Below is the review of Addison Stone's chapter in "Contexts for=20
Learning". The chapter is entitled "What is missing in the metaphor of=20
scaffolding?".=20
Jorge Larreamendy-Joerns
University of Pittsburgh
************************************
Chapter Review=20
Stone, A. (1993). =D2What is missing in the metaphor of
scaffolding?=D3. In E. Forman, N. Minick, & C. A. Stone (Eds.), =D2Context =
for
Learning: Sociocultural dynamics in children=D5s development=D3 (pp. 169-18=
3).
New York: Oxford University Press.=20
=09Addison Stone=D5s chapter constitutes an authentic critique, in the
German sense, of the metaphor of scaffolding introduced 20 years ago by
Wood, Bruner, and Ross (1976) to describe =D2the process by which an adult
assists a child to carry out a task beyond the child=D5s capability as an
individual agent=D3 (Stone, 1993, p. 169). Analyses of adult-child
interactions during problem solving show that an adult may assist a child
by recruiting the child=D5s interest, reducing the degrees of freedom
involved in the tas k maintaining the child=D5s orientation toward the
relevant goals, highlighting critical task features, controlling
frustration, and demonstrating idealized solution pathways. Stone points
out that this functional description of the scaffolding process is, in a
way, synonymous with the adult-child interaction implied in Vygotsky=D5s
concept of the =D2zone of proximal development=D3.=20
=09Its heuristic value notwithstanding, the metaphor of scaffolding
leaves unspecified the discursive or otherwise semiotic mechanisms whereby
the transfer of responsibility from the adult to the child takes place
over the course of assisted performance. To fill this explanatory gap,
Stone redefines scaffolding from a semiotic perspective, and recurs to
psycholinguistics and discourse analysis in search of mechanisms that may
explicate how children go about appropriating meaning in the context of
adult-chil d interactions. One such mechanism, according to Stone, is
prolepsis, a traditional rhetorical figure reintroduced by Rommetveit
(1974) into the field of psycholinguistics. An utterance is said to be
proleptic when it sets forth, in the form of a presupposition,
information yet not shared by the participants of a communicative
exchange. Thus, when the speaker provides an utterance which presupposes
information not shared by the listener, the listener is challenged to
reconstruct such information on his/he r own, thus engaging in an active
search after meaning. Stone provides this simple, though provocative,
example of prolepsis. The example describes a dialogue between a tourist
and a guard in an art museum.=20
=09Tourist: Where is the Impressionist collection?
=09Guard: [Pointing to a display case in the distance] Down the
=09=09hallway just beyond the kitchenware.
=09Tourist: I beg your pardon.
=09Guard: Just beyond the Oriental pottery.=20
=09Stone argues that the guard=D5s first utterance is proleptic in the
sense that it conveys an implicit opinion about Oriental pottery, which is
not shared by the tourist, who is then forced to seek clarification. Stone
claims that something similar occurs in adult-child interactions where the
adult may set forth her perspective of the situation, thus challenging the
child to reconstruct a meaning that was provided only implicitly. In this
way, the adult remains a step ahead of the child and, as Vygotsky woul d
say, sets the conditions for =D2good learning=D3, i.e., that =D2which is in
advance of development=D3 (1978, p. 89).=20
=09Stone highlights the similarities between the concept of prolepsis
and Grice=D5s (1989) notion of conversational implicature, pointing out
nevertheless that in prolepsis, unlike in conversational implicatures, the
shared information between the interlocuto rs is not enough to allow the
implicature to go through (hence the need for further dialogue).=20
=09Proleptic utterances possess a sort of =D2inconclusiveness=D3 that
ultimately constitute the reason why a given conversation remains alive.
Since the speaker=D5s view is presupposed on the basis of yet unprovided
information, the listener has to reconstruct itby himself, hopefully with
the assistance of the speaker. In that sense, the sequence of questions
and answers that follow a proleptic utterance constitute a crucial aspect
of the process of assistance triggered by the proleptic utterance in the
first pl ace. In reading Stone=D5s chapter, one has the feeling that the
most important rationale behind the attempt to link scaffolding with a
discursive mechanism such as prolepsis is that =D2proleptic exchanges=D3
stress the idea that a shared context is not always j ust a conversational
given (as a shortsighted reading of Grice would suggest), but rather the
result of a proactive search after meaning.=20
=09Stone also argues that this perspective on scaffolding as semiotic
interaction needs to be complemented with a careful examination of issues
such as the influence of a child=D5s linguistic development on the success
of conversational exchanges, and the int erpersonal and even institutional
dimensions of scaffolding. Stone concludes by stressing the subtle nature
of scaffolding, and the need to understand the =D2semiotic devices=D3 that
mediate adult-child interactions and the dependency of scaffolding upon
inte rpersonal factors (e.g., trust between interlocutors, symmetry and
asymmetry of interaction, goal-embeddedness).=20
=09Several points can be made concerning Stone=D5s chapter. First, it
is commendable his attempt to go beyond what I would call a functional
description of adult-child interactions, of which the metaphor of
scaffolding is an oft-cited example. By turning his attention to semiotic
mechanisms instead, Stone follows directly the steps of Vygotsky, for whom
language was primarily a tool to achieve socially shared goals (e.g.,
problem solving). This attempt to inform sociocultural theory with domains
such as disco urse analysis, rhetoric, and semiotics is, in my opinion,
one of the most promising fronts of psychological research. In that sense,
prolepsis constitutes only one of numerous alternatives.=20
=09However, the analysis of scaffolding in proleptic terms is not
without difficulties. For one, the distinction between prolepsis and
simple failed conversational implicatures is a slippery one. It seems to
me that a useful criterion is intentionality: pro leptic utterances are
generated intentionally (to amuse or simply to challenge the listener, as
in the dialogue between the tourist and the museum guard). In contrast,
failed conversational implicatures most often occur when the speaker fails
to assess ap propriately the listener=D5s knowledge base. This distinction
is crucial because it allow us to differentiate scaffolding through
prolepsis from a dialogue in which the adult (e.g., teacher) makes
unwarranted assumptions about what the listener can or canno t infer or
reconstruct.=20
=09A second issue relates to the likelihood of finding =D2genuine=D3
proleptic utterances in actual adult-child interactions. Stone himself
points out that proleptic utterances during adult-child interactions may
not be =D2so provocative as the museum example=D3 ( Stone, 1993, p. 172).
Again, in examining actual scaffolding episodes, a clearer distinction
between prolepsis and failed implicatures would be desirable. As a matter
of fact, Ellice Forman and I have conducted discourse analysis of
classroom interactions over the past three years, and a rather steady
finding is that the students, rather than the teacher, are the ones who
generate more frequently utterances that, according to Stone=D5s
perspective, would be considered proleptic. Presumably, they do so not b
ecause they want the teacher to reconstruct their implicit assumptions,
but because they misunderstand some of the conversational rules that apply
in the classroom, particularly those related to the degree of explicitness
that is expectable from a student (when he/she is providing, say, an
explanation). In short, proleptic utterances can be deemed a mechanism to
challenge the listener so as to foster learning, or a result of the
students=D5 lack of familiarity with the conversational rules that apply in
the context of instructional dialogues. Once again, it all depends on how
we define prolepsis relative to intentionality, and what is the focus of
our analysis: the adult or the child.=20
=09Either way, Stone succeeds in showing that there is nothing simple
about scaffolding. Once adult-child interactions are seen through the lens
of discourse analysis or from a perspective where interpersonal factors
are seriously taken into account, the ap parent simplicity of the
functions initially identified by Wood, Bruner, and Ross disappears. In
this sense, the semiotic analysis of scaffolding mirrors the semiotic
analysis of the IRE sequence.=20
References=20
Grice, H. P. (1989). Studies in the ways of words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press. =20
Rommetveit, R. (1974). On message structure: A
framework for the study of language and communication. New York: Wiley.=20
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press. =20
Wood, D., Bruner, J. S., & Ross, G. (1976). The role of
tutoring in problem solving. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry,
17, 89-100.=20
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