AM: for
the shoot we can use that big rope over there
LE: not
for that, that for that
AM: yeah
In this situation, ÒthatÓ
cannot be understood on its own, even if we look at the drawing that the
indexical gesture (finger pointing) refers to at the moment. The ÒmeaningÓ of
ÒthatÓ does not lie in the drawing or part of the drawing indexed. Rather, both
index an entire conversation that the three had participated in the past, and
the (different) traces this conversation has left in the different subjectivities.
The diagram is a historical
document, associated with the work of designing, and not merely representing
the design, the product. If anything, it is a metonymic representation of the
shared history. At this particular moment, the participants are already
aligned, and the language is used to articulate articulations already shared.
LE: thatÕs
for the shoot, thatÕs for the incline plane and these have. Now, you know we have to build this I
have wood over there to build it, so
The image and the indexical
gestures refer to the envisioned outcome of their actions, the vision of the
final artifact. This vision, they take as shared even though it may turn out in
the future that in fact these visions had been different and their
subjectivities had not been aligned.
Even so, they will then
continue under the assumption that once identified and repaired, they now work
with a shared vision. In the process, they forget any prior misalignment. They
worked with different visions but under the impression that the vision was
shared, that others had the same vision as they had individually. They view
their individual vision as the
collective one, though it turns out at time that the vision was individual
rather than collective.
There is a dialectical
tension between the individual and the collective vision. The individual vision
is always a concrete realization of generalized possible visions, and, from the
perspective of the individual subjectivity, this concrete (real) vision is also
the one that others have realized. There are always more concrete real visions,
depending on the number of individuals in the collective (with their own
histories), the generalized possible visions constitute a universe of visions.
The history of the individual
will be formative for his or her way of seeing, perceiving; this history is
itself mediated by the socio-cultural context of the individual. A priori, the
coparticipants in a group are not aligned, though they may take alignment as
the default situation. The practically realized individual perception of the
world is taken to be the one all other individuals are realizing.
When there is a common
history, such as when a group works for a period of time, there are particular
consequences. Now interpretations and actions are framed by a common horizon,
the horizon of the commonly experienced situations.
Assertion: there is an
important issue of shared history and history that has not been shared, and the
relationship between those histories not shared but framed by common or similar
socio-cultural contexts.
Question: What is the
relationship between common history and the level of alignment in
subjectivities and their visions?
Assertion: In collective
practical action directed toward a common (collective) goal, cognition (subjectivities)
become aligned. Any conversation they have can only be understood under the
consideration of the shared history rather than from a (falsely) presumed
relationship between word signs and their referents. In the process of
collective practical actions, visions are transformed but in such a way that
they become aligned. The driving forces are any perceived contradictions
between individual visions and the desired collective vision, which is the one
ultimately realized in the artifact.
ÒMemoryÓ is a trace that
practical action leaves the subject, including ÒexperienceÓ; traces of past
practical actions can be found across the activity system, for example, in the
form of artifacts, diagrams, and also in changed ways of doing things.
Traces are resources in
practical activity, whatever their nature and wherever the participants find
them.
Explicit traces, and traces
not salient to the actors but embodied in their actions.
Learning, as commonly
understood, relates to the situation where the physical body (idem-identity)
moves from one activity system to another and produces, in situation that have
family resemblance for someone (teacher, psychologist), actions that themselves
have family resemblance with previous actions, that is, actions are reproduced
in Òstructurally similarÓ situations.
A number of things go on in
this brief episode. First, Bella had her hands at the drawing, thereby aligning
her peers to the fact that she was talking about not just some aspect but the
particular one that her finger was indexing. Second, there are pauses that at
least also have the function to allow Bella to engage in some physical action
(moving the hand to the diagram, moving seat). Third, the gestures are integral
part of the communication, constitute communication and ideas at the very
moment that they are produced. Fourth, in order to understand this episode, the
participants draw on the traces that their conversation on the previous day has
left, that his, the vision (image) of the design that has taken shape.
Intersubjectivity refers to the fact that this is already shared, it is a trace
that they take to be common and therefore does no longer have to be
articulated. If at all, it is the researcher/author that has to provide for the
sense in which these students have to be heard.
01 B: * Or 02 (0.40) |
|
03 * my brother (0.22) 04 A: Hhhm. |
|
05 (1.55) |
|
06 B: he has a parking lot * 07 (0.90) 08 L: uhhm 09 B: um: 10 (1.48) 11 [you can take this part out] 12 [((moves repeatedly up and down along ÒelevatorÓ 13 (0.32) |
|
14 then you pull like [this * 15 [((pulling
motion along the tower part)) 16 (0.45) |
|
17 * then put some [batteries in it] and it works. 18 L: [((nods
repeatedly)) 19 () 20 L: Although
we canÕt do it |
|
The episode began just after
Leanne had begun to articulate what they were going to do, and was locating the
different tools, raw materials, and diagrams that they needed for taking the
first steps in the construction of the prototype. Leanne had proposed to use a
piece of wood that Amanda had apparently shown her as the Òshoot,Ó but Amanda
proposed some other piece (inaudible). At this point, Bella began to talk. She
proposed that they could take a piece out of her brotherÕs parking lot.
Throughout her talk, Bella
used gestures. Initially, she had rested her upper body on her right hand and
arm (line 01). By line 03, her hand had moved from the table to the diagram
pointing to it while she was talking about her brother. Her hand moved away,
arranging the chair beneath her, and then moved back to the diagram as she came
to the end of line 06. Her hand moved repeatedly up and down a tower-like part
of the drawing while she uttered that the part could be taken out (line
10–11). She made a gesture to show what they would do with the part. Her
final gesture was above the drawing, her arm rocked twice back and forth while
her thumb and index made a gesture similar to the rubbing that is used to
indicate ÒmoneyÓ in everyday conversations (line 15).
With the ÒOr,Ó Bella
announces an alternative. It is a contrast to what has been proposed before,
when they had asked for the materials. Bella was responsible to bring a pulley,
and this responsibility was inscribed into the diagram, at the bottom, where
they noted the materials needed. Subsequently, Bella admitted that she did not
bring one or have one. The two other girls talked about the shoot. The ÒorÓ
sets up a difference, a contradiction with what they had done or were presently
doing. In this episode, Bella then develops the different idea, it takes shape
in her talk and action, but at the same time retains its ephemeral nature, for
talk and gestures ÒvanishÓ as soon as they have been produced, they recede into
the past, increasingly so, unless it is reproduced in subsequent actions and
talk. Continuous reproduction can lead to a certain stability of an Òidea,Ó a
vision, even though it may not have taken a material form.
((Because of this ephemeral
nature, I often stop while riding the bicycle to note some idea, or even only
words, afraid that I may have forgotten it by the time I have returned. There,
too, there is a trace, ephemeral, about something I am currently working on,
analyzing, which I stabilize by materializing it into notes, by inscribing it
in a more permanent form, more retrievable form.))
The three girls in fact are
aligned twice both in the sense that they could draw on their personal traces
of the conversation from the previous day but also from their (culturally)
based understanding of Òthis partÓ of a parking garage. This part they could
take out of her brotherÕs garage and put into their own design. There is a
conflation in the sense that she already pointed to the diagram and said that
they could take this part (in diagram) out of her brotherÕs garage. That is,
this part in their design and the parking garage had a common element, and all
three were aligned to the fact that in this case the diagram did not refer to
their design but to the parking garage.
((Perhaps thinking in terms
of reference is not a good way of proceeding here))
This moment Bella, had
aligned her two partners to the parking lot, her hand was on the diagram. The
diagram therefore did not represent their design; rather, Bella pointed to it
while uttering the parking lot, thereby orienting the situation as being one
about parking lots. ÒThis partÓ is therefore not a part of the design or the
drawing but a part in the parking lot. Furthermore, the three are attuned to
the fact that BellaÕs brother is similar in age and that Òhis parking lotÓ is
therefore a toy parking lot. It is evident that this part could therefore be
taken out. However, by the time she had completed the next utterance (line 13),
her gesture that moved from the upward column to the shoot, she had realigned
herself with the present design. ((Here the pause allowed for the change over
between the two situations that were created and to which speaker and audience
were aligned??))
Her repeated gesture up and
down along the pulley and vertical column aligned listeners to the particular
item that corresponded to Òthis partÓ; the gestures therefore aligned not only
speech and perception, but also the three subjectivities.
The pauses coincide with
major changeover in the situations created with talk, gesture, and diagram. In
lines 12 and 14, the pauses coincide with the changeover from the parking lot
(this part) to the diagram and the diagram back to the parking lot (batteries).
During the pause in line 02, Bella moved her hand from resting on the table to
the design. The first pause, too, moves the conversation from the design to her
brother.
BellaÕs pause from line 03 to
line 06 was actually 2.03 s long; AmandaÕs ÒHhhmÓ is a confirmation that she
was attending to Bella. During this pause, she scratched herself. There is
another long pause between completing the word ÒlotÓ and the beginning of the
next words. During this pause, Leanne indicated attention (line 08) and Bella
used a filler (line 09), normally employed by a speaker who indicates wanting
to continue to speak.
Here, we have a slow
emergence of the idea, publicly constituted, of using a particular existing
piece as a component in their prototype.
The first gesture (line 02)
oriented the group to the diagram, and more specifically to the tower-part of
the diagram. Bella was saying Òmy brotherÓ but her hand indicated that the
diagram (tower part) was the topic. ((Perhaps this double alignment made the
subsequent, long pause necessary; in part it also appeared to be the time
required for the scratching??)) The second gesture (line 06) again served as
alignment between the utterance and the tower part, it was an indexical
gesture. The iconic gesture accompanying Òthis partÓ served to make the tower
figure; this movement actually turns out to be better than simple pointing,
which is inherently underspecified in terms of its aim, and could be a general
or specific pointing. The moving gesture, however, was taken by coparticipant
to be iconic to whatever it is that it is to be salient. In fact, the gesture
itself was a representation, pointing to some part of the diagram, but the
diagram pointed to the gesture and makes it in turn salient. There was a
dialectic of two images. The next gesture was iconic, a pulling motion
involving hand and arm, thumb and index close to the Òstring,Ó holding and
pulling it. It was a dynamic situation, whereby the gesture enacted the
movement described, involving the particular objects, and consistent with the
geometry displayed. The imagery pertaining to the final gesture is unknown to
the analysts.
This situation cannot be
understood on the basis of the resources present. Rather, it also draws on the
traces in each of them left by the conversation that they have had to get the
drawing to where it was. The particular elements, for example, tower, pulley,
and shoot arose during the conversation, and their functions had been
discussed. When they were now talking about Òthis part,Ó they not only meant
whatever they could see on the diagram, but in fact to the conversation that
they had talked about. In this sense, the diagram as outcome of one dayÕs
activity was a metonymic trace that pointed back to and allowed them to make
present again, the situation that had led to its being.
The diagram did not just
refer to the day before, or the vision that each may have had for the ultimate
design that was to emerge from their construction work, but also for something
completely different, that had never been present itself. Bella managed to
shift the conversational context in such a way that at least the tower part
aligned those present with her brotherÕs parking lot, or at least with a
particular aspect of it.
In this situation, we have
several dialectics—including the one between image and image, image and
speech, and between subjectivities. Coparticipants in a situation indicate
alignment, through gaze, nodding, or sounds (hhm, um).
While Bella was developing
the alternative design, or rather, the particular implementation of the
ÒelevatorÓ part, Amanda and Leanne provided her with evidence that they were
attuned with the unfolding design. In fact, when there appeared to be evidence
that Bella did not continue while attention appeared to be focused elsewhere,
alignment was signaled. After uttering ÒbrotherÓ (line 03), Amanda had turned
her gaze from the previous speaker Leanne to face Bella; Leanne was still
looking down toward the drawing. Her gaze moved up to meet that of Bella only
0.97 seconds after Bella had completed; the pause may also have had the
function to wait until alignment was signaled. By the time Bella had uttered
Òlot,Ó Leanne was gazing at the diagram as if following the pointing finger,
but Amanda was still gazing at Bella. The latterÕs continuation fell precisely
together with the point in time when Amanda, too, had directed her gaze at the
diagram. At Òthis partÓ both listeners were looking at the diagram until Bella
had finished the explanation of what to do with the part from her brotherÕs
garage. Both simultaneously moved their gaze to look Bella squarely into the
face. Amanda continued to gaze at Bella, whereas Leanne nodded repeatedly. As
soon as Bella had completed her utterance, Leanne, still facing Bella, began to
talk and Amanda shifted her gaze to the next speaker after having briefly
dropped it downward in the direction of the design.
In both the first and second
pause, Amanda (line 04) and Leanne (line 08) provided verbal indications of
alignment. The intonation of AmandaÕs ÒHhmÓ was downward in pitch, indicating
agreement rather than question. Similar situation existed in LeanneÕs case.
That is, by the time the
students are in sixth or seventh grade, they already engage in practices that
make conversation possible. These practices are not salient to the
consciousness of most people, but they appear to attend to them nevertheless as
part of normal, everyday conversation, making them in fact work.
In this situation, the object
of the activity is the design. During the conversation, participants are
aligned to the production of the design. In the present situation, however,
Bella brought in a design element that is not immediately available as
resource. In this contribution, speaker and audience needed to shift their
attention repeatedly. These shifts required work to guarantee that the team
continued to be aligned. These shifts were managed with pauses, gestures, and
gaze directions.
In this situation, the traces
both of the previous conversation and whatever the parking lot may be were
aligned, at least to the extent necessary for moving on. As long as there is no
evidence contrary, coparticipants work based on the assumption that they are in
fact aligned.
ANTHROPOMORPHISM:
Reasoning from the first person
perspective and in the present tense, even for the analyst.
Leanne, Bella, and Amanda had
already changed in the course of the previous day, for they created, through
their actions, a(n) ephemeral trace that became a resource on the subsequent
day. Inscribed in their body, as a change in their body, they now had an
experience that they could refer to. This experience, their traces, they take
as shared, even though it might turn out that they differ on this. Or it could
be that the trace changes differently so that they, even though they might
initially agree to have had the same experience, heard the same words, the same
meanings, they subsequently will differ on this.
Each practical action both
produces and reproduces the person, reproduces the learner and produces change.
These changes may be slow, unnoticeable, certainly unnoticeable on the tests
that teachers and psychologists might give to students, but they are noticeable
in the conversations.
Engineering requires a
large knowledge base to make choices and those choices are not made by chance,
but logical reason based on previous experience... A building cannot be
designed or constructed in real life without logical reasoning using basic
engineering principles (Aerospace engineer, personal communication, June 12,
1994).
This is the typical stance
taken by those in engineering education who want to teach the basics first and
then have students begin to design. Some presumed knowledge of facts and
principles is presupposed. It has to be learned and then students are thought
to apply facts and principles in practice. But this approach begs the question
about the relationship between some formal knowledge, manipulation of text,
images, design elements and the practice of designing.
Children too design based on
previous experience, though their experiences are different.
ÒDesigning in the headÓ: When
I have some ephemeral trace about what some designing entity will look like, it
is neither highly specified (perhaps bodily limitations) nor elaborate or
fixed. The design is truly taking shape when it is materialized into diagrams
and prototype. At the same time, because of its ephemeral nature, the ÒmentalÓ
design can be changed, reconfigured, discussed, argued more easily than when
students begin to ÒcommitÓ themselves on paper, in material form. Material
traces appear to have greater stability, more resistance—perhaps they
even form the character of engineers, as SungWon says, engineers are honest,
perhaps because they have to deal with the resistance of the artifacts on a
continuous basis.
The ephemeral nature of the
trace also gives a virtual character to the design, which could be like this or
like that. But with the commitment to a pencil stroke on paper, the design
begins to materialize, loose its ephemeral and virtual character. For the
children, the design is also of a more general nature, they design—though
there are changes in this—elements in general and then look for raw
materials for a sedimentation of the ephemeral design into matter. The children
are therefore very flexible when
it comes the nature of the materials to be used. (Interpretive flexibility
of the design elements in terms of the materials to be taken) They not only choose but also negotiate the material
elements of the design.
This changes, such as in the
situation where Don and Dan design, taking into account tools and raw
materials. No longer do they design in general but with specific materials and
tools Òin mindÓ—just as the engineer said in my quote above. Students
have to have design experience to enter this stage where existing tools and
materials mediate the designing activity, and the more experience you have the
more the design will be shaped by it, to the point that your design becomes
perhaps overly constraint by the existing traces, especially when these are
cultural.
Cultural traces (customs)
provide both affordances and constraints, opportunities and limitations,
because each idea once it has taken material form becomes normative for
subsequent design moves. Radical re-design is perhaps less probable, so
designers move on, always build on what they have already thought, and then
make adjustments when they encounter resistance. Designing integrates over its
own history, like a mathematical convolution, continuously feeding itself and
its accomplishment in subsequent design process and design product.
((There is a dialectical
tension between ideas, which are of similar nature as ÒvisionsÓ, and material
form.))
There are constraints and
resistances that do not come to a fore until the moment when the artifact is
actually being built. That is, the material constraints and resistances often
cannot be foreseen until there is a material trace that we can then use to
think with. Designing becomes distributed across the setting, and first
contradictions and constrain might emerge. As the designer builds up the
diagram or prototype, more contradictions and constraints continuously emerge.
In each act, the designer also changes; it is a design act that changes the
designer, who thereby learns to design.
At the outside, all action is
practical, interaction with the material and social world. We interact or
transact with our environment, and doing so repeatedly, we come to the point
that we can replay the action in the absence of the worldly aspects, the
material or social situation. For example, we learn to speak with and in the
presence of others. Later, we come to have internal monologue.
From a neural perspective,
the same or related neurons are active in the two situations. But the second
one, the internal monologue, the internal designing is (more) independent of
the actual situation in which it was initially born. So there is an increasing
independence of the action from the practical situation until the point that
the subject runs through the action but now independent of the situation.
A similar thing must be at
the origin of Òtransfer,Ó where
something you are doing in one situation will be done in another situation,
another activity system. That is, a particular practical action shares
similarities across activity systems, and therefore, despite the differences in
the situations because of the differences in the mediating elements.
ÒTransferÓ does not normally occur because there is a change in
context, activity or rather action system,
so that the mediating elements change the practical action. It is through
experience that different action systems come to be perceived as similar, and
it is at this point that we begin to transfer an action from one setting to
another, or recognize that in both action systems the ÒsameÓ action is
appropriate.
Designing in the head becomes possible when the subject has had sufficient
experience to know what a particular design element will do once it has
materialized. This cannot occur without experience, without the experience of
having gone through the process of materializing ideas into diagrams and
prototypes.
The body is the crucial element, it embodies action and
perception, orients us with respect to and in the material and social world. It
is the entity that moves across, and we rally traces to reproduce ourselves in
different situations. We are not constant but continuously have to reproduce
ourselves within situations and across situations.