Eva asked,
"Could you also tell those of us who - in the nature of this medium - have
the listserve postings as the only resource for construing the two - i.e.
the individual and the interaction - how we are to separate the two. By
means of CHAT, naturally."
The only way I can interpret what Judy meant is to understand
"contribution" where she writes "interaction" since basically we don't see
an interaction we see a contribution to ongoing threads of topically or
thematical related contributions, lets say about a topic Q.
Thinking of the cases where the issue arises (naturally , as pointed out in
LBE Ch3, places where conflict, disturbance and contradiction arise) a
non-CHAT approach is simple: the test procedure would be,
does the contribution have the form: X is not the case concerning topic Q,
Y is the case concerning topic Q. or does it have the form "Person A
doesn't understand topic Q as reflected in their assertion of X concerning
topic Q or their denial of the validity of Y concerning topic Q." The
former concerns the contribution, the latter the individual contributor.
How exactly such a distinction would be made using an activity triangle is
harder to envision because it would depend on the purpose of the actiivity
system (the motive of the listserv which could be multiple), and the
particular place that topic Q occupies within the activity system in which
individuals participate that relate to their concurrent participation in
the listserv. I've found that where the activity a listserv has for its
object discussion of topics Q about which assertions (X and Y) can be
tested in practice, (e.g., a listserv devoted to using GIS software) there
is very little disagreement about the truth value of assertions (X or Y)
since they are immediately verifiable in practice with the tools for which
the listserv serves as a secondary tool (a support system) hence these kinds
of issues very rarely come up. There can be disagreements about which is
better, but not about the standard "How do you do this? Where can I find
that?" kind of questions. On the other hand, listservs devoted to topics in
which different assertions (X and Y of Q) are not so clearly verifiable in
practice present a lot more complexity. For one thing, unlike the goals
that individuals pursue in practically oriented list servs ; i.e., practical
support for utilization of a commonly shared tool, the goals of individuals
on the less practically oriented listservs are not usually homegeneous. Why
one person reads , thinks about, and wants to discuss a given author, might
in no way be congruent with why another person does. If one of the motives
of the activity system is to further understanding of a set of theories,
then the test is whether what somebody says is helpful for understanding
that theory. This is pretty subjective since what somebody says might be
helpful to some but not to others, depending on their particular goal in
reading, discussing or thinking about the theory. The only time anything
clear cut would emerge would be when someone made a statement that was
simply a misrepresentation of the text at the comprehension, not the
interpretation level; eg, statements to the effect that 2+2=5 or that
Vygotsky's dog salivated upon hearing the bell ring, or other such
statements. If such statements are made and someone else points to the
error it would seem that we would fall back on the first rule (non-activity
system derived -- rather using Lakoff's principle that conversation is meant
to be helpful) to determine whether the individual or the interaction is the
focus of the assertion. And sometimes people, through this process, also
find out that they were mistaken and improve their comprehension in the
process. So you ask: does the person say: "Q is not X" or does she say "You
are wrong that Q is Y." You ask, "Did she say "Groucho's meaning when he
said he takes the cigar out of his mouth some of the time wasn't a sexual
innuendo." or did she say "You are wrong that Groucho's meaning was a sexu
al innuendo." At least Groucho only put the cigar in his mouth or on the
ashtray. So it's probably a question of whether you keep your ashes in the
tray or you drop them on the rug, let alone burn a hole in the sofa. You
just can't see inside of people's heads, right???
I guess it just goes to show that their are boolean and fuzzy list servs and
activity systems and that people in fuzzy ones shouldn't blame other
people's understanding/insight/judgment/personality/character/etc in
disagreements about where the boundary is.
Paul H. Dillon
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue May 01 2001 - 01:02:06 PDT