Mike,
I believe that would be:
Chaiklin, S. (1999) Developmental Teaching in Upper-Secondary School,
in Hedegaard, M., and Lompscher, J., Learning Activity and Development,
Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, pp. 187-210
Phil
On 26/07/2005, at 7:01 AM, Mike Cole wrote:
> Michael-- In one of the Aarhus volumes, Seth Chaiklin has an
> interesting analysis
> of schooling in which he claims that students are simultaneously
> engaged in
> several different activities at one. This points, as Mary would note,
> several
> simultaneously different, positionings. Perhaps soneone has the correct
> reference to hand
> mike
>
>
> On 7/25/05, Wolff-Michael Roth <mroth@uvic.ca> wrote: Hi all,
>> I am about a month late on this, but it appeared salient to me as I
>> re-read THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE. The unit has to be larger than the
>> combination of speech and gesture--as McNeill does. LSV writes, "units
>> are capable of retaining and expressing the essence of that whole
>> being
>> analyzed" (p.211). We all know from the work of E. Hutchins, J. Lave
>> and many others that what people do makes sense in the particular
>> setting and activity they find themselves. . . This recognition has
>> led, in my view, A. N. Leont'ev to frame cultural-historically
>> developed activity as the unit. You cannot understand an utterance, a
>> sentence, unless you view it with respect to the particular activity
>> in
>> which the speaker is involved.
>>
>> This is really important and perhaps the most violated principle in
>> educational research. All students are not the same in this respect.
>> As
>> we showed in our study of urban schooling, a student may act within
>> two
>> activity systems simultaneously and the same action has a different
>> sense in the two, and leads to very different products/outcomes. For
>> example, the same action ("dissing" a teacher) will lead to conflict
>> with the teacher and expulsion from school in one system, but lead to
>> a
>> larger stock of social capital in the other (peer).
>>
>> Now we cannot understand this action unless we analyze the historical
>> development of culture and schooling, the reproduction of White middle
>> class values, temporal arrangement of the day and activities, social
>> relations, temporality, and so forth, and how this transacts with the
>> culture produced and reproduced by the urban (often African American)
>> students. You cannot look at achievements outside a cultural
>> historical
>> context. . . lest you want to end up with really useless knowledge and
>> policies.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Michael
>>
>>
>> On 23-Jun-05, at 12:06 PM, Steven Thorne wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > hi all -- building on ana and peter's comments, i agree that the
>> > appropriate unit of analysis within an LCA framework must be
>> > supra-word and intimately integrated with gesture (as described by
>> > McNeill and others).
>> >
>> > as ana notes, a supra-word unit of analysis is hardly a new
>> argument.
>> > as has been discussed for some years, in their very fabric,
>> utterances
>> > are interpersonal and social-historical at the level of production
>> > (e.g., collaborative completions), emerge from as well as
>> > re-articulate history (Bakhtin's responsivity), and are
>> cataphorically
>> > responsive (addressivity), and that meaning making processes are
>> > deeply contextual (Rommetveit). what is compelling in current (often
>> > applied) linguistics research is the variety of massively empirical
>> > studies that support the claim that utterances are the glue of
>> > communicative activity (corpus research; see also arguments that
>> > formulaic sequesnces are valid units psycholinguistically, e.g.,
>> > Schmitt, Grandage, and Adolphs, in Schmitt & Carter 2004).
>> >
>> > i'm particularly excited to explore Hallidayan approaches to units
>> of
>> > analysis -- clause and (in a different sense) moves -- as well as
>> > other aspects of SFL. i look forward to Gordon's, Ruqaiya's, and
>> > others' insights and pespectives over the week(s) to come.
>> >
>> > lastly, like many on the list, i've been other-oriented lately (we
>> > welcomed Benicio, a baby boy, to our family last friday -- mother
>> and
>> > baby are both well, and father is ecstatic (if also a touch weary
>> and
>> > heavy-headed)).
>> >
>> >
>> > steve
>> >
>> >> Dear Phil and everyone,
>> >> It is probably the summer lull or something similar -- every
>> culture
>> >> has its own reasons to explain such things. But they are probably
>> >> always different.
>> >> I can't wait to hear/read Gordon's introduction of Halli day's
>> >> notions and their relation to Vygotsky. And in the meantime I was
>> >> reading Lantolf/Thorne's Introduction chapter to the Sociocultural
>> >> theory and the genesis of second language development. So I'll pick
>> >> up with your offer to discuss the "unit of analysis".
>> >> What is evident from the discussion and from the almost century
>> long
>> >> line of discussions is that the unit of meaning cannot be equated
>> >> either with single words, nor with "sentences", and that the move
>> is
>> >> toward "utterance" and the emergent aspect of meaning making.
>> >> Vygotsky saw this difference as the difference between the stable
>> >> "meaning" and a more fluid "sense" -- as the meaning realized in a
>> >> particular context of a particular situation. Rommetveit, as L&T
>> >> quote him, talked about meaning "potential".
>> >> I think that even an "utterance" (with all the situatedness it
>> >> carries in itself) is not quite right as a unit of meaning. The
>> >> reason for that is that if utterance is considered as a units of
>> >> meaning then the "meaning" is still a category in the domain of the
>> >> interpretables, i.e. what is a resulting meaning of a particular
>> >> utterance in a particular situation -- is not only a matter of
>> >> interpretation by the participants in that situation but also by a
>> >> researcher. In other words, a researcher is still looking for what
>> >> "chunk" or "fragment" of linguistic behavior refers to what "chunk"
>> >> or fragment of the reality to which the participants refer at each
>> >> point of development (on all developmental scales). However,
>> >> referentiality of any size of the sign (word, sentence, utterance)
>> is
>> >> just one component of meaning making.
>> >>
>> >> Consider the following example from Kittay:
>> >>> "If I absentmindedly or emphatically utter 'Would you mind passing
>> >>> the salt?' you generally presume that I am making a request, and
>> not
>> >>> inquiring into what you do or do not mind, at the same time you
>> need
>> >>> not be at all concerned with what I am thinking about or otherwise
>> >>> intending at the time. I may care less about making the request
>> and
>> >>> more about informing my host that he has once more overdone his
>> >>> fetish of providing salt-free food." (*Kittay)
>> >> This is a situation in which the speaker has or creates more than
>> one
>> >> audience, by simultaneously "passing" two different meanings by the
>> >> same "utterance". But the speaker does that by being able to
>> >> simultaneously enact two "meaning" activities in one "utterance".
>> >> For me this example illustrates several points that I want to
>> make.
>> >> First -- I think that a "unit of analysis of meaning" has to be
>> >> dynamic and contain "acts" that are done by the interlocutors in
>> the
>> >> process of dialogue.
>> >> Second -- the attributes a unit of meaning have to include the
>> >> "acters" , i.e. the relational identities of the participants and
>> the
>> >> particular point in the history of the relationships at the time of
>> >> the utterance;
>> >> Third -- the referentiality of the signs also has to be studied
>> in a
>> >> genetic (developmental way) -- but with a caution that the
>> researcher
>> >> may not be in a position to know what exactly is being referred to.
>> >> I'll illustrate this with an example of a very young child's
>> >> language. (from my collection)
>> >>> This is a translation from Serbo-Croatian:
>> >>> While my mother and I were having a conversation in her room, my
>> >>> nephew Jovan (2 years, 4 months) took two long narrow cushions
>> from
>> >>> his grandmother's bed. He crossed them on the floor, sat on the
>> >>> construction and said:
>> >>> J: "I'm building an airplane. It is not a mineral airplane, it
>> is a
>> >>> plain airplane."
>> >>> This translation is a result of interpretation which was not
>> >>> automatic. In other words, what Jovan said was not immediately
>> >>> meaningful to us. In fact, when we (me and my mother who was
>> Jovan's
>> >>> grandmother) first heard Jovan utter that phrase, we heard him say
>> >>> "Sour airplane" and "plain airplane". That was strange and did not
>> >>> make sense in his play. However, the juxtaposition of the
>> adjectives
>> >>> he used: "sour"/"plain" ("kisela"/"obicna") lead us to think of
>> >>> something else: In our household in Belgrade, where we all lived
>> >>> together,we spoke frequently about "mineral water" and "fresh or
>> >>> plain" water. In Serbo-Croatian, although the adjective "kisela"
>> >>> means "sour", "kisela voda" means "mineral water" instead of "sour
>> >>> water".
>> >>> We thought that Jovan's use of the word "kiseli" was actually
>> >>> referring to "mineral" and not to "sour" because of the following:
>> >>> Jovan's mother did not let him drink mineral water, only fresh
>> >>> water. But, of course, he loved mineral water and he secretly took
>> >>> it whenever he could from the other members of the household.
>> >>> In addition, the cushions Jovan took to play with, also were
>> >>> something he was not allowed to touch. However, he took them off
>> the
>> >>> bed while me and my mother were standing in a conversation of our
>> >>> own.
>> >>> We agreed that what Jovan wanted to say to US was that he was
>> doing
>> >>> nothing bad or prohibited (like "mineral water"), but, on the
>> >>> contrary, he was claiming to just be playing a "plain" i.e.
>> >>> unforbidden game.
>> >> I apologize for the length of this example, but it illustrates the
>> >> difficulty in which every researcher (and not only of children's
>> >> language) finds her/him-self whether they are aware of it or not:
>> in
>> >> order to analyze the construction of meaning, one has to be able to
>> >> interpret the end-point, the resulting referential meaning, at
>> least
>> >> as well as every participant in the situation, and maybe even
>> better
>> >> then them.
>> >> In addition, this example illustrates the need to know the "root"
>> >> and the history of meaning development of particular "chunks" of
>> >> linguistic phrases (be it words, sentences, utterances, etc).
>> >> Finally, the MEANING as a process, as an activity of building
>> >> particular relationships among the participants has to be analyzed
>> as
>> >> a relational activity: Jovan's words would not have meant anything
>> to
>> >> anyone else (and they almost did not mean anything to us!!!), but
>> >> when we "understood" them, we understood what Jovan was telling us.
>> >> And that was something that could only be interpreted as: "Please
>> let
>> >> me play with these cushions. I am not doing anything prohibited".
>> We
>> >> were the participants in the situation, and Jovan's closest
>> relatives
>> >> from the same household. That gave us relevant background
>> knowledge.
>> >> Finally, I think that Vygotsky's work opens more issues, let's us
>> >> wondering more than it answers questions. For instance: if we are
>> to
>> >> understand the dual orientation of the sign -- as pointing outwards
>> >> -- to control the others in communication; and as pointing inwards
>> -
>> >> to control one owns thought and feeling processes, we need to
>> analyze
>> >> the actual acts that are performed by an utterance. It is not only
>> a
>> >> matter of a correct interpretation of other people's utterances. It
>> >> is also a matter of finding out what categories of such acts exist,
>> >> what are the similarities and differences between acts that point
>> >> outward and those that point inward, i.e. the nature of the
>> >> transformation from communicative to intellectual acts.
>> >> Ana
>> >> *Kittay, E.F. (1987), Metaphor: Its Cognitive Force and Linguistic
>> >> Structure, Oxford: Clarendon Press; NY: Oxford University Press
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Phil Chappell wrote:
>> >>> Dear All,
>> >>>
>> >>> It is always perplexing when a discussion on XMCA stops dead in
>> >>> it's tracks! But it has, probably because everyone is reading the
>> >>> papers, pondering the topics, or busy elsewhere... co-facilitator
>> >>> Steve Thorne, like many I suspect, is unfortunately in the last
>> >>> category for a few days...so....
>> >>>
>> >>> it would be good to keep the discussions moving, as Gordon is
>> >>> waiting in the wings to introduce the Vygotsky/Halliday
>> >>> language/learning component. But in the meantime, those who are
>> not
>> >>> familiar with the Hallidayan school might look at the discussion
>> in
>> >>> the Lantolf and Thorne paper on Hopper's emergent grammar, and
>> it's
>> >>> unit of analysis, as with Rommetveit and Bakhtin, as the utterance
>> >>> (the move and clause in Hallidayan theory). Arguments for the
>> >>> "sentence" as a unit of analysis are questioned in the paper, and
>> a
>> >>> fundamental difference between spoken and written language is
>> >>> foregrounded. What I find challenging both for the language
>> teacher
>> >>> and the researcher investigating the talk that goes on between
>> >>> students during classroom communicative activity is the idea of
>> >>> speech NOT constituting an ellipted form of some reified
>> linguistic
>> >>> system (e.g. "Slab" ellipted from "Please bring me the slab" - see
>> >>> the example from Wittgenstein on page 9 of the paper). It poses
>> some
>> >>> serious challenges for what we are teaching, how learning may be
>> >>> facilitated and how we might interpret what is being said. And of
>> >>> course a theory of context is involved.
>> >>>
>> >>> Lantolf and Thorne:
>> >>> we speak of ellipsis of elements, as if the elements had
>> originally
>> >>> been there or are there underlyingly and then are deleted in the
>> >>> actual production of the utterances in question. However, this is
>> a
>> >>> consequence of the jargon inherited from linguistic theory which
>> >>> posits underlying forms that are deleted in certain contexts. The
>> >>> claim of emergent grammar is that nothing is missing or deleted in
>> >>> the examples just considered; it is that interlocutors
>> intentionally
>> >>> combine linguistic forms and contexts to produce utterances that
>> >>> give rise to specific local meanings (Hanks 1996: 120). In
>> >>> communicating, then, 'actors continually reach beyond themselves
>> and
>> >>> the pre-established forms of language to create meanings that were
>> >>> not there before' (Hanks 1996: 121).
>> >>>
>> >>> To all the language educators, researchers and other interested
>> >>> parties - what do you think? And to those still pondering more
>> >>> philosophical questions such as "When is a tool?" and "When is a
>> >>> sign?".....ponder on. There is a point when we might archive the
>> >>> question of what Heidegger said for a later move ;-)))
>> >>>
>> >>> Looking forward to hearing from all those who were interested
>> last
>> >>> April in this endeavour.
>> >>>
>> >>> Phil
>> >
>> > --
>> >
>> >
>> > Steven L. Thorne
>> > Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics
>> > Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
>> > and
>> > Communication Arts and Sciences
>> > Associate Director, Center for Language Acquisition
>> > Associate Director, Center for Advanced Language Proficiency
>> > Education and Research
>> > The Pennsylvania State University
>> > Interact > 814.863.7036 | sthorne@psu.edu |
>> > http://language.la.psu.edu/~thorne/ | IM: avkrook
>>
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