[Xmca-l] Re: What Are Halliday's "Magic Gateways"?

Mon Jun 22 16:27:59 PDT 2020

Keep 'em coming, folks...

This can turn into an interesting collection.

On Monday, June 22, 2020, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:

> Word meaning (and any other unit of analysis) develops--the timescale of
> its ontogenetic development is radically different from that of its
> sociogenetic development, just as it must needs differ from its logogenetic
> development.
>
> Thought is not "expressed" in word meanings but only realized in or
> "materialized" by them to the extent that the order of thoughts resembles
> the order of words. Sometimes that's not very much!
>
> David Kellogg
> Sangmyung University
>
> New Article: Ruqaiya Hasan, in memoriam: A manual and a manifesto.
> Outlines, Spring 2020
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!R3t7j-EQqWNC7OrUEsrr2d4mYAr2ZQt7UtWp6wHHG958h2N8RiTrFx-jSwRJELsjptvYxw$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!RzdehJzijYsaqz-5AtLPEOFKrKoijphlktXDFgtVfuqso4V3bjF7PgcmVTu90grfCYjxQg$>
> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: *L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works* *Volume
> One: Foundations of Pedology*"
>  https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!R3t7j-EQqWNC7OrUEsrr2d4mYAr2ZQt7UtWp6wHHG958h2N8RiTrFx-jSwRJELucc5adzw$ 
>
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!RzdehJzijYsaqz-5AtLPEOFKrKoijphlktXDFgtVfuqso4V3bjF7PgcmVTu90goaLj3dKQ$>
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 21, 2020 at 9:35 PM Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org> wrote:
>
>> the idea that using a cultural artefact an individual interacting with
>> another individual brings the entire history and culture of which they are
>> a part into their immediate interaction. Thus suspending the distinction
>> between social theory and psychology.
>>
>> Andy
>> ------------------------------
>> *Andy Blunden*
>> Hegel for Social Movements
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://brill.com/view/title/54574__;!!Mih3wA!WofP7aaNDzNixfJP-qIT7_0DVixsUGJRwSFItiD3UtuFF0_Rs0ogKUvb2bFD5CxuKnSVgQ$>
>> Home Page
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm__;!!Mih3wA!WofP7aaNDzNixfJP-qIT7_0DVixsUGJRwSFItiD3UtuFF0_Rs0ogKUvb2bFD5Cx4gCAe4A$>
>> On 21/06/2020 10:15 pm, Anthony Barra wrote:
>>
>> And my other question (for everybody), which I think might elicit a nice
>> range of responses, is:
>>
>> What do you think is the most powerful threshold concept in Vygotsky?
>> i.e., what is the one concept, or insight, of Vygotsky's that, when fully
>> understood, most opens up a new way of seeing?
>>
>> From Meyer and Land (2003): "Threshold Concepts’ may be considered to be
>> “akin to passing through a portal” or “conceptual gateway” that opens up
>> “previously inaccessible way[s] of thinking about something”
>>
>> Thank you!
>>
>> Anthony
>>
>> P.S.  The following excerpts might hurt more than help, or confuse more
>> than clarify, but for convenience's sake, I'll copy and paste them here:
>>
>> Meyer and Land, 2003: "Our discussions with practitioners in a range of
>> disciplinary areas have led us to conclude that a threshold concept, across
>> a range of subject contexts, is likely to be:
>>
>>    1. Transformative, in that, once understood, its potential effect on
>>    student learning and behaviour is to occasion a significant shift in the
>>    perception of a subject, or part thereof.
>>    2. Probably irreversible, in that the change of perspective
>>    occasioned by acquisition of a threshold concept is unlikely to be
>>    forgotten, or will be unlearned only by considerable effort.
>>    3. Integrative; that is, it exposes the previously hidden
>>    interrelatedness of something."
>>
>>
>> Flanagan, 2020: "Examples of the threshold concept must be transformative
>> and involve a traverse through a liminal space. They are likely to be
>> characterised by many of, but not necessarily all of, the other features
>> listed below:
>>
>>    1. Transformative: Once understood, a threshold concept changes the
>>    way in which the student views the discipline.
>>    2. Troublesome: Threshold concepts are likely to be troublesome for
>>    the student. Perkins [1999, 2006] has suggested that knowledge can be
>>    troublesome e.g. when it is counter-intuitive, alien or seemingly
>>    incoherent.
>>    3. Irreversible: Given their transformative potential, threshold
>>    concepts are also likely to be irreversible, i.e. they are difficult to
>>    unlearn.
>>    4. Integrative: Threshold concepts, once learned, are likely to bring
>>    together different aspects of the subject that previously did not appear,
>>    to the student, to be related.
>>    5. Bounded: A threshold concept will probably delineate a particular
>>    conceptual space, serving a specific and limited purpose.
>>    6. Discursive: Meyer and Land [2] suggest that the crossing of a
>>    threshold will incorporate an enhanced and extended use of language.
>>    7. Reconstitutive: "Understanding a threshold concept may entail a
>>    shift in learner subjectivity, which is implied through the transformative
>>    and discursive aspects already noted. Such reconstitution is, perhaps, more
>>    likely to be recognised initially by others, and also to take place over
>>    time (Smith)".
>>    8. Liminality: Meyer and Land [4] have likened the crossing of the
>>    pedagogic threshold to a ‘rite of passage’ (drawing on the ethnographical
>>    studies of Gennep and of Turner in which a transitional or liminal space
>>    has to be traversed; “in short, there is no simple passage in learning from
>>    ‘easy’ to ‘difficult’; mastery of a threshold concept often involves messy
>>    journeys back, forth and across conceptual terrain. (Cousin [2006])”.
>>
>> Thank you!  (And thanks again to David, re: magic gateways)
>>
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>> On Saturday, June 20, 2020, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> You know, nothing is quite as complicated as trying to be simple about
>>> something complex. So Anthony wanted me to talk about a "threshold concept"
>>> in Halliday, and even gave me chapter and verse about what this might
>>> involve.
>>>
>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://tiny.cc/6qf1qz__;!!Mih3wA!R3t7j-EQqWNC7OrUEsrr2d4mYAr2ZQt7UtWp6wHHG958h2N8RiTrFx-jSwRJELvbISAdLA$ 
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://tiny.cc/6qf1qz__;!!Mih3wA!R1tuEz28TKCRX-z854TQcafClzwE-T5yfevnoxkw5DRwjpbz239rg0baB8eFK_R16hv7mQ$>
>>>
>>> Halliday was, first and foremost, a teacher like you and me. That's why
>>> he rejected the whole distinction between grammar and vocabulary, it's how
>>> he ended up involved in the Chinese revolution, it's why he asked--and even
>>> answered--teacherly questions like "How big is a language?" (depends on
>>> where you are and where you are going, but it can be calculated) and "Does
>>> Chomsky's distinction between surface and deep structure help you teach or
>>> learn anything at all?" (no) and "What is 'difficulty' and how much of it
>>> can we blame on the text rather than the child?" (it depends on how willing
>>> you are to divorce the text from the child's understanding of it).
>>>
>>> I think that precisely because he was a teacher like you and me, he
>>> wouldn't have liked the concept of "threshold concept": a single "aha"
>>> moment that retrospectively transforms the way you think about a whole
>>> domain like language. Yet in another sense, precisely because he was a
>>> teacher like you and me, he inisisted on free choice (yes, with consent!)
>>> as the organizing principle of lexicogrammar ("grammar-and-vocabulary",
>>> where the "and" is to be understood in a fully Spinozan way). So he sees
>>> child development as a series of magic gateways--the differentiation of
>>> meaningful choices, some of which are more meaningful than others. The most
>>> meaningful one is not "that gateway"--the one you are looking back upon in
>>> satisfaction--but "this gateway"--the one you find yourself on the
>>> threshold of.  The magic is simply in the fact that you know that beyond
>>> that gateway there are even greater gateways.
>>>
>>> Or rather more delicate gateways. Halliday used to say that you can
>>> really start anywhere when you are describing a complex phenomenon, so long
>>> as you remember that beyond one degree of delicacy there are infinitely
>>> others. So I think that the description I gave of the magic gateway here is
>>> adequate at about eighth grade level, with two amendments:
>>>
>>> a) The "iinterpersonal metafunction" is singular and not plural.
>>> Functions like "Mood" are sub-functions of this single uber-function that
>>> is the child's magic gateway into the whole of language. And of course
>>> beyond that gateway lie other gateways, e.g. "Subject", "Finite", etc.  The
>>> same is true of the "textual metafunction" (Theme, Rheme) and the
>>> "ideational metafunction" (one of the very rare sources of disagreement
>>> between Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan was that she insisted that there were
>>> really two different ideational metafunctions, the logical and the
>>> experientail, while Halliday preferred to see them as subfunctions of one).
>>>
>>> b) The "who" (interpersonal), the "how" (textual) and the "what"
>>> (ideational) are not the names of questions ("Who are you?", "How are you?"
>>> and "What are you made of?"  are not three different metafunctions). They
>>> are labels for the metafunctions, attempts by me to simplify a complex
>>> terminology. But a name is just a gateway, and beyond each vague name there
>>> must necessarily be a more delicate and therefore more definite one.
>>>
>>>
>>> David Kellogg
>>> Sangmyung University
>>>
>>> New Article: Ruqaiya Hasan, in memoriam: A manual and a manifesto.
>>> Outlines, Spring 2020
>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!R3t7j-EQqWNC7OrUEsrr2d4mYAr2ZQt7UtWp6wHHG958h2N8RiTrFx-jSwRJELsjptvYxw$ 
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!UeTMSuYY3iGYNI80NGkgVW3vksPeX6xhNqXG1qffMzIs4RXePyHwgPaQtDiL035DfoBa0w$>
>>> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: *L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological
>>> Works* *Volume One: Foundations of Pedology*"
>>>  https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!R3t7j-EQqWNC7OrUEsrr2d4mYAr2ZQt7UtWp6wHHG958h2N8RiTrFx-jSwRJELucc5adzw$ 
>>>
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!UeTMSuYY3iGYNI80NGkgVW3vksPeX6xhNqXG1qffMzIs4RXePyHwgPaQtDiL035f0sEiOg$>
>>>
>>
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