakness for LSV, indeed he is promoting a very flexible approach.

Also, while I'm not going to be the thought police of whether researchers use the right prepositions, OF or FOR, what I am supporting is the usage of UNITS FOR ANALYSIS as a means to distinguish intentionality, given the problems rife in translation. It would not be incorrect to say UNIT OF ANALYSIS, but it would be less precise.

Furthermore, truly, I would have to defer to Holbrook here and I hope if he is out there, he might jump in. He is the one who put the notion in my head and explained its importance to me. I readily admit that that was some years ago and the mists of time could have obstructed my own ability to substantiate for you it as he did for me.

This is to say that even if OF is a correct translation from the Russian, I did not argue that OF is a wrong translation of the Russian proposition used, but rather that FOR is a better translation of the word-meaning. If I gave that impression, that was my mistake.

I would also suggest that the focus of discussion is not about word vs activity. That would a false dichotomy. It is about the units chosen for the purposes of analysis. That stance opens up many possibilities.

I am a little agnostic about CHAT being the umbrella term that includes all the varieties of the theory. Though, honestly it doesn't sit comfortably for me, but that's why I might be a heretic and reference Vygotsky's theory as sociocultural theory. But I also recognize, others may feel the same way about that term, as I might feel about CHAT, for the same reason that it leaves something out. That is why I don't feel it's accurate to say it is two frameworks because there could be others in the future, and this would cause the acronym, CHAT, to break.

So, the debate as framed, to me, would be: Under what conditions is the word the best unit for analysis, under what conditions is activity the best unit for analysis, and...(and this is an important concatenation) are there other possible units that could be better suited?

This allows the theory to flex with advancing understanding in cognitive science (my umbrella term to include all the disciplines as referenced in Howard Gardener's diagram in The Mind’s New Science: A History of the Cognitive Revolution(1987); these being anthropology, artificial intelligence (comp sci), linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology). New units could be revealed as appropriate, which should be a welcomed innovation!

Vygotsky is in my mind the first bona fide cognitive scientist, even though computer science was not even an embryo during his lifetime. He would have been amazed by the ways that computers are being used to model neural activity, and other forms of simulation, as well as how computers are learning language. Just imagine what he might do with a smart phone.

WOW.

This is why LSV's insights are so tremendous, because he includes a space for developments of the future.

We stand on the shoulders of a beloved, gentle giant.

Kind regards,

Annalisa





xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
on behalf of
Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
Fri 12/11/2020 5:24 AM
Francine, for clarification, I have considered CHAT to be an umbrella category, e.g. where the T may stand for Theories. Hence what Nikolai specifically focuses upon are Leontyev's AT, Vygotsky's CHT, and ‪Yrjö Engeström's AT.

Re units, various people (Andy comes to mind) have noted that LSV employed numerous units of analysis.  On that basis my inference is that you are questioning the relation between activity-as-consciousness with word-meaning-as-consciousness (in the cognitive sense). If that is the case, then simply some practical thinking around manifestations of awareness and thinking reveals that word meanings are not the only vehicle for such awareness. This seems harder for linguists to recognise and recollect because this seems to be their principal medium.

Best,
Huw


xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
on behalf of
Larry Smolucha <lsmolucha@hotmail.com>
Wed 12/9/2020 6:53 PM

>From Francine:

Good Morning Annalisa,
I enjoyed reading your commentary.

The Vygotsky quote you are looking for is on the second page of "Thought and Word" (p.211 in Thought and Language 1986). There the Kozulin translation is unit of analysis, just after Vygotsky describes how hydrogen and oxygen create a water droplet with properties different from the two flammable gases (combined in every molecule of water). Vygotsky then elaborates that in a water droplet the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. This can be understood as the synthesis of a thesis and antithesis in a dialectic, referring back to Vygotsky's earlier argument for the use of dialectic in the The Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology (1926-1927). It can also be understood as a type of synergy - my husband Larry and I first introduced Synergistic Psychology in a publication in 1988 and have been advancing it as a theory ever since.

Please note: "Thought and Word" begins with the analogy of a 'word' as being like water droplet and ends with an analogy with a water droplet. In the final paragraph - consciousness being reflected in a word just as sunlight is reflected off every drop of water, as well as the ocean.

If you prefer using the terminology unit for analysis to describe what has been translated as unit of analysis,
my guess is most people will still use the term unit of analysis. I don't think this is incorrect. We could look at the Russian text (if anyone has a copy) - the preposition is probably 'v' in Russian usually translated as 'of'. (Would anyone care to argue that it is better translated as 'for' ?)

And yes, it is time to examine the applicability of the concept of activity as the unit for analysis versus Vygotsky's use of a 'word'. But what does this do to CHAT? Does CHAT as a theory offer two frameworks (the Cultural Historical Theory of Vygotsky and the Activity Theory of Leontiev) or one unifying framework? Just asking . . .

________________________________
From: Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu>
Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2020 10:05 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] Cultural-Historical Theory vs Cultural-Historical Activity Theory [was Re: CHT vs. CHAT]

Typo!! I did not mean UFO but UFA!  The UFO was an unidentified flying object from my keyboard. Please excuse!

Annalisa
________________________________
From: Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu>
Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2020 10:02 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Cultural-Historical Theory vs Cultural-Historical Activity Theory [was Re: CHT vs. CHAT]

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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