"Life is not so easy"... this is very right. Beyond concrete selection of a
unit, we can see a complex meta-conceptual, methodological arrange of terms
in LSV, not ever detailled - and not all connected in a single word, neither
period of creative work of this author. For instance we can find the problem
of "object of analysis" as a broader whole (not ever totality?) and the
"unit of analysis", as "part" but containing the whole *main* contradictions
(I guess not *all* contradictions). But I wonder we must connect even
"object of analysis" also with its "explanatory principle" (another
important meta-concept). Maybe a "unit of analysis" could be a kind of
mediation between the object of analysis and its "explanatory principle" - I
think the exploratory principle as social human existence... consciousness
as function of human existence (social by definition) but not a immediate
function... what could be only "reaction" - but a mediated one - for
instance mediated by word meaning. I understand the problem of
generalization/social interaction (obushchenie/obobushchenie ? how to
translate?). Another metca-concept transversal for all analitical task is,
of course, is the own genetic aproach, even better, historical apprach -
withouth which nothing will be understood well... Then we must be put the
three first categories is movement to really understand the object of
analysis...
What do you think? This could makes some sense?
Achilles.
P.S. Nevertheless I did not understand claerly the difference between
"explanatory principle" and "motrice power" as Vygotsky explain in the book
about The Crisis of Psychology... I guess a sample is that for
psychoanalisys "sexuality" is "motrice power" and unconsciouss is
"explanatory principle", orh vice versa... but I don't know well what the
correspondent for own historical-cutural psychology. I only can see social
relations, human social existence as both - explanatory principle and
motrice power... but this could be a mistake of mine... I don't know.
Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2010 00:30:55 +1000
From: ablunden@mira.net
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Experiences or an experience
I gave a pat answer to David earlier because I didn't want
to get into a big debate about this, but life is never so
easy is it?
In the context of the study of comparative linguistics (is
that the right term?) "a language" is the complex whole
whose movement and dynamics of change you want to
understand. As you say, Achilles, it is in fact the "object
of analysis."
What is the unit for the study of a "a language" is not
something which can be said off the cuff. It requires deep
study and understanding I don't have. But I would observe
for starters that a language cannot be considered separately
from the people, social practices and other constellations
of artefacts which constitute it. But what is the unit of
analysis? I don't know. According to Herder, every people
has the Schwerpunkt, or strong point, basically "leading
activity" and it would be this leading activity that should
be looked at. But I don't know.
As to a pereshivanie, it is, yes, a unit of analysis for
Vygotsky for a more general study of consciousness, as in
the relation of a human being to their environment. "Word
meaning" as you say, David, is a unit of analysis only for
verbal thought, a specific mode of consciousness which
Vygotsky takes as the macrocosm for all consciousness. But
macroscosm is not totality.
Andy
Achilles Delari Junior wrote:
Please David, when "a language" is "an unit of analysis", what is the
"object of analysis" in this case? Don't you agree that when LSV for
instance, talk about a "word meaningn" or a "perezhianie" as an unit of
analisys, this is a unit for analysis of consciousness development as an
object of analysis?
Thank you.
Achilles.
Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:55:28 +1000
From: ablunden@mira.net
To: vaughndogblack@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: [xmca] Experiences or an experience
CC: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Yes, of course. I hesitated before sending that. In the
appropriate context "a language" is the unit of analysis.
Andy
David Kellogg wrote:
Of course, language CAN be a unit of (cultural historical) analysis.
Suppose we are trying to understand, for example, how languages
change
from standard languages into lingua franca (e.g. French in eighteenth
century Europe, Latin in the middle ages, English today)and vice
versa (e.g. Swahili). Then languages are a unit of (historical
linguistics) analysis, but they are not a unit of psychological
analysis.
I think that word meaning is indeed a unit of analysis for
consciousness, and it is a superior unit of analysis than
"activity",
which is too general and which often does not contain the properties
of
the whole (e.g. animal activity). But I think word meaning covers
consciousness only after a particular point (the point at which
speech
becomes rational and thinking becomes verbal, let us say, age two).
Perhaps Vygotsky was looking at "perizhvanie" as a rather more
general unit of analysis for a different set of problems (not
only consciousness as we know it, but thinking in preverbal children
and
schizophrenics).
It is a little fashionable, in my neck of the woods, to argue that
cognitivist approaches to language acquisition and socio-cultural
(a.k.a. cultural historical) accounts are "incommensurable
paradigms",
that comparing the ZPD to Krashen's "i + 1" (that is, the
hypothetical
"next structure" that a language learner can acquire) is a little
like
trying to measure mass with a unit of information (kilobytes instead
of
kilograms). See, for example, the work of Dunn and Lantolf.
It's a nice argument. It helps us stake out our own territory, on
which
cognitivists do not dare to tread, and it helps us exchange
ambassadors
with contiguous territories and sign mutual non-agression treaties
and
so on. It also gets us out of a lot of the unpleasant work of
disposing
of competing cognitivist theories; we simply declare them
incommensurable and go our merry way.
Churlishly, I am not very sympathetic to this argument. Krashen is
simply wrong: he has been empirically shown to be wrong (Huilstijn
and
Huilstijn, for example). There isn't a universal hierarchy of
language
structures any more than there is one of Piagetian cognitive stages
(to
which it is undoubtedly related). But the fact that we can show that
Krashen's attempt to map out fixed rates and routes of learning
doesn't
work, that the zone of proximal development accounts for ranges and
routes of development much better, tells me that at some level our
paradigms are commensurable, because we are measuring the same kinds
of
things even if they don't exactly have the same names (Ohms and volts
do
not measure exactly the same thing either, but they are certainly
measurements of the same phenomenon).
Vygotsky's whole point about "units of analysis" is that that some
level
at which paradigms are commensurable can be too elemental. We need a
unit where the properties of the whole are still present, and the
unit
will vary with the practical problem we want to solve. For historical
linguistics it is the language, for verbal thinking it is word
meaning, for evolution it's the species.
The point at which hypotheses such as Krashen's can be proven wrong
(the
reduction of language into words and rules acquired in a given order)
does not always help us answer the practical question we are asking
(e.g. how DO we teach children that "There is a fire" is
demonstrative
and even indicative and "Fire exists" is not). For this set of
practical
problems, we may find different units of analysis, or different
refinements of a same unit of analysis (I think, for example, that
the
difference here has to do with the word meaning of "a" as well as the
word meaning of "there" and not necessarily the word meaning of
"exists").
This is unfortunate, particularly for those of us who think that good
fences make good neighbors. But the situation is really no different
in
physics: there is a level at which energy and information are (or at
least may be) commensurable, but it's not the level at which we solve
most of our practical problems.
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
--- On *Thu, 8/26/10, Andy Blunden /<ablunden@mira.net>/* wrote:
From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Experiences or an experience
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Thursday, August 26, 2010, 8:50 PM
No. Particularity is not the issue. One can make general
statements
about units of analysis. The point is that word meaning can be a
unit of analysis but language cannot.
Andy
Larry Purss wrote:
> Hi Andy
> I was pondering your question about experience and came across
this quote by
> Peirce.
> [in an article written by S. Paavola, K. Hakkarainen, and M.
Sintonen:
> "Abduction With Dialogical and Trialogical Means"]
>
> Peirce was discussing the role of indexical signs in relation
to
our shared
> world.
>
> "For example, if example be needed, suppose a man to go out
of
his house at
> night and see the light of a distant fire in the sky. He
meets a
neibour
> and remarks, "There is a fire." If he had only said "a fire
exists", he
> would have conveyed next to NO meaning at all. Not quite no
meaning, since
> the remark would even so refer to that universe that is
familiary
known to
> both men. But in saying "There is a fire" he refers to the
common
> experience of THAT very PLACE and TIME, and virtually says
that
if the
> second person will raise his eyes and look about him, he will
find the
> COMMON EXPERIENCE of THAT PLACE and TIME to connect itself
with the
> experience of a light AS OF a fire, the mode of connection
being the
> familiar one that the speaker INDICATED" [In collected papers
of
C.S.Peirce]
>
> Andy, was your question about "an" experience indicating the
centrality
> of "particular" shared experiences as foundational for
creating
"common
> ground" and not over generalized "lived experience"? [A term
I
notice I
> like to use]
>
> Larry
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Videos: http://vimeo.com/user3478333/videos
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Book: http://www.brill.nl/scss
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