Annalisa%20Sannino%20University%20of%20Salerno,%20Italy

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Annalisa SanninoUniversity of Salerno, Italy
Experiencing conversations Bridging the gap
between discourse and activity

• 16º InPLA - Intercâmbio de Pesquisas em
  Lingüística Aplicada
• Minicourse 2nd-5th of May 2007, São Paulo

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Conversation and activity not yet
satisfactorily treated as a shared object of
study within discourse analysis and within
theories of activity
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What are the gaps that discourse analysts and
activity theorists have to face in order to find
a common ground for shared analyses?
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Interlocutionary logic (IL) and
cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) as
complementary frameworks which allow to identify
these gaps and take step toward integrated
analyses of discourse and activity
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IL and CHAT as instrumental for illuminating a
particular phenomenon at the core of the relation
between discourse and activity the experience of
a conversation by the interlocutors which affect
their view and actions with regard to the given
ongoing activity
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Empirical examples of occurrences of the
interlocutors experiences as reported in
autobiographical accounts by pre-service teachers
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Gaps in analyses of discourse and activity
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An issue of debate between different approaches
in discourse studies the relation between
conversation and the broader context of the
activity where a conversation takes place.
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Ethnomethodologists and conversation analysts The
dynamic of conversation itself is considered
enough to allow accountability (Garfinkel,
1967) Ethnographers Unconventional mundane
exchanges, are far from self-sufficient data
through which any competent analyst could have
access to human action in the course of activities
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Cicourel (1992, p. 295) ltltThe methodological
strategy of using local talk as the source of
information in the narrow sense of the context
can be self-serving by the way the researcher not
only ignores prior and current organizational or
institutional experiences of participants, but by
the kind of data that are presented for analysis.
For many students of language and social
interaction, therefore, the notion of context
need not include references to the
participantsand researchers personal, kin, and
organizational relationships and other aspects of
complex or institutionalized settings. Casual,
fleeting speech events, however, are often
constrained and guided by normative
institutionalized features that we associate with
encounters in public places (). These brief
exchanges can also carry considerable cultural
and interpersonal baggage for participants
because of long-term social relationships unknown
to or unattended by the investigatorgtgt
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Absences in discourse and consequences on ongoing
activities Conley and OBarr (1990) litigants
arent satisfied and dont trust legal systems
and professionals because they feel the demands
they bring to court are disregarded. Wodak
(1996) patients often dont even ask for the
meaning of medical jargon they dont understand,
and doctors reach the diagnosis too rapidly,
ignoring patients attempts to speak about their
lives and to question the implications of their
diseases.
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Discursive discontinuities observable in
situations in which strong constraints and
traditions weigh on the interlocutors and also
when power relationships are dominant
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CHAT and analysis of discourse Davydov (1999)
characterized the relationship between
interpersonal communication and object-related
activities as an acute unresolved problem for all
humanities CHAT, in spite of the large amount of
discursive data they use, doesnt dispose of a
solid theoretical and methodological apparatus to
analyze talk
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What are the fundamental dynamics of the use of
language within object-related activities? How
to describe and analyze those dynamics? Together
with the systemic structure of activity made
visible by scholars from cultural-historical
activity theory (Engeström, 1987), can we also
bring to surface the communication processes
through which the activity takes shape?
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The way talk is experienced as the crucial point
where conversation and activity connect point
when talk starts gaining consequences of a
material nature and have an impact on the activity
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IL and the analysts limits when they face a
conversation transcript the concept of default
with which IL claims the impossibility to affirm
that interlocutors have reached
intersubjectivity, unless they clearly explicate
their mutual understanding
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IL as an empirical theory centred on how talk is
received intersubjectivity can be found in the
third speaking turn, that is when the first
speaker has a chance to reply after the other has
responded
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Autobiographical accounts of critical life
episodes as new type of data
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Excerpt 1 the subject makes explicit the way he
experienced the talk of the teachers tactless,
despotic and arrogant, and as humbling the
students effort in the assignment Consequence
great sorrow, feeling of having been victim of
an injustice and mistrust, so much frustration
that all the other disciplines underwent a
repercussion.
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Reported speech reconstructed after many years Is
there would be no room for this kind of data in
mainstream approaches for analyzing conversations?
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Excerpt 2
The subject refers to the teachers behaviour as
discouraging the use of the most common learning
tools like the students notes, the textbook and
clarification questions. Also he considered the
teachers opinion of part of the class as
negatively predetermined and unchangeable. Sad
description of the subjects present attitude to
chemistry, seen as frustrating, as a lost
opportunity, and as a discipline whose hidden
logic remained for him a mystery
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the interactions between these students and the
teachers generated connections and chains that
led to deleterious consequences in terms of the
students learning
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Expected and justified skeptical reactions in
both CHAT and IL fields on this kind of
data neither ethnographic field notes of a
professional researcher or transcripts of
recorded conversations personal accounts meant to
report a one sided individual perspective as a
strength access to the subjective experience and
possibilities for studying activities and
conversation from a new angle
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Two accounts of critical conversations in
educational setting
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Data collected in 2004 during a class of
Psychology of Education I was teaching
Participants pre-service teachers in the
process to become fully qualified teachers
(already experienced teachers, having done
temporary replacements for years) Focus of the
class theoretical and empirical analysis of the
participants own experiences in school settings
as students. The analyses aimed at promoting
reflection and developing personal approaches to
teaching practice
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The assignment The participants were asked to
report personal negative experiences that they
think shouldnt occur in any educational setting
anymore
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Instructions 1. The account must be a detailed
description of an episode and of your own
experience of it. 2. Pay particular attention
to describing what you can recall of the
interactions in their verbal and non verbal
forms. In particular pay attention to
conversations and, when it is possible, try to
reconstruct them. 3. After you report a
conversation, make explicit your own experience
as an interlocutor in the course of the
conversation. What did you think, and what
brought you to react in a certain way?
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Analysis
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Durability The subjects explicitely point out
that they remember vividly the episodes they are
writing about. In the text of the assignment I
didnt ask to evaluate the quality of the memory
of these events. Spontaneusly the subjects have
considered relevant to point out how well they
remember the episode. This seems to indicate that
these events actually correspond to durable
personal milestones for those who write.
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Premises The subjects establish as premisses of
the account the motivation and expectation on
which their actions are based. These are private
contents that very seldom are accessible in the
course of ordinary analysis of conversations.
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Conflicts These accounts condense very elaborate
processes of experiencing verbal conflicts. They
bring to light the genesis of contents which
forge human personality and actions.
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Consequences These data allow to observe effects
of discourse in classrooms on the activities of
teaching, studying and schooling. The analyst has
to focus on the contradictions between the
premisses and the conflicts in the accounts and
has to consider these premisses and conflicts in
the light of the consequences to which they led
and that are reported in the accounts as well.
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Inner speech This writing gives a voice to inner
speech. That is a discourse which puts light on
conflicts and corresponds to points of view that
cant be publically expressed in the
circumstances when the inner speech generates.
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Conclusive remark When we talk, especially in
working or educational situations, we tend to
hide and constrain our thought in coherent and
uniform packages of routinized, predictable and
safe utterances. Instead, autobiography ()
doesnt make us guilty for the multiple voices
that inhabit ourselves (). It is time for
putting together loose pieces () (Demetrio
1996 33). In this sense, autobiographical
practices bring us to face also disruptions and
contradictions of our individual experience in
public activities.
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For contacts

• Annalisa Sannino
• University of Salerno
• Department of Education
• Via Ponte Don Melillo
• 84084 Fisciano (SA) Italy
• E-mail ansannin_at_unisa.it