Re: [xmca] Wells article

Gordon:

My apologies. I did indeed mean "rid the mice" as the object.

Thank you for the clarification.

eric

                                                                                                                               
                      Gordon Wells
                      <gwells@ucsc.edu To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> cc:
                      Sent by: Subject: Re: [xmca] Wells article
                      xmca-bounces@web
                      er.ucsd.edu
                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                               
                      10/05/2007 11:27
                      AM
                      Please respond
                      to "eXtended
                      Mind, Culture,
                      Activity"
                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                               

Eric,

I agree with what I take to be your argument. But
in your last paragraph I am confused when you
write that the expert " views "rid the mice" as
the subject." Surely you and the expert are both
subjects and a plan to "rid the mice" is the
object./goal.

Gordon

>Paul:
>
>I truely believe that the result may be far from the ideal. However, if
>there is a discourse taking place between people who are engaged in a goal
>directed activity, then within the paramaters of this discoursing the
>"ideal" is the "object"??? I must admit I am engaging in this discussion
>more for a sense of trying to hear what my thoughts are as I write them
>down. Here is an example:
>
>Perhaps I have mice in my basement. I go to the feed mill and talk to an
>expert on mice eradication. The ideal would be to rid my basement of
mice.
>The discourse between I and the expert revolves around ridding my basement
>of mice. This may not result from the efforts I engage upon my return
home
>but nevertheless, when I am talking to the expert we are engaged in a
>discourse of "rid the mice"; not, "get rid of SOME of the mice."
>
> Andy, I do not think the expert sees me as a subject to be manipulated
but
>rather views "rid the mice" as the subject. The ideal provides a catalyst
>for how to discourse with me, the customer.
>
>Is any of this making sense?
>
>eric
>
>
>
>

> Paul
>Dillon

> <phd_crit_think@
>To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
><xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> yahoo.com>
>cc:

> Sent by:
>Subject: Re: [xmca] Wells
>article
>
>xmca-bounces@web

>
>er.ucsd.edu

>
>

>
>

> 10/03/2007
>01:41

>
>PM

> Please
>respond

> to
>"eXtended

> Mind,
>Culture,

>
>Activity"

>
>

>
>

>
>
>
>
>Eric,
>
> Before entering into the argument strictly speaking, I would like you
to
>look at some evidence (see attachment).
>
> I don't agree that the "ideal" exists in the discussion unless that
>discussion has an identifiable
>[object/frame-of-reference/verifiabilty-space/etc?] that exists
>independently of the ideal that exists in the discussion and against which
>any given instantiation of the ideal as developed in the discussion can be
>compared. Say the shape of a knife. Form as ideal - cleaver or scalpel?
>
> Also, internalized discussions in which imagined communities
participate,
>"Walter Mitty" comes to mind, must clearly enter in the discussion space
in
>which shadows of ideals sport and play.
>
> I think the evidence I' ve attached provides an arguable demonstration
of
>how the ideal in discussion can lead one far from the ideal that might
>exist independently of that discussion.
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org wrote:
>
>Paul:
>
>That is indeed a good question pertaining to the "ideal". If the ideal
>nose is invisioned then what is the product end result of the operation?
>There is the activity of the "noe job" and then there is the operation of
>changing the nose. The ideal is the discussion of what the new nose
>should look like and then there is the material end of a new nose. Just
>positing in fun : )
>
>eric
>
>
>
>To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
>cc:
>bcc:
>Subject: Re: [xmca] Wells article
>Paul Dillon
>
>Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
>10/02/2007 03:25 PM MST
>Please respond to "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" size=-1>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
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>
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>
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>
>
>
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>
>before or after the nose job?
>
>ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org wrote:
>Paul;
>
>And here I had always invisioned you as Robert Zimmerman : )
>
>
>
>Paul Dillon
>
>
>yahoo.com> cc:
>Sent by: Subject: Re: [xmca] Wells article
>xmca-bounces@web
>er.ucsd.edu
>
>
>10/02/2007 02:29
>PM
>Please respond
>to "eXtended
>Mind, Culture,
>Activity"
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Sure and I'm Alexander the Grape.
>
>
>Kevin Rocap wrote:
>That was....
>
>A Gordon Knot?
>
>;-)
>
>Paul Dillon wrote:
>>
>>
>> It just ocurred to me that listserv threads are something akin to
Andean
>quipu, threads with knots used to record every kind of information. But .
.
>.
>>
>> Maybe Gordon could explain how what he's proposing relates to Habermas'
>theory of communicative action, a fourth level to the Weberian continuum,
>beyond strategic action, communicative action, with its own ideal state,
>oriented to reaching understanding. As far as I can tell, this wheel might
>already have been employed in building various kinds of vehicles. So maybe
>some clarification would be useful.
>>
>> Paul. Dillon
>>
>> "Worthen, Helena Harlow" wrote:
>> Andy --
>>
>> Are you saying you don't see a useful difference between language being
>> used to coordinate actions directed toward a shared goal, and language
>> being used to create something that is not the shared goal of the
>> participants, but something different? I think this is a useful
>> distinction, because the latter would give us a name for the process we
>> would expect to see if we could zoom in on and observe in slow motion
>> (maybe in a transcript) the way words get turned, replaced, defined and
>> re-defined in the process of negotiating an agree-upon text.
>>
>> Helena Worthen, Clinical Associate Professor
>> Labor Education Program, Institute of Labor & Industrial Relations
>> University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
>> 504 E. Armory, Room 227
>> Champaign, IL 61821
>> Phone: 217-244-4095
>> hworthen@uiuc.edu
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
>> On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
>> Sent: Monday, October 01, 2007 6:15 PM
>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>> Subject: RE: [xmca] Wells article
>>
>> Helena,
>> I took it that Gordon ended up saying that Halliday's distinction
cannot
>> be
>> sustained.
>> Here is what he says:
>>
>> "From this work it has becomes apparent that the initial distinction
>> made
>> by Halliday (1978)
>> between ancillary and constitutive discoursing, although useful
>> conceptually, is an oversimplification
>> of actual practice. The first and most obvious complication is that
many
>>
>> interactions
>> involve more than one genre, as when a shopper discusses the weather or
>> current events in
>> the course of a purchasing action.
>> A second issue is that the distinction between ancillary and
>> constitutive
>> discoursing is
>> not as clear-cut as Halliday suggested. Taking the football example
from
>>
>> earlier, at various
>> points before and during the game, the coach discusses strategy with
the
>>
>> entire team and perhaps
> > also with one or more individuals; he will probably also shout from
the
>> sidelines. Although the
>> latter might fit Halliday's argument that "any instructions or other
>> verbal
>> interaction among
>> the players are part of this social action" (p. 144), it is not so
clear
>>
>> that the strategy talk before
>> the team leaves the dressing room is entirely part of the "social
>> action"
>> of the game itself.
>> However, the most difficult issue is that of determining what goals are
>> involved in any
>> action in which discoursing plays a part. The problem is that
>> participants
>> rarely announce their
>> goals, expecting others to be able to deduce them from the situation
and
>>
>> from the genre form
>> they adopt."
>>
>> So I didn't follow this issue any further because I wouldn't support
>> this
>> particular dichotomy at any but a superficial level. I think discourse
>> is
>> always, along with other elements of material culture, part of
>> constituting
>> the project. I see conflict as essentially indistinguishable from
>> collaboration and the material/ideal distinction between project also
>> untenable. Anyway, Gordon gave three reasons for not making this
>> distinction and that was good enough for me.
>>
>>
>> Andy
>> At 02:41 PM 1/10/2007 -0500, you wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Hello, xmca:
>>>
>>> I'll take a shot at the Wells article, as usual, from the point of
view
>>> of a labor educator.
>>>
>>> As I read it, he's distinguishing between the use of language as
>>> "ancillary" to an activity and the use of language that actually
>>> constitutes what participants are doing. When people use language to
>>> coordinate activity, that's "ancillary." When the thing that has to
>>>
>> "get
>>
>>> done" is itself made out of language (he gives the example of a
meeting
>>> with an agenda and agreed-upon decisions to be made - p. 167) then
>>> that's "constitutive discoursing," the co-construction of "possible
>>> worlds" (he references Bruner). However, he's saying, this distinction
>>> has already been made (by Halliday). Wells then says that the
>>> distinction between the two is not always clear, because people may be
>>> co-constructing with different goals in mind. He lists some examples
of
>>> different goals in the middle of page 173.
>>>
>>> At this point, I am thinking that Wells is right but I'd like him to
>>> give an example where people are co-constructing something but have
>>>
>> more
>>
>>> strikingly different goals in mind -- goals more different than the
>>> goals of a trio of researchers observing their own discoursing or even
>>> than the goals of a teacher and three students in a busy classroom.
>>>
>>> Of course I was reading this article keeping in mind the
>>>
>> co-constructive
>>
>>> constitutive discoursing that takes place when workers and employers
>>> bargain a contract. The contract is an example of a "possible world."
>>>
>> It
>>
>>> is built up bit by bit over the years, written down and enforced
>>>
>> through
>>
>>> yards and yards, miles and miles of talk. In fact, both the contract
>>>
>> and
>>
>>> the process by which it is negotiated are negotiated. But most helpful
>>> of all to me, as I try to understand what is actually happening when
>>> people negotiate their conditions of work, was Wells' point that(p
174)
>>> the "the participants are not interchangeable." Constitutive
>>> discoursing (the co-creation of something through language) is
>>> characterized by participants in an itneraction who are not
>>> interchangeable. It is the different perspectives of the parties to
the
>>> negotiation that make the co-construction of something possible.
>>>
>>> I'm not convinced that the word "discoursing" is going to get into
>>> popular use. It may be that Wells doesn't expect it to go much further
>>> himself; in fact, he could be putting forth this term ironically,
since
>>> by the end of the article he appears to have pulled the plug on the
>>> notion that discoursing is an activity in its own right.
>>>
>>> Is there a significant stream of argument that says that the use of
>>> language for no other purpose (no co-construction, no constitution) is
>>> in itself an activity? Wouldn't that be like carrying a tape recorder
> >> down a busy street or drifting from channel to channel on the TV? But
>>> then we'd be in the realms of art.
>>>
>>> I saw Chris Marker's movie, Les Chats Perches (?) last night. Now
>>> there's a record of co-construction of an emergent text and possible
>>> world.
>>>
>>>
>>> Helena Worthen
>>> Helena Worthen, Clinical Associate Professor
>>> Labor Education Program, Institute of Labor & Industrial Relations
>>> University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
>>> 504 E. Armory, Room 227
>>> Champaign, IL 61821
>>> Phone: 217-244-4095
>>> hworthen@uiuc.edu
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> xmca mailing list
>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>>
>>
>> Andy Blunden : http://home.mira.net/~andy/ tel (H) +61 3 9380 9435,
>> AIM
>> identity: AndyMarxists mobile 0409 358 651
>>
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--
Gordon Wells
Department of Education
University of California, Santa Cruz
http://people.ucsc.edu/~gwells
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