Thanks, Andy. This does help. “Co” meaning the threads of activity and
discourse can extend together, at the same time. Like co-chairs. I was
following you! Thanks for the clarification. My misunderstanding was
an example of how my discourse was not co-extending with yours. J I
think I know English, but I am always learning new Discourses with a
capital D.
Monica
*From:* Andy Blunden [mailto:ablunden@mira.net]
*Sent:* Wednesday, July 06, 2011 6:15 PM
*To:* Monica Hansen
*Cc:* 'eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity'
*Subject:* Re: [xmca] Re: ye
What do I mean by "co-extensive"? If the activity is mathematics, by
which I would mean doing mathematics from the point of view of a kind
of sociology of science, and the Activity (system) is taken to be all
the extended institutions of mathematics, mainly university
departments, learned journals of mathematics, and so on, then this
Activity is co-extensive with the discourse of mathematics. The
Discourse overflows the bounds of the institutions into the general
community (scienfitic concepts entering everyday life), and
contradictions could arise here, because people's everyday Activity is
not attuned to the practice and concepts of the institutions of
mathematics. On the other hand, if we took, for example, a Men's Club
in the old-fashioned sense of "My Fair Lady" as the Activity, and to
be blindingly obvious, the Discourse of Feminism, then obviously when
Feminism enters the Men's Club contradictions arise. But less
obviously, the discourse within a factory - labour relations, command
line management, mutual aid between workers, etc. - in tune with the
activity of producing metal bars, or whatever, on a day-to-day basis,
and the Discourse of Taylorist Scientific Management enters the
factory, then again, contradiction: Taylorism is not the indigenous
Discourse of that Activity.
Apart from obvious differences of location, there is also a
developmental difference between Activities and Discourses, as
Discourses have entered the language, but I think this is only
relative. Where you have a distinct difference is in Theory: Discourse
Theory and Activity Theory. Each has developed a whole body of theory,
concepts and analytical tools, and I think these are distinct but
could be merged.
Does that help?
Andy
Monica Hansen wrote:
Andy,
I think I am following your argument here, but I am wondering if you
could clarify your use of **coextensive** in “And when in a given
circumstance we have practical activity (making bars) and discourse
(expert talk, issuing advice) going on together, then these different
strands weave together as extended projects/concepts that lock into
the overall social fabric by /not being coextensive/. I.e., a
particular discourse is not excluively located within a certain
"activity."” And as in your last sentence: “…because these threads are
not coextensive.”
It is the relationality in both Activity and Discourse that is
difficult to define and translate into research because of the
necessity for a **unit** of analysis. The confusion about
**discourse** comes from its ambiguous meaning, often used (or limited
to use), as interchangeable with **unit** of study, a singular object
(or molecular). This usage is reflected in monological approaches to
language study versus dialogical approaches (Linell, 2009).
It strikes me: if we are using construction as a metaphor for
knowledge building and mind making, maybe it is this metaphor that
keeps us going back to the individual parts that are required for
construction. Same with discourse: ...a discourse is constructed…And
then we are inspired by the opposing direction of sequential
processing (deconstruction). This tendency towards seriality is maybe
the difficulty in defining instructional methods in both math and
language. I am not saying the components and sequences are unnecessary
(Pedagogical knowledge often being dichotomized as content and
process), but beyond the parts, we are pulled back to the
understanding of the elements in context, integrated, all happening
simultaneously as important to both Activity and Discourse and I would
say to borrow from the study David K cited before, the enactment of
understanding in math or language arts.
Just thinking out loud,
Monica
*From:* xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>
[mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] *On Behalf Of *Andy Blunden
*Sent:* Tuesday, July 05, 2011 10:24 PM
*To:* lchcmike@gmail.com <mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com>; eXtended Mind,
Culture, Activity
*Subject:* Re: [xmca] Re: ye
Thanks for that Mike. for resurrecting my original question (which may
could not be clarified through difficulties in learning maths as I'd
hoped) and for the Engestrom paper. As Engstrom says: "a theoretical
integration of these two [talking and acting] has not yet been
accomplished."
Engestrom is discussing exactly the problem of the relation of
Discourse Analysis and Activity Theory, in the context of the relation
between a Discourse and an Activity. In the fine detail of the
performance of Activity and Discourse, the two are of course
inextricable. The hope of some Discourse analysts to make conversation
an object of analysis, while abstracting the conversation from what
the talkers were trying to /do/ (or talking about) is clearly (to
Activity Theorists and the participants, if not the analysts) vacuous.
But also, it is obvious that if we try to make some kind of dichotomy
between practical activity (as in making metal bars and operating
machines) and discursive activity (talking about it, issuing commands,
etc.) then we can't make any sense of Activity either. Even a
dichotomy of Actions is problematic, but maybe has some sense. It is
self-evident and obvious the distinction between words and practical
actions, but speaking is also an action and all practical actions also
have a symbolic effect.
To this end, the question of unit of analysis is raised. Engstrom
wants to make a "situated activity system as the basic unit of
analysis." But this defeats the purpose. It is actually taking the
analytical road, not the road of Goethe and Hegel and Vygotsky, in my
view. If we break the whole down into situated units which contain
systems of activity, inclusive of the talk going on and the
surrounding artefacts (machinery etc), then try to assemble the whole
again, we find on the one hand the "long duration" concept of the
specific industry producing metal components, and on the other, the
"historically distinctive social languages at work, namely the social
language of the machinists and the social language of the expert
engineers." That is, there are /discourses/ (plural) sustained of
course, by practical activity (visiting workshops, attending
conferences, writing papers, having conversations) and mathematics is
one of them. And when in a given circumstance we have practical
activity (making bars) and discourse (expert talk, issuing advice)
going on together, then these different strands weave together as
extended projects/concepts that lock into the overall social fabric by
/not being coextensive/. I.e., a particular discourse is not
excluively located within a certain "activity."
So I don't think it works to take a molecule of talk-and-labour as a
"unit of analysis" unless we just want to be analytical sociologists,
and nor can we take (I believe) Discourses to be a particular variety
of Activities (because the Actions entailed, meanings, are always
inextricably connected with practical Actions, as per Bakhtin's
Utterances). You can't have an Activity that doesn't include talk or a
Discourse that doesn't include or imply practical actions as well as
meanings.
So, for example, mathematics is a Discourse. There we have a unit of
analysis. I believe Anna is in agreement here. Doing mathematics
involves talking and all sorts of practical actions. It also has the
structure and movement of a concept: a system of judgments - acts of
thinking - of long duration, which has an internal unity thanks to the
word. So the Activities (units of Activity) are long threads which are
overlapping and interacting in the concrete situation, which gains its
tensions, contradictions, its nature as a predicament, because these
threads are not coextensive.
I think we have to merge the concepts of an Activity and a Discourse.
They are inextricable.
Andy
mike cole wrote:
Dear Colleagues--
I am poking along at the question of activity and discourse.
While poking around, it occurred to me that Yrjo had written a paper on the
topic. The context is different-- a special issue of a journal on
organizational communication, but it
seems as if it might be relevant to Andy's question and Anna's answers.
mike
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