Re: [xmca] Dynamic Assessment in L2

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

Hi Mike & David

David, Your response to Mike's query is very clear and thought provoking.
Your summary statement that we must look to "mental structures" seems to be
a great place for further reflexive and reflective thought.

Mike, you wrote

What i noted as common to all of the papers was that they were all
synchronically oriented, even though in each case knowledge of the history
of the practices under examination was quite relevant to understanding them.
Its as if the cultural in sociocultutral did not take seriously culture as
an historical process.
In other contexts all of the authors had displayed interest in history, but
not when they came together under this banner.

I want to bring in George Lakoff and Johnson's notion of metaphor as NOT
fundamentally linquistic but actually "figures OF THOUGHT"  [please see
George Lakoff's article "A Figure of Thought" in the journal {Metaphor and
Symbolic Activity, I(3) p. 215-225} date unknown

Their basic premise is that metaphors are generalized "knowledge structures"
that transcend particular linquistic formations.  There is a SOURCE DOMAIN
structure [such as journeys] that TIGHTLY corresponds to a TARGET DOMAIN [
such as love]  Knowledge ABOUT love is MAPPED onto knowledge ABOUT
journeys.  What Lakoff proposes is that this is the basic STRUCTURE of
reasoning - that thought is metaphorical as novel experiences are mapped
onto conventional taken for granted knowledge structures.  A knowledge
structure such as "life as a journey" has profound implications for our
understanding and behavior in realms of love.

Mike, I wonder if the "differences" you mention [time domain vs space
domain] can be partially understood by bringing in Lakoff and Johnson's
notions of metaphor AS THOUGHT AND THINKING as the process that links up
various knowledge structures.
Final thought, "moral values" may fundamentally be "knowledge structures"

Metaphor from this perspective is a fundamental variable to consider when
trying to understand CHAT and SCT differences and correspondences

Larry

On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 8:00 PM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:

> Many thanks for responding to so many points, Jim and Matt. I hope others
> will join in, but let me make one general point and then ask a specific
> answer to one question (seems long enough!).
>
> General point: I have no interest at all in messing with people's self
> identifications around different configurations of ideas and practices.
> But I am really interested in what makes the configurations different and
> what difference that difference makes  (or does not). To give an example: I
> commented on a set of papers flying under the SCT banner edited by Jim
> Wertsch. What i noted as common to all of the papers was that they were all
> synchronically oriented, even though in each case knowledge of the history
> of the practices under examination was quite relevant to understanding
> them.
> Its as if the cultural in sociocultutral did not take seriously culture as
> an historical process.
> In other contexts all of the authors had displayed interest in history, but
> not when they came together under this banner. Come to think of it, I
> believe Giyoo Hatano wrote a commentary about this very topic in the Forman
> et al Contexts of Learning Book. Gotta go dig that out and send around.
>
>  Let me clarify why my attention was caught by the definition of education
> as artificial. You summarize matters thus:
> 5. Our reference to Vygotsky's characterization of education as "the
> artificial development of the child" is not intended as a negative stance
> on
> education. We interpret V's use of "artificial" (assuming the translation
> from the Russian is accurate) here as a way of distinguishing development
> through participation in cultural activities and through the appropriation
> of (cultural) concepts from natural processes of growth. Indeed, we believe
> that it might be possible to construe V's use of Education in the passage
> we
> cite as referring not only to formal education but to all forms of
> education
> provided by a society whether in or out of places recognized as school.
> -----------------------------------------
> I have no problem at all of thinking about education as an artificial
> system
> of human activity of enormous historical importance. Amen.
> But unless Vygotsky used the term for upbringing in the original, I
> seriously doubt that he was putting formal education in schools and
> education in the very broad sense that applies to the deliberate
> organization of children's learning in small, face to face,
> pre/non-literate
> communities.
>
> I am really uncertain of what you mean by "through the appropriation of
> (cultural) concepts from natural processes of growth."  In particular, what
> does natural mean?  My first impulse is to interpret this as saying that
> cultural concepts ("nauty child") could be acquired/appropriated
> biologically. If so, lets discuss how that is possible. My second impulse
> is
> to interpret you as meaning "acquired with no explicit instruction" (e.g.
> we
> do not need to teach L1 -- its "only" triggered).
>
> If any of this is worth thinking about, its because the learning/teaching
> implications of the "formal/informal" distinctiton is believed by many to
> make a real difference in subsequent intellectual development.
>
> mike
>  On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 8:46 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>
> > Thanks for that Jim.
> > Rather than divert the list from discussion of the important issues of L2
> > and SCT/CHAT, can I just refer to
> > http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/t/r.htm#truth
> > which reflects where I'm coming from. A Google search revealed "practice
> is
> > the criterion of truth" even in my own writing, but in fact it is not at
> all
> > that simple. The entry refers to Engels, Lenin, Ilyenkov and Spirkin.
> Marx
> > never actually talks about a criterion of truth.
> >
> > Andy
> >
> >
> > James P. Lantolf wrote:
> >
> >> 2. With regard to the 11th Thesis and the centrality of praxis in
> Vygotsky
> >> theory, we are not suggesting that theory/philosophy is unimportant or
> >> should be abandoned. Indeed, many of us in applied linguistics are
> rooted in
> >> the humanities as much (or perhaps more) than in the social sciences. We
> >> continue to read and rely on modern philosophers, especially
> philosophers of
> >> language to inform our work. Lantolf and Thorne (2006) integrate
> >> Wittgenstein's notion of "language game" as well as Voloshinov's notion
> of
> >> utterance and sign in theorizing language. Most recently, the new
> monograph
> >> by Searle "Making the Social World" has some very important things to
> say
> >> about the role of language in social formation that we think resonates
> well
> >> with Vygotsky's views on thinking and speaking. Having said this, we
> don't
> >> agree with Andy's comment to the effect that practice is the truth
> criterion
> >> of theory is not Marxism. Rather than launch into a lengthy explanation,
> we
> >> will mention some interesting works written in the 1970s that address
> the
> >> topic far better than we could here: Adolfo Sanchez Vazquez (1977). "The
> >> Philosophy of Praxis." Richard Bernstein (1971). "Praxis and Action."
> Alan
> >> Buss (1979). "Dialectic Psychology." We also find support for our
> position
> >> in the more recent writing of Anna Stetsenko.
> >>
> >>
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