Eva, I've really enjoyed reading 'Signs and Objects'
(http://cite.ped.gu.se/araei/signs.html). Thank you so much. The issues
both Arne (through Peirce) and Ritva (through Bakhtin), among others, have
raised at that thread say a lot about our discussion on "Forks and
Computers", "Cyborgs and Transparency". (One of the main point of that
discussion was the relation between "tool" and "sign", and how could
capture either their differences or their similarities.)
Recapitulating and interpreting our discussion:
- Bill questioned the differences among tools and their boundaries.
- Sally raised the importance of "play".
- Katherine remembered us that we do not address only objects through
technology, [we can also address social subjects, authors, designers,
other users].
- Naoki discussed different complementary perspectives in Human-Computer
Interaction.
- Eva introduced a very similar previous discussion in which a need
for a better understanding of "mediation" was discussed.
- Eugene stated that we need "purified definitions" of involved parts,
but he also raised that some notion can be to narrow to describe human
relations.
Following both threads, the main point I would like to address in this
message, instead of a "dicotomy" between tool and sign, is the
complementarity of "model" and "taxonomy". The CHAT approach is new for
me, therefore I'll address the issue from the perspective from Semiotics
(Peirce) and Literary Criticism (Bakhtin).
It seems to me, as a newcomer to this community, that when a taxonomy is
used as a model for a particular situation, its historical aspects are
lost. For example, when a fork is said to be only a tool to access a
lasagna, we forget that the use of a fork and its development across the
centuries have to be developed. What about prepairing a lasagna? We do not
give forks to babies, we give them spoons, and they play with them until
they master it.
For me, to deal with the notion of "play", "multiple voices", "tool x
sign", or other issues you all have raised, a triangle or an extended
triangle is not enough, although useful. I would say the same about the
notion of hierarchy between activity and action.
What is important in these models is the relationships between the nodes,
and not the nodes themselves(triangles); is the negotiation or
sustenability always present between levels, and not the levels themselves
(levels of organizations).
When a computer, a fork, or even a word or an utterance, is classified as
a tool, or as a sign, and placed in one of this diagrams, it is very easy
to forget that their boundaries are always arbitrary. It is exactly the
constant management of these boundaries that drive the system. The question
is, how to make this constant boundary negotiation across history
explicitly in our models.
Peirce, noting the limitations of triadic models of signs, has proposed
other taxonomies, including one that has 10 classes of signs. Arne
mentioned the similarity between Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness in
Peirce and Marx's "objects". A concept used to generate the 10 classes
using the Sign-Object-Interpretant tryad as a starting point. Has someone
in the list continued that line of research or know someone who has?
The beauty of Peirce's solution is that different classes can be compared.
This enables those that study mediation, to compare the evolution of a
medium through its history, at least in principle because it is rarely
done. But using a triangle, a comparison is more difficult.
I don't know how it is done in CHAT?
Could someone help me? How the transition of a newcomer to an old timer in
the use of a tool is represented in a triangle or in Yrjo Engestrom's
extended one? I ask because I believe that a comparison is essential to
represent and historical account of the development and use of a tool or a
sign.
To classify a "fork" as tool or as "sign" is not informative enough. A
fork has a very stable function and character . A knife though has to be
sharpened form time to time. A computer is not at all stable in its use.
Bakhtin discusses the "unfinalizability" of a work. There is a need to
capture this unfinalizability in CHAT diagrams too.
I've been working on the boundaries of the applicability of Peirce's 10
classes of signs (taxonomy, semiosis,...) and how Bakhtin's work (model,
heteroglossia, unfinalizability,...) can shed a light on how to use them
together to understand design processes. Through you, I'm discovering that
CHAT has a lot to say about that. I would like to thank you again for
being able to do that.
Luiz
_____________________________________________________________
Luiz Ernesto Merkle merkle who-is-at csd.uwo.ca
University of Western Ontario voice: +1 519 858 3375 (home)
Department of Computer Science fax: +1 519 661 3515 (work)
N6A 5B7 London Ontario Canada http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~merkle