recursivity
Dot Robbins (drobbins who-is-at sprintmail.com)
Sun, 10 May 1998 18:25:46 -0500
Along Eugene's thoughts of recursivity, the terms reflexivity,
environmental affererentiation, prolepsis come to mind.
Reflexivity: "The terms reflexive, reflexivity, and reflexiveness have
been used in a variety of disciplines to describe the capacity of
language and thought--of any system of signification--to turn or bend
upon itself, to become an object to itself, and to refer to itself.
Whether we are discussing things grammatical or cognitive, what is meant
is reflex action or process linking self and other, subject and object"
(p.2).(B. Babcock. 1980. "Reflexivity: definitions and discriminations"
in Semiotica. Vol. 30/1-2:1-14).
2. Environmental afferentiation (P.K. Anokhin): " By environmental
afferentiation we mean the sum total of all external influences upon the
organism that, in conjunction with the initial motivation, provide the
organism with the most complete information for selecting the act most
appropriate to the motivation present at the moment. The physiological
role and behavioral significance of environmental afferentation are
that, because of its relatively constant nature, it creates an
extremely...integrated system of excitations in the central nervous
system, a kind of neural model of the environment" (p.25). (Anokhin
quoted in A.A. Leontiev 1973. "Some problems in learning Russian as a
foreign language (essays on psycholinguistics)". Special issue of Soviet
Psychology. Vol. XI/4:1-103).
3. Prolepsis: "when Rommetveit (1974) proposed the notion of prolepsis,
he was thinking of a speaker who gives the hearer clues for the
enlargement of common ground without spelling out every detail.
Proleptic discourse therefore is aware of gaps in understanding and
invites the less-competent into sharing with the more competent. Whereas
ellipsis can be dismissive (or at best indifferent), prolepsis is always
invitational and generous" (p. 182) (Leo van Lier, 1996. Interaction in
the language curriculum: awareness, autonomy & authenticity. London:
Longman). This description can be completed with the understanding Mike
Cole gives to prolepsis, using the example of the child coming into the
world, and how the child is received--via spoken communication from its
parents or caregivers; as well, these examples fit very well with
legitimate peripheral participation. Perhaps all of this could also fit
into the Vygotskian understanding of "image". Most classroom situtations
where students and teachers attempt to activate these concepts,
including previous experience of the learner, would surely be viewed by
most authorities as revolutionary, and perhaps threatening. Teaching
students the understanding of personal "prospectivity" (future,
forward-direction of agent)should be what the ZPD (or ZPA-- Zone of
Proximal Adjusting--Tim Murhpy) is all about. Within postmodernist
society, where most everyone attempts to complete two or three things at
the same time, it would be wonderful to recapture the essence of
recursivity/reflexivity, prolepsis/prospectivity (together with
retrospectivity, * Edward Reed. 1996. Encountering the world: toward an
ecological psychology. New York-Oxford: Oxford University Press) within
the ZPD-ZPA, and turn that metaphor into a revolutionary tool within
education. Perhaps a convergence of Freire and Vygotsky. Best regards,
Dot Robbins