Re: [xmca] A Game of Yut

A lot to digest (as usual in your notes, David).
I have a question concerning the following:

I think Mehan's great insight means that there is a kind of RANKSHIFT in the
evaluate move. It¡¯s not just an operation, not just a response to
operational conditions. But it¡¯s not an ACTIVITY, either; if it were that,
it would occur at the very beginning of the lesson, laying out the motives
for the whole lesson in quite general terms (¡°This is an English lesson.¡± Or
¡°Today we¡¯re going to learn X¡±).

 It¡¯s an action: it¡¯s motivated by the goal of successfully completing one
exchange (operation) and moving on to the next. But it's an action that is
embedded in the ongoing operation.

 I can guess that I will catch hell from Tony for saying this. And Gordon
Wells himself will probably object tool (because for Gordon it¡¯s the
SEQUENCE and not the EXCHANGE that is operational). But there¡¯s an advantage
to thinking about it this way.

The question concerns the (apparently) different ways that
operation/operational are used. an operation in the first segment is a
"response to operational conditions". An exchange IS an operation
in the second segment, and also actions can be embedded in "the ongoing
operation." Then get a slighly different context of the use of the term,
operational, in the third segment.

I am still struggling with genre as operation from R. Engestrom referred to
by Gordon, and often get bolixed up when trying to figure out what is being
said in discussions about operation.action.activity.
And its happening again to me hear. Any heuristics you can offer for keeping
things straight?
mike

On 10/4/07, David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> Last week was Chuseok, the rice harvest festival, here in Korea. It¡¯s a
> time when families play Yut, a traditional game which is a little like
> parchesi played with divination sticks.
>
> About two weeks ago, one of my grads gathered this data. Like a lot of
> data transcribed from the teacher¡¯s point of view, it is written up as a
> kind of dialogue between one teacher called T and a monster that has forty
> bodies, but only two ears and one mouth, which appears as "S". Here's some
> fresh data, then:
>
> T: Children, look at this.[C] This is Yut. [S] OK? What's this?[Q]
> S: Yut!
> T: Yut.
>
> Two participants, three turns, six utterances (if we define the
> utterance as a real or potential change of speaker). Three of the utterances
> are grammatical sentences: those marked C for command (imperative), S for
> sentence (indicative declarative), and Q (indicative interrogative). Three
> utterances are not (which in my experience is pretty normal for classroom
> discourse).
>
> But how to explain the fact that we consider this to be a unit? I guess
> the usual explanation (Mehan, Sinclair and Coulthard, Nassaji and Wells) is
> that it IS a unit of triadic dialogue; it is one exchange of IRE (or IRF)
> and as such it consists of one initiate turn, one response turn, and one
> feedback/follow up/evaluate turn.
>
> This is a little hard to maintain when we look at the rest of the data.
>
> T: Cha, yucheul deonchyeosseyo (Now, we throw the divination sticks).
> What is this?
> S: Mo! ( A combination of four sticks)
> T: Mo! Then, what's this?
>
> As you can see, things are not so simple. We can¡¯t simply map Sinclair
> and Coulthard¡¯s moves onto physical turns on a one to one basis. There are
> two reasons we can¡¯t:
>
> a) The teacher¡¯s turns almost always consist of THREE moves rather
> than one. One is a REACTING move (Cha and Mo). One is an COMMENTING move (We
> throw the sticks, then). One is a QUERYING move (What¡¯s this?)
> b) The ¡°stitch¡± between one exchange and the next occurs in the
> MIDDLE of the teacher¡¯s turn, not the end. (after Mo and before Then).
>
> Why are the teacher¡¯s turns so very complex? And why don¡¯t the
> structural boundaries of the exchanges correspond to the physical boundaries
> (the changes in speaker)?
>
> One of Mehan¡¯s brilliant insights was to show that the traditional I-R-E
> exchange is not a modular unit. Exchanges do NOT go in any order. They are
> carefully ordered.
>
> But they are NOT ordered beforehand, at the beginning of the lesson.
> Instead, they are ordered in a post hoc fashion. The teacher takes a step,
> checks to see that the kids are following, and then takes the next one.
>
> Some of this checking is visual (the teacher checks eye contact and
> facial expression instead of asking a question), and that¡¯s why the
> teacher¡¯s moves look so complex. That three part turn is really THREE turns:
>
> T: T: Cha (teacher checks eye contact), yucheul deonchyeossoyeo (Now, we
> throw the devination sticks). (teacher checks facial expressions) What is
> this? (teacher checks verbal understanding)
>
> T: Mo! (Teacher smiles to show this is the right answer and children
> smile back) Then, (Teacher pauses to show that a new set of devination rods
> is under construction. Teacher checks that all children are looking at the
> devination rods before asking') what¡¯s this?
>
> But some of the checking is not visual. A lot of it happens, believe it
> or not, is through that nasty, monologic, dictatorial EVALUATE move.
>
> Evaluate is NOT, contrary to what Sinclair and Coulthard felt, an
> evaluate of the student¡¯s response. Instead, it¡¯s an evaluate of the
> felicity or satisfactoriness of the WHOLE EXCHANGE. If that¡¯s okay (from the
> point of view of action), the teacher goes on. But if it¡¯s NOT satisfactory,
> here¡¯s what happens.
>
> T: Cha, OK. Look at this. Look at the screen. (shows a chart on the
> video screen)
> S: Cancel!
> T: This ¡°Do¡± means [Cancel!].[S]
> S: Candy!
> T: Oh! No, no. Ha ha. This ¡®µµ¡¯ means ¡®Cancel!¡¯. Teonjin Geosi Modu, Modu
> Yeoreo beon Deonjyeodo Muhyoga dwineun geoyeyo! (The throw is all, all every
> time you throw this, it¡¯s all cancelled.) Repeat after me. (Gestures ¡°X¡±
> with both hands)
> S: Cancel! Candy!
> T: OK. Look at this sheet. This will help you.
>
> The exchange is extended. The way it is extended is by the Evaluate
> move, of course.
>
> I think Mehan's great insight means that there is a kind of RANKSHIFT in
> the evaluate move. It¡¯s not just an operation, not just a response to
> operational conditions. But it¡¯s not an ACTIVITY, either; if it were that,
> it would occur at the very beginning of the lesson, laying out the motives
> for the whole lesson in quite general terms (¡°This is an English lesson.¡± Or
> ¡°Today we¡¯re going to learn X¡±).
>
> It¡¯s an action: it¡¯s motivated by the goal of successfully completing
> one exchange (operation) and moving on to the next. But it's an action that
> is embedded in the ongoing operation.
>
> I can guess that I will catch hell from Tony for saying this. And Gordon
> Wells himself will probably object tool (because for Gordon it¡¯s the
> SEQUENCE and not the EXCHANGE that is operational). But there¡¯s an advantage
> to thinking about it this way.
>
> The payoff is that we can consider the ¡°Evaluate¡± move as a form of
> RANKSHIFT¡Xit¡¯s BOTH an operation (because it¡¯s a response to the response
> and so part of the exchange) and an action (commentary on the whole exchange
> and so part of the sequence).
>
> It¡¯s the same as a grammatical rankshift. When we say:
>
> That he won is not surprising!
>
> we get a clause "That he won" rankshifting down, like God made flesh, an
> immortal clause pretending to be a mortal noun subject. In the same way, the
> Evaluate is an action incarnating itself as an operation.
>
> In Gordon¡¯s 1996 article in MCA (Using the Toolkit of Discourse in the
> Activity of Learning and Teaching, MCA 3(2), pp. 74-101) he tries to
> articulate activity theory with systemic functional linguistics (Hallidayan
> grammar).
>
> I think the earlier article doesn¡¯t work very well because
>
> a) activity theory works WELL above the level of exchange and
> Hallidayan grammar for the most part is concerned with clauses.
> b) The activity theory that Gordon presents is REDUCTIONIST:
> activities are NOTHING but their constituent actions, and actions are ONLY
> made up of operations.
>
> It seems to me that if we go back to Mehan and understand the Evaluate
> move as a bit of rankshift, we get around both of these problems:
>
> a) The Evaluate move takes part in BOTH the operation (the
> exchange) and the action (the sequence) (Mo! That¡¯s right! So')
> b) The action is more than just the sum of its parts, because the
> Evaluate move is not simply reactive but also pro-active, and even
> proleptic, bringing the next exchange into focus for the children (Mo!
> Then').
>
> I think we also might get a little closer to the key problem that
> Nassaji and Wells tackle: why are SOME tripartite dialogues so much better
> than others?
>
> A friend of mine wrote (partly in response to the Craig business) that
> the difference between lesbian and straight has very little to do with whom
> you actually sleep with; it¡¯s to do with whose love really helps you get
> things done and get on with your life.
>
> In the same way, we might say that some tripartite dialogues look
> forward, and others look back. Some dialogues teach, and others merely test.
> (And in the same way, we might say that it is not the same for everybody!)
>
> David Kellogg
> Seoul National University of Education
>
> PS: A native speaker thought on the data: Hmmmm....must tell Hojin that
> "then" is not really the same as "so".
>
> Second thoughts: Says who?
>
> dk
>
>
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Received on Sat Oct 6 14:36 PDT 2007