1) initially toy-bottle is being used as-if real-bottle
(squeezing the nipple to get milk out etc.); this is play to us,
but some aspect may not yet be marked as play to Arne. Perhaps he
marks Bear as both play-world and real-world, with different
activities appropriate in each; but presumably at the beginning
of the episode he does not yet double-mark the toy-bottle. From
an adult point of view we could say he 'mistakes' it for a real-
bottle; i.e. begins to use it in the activity pattern for real-
world bottles, and is transposing this activity to the (putative)
play-with-Bear world.
2) toy-bottle is not construable as having the activity valences
of real-bottle; it doesn't do, one can't do with it, what one can
with real-bottle (no milk comes out)
3) but toy-bottle does have _some_ of the valences of real-
bottle, and this leads to an activity-mediated splitting (a
semogenesis) or bifurcation in the bottle-using activity: if toy-
bottle, X-activity is possible; if real-bottle, X+Y activity is
possible -- which _creates_ in an activity semiotic (i.e. where
activities themselves are the primary semiotic units) X-activity,
and X+Y activity from the original undifferentiated bottle-using-
activity
4) X-activity is now enacted, and practiced, and _maybe_ there is
warrant here for supposing that the contextual-situational
_range_ of the X-activity (feeding with toy-bottle) for the child
is _distinct_ from that of the original activity (either real
feeding with real-bottle, or Bear-play-feeding with
undifferentiated-bottle), which is one distinctive semiotic
feature for the X-activity; i.e. would the child attempt real
bottle-feeding of all comers with a real-bottle? I assume not at
this point.
5) Feeding-with-toy-bottle now already participates in the
putative "play"-marking of Bear-feeding (though that marking may
still be questioned here for lack of data about Bear's play/real
status and its contingencies and about any salient distinction-
in-activity between real-feeding and Bear-feeding for the child).
6) The child moved "out-of-play" briefly to puzzle at the
inconguity of the toy-bottle; the toy-bottle became also a "real-
world" object and was examined as such. Here is another aspect of
the same source of 'doubling' (semogenesis) as in (3). The toy-
bottle was reinserted in X-activity, which may have been marked
as "play". The _moving in and out_ may then have permitted a new
contextualization: X-activity as
Not[Not-play] (which in activity terms at this level does not
entail "play" but does allow that possibility), with the move-
out/move-in perhaps making possible a "generalization" of X-
activity from Bear-feeding-with-not-real-bottle to [Other-than-
Bear]-feeding-with-not-real-bottle.
7) In my analysis a second key point (beyond the initial
differentiation that created X-activity as distinct), would be
the first transfer of X-activity to not-Bear. This would
presumably occur because X-activity belongs already, by
inheritance from the original undifferentiated Feeding-with-
Bottle activity, to a range of contexts (mother-feeds-child-with-
bottle, child-feeds-Bear, ???). Now here for me is the central
mystery: I suppose that the child begins to explore the
possibility of an expanded range of contexts for X-activity
(feeding-with-not-real-bottle) beyond that for the original
activity. Why? I do not feel comfortable with proposing a
mechanical model here, with tracing pre-existent patterns that
implied or added up to this generalizing behavior. I _suspect_
that this generalization (not at all an abstract one, of course,
but purely in range of activity-application) was emergent, i.e. a
non-predictable self-organizing potential-new-pattern of the
total situation that was realized on this occasion.
8) From an adult point of view, I would be tempted to imagine
that the child "realizing" the difference between the toy-bottle
object and a real-bottle "found himself" with a new variant
activity pattern (toy-bottle feeding), and "hypothesized" that he
could get away with generalizing it to new contexts where the
original activity pattern had not occured or been likely to be
extended to.
9) As he successfully does extend the range of applicability of
the new pattern, it becomes strengthened as a distinct activity,
and its difference from the original activity _potentially_
becomes more salient or foregrounded.
10) This is certainly "play" in my previous definition, precisely
to the extent that the toy-bottle is not-a-real-bottle for the
child. What is done with the toy-bottle would not be confused
with real-feeding: if we set both toy- and real-bottles before
Arne and he was hungry to feed, he would not pick, I think, the
toy-bottle; if he was hungry to play, he might more likely pick
the toy-bottle. But, of course, there is no reason why he could
not use a real-bottle to play the feeding game with, too. In that
case the real-bottle would be a 'toy' substitute for the toy-
bottle. The frequency with which this does or does not happen,
given opportunity, might be a measure of the relative strength of
semiotically-generalizing (real for toy) vs. object-tied (toy
only) activity at this age. JAY.
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JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
BITNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM
INTERNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU