Phillip-- Seems to me that it is simply axiomatic that we cannot fully
understand a system we are inside of.
Yesterday several of us at LCHC discussed the need, once we are through all
the papers, to double back
and try to summarize the major points that have emerged with general
agreement and to identify (potential)
points of disagreement. Given our different languages of description (passim
Ruqaiya via Bernstein) finding
REAL disagreements is likely to be difficult because we will constantly be
confusing concepts that are derived
from somewhat different theoretical approaches and will not catch the
differences. But it is worth a try.
Ruqaiya-- We do not disagree about the restrictions of Luria's central asian
work so far as I can tell. You have
made the point convincingly that the interpersonal uses of language/mind are
underplayed in the Russian
cultural-historical tradition as represented in the readings we have
discussed and that is certainly true of
Luria's central asian work.
By coincidence. I was thinking of all of Luria's work on neurolinguistics
and the followups of that work by
Akhutina and others when, our of the great byte bucket in the sky, I
received a note from Tanya Akhutina
this mornig about another matter. Given that many of those most
knowledgeable about SFL are more or
less unavailable in the next couple of weeks it seems impossible to consider
adding to the readings for
now. We need to get a more comprehensive overview of what we have
collectively learned, or produced (at
least that would be my priority). But we WILL return to this topic, in
January if not before, when we have
another course on mediational theories of mind, and when we do, we need to
open up the issue of how to advance
the idea of developing the ideas of complementarity that have been in this
discussion. (I am still made uneasy
by the slippage in AALeontiev's work regarding language and activity, but
that may be my shortcoming. Perhaps
an effort at summarizing will reveal a fuller picture; perhaps a more
extensive discussion of Landolf and Thorne will
help, I am unsure).
Anyway, at LCHC there will be some efforts in this direction and help from
ALL would be appreciated. What questions
do those who have been silent have? Questions are so helpful in revealing
areas of understanding and differences in
interpretation or simply holes in what we are talking about.
Off to other matters for a while.
mike
On 7/5/05, ruqaiya hasan <Ruqaiya.Hasan@ling.mq.edu.au> wrote:
>
> yes Mike, you are right, but there is a slippage here. Most of the
> experiments in Luria concerned concept formation, classification, and/or
> (syl)logical reasoning; these are often also cited as the prime examples
> of
> higher mental function -- which is what might explain the slippage, though
> not quite excuse it! I will certainly be more careful with my formulation
> next time.
>
> Yes, I like this listserve precisely for the reason that it opens up
> different orientations to the same problem -- that's great and I certainly
> hope that I am learning from it. One thing that might perhaps be already
> available somewhere information about which might help is a Readings
> Advice
> section (preferably for people like me a graded list!) which might guide
> one
> into understanding the vocabulary (what Bernstein used to call "the
> language
> od description"). Something of that kind would help me immensely with the
> concept of activity.
>
> I use "politics of academia" as another expression referring to roughly
> what
> Bourdieu called "appropriation of intellectual capital". There is also
> what
> Bernstein's phrase"formation of pedagogic identity"; we learn through one
> theory and may be 'the least effort principle' persuades us to stay within
> those safe boundaries.
>
> Ruqaiya
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mike Cole" <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> To: "ruqaiya hasan" <Ruqaiya.Hasan@ling.mq.edu.au>
> Cc: "eXtended Media, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2005 9:10 AM
> Subject: Re: [xmca] LCA:Complementarity
>
>
> Hi Ruqaiya-
>
> It is only late in the day that I have time to get to xmca. Perhaps in
> time
> for your morning cofee?
> Anyway, the passage about Luria I was referring to is the following: With
> regard to his Uzbek subjects Luria suggested that the absence of higher
> mental functions was due to
> the lack of schooling in his subjects, as if the lack of schooling, ie
> failure to 'benefit' from official
> pedagogy.
>
> Yes, Ochs at least (I only have a couple of the books here) references
> Halliday. But he does not appear
> to be a key figure in her fermament. Nor, desipte Gordon's gentle urging,
> has he been one in mine. A number of
> the criticisms fairly levelled at Vygotsky could easily be sent my way as
> well, I am sure.
>
> It seems to me that one important function of an enterprise such as this
> (eXtended mind, culture and activity)
> sort of discussion group is the cross-polination of ideas that it affords.
> And the acdemic politics are greatly
> muted by the highly distributed nature of the discussion -- very few of us
> have, or care to have, control over the
> academic fates of those with whom we are conversing. But we know we don't
> know, even if it is that we don't
> know what it is that we don't know that we should know. And to those who
> are
> in it as a matter of politics, good luck
> to them. They would almost certainly be better of at the moment studying
> how
> to do research on education that
> wins the approval of our education bureaucracies or learning how to
> conduct
> fmri studies of undergraduates solving
> math problems.
>
> I think that the set of article laid before us provide a lot of
> opportunities for learning. Whether we avail ourselves of
> the opportunity or not is pretty much up to the participants.
>
> On to the rest of the days xmca thoughts.
> mike
>
>
>
> On 7/4/05, ruqaiya hasan <Ruqaiya.Hasan@ling.mq.edu.au> wrote:
> >
> > Hello Mike
> > yes I am in total agreement with you. If something I wrote gives the
> > impression that Luria thought his Uzbek subjects did not have 'higher
> > mental
> > functions' then that is a bad piece of writing by me, for which
> apologies.
> > In fact I can't quite recall but somewhere I have expressly quoted Luria
> > as
> > attributing the results to the educational experience of the subjects
> (may
> > be in Reading picture reading: a study in ideology and inference in
> Foley
> > (ed) Language, Education and Discourse. London: Continuum 2004). And I
> > also
> > share your "scepticism about the enthusiasm for schooling that Luria
> > espoused". I guess I was arguing more that knowing the careful thinking
> of
> > both Vygotsky and Luria, it is to be doubted that they would have
> > attributed
> > the Uzbek results to absence of higher mental function; I was
> particularly
> > keen to bring into the debate that the "symbolic" function of language
> as
> > envisaged by Vygotsky is a function that every normal human has; if that
> > is
> > the quality of language essential to semiotic mediation then all of us
> > have
> > this experience; if there are distinct orders of semiotic mediation
> (shall
> > we say Bernstein's codes) then it is only reasonable to ask that they
> and
> > their etiology be identified nonambiguously. Has this been done?
> >
> > On Ochs and Schiefflin, I guess their work post-dates Halliday's. Are
> > their
> > many references to Halliday in their work? SFL linguists typically like
> to
> > have an explicit analysis of language along with statements relating
> > language to culture, cognition etc. So that maybe one reason for the
> > absence
> > of reference to Ochs and Schiefflin's work. On another tack, I have
> often
> > thought it would be great to have someone doing their doctoral research
> on
> > "the politics of academic referencing"!
> >
> > Ruqaiya
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Mike Cole" <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> > To: "eXtended Media, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2005 3:18 AM
> > Subject: [xmca] LCA:Complementarity
> >
> >
> > Bruce tells me that my problems with receiving xmca messages has been
> > fixed.
> > We'll see.
> >
> > Based on my readings of Wells, Halliday, and Hasan, I find the proposal
> > for
> > the complementarity
> > of LSV, Halliday, and Bernstein compelling. This past winter I conducted
> a
> > graduate class where
> > we read Jim wertsch's 1985 book on Vygotsky and the Social Formation of
> > Mind
> > which Ruquaiya
> > refers to in her first article in the readings. Jim focuses there on
> > discourse and propositional referentiality
> > and his commentary seems important background for actually working out a
> > unified cultural historical
> > approach that incorporates contemporary work on lexiocgrammar. But I do
> > not
> > know how to bring that
> > into a discussion that is already packed with things to read.
> >
> > I also believe that the work of Ochs and Schiefflin, who make a strong
> > case
> > for the idea that the acquisition
> > of language is simultaneously acquisition of the sociocultural order
> into
> > which children are born needs to be
> > brought into the discussion. It seems to fit very well with Halliday's
> > emphases but does not seem to been
> > into the discussion by SFL folks, or at least, not in my limited
> reading.
> > Does anyone else think this work
> > relevant?
> >
> > There is one point on which I think Ruqaiya errs in her discussion of
> > Luria's Central Asian work (if I understand her
> > characterization correctly) and it is important to get straight in
> seeking
> > to deal with issues of cultural historical variation
> > in thought. It is not the case that Luria claimed that Uzbeki peasants
> > lack
> > higher psycholgical functions. All humans
> > are said to have higher psychological functions by virtue of the fact
> that
> > their thought and action is mediated by
> > culture. Rather, as Wertsch discusses, LSV and ARL believed that one
> must
> > include an analysis of evolution/development
> > of cultural means as a cultural historical process. They use the term
> > "rudimentary" mediational means, for example, in
> > connection with what they referred to as "primitive peoples."
> > Specifically,
> > Luria believed that traditional central asian
> > peasants used functional graphic modes of mediation which were
> superceded
> > by
> > taxonomic logical modes of mediation
> > associated with literacy, schooling, and involvement in industrial modes
> > of
> > life.
> >
> > I have my quarrels with Luria's conclusion and share scepticism about
> the
> > enthusiasm for schooling that Luria espoused. But
> > it is not correct, in my view, to believe that he attributed only
> > elementary
> > (not culturally mediated) forms of mental life
> > to Uzbeki peasants.
> >
> > This issue may not be central to the question of the complementarity of
> > the
> > views of Halliday and Vygotsky, but it certainly
> > touches directly on questions of Bernstein/Luria/LSV connections, so I
> > wanted to raise it here. I still have Ruqaiya's second paper to get
> > through and look forward to others comments on this work.
> > mike
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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>
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