mike,
i think my question goes back to the thread out of which Nate's original
question emerged: that of objects that are mutually defining and their
implicit dialectic. This was also the context within which the dancer/dance
image was brought up.
Unless the term "unit analysis" has been broadened, I understand it in
Vygotsky's sense of the minimal unit that still contains the properties of
the whole phenomena. The important point is that the unit of unit-analysis
is not simply the phenomena itself. To say that word-meaning was simply
used to analyze the relationship between language and thought seems
circular. Following Bakhurst I understand Vygotsky's inquiry to be much
broader, extending to the basic psychological processes such as learning,
memory, internalization in general and other "higher order" psychological
processes, .
Does the zoped, on the other hand, have such characteristics? I don't think
so. What is the phenomena of which it is the minimal unit that resists
further analysis without losing the properties of the totality of which it
both contains and constitutes the genetic root? As I understand it,
Vygotsky raises the zoped in relation to questions of development and
specifically, "measuring" development. Thus he writes that a child with a
"larger zone of proximal development will do much better in school." But
the zone of proximal development does not contain the totality of the
phenomena; i.e., development, which it serves to characterize since: (a) it
is relative and we have larger and smaller zopeds, something that is rather
incomprehensible with respect to "word-meaning" or "commodity"; and (b) it
refers essentially to a framework of development that is not characterized
within its very definition.
This distinction has to do with theoretical concept formation and not losing
the power of a concept; i.e., unit of analysis, through applying it
willy-nilly -- the Chesire cat using words to mean exactly what it wants
them to mean. It's not simply a question of semantics but rather something
akin to identifying what is a syllogism and what isn't. If everything and
anything is a syllogism, then nothing is, and consequently we lose the
possibility of a theory of syllogisms, or in this case a theory of unit
analysis that might contribute to the formation of concepts as powerful as
"word-meaning" or "commodity" as the unity of use and exchange value.
So although I do agree that there are multiple units of analysis, not
everything is one.
Paul H. Dillon
----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Cole <mcole@weber.ucsd.edu>
To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2000 11:08 AM
Subject: one what?
>
> Paul, I thought I was arguing for multiplicity of units of analysis
> depending upon the object/ives of the activity in question. Word
> meaning is presumably a unit of anlysis for understanding the relation
> of language and thought. A Zoped is a particular structure of interaction/
> transaction; perhaps it could be a unit of analysis for understanding
> the relation of learning and development?
> mike
>
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