Re: [xmca] Inside Outside

From: Mike Cole <lchcmike who-is-at gmail.com>
Date: Wed Apr 02 2008 - 20:08:27 PDT

David et al--

I know there have been many messages relevant to this thread subsequently,
but I am about 10 days behind the times (it seems like 10 weeks!)
and wanted to come back to this message an immediate sequalia up to the 8
days ago. I was in transit and missed all this and am still way behind.

Just a couple of points.

1-- I really want to stop and think David's analogy of Russia/USSR under
attack from "out|side" and the issue of neoformations with respect to
social situation of development. I am not clear on a lot in this note and in
the subsequent discussion.

2. I am still uncertain how to be consistent about the inside/outside issue.
The"civil war" analogy seems particularly important to understand
in some way that allows me to be consistent when moving from historical to
ontogenetic levels of analysis.

David and Michael appear to be disagreeing with each other and perhaps they
are with respect to substance of issues.I simply have not got it figured
out.
And may even one of them has grasped the essence of the issues. I hope so!
But I remain inconsistent.

OK. "Foreign"/outside countries attacked ....??? Russia?USSR/ Soviet
governement. Czechs, Americans, Brits, etc. They were not inside....
Russia/USSR.
But Russaia/USSR's borders (are there such things as borders?
(Bakhtin/Matusov would have us think that is about all there is!)) were not,
are not, fixed but in
constant motion. Were Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania not describable as at one
point outside and then inside Russia/USSR? Chechnya? Moldava? Eastern
"Poland".?

Did influences on Erica's emotional state not come, in part, from "outside"
the activity system of the fisheries? I think michael said yes at one point,
but perhaps
I misinterpreted. But if the answer is yes, what do outside and inside mean
and if no, what does Michael mean when he says so?

I think that David was saying that Michael's evidence of intonation and
emotion were overgeneralized. Iam very interested in finding ways to track
the interwoven dynamics
of emotion and cognition, but am left wondering what I might be required to
do in order to avoid stepping in cow plops, even if I got the technology for
tracking intonation.volume
variations with respect to behavior.

Am alone in these confusions? If so, would someone help me out of the hole I
am in? If not, would someone express their versions of their own misgivings?
mike

On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 5:12 AM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> Sorry Michael. I must have misunderstood,
> Andy
>
> At 03:08 AM 26/03/2008 -0700, you wrote:
>
> > Why do you think I favor a dichotomy? There is a praxeology of theory
> > and a praxeology of practice, each a practice in its own right. I
> > don't separate the ideal and material. :-)
> > Michael
> >
> >
> > On 25-Mar-08, at 7:30 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:
> >
> > Wolf-Michael,
> > I know I just put myself in the position of devil's advocate to
> > defend dichotomies against being brushed aside too lightly, but I
> > cannot understand your advocacy of theory/practice dichotomy as
> > something you'd actually like to strengthen?
> >
> > Andy
> > At 07:19 PM 25/03/2008 -0700, you wrote:
> >
> > > Hi David,
> > > I think you misunderstood me and I am sorry you feel you have to
> > > apologize. I wasn't saying anything about your use of praat or other
> > > stuff. I was saying something about my hope that we abandon
> > > internal/ external. The problem is that educators, interested in
> > > modifying individuals, require this kind of talk. I do understand. I
> > > was a
> > > teacher for many years.
> > >
> > > But I think ANALYTICALLY you don't want to maintain that distinction.
> > >
> > > I see the problems resurfacing in this message, where David takes
> > > about his praxis, but discussions where about analytic categories.
> > > This is not a good mix, and we have discussed this here in earlier
> > > strands when people discussed the confusion between activity (or
> > > community of practice or . . . ) as analytic concepts versus when
> > > they are used as design concepts.
> > >
> > > This is along the same lines that I see Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger
> > > to have parted ways, the former continuing to insist on the analytic
> > > nature of the concepts they forged (CoP, LPP) and the latter using
> > > the concepts to help companies to change practices of training people
> > > at work....
> > >
> > > I think it would help to separate out the two different discourses,
> > > related to very different value system. The problem with education
> > > and other fields is that their declared intent is in most cases not
> > > growth and development of the best in them but manipulation of people
> > > to speak specific discourses----just look at math and science
> > > education, two disciplines I am more familiar with. It is all about
> > > making people conform to standards that conservative politicians in
> > > cahoots with GWB and the likes impose on an entire nation,
> > > indoctrinating everyone to a particular ideology, and getting
> > > researchers, who ought to know better, buy into the ideology so that
> > > they get something from the granting feeding trough.
> > >
> > > :-)
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > >
> > > Michael
> > >
> > > PS: Again, David, I did not critique your work, your analyses---it's
> > > all about the categories. :-)
> > >
> > >
> > > On 25-Mar-08, at 6:57 PM, David Kellogg wrote:
> > >
> > > Dear Mark:
> > >
> > > You write:
> > >
> > > "First of all, your juxtaposition of a 'native speaker' and an
> > > 'expert?' teacher, to me has very little validity. Your first example
> > > of the teacher using a display question to elicit information is, in
> > > my mind the wrong way round for education."
> > >
> > > I don't understand how these two sentences are connected. It seems
> > > to me that the "validity" of the native speaker construct (not mine)
> > > is one issue and the use of display questions (again, not a term I
> > > introduced and not a distinction I accept) is an entirely different
> > > one. Neither is really relevant to this research.
> > >
> > > I have to take the foreign teachers as I find them: they are being
> > > hired in tens of thousands. Whether I reject the construct of "native
> > > speaker" or not I will still have a situation where foreigners are
> > > being hired and Korean teachers are being fired. I don't think that
> > > handwaving about the death of the native speaker (Davies, Kramsch,
> > > etc.) will do anything to alter this policy. But I DO think that if I
> > > can show systematic differences in discourse, I can at least remove
> > > one of the spurious justifications of the policy.
> > >
> > > Both "native teachers" (by which I mean Koreans) and foreign
> > > teachers use display questions and both use nondisplay questions.
> > > This distinction is not relevant to my research, as far as I can see.
> > >
> > > You write:
> > >
> > > "Display questions too, don't have a place in the classroom, much more
> > > than open ended up intonation questions that leave the student
> > > wondering what's coming next. Is this the way you try to avoid display
> > > questions?"
> > >
> > > I'm a little unsure about the grammar here. Do you mean "any more
> > > than open ended intonation questions"? But it doesnt matter. I don't
> > > try to decide what does and does not have a place in the classroom. I
> > > do research.
> > >
> > > "This intonation... is this really how we talk? The use of display
> > > questions though to discuss gestures versus intonation, I just don't
> > > understand."
> > >
> > > I don't really know what you mean by "we". It seems to me that
> > > this research is not about "we". It is about the data, and I am not
> > > in the data. But the intonation is.
> > >
> > > To observe intonation I use phonemic analysis programme called
> > > "Praat" which Wolff-Michael has also used. You can download it for
> > > free here:
> > >
> > >
> > > www.praat.org
> > >
> > >
> > > I see my work as being quite close to Wolff-Michael's work, which
> > > is why I was quite surprised when he implied that work based on the
> > > kinds of distinctions I am using (e.g. gesture, intonation, or old
> > > information and new information) is not really cultural-historical.
> > > But perhaps it was mere rhetorical excess!
> > >
> > > David Kellogg
> > > Seoul National University of Education
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ---------------------------------
> > > Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.
> > > Try it now.
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> >
> > Andy Blunden : http://home.mira.net/~andy/<http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>tel (H) +61 3 9380 9435,
> > mobile 0409 358 651
> >
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>
> Andy Blunden : http://home.mira.net/~andy/<http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>tel (H) +61 3 9380 9435, mobile 0409 358 651
>
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Received on Wed Apr 2 20:09 PDT 2008

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