Cul Scie Edu (2007) 2:281–303 DOI 10.1007/s11422-007-9053-1 FORUM
Forum: Questions as a tool for bridging science and everyday language games
Received: 25 January 2007 / Accepted: 25 January 2007 / Published online: 1 March 2007 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007
This forum consists of two commentaries—authored by Pei-Ling Hsu and WolffMichael Roth, repectivley—on the feature article by Mattias Lundin who, in turn, responds in a rejoinder. Information on how to reference the commentaries and the rejoinder is provided in the footnotes.
Analyzing science discourse from a language games perspective1 Pei-Ling Hsu The study reported by Lundin is to investigate the role that questions play in a course that focuses on talking in science as a context for learning. He applies Wittgenstein’s notion of language game and Aikenhead’s ideas about border crossings between everyday life and school science as the foundation of his argument. In addition, Lundin examines the establishment of relations in classroom conversation ¨ stman, 2002) to analyze and interpret his data. To illustrate the (Wickman & O explanatory power of language games, Lundin uses three excerpts of biology-related discourse to demonstrate the process of establishing relations while crossing different language games. The first excerpt (in which a teacher and students talked about vaccinating) shows that ‘‘when a school science language game question asked by a teacher points out gaps in relation to everyday settings these are quite smoothly filled with relations by students.’’ The second excerpt (in which a teacher and students talk about defect valves) illustrates that ‘‘a school language game question asked by a student can point out gaps in relation to an everyday setting and filled 1
Citation for this forum contribution: Hsu, P.-L.. (2007). Analyzing science discourse from a language games perspective. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 2(1), pp–pp.
P.-L. Hsu (&) University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada e-mail:
[email protected]
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with relations that were accepted or adjusted by the teacher.’’ The last excerpt (a discussion between three boys about the digestive tract) shows that ‘‘even though an everyday language game question brings about gaps, and even though suggestions to fill the encountered gaps were made by students, these did not establish any relation to a science language game.’’ Through these findings, Lundin concludes that either a teacher or a student’s question easily evokes a student’s everyday experiences. However, transitions from questions to a science language game or answers by students alone are less easily made: the study illustrates thereby that the role of teacher in conversation is crucial. In the article, Lundin shows how students communicate and discuss science-related topics by using boundary crossing language games and relation-establishing process perspectives. The findings from the study supply significant examples and illustrate the importance of questions in bridging science and everyday language, together with the teacher’s guidance in making science meaningful in daily life. It is impressive to see how the author combined different notions to carry out the detailed analysis. Using linguistic perspectives on teaching and learning myself, I empathize with the author. However, I also have some questions that arise to me from my reading. I therefore examine different ways of analyzing the excerpts supplied in the article. Four main issues presented in the following paragraphs are: (a) the role of questions and teachers’ guidance; (b) the use of terminology; (c) an alternative analysis about difficulty of transiting; and (d) the type of transcription.
The role of questions and teachers’ guidance In his article, Lundin analyzes language games across the border between formal and informal talk. This allows him to develop the relations in students’ science conversation and to emphasize the role of questions in the discourse that both is the bridge and constructs the bridge between the two lifeworlds. When students question, they seek meaning and understanding, construct knowledge, and reconceptualize what they already understand in a different way. They in fact are connecting new ideas, and linking them to what they already know (Iran-Nejad & Cecil, 1992). Therefore, questions students ask play important roles in learning and connecting science language games. However, while reading Lundin’s findings, I queried whether questions alone could function as a tool for bridging language games in the way his title ‘‘Questions as a tool for bridging science and everyday language games’’ appears to suggest. The analysis in the article leads the author to contend that questions supply opportunities and play an important role in bridging different language games. Based on the first two excerpts, the analysis shows that questions raised either by the teacher or by the students can invoke students’ crossing from a science to everyday language game in the talking of science. However, in the third excerpt, students do not successfully cross language games to a science language. That is, even a question that explicitly points out the gap cannot invoke appropriate relations to fill the gap. Therefore, Lundin points out the importance of the teacher’s guidance or adjustment in students’ conversation. Neither the questions alone nor every question can be used as a tool for bridging language games. The teacher’s participation in conversation appears crucial in the attempt of helping students to cross the gap.
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Thus, the roles of questions and the teacher’s participation are indispensable in bridging science and everyday language games. The ultimate question therefore pertains to whether questions are determinate influences or whether they constitute resources that may but do not have to facilitate the kinds of processes Lundin wants to support. Rather than claiming questions as having determinate function, it might be more appropriate and more impartial to suggest (and, choose a title that reflects this suggestion) the nature of questions as discursive resource rather than as a determinant of student–student and student–teacher transactions. Lundin’s analysis and findings then may serve as a foundation for investigating the complex mechanisms of the role of questions in students’ learning and the role of a teacher’s guidance and adjustment in school science. The framework allows educators and teachers to improve students’ development in scientific understanding.
Terminology: is the gap that gap? The same words certainly have different connotations in different contexts. Hence, we must carefully distinguish different meanings depending on the context. Tongue twisters are typical examples for the continuously shifting sense a word might obtain. For instance, ‘‘I saw a saw saw a saw’’ there are four ‘‘saw’’s in the sentence but these denote different things and their syntactical functions depend on the way and context the words are used. The sentence means ‘‘I saw (seeing action: verb) a saw (tool: noun) saw (sawing action: verb) a saw (tool: noun).’’ Kindergarten children might have difficulty to understand the sentence, let alone parse it into its components, which already has understanding the sentence as its prerequisite. Likewise, for a newcomer in the study of discourse, the use of theoretical terms should be more specific and explicit to prevent some reading difficulty. While reading the article, I noted that some terms might need further explanation. To identify the gaps between science and the everyday language game, Lundin ¨ stman’s approach to examine the relations being established in uses Wickman and O conversation. Note, however, that there are two kinds of ‘‘gap’’ in Lundin’s article. One is the gap of not standing fast (referred to as local gap here) and the other one is the gap of different language games (referred to as game gap here). The first kind of gap (local gap) is found on a smaller scale, in one or two sentences, but the second gap (game gap) occurs on a bigger scale, as a chunk of dialogue. The following paragraph, introduced by Lundin, shows how to identify the local gaps: Everything we say to each other that is found to be meaningful, and consequently not questioned in any way, can be said to stand fast. If an utterance does not stand fast, we need to relate the utterance to something that is standing fast. When such a need is noticed a gap has been identified. Gaps are often brought up in questions or tentative statements such as suggestions. It is possible to fill a gap with a relation that either can constitute a similarity or a difference. From the brief explanation, we know that a local gap exists when people do not stand fast in relation to the previous person’s conversational production. The gaps become evident in and from the subsequent questions or tentative statements. The game gaps, on the other hand, are articulated on a bigger scale. It is as if students
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used a parallel language to talk science. Based on the nine turns of dialogue in the second excerpt (discussing defect-valves issues), Lundin concludes: ‘‘students successfully bridge science talk in school with everyday experiences by bringing about gaps between the two language games.’’ In this conclusion, the ‘‘gaps’’ indicate the game gaps between different forms of language but not local gaps that might indicate the relation between different concepts. Explicit difference therefore needed between these two gaps to help readers easily follow the analysis in the paper. When Lundin uses the concept of local gaps to analyze the data written next to these excerpts, we can see that these gaps do not exist only in what he called different language games but also within the same language game. In the following paragraphs, I identify these local gaps either between different language games or in the same language game in the second excerpt. Peter: My uncle is good at that (.) he has got some kind of stone that you use to suck out. Teacher: A stone? Peter: ((inaudible)) So it sucks up. Teacher: It must be some kind of porous one. Lundin identifies the first kind of gap (local gaps) in this way. Now Peter tells about an experience. However, his utterance relates to ‘‘bitten’’ and not to ‘‘serum’’ and consequently his utterance does not fill the gap between serum and experience. Peter’s experience deals with ‘‘suck out’’ and his utterance fills the gap between experience and ‘‘bitten.’’ The phrase ‘‘stone that you use to suck out’’ makes up the relation (similarity). The word stone does not stand fast. Peter establishes a new relation between ‘‘stone’’ and the cure for snakebites. The gap was filled with ‘‘sucks up.’’ However, the relation does not seem to stand fast and the teacher ends the conversation by making ‘‘porous one’’ relate the gap between ‘‘stone’’ and ‘‘suck up.’’ In that another relation is established. In this analysis, I notice that the local gaps can be identified, as suggested, between different language games. However, the local gaps also occur in the same language game. For instance, the gap of serum and experience is between different language games. However, in the differences between experience and bitten, between stone and the cure for snakebites, and between stone and suck up, the gaps all are within and therefore constitutive of the same language game (everyday). Thus, local gaps exist either in different language games or in the same language game. As for the difficulty, it might not only appear in crossing different language games but also in the same language game if further analysis and discussion develop based on two well definite gaps. In summary, I read the Lundin text as stressing the development of science discourse from language games perspective. However, I note some problems in use of the gap concept from theoretical and methodical perspectives. For example, there are two different kinds of ‘‘gaps’’ exist in the articles. One is in a smaller scale describing the local gap between concepts and the other one is in a bigger scale showing the game gap between language games. The difficulty students experienced in crossing the game gaps can therefore be analyzed with the local gap in different concepts. Furthermore, these local gaps exist in either different games or in the same
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game. If Lundin illustrated the relation of two different kinds of gaps or discussed their interaction, it might help the findings to illustrate the complicated mechanism of language games more satisfactorily.
Alternative analysis: the difficulty of transiting Through the analysis of the third excerpt, Lundin illustrates the difficulties of making transitions from an everyday to a science language game. However, the difficulty of transitions from a science to an every language game also appeared in the analysis of the third excerpt. In the following paragraphs, I add a different analysis of the third excerpt to display the dual difficulties of transiting from the language games perspective. In the third excerpt, ‘‘three boys (Kevin, Mark & Fred) talked about the digestive tract, the kidneys and the formation of urine in a situation where they were about to write down facts about the digestive system and related topics.’’ Kevin asked a question about where the excrement separated. After a lingering discussion, Kevin was still unsatisfied by the answer supplied by others, the entire conversation ended as Mark banged his fist on the table and declared that the liquid is separated from the solid in the colon. The excerpt is interpreted to mean that a transition from the everyday language game to a science language game was never made. That is, everyday ways of communicating are not easily translated to the school-science language, particularly because many everyday ways of talking are non-scientific and are used by scientists themselves (e.g., the agency articulated in this admiration of the sun in the early morning, ‘‘What a beautiful sun rise!’’). It is through his particular lenses that Lundin conducted this analysis and arrived at the conclusion that he does. Alternative lenses may well lead to different and more variegated results. In the following section, an alternative analysis shows another difficulty of transiting when concerning students’ purpose of the conversation. As Lundin described the conversation context before showing the third excerpt, ‘‘Kevin, Mark, and Fred these three students were in a situation where they were about to write down facts about the digestive system and related topics.’’ In addition, at the end of excerpt Mark uttered, ‘‘Okay then let’s write colon.’’ Through the situation description and Mark’s utterance, we realize that these boys were in the process of figuring out together an adequate answer to write down on their test or assignment. In order to achieve the purpose (write down an answer on their sheets), they discussed and lingered on the issue of separation. This information presupposes Kevin to have read the test or assignment first and tried to ask a question for discussion before he could answer one of the questions on that assignment. As a result, he asked the question, ‘‘What is it that really separates the excrement?’’ Through the description in the paper does not indicate exactly what the assignment question is. It might be similar to the question that Kevin asked or totally different. However, in the boys’ conversation, Mark and Fred allowed the conversation initiated by Kevin to continue. In the end Mark invited others to write down a possible answer. That is, Mark and Fred expressed understanding for what Kevin tried to figure out in that assignment and did not reject Kevin’s question about ‘‘separation’’ but participated in the conversation. In other words, the concept ‘‘separation’’ stood fast in their conversation. So they continually attempted to offer an answer to
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Kevin’s question but did not reject the concept of separation. They both allowed Kevin to interpret the question on the assignment in this way (the place for separation) and knew ‘‘where’’ to write down the answer they produced afterwards. These three boys knew that Kevin’s everyday question was asked for one particular science language question on the assignment. Based on the excerpt, I argue that the three boys exhibited not only difficulty translating from an everyday language game to a science language game, but also difficulty translating from a science language game (the question on the test or assignment) to an everyday language game (the question of separation) at the very beginning of the session. How can a question formulated scientifically be accessible to students who through the lessons are to learn the discourse of science? How can students be brought into another discourse community when the only resource they have is being good at their own everyday language game? Kevin or the other boys encountered the difficulty of translating a science language question to an everyday language question, so he translated the original science language to inappropriate everyday language. Not surprising then, they had trouble figuring out a scientific answer for the inappropriate everyday question. The argument supports the finding from Szybek’s (2002) study that the translation from the science stage to the everyday stage is a crucial element in the process of making meaning of science. Through the alternative analysis demonstration of the third excerpt, we can see that the mechanism of language games might be more complex than the original analysis might have led on. These three boys might encounter not only a difficulty of transiting to a science language but also a difficulty of transiting to an everyday language game in the third excerpt section. A more complete analysis might serve an impartial finding form language games perspectives. Explicit transcript The form of the transcript of a conversation and what one can say about the conversation stand in a dialectical relationship, because the transcript constitutes both the material the structure of which is to be theorized and the material that is used as evidence for the existence of structure. This relationship is not explicit in Lundin’s article, which means that other possible claims and understandings concerning the data remain unexplored. Transcription is a time-consuming process; the transcript is a text that ‘‘re’’presents data constructed by particular purposes (Green, Franquiz, & Dixon, 1997). The transcript mediates the analysis, that is, what ‘‘evidence’’ the transcript makes available for researchers for their particular analysis plays a crucial role in discourse study. In order to serve the needs of researchers, a ‘‘toolkit’’ metaphor was suggested to consider ways of transcribing. Practical considerations and principles of transcription include: ‘‘embrace the complexity of transcribing and transcripts’’; ‘‘account for the contextual variables unique to the needs of the client or subject’’; ‘‘engage in a disciplined selectivity when making transcription decisions’’; ‘‘ensure that the process of transcription and the decisions made are as explicitly detailed as possible’’; ‘‘to ensure authenticity, individuality and flexibility should be built into the process of transcription’’; and ‘‘to adequately describe the phenomena under consideration and to ensure the necessary explicitness and flexibility, there must be sufficient empirical resources (i.e., notation systems) to achieve the goals of the
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transcription’’ (Mu¨ller & Damico, 2002, p. 310). Most importantly, it appears necessary that authors of scientific articles explicitly articulate how their transcription (method) articulates with their theory, because method both structures the field to be researched and the material that serves claim that such structures ‘‘really exist.’’ Many studies have their own conventions for transcription. For instance, Gail Jefferson developed a system of transcript notation that not only includes verbal behaviors but also incorporates symbols to represent various non-vocal activities such as gaze, gestures, and applause (Atkinson & Heritage, 1999). The researcher might consider the individual study and the need to choose a particular method of transcribing. For example, the pauses and overlaps did not play a role in discourse analysis so the transcript will be simpler than the conventions used in conversation analysis, where features such as pauses and overlaps matter (Roth, 2005a). To show a different possibility, I analyze the use of the standing fast concept in the analysis of classroom discourse. Standing fast is one of the important concepts in the feature article. Lundin used the standing fast concept to explain whether students have gaps in understanding each other in the science discourse. Standing fast is what is immediately intelligible and could be termed, ‘‘What is and occurs when we act without questions or hesitation.’’ That is, no additional explanations are needed for us to understand ¨ stman, 2002). However, the article remains ambiguous about when or (Wickman & O where a statement is or is not standing fast. For instance, in the second excerpt, Lundin locates the analysis right next to the transcript: Teacher:
Jim:
You have probably seen somebody that has had defect valves (.) especially on the legs you usually see when the blood runs back. Damn how do you see that?
‘‘Valves’’ stands fast in the conversation. The teacher notices a gap between ‘‘defect valves’’ and ‘‘see.’’
Lundin analyzes the dialogue between the teacher and Jim and concludes ‘‘Valves stands fast in the conversation.’’ However, hesitation might occur in the conversation that Lundin does not illustrate in the transcript. First, Lundin does not describe the gesture or facial expression, but students might already have a ‘‘questioning face’’ when the teacher says ‘‘valves.’’ Second, although Lundin use the dot in a single parentheses ‘‘(.)’’ to record the pause, but he does not indicate how many seconds it is. There are many possible ways in which a pause might mediate the outcome of a collaboratively constructed situation (e.g., Roth & Middleton, 2006). It might be just a quick pause, which doesn’t indicate any problem. But if the pause is 3 seconds, then it is a pause much longer than the standard one-second silence in conversation (Jefferson, 1989). As ample research in the early 1980s has shown, the time a teacher does or does not speak significantly mediates the learning outcomes (Tobin, 1987). One of the situations is that the teacher might be aware of student’s confusion from their faces or gestures so then having a pause to slow down the conversation to allow students have more time to follow and understand it. If so, then the statement ‘‘Valves stands fast in the conversation’’ might likely be misinterpreted. In my reading of the article, I thought that a more elaborate transcription method might be able to trace relevant phenomena more easily. For instance, the conversation involving the flight attendant (F) and passenger (P) was transcribed using basic Jefferson transcription convention (Roth, 2005a).
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F: P: F:
chicken or beef? (1.00) chicken or beef? (1.23) ((open eyes, looks up)) I ordered a special meal. i am sorry. (0.56) [let me go and check in the back. [((She begins moving toward the back of the place.))
The transcript contains pause detail by illustrating the number of seconds in single parentheses, describing gazes or gestures in double parentheses, showing the emphasizing or stressing actions in talk (underline), and demonstrating the overlapping of talk with square brackets. More complete convention and discussion can be found in Heritage and Atkinson (1984), ten Have (1999), or Psathas and Anderson (1990). Basing on the basic transcription convention, we could have the following analysis to illustrate the phenomenon of standing fast: In the conversation of the flight attendant (F) and the passenger (P), F supplies meal choices for P to choose (chicken or beef). After the first question ‘‘chicken or beef,’’ P does not answer F’s question. That is, the question does not stand fast in the conversation. So without getting response from P, F asks the same question again after a pause of one second. After these two questions, following a long pause of 1.23 seconds which indicates that not only the first question but the second same question still not stands fast for P. And from the gazes (open eyes) and body movement (looks up), we realize that P closed his eyes while F asks questions. Receiving P’s response ‘‘I ordered a special meal’’ and the emphasizing voice on ‘‘special,’’ this statement stands fast for F to response quickly ‘‘I am sorry’’ without any delay and then quickly turns away to do what F supposed to do. From the basic transcription conventions, especially from the record of the pause in seconds, we can identify these locations of standing fast. The transcription convention helps authors to establish the discourse at that time and allows readers to build up a context that they have not been privy to experience, which then allows them to follow the author’s analysis. This article therefore raises the issue about the reader’s (here my) possibilities of learning from the particular ways in which episodes are transcribed. Because a similar situation would arise even with my own ways of transcribing episodes, it therefore becomes tantamount to articulate the relation between theory and praxis of transcribing and how this theory relates to the one of cognition that the author uses explicitly or implicitly. In order to recreate the situation in excerpt form, authors such as Lundin might elaborate on his transcription method and show how it brings to the foreground the details relevant to the concept of standing fast. Some phenomena (like people’s hesitation or confusion) might be apparent in several kinds of tracers. For instance, marking the number of seconds of pause in the transcript to illustrate hesitation; adding gestures, body movements or facial expression besides verbal transcript to illustrate confusion, like a stunned or confused expression; marking intonation in the transcription to indicate people’s tone of voice because the same statement might have different meanings depending on the intonation used (e.g., sometimes questions are in a declarative form rather in an interrogative form). Recent research in science education has paid more attention to the role a number of features of the voice produce informational resources to the co-participants in a situation (Tobin & Roth, 2006). If more details had been described in the transcript, therefore, Lundin
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would have had resources to give fine structure to his assertions and findings that currently is not available.
Conclusion In the article on investigating students’ talking science, Lundin used a language game perspective originally developed by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. While reading the article, I thought that attention to four areas might provide us with a more complete picture of the relation between the establishment or development of crossing language games. A more elaborate and explicit analysis would allow researchers to illustrate the complicated mechanism of language games. Similar topics discussed in the literature (Roth, 2005b) might also serve as a foundation for further discussion.
References Atkinson, J. M., & Heritage, J. (1999). Transcript notation. Structures of social action: Studies in conversation. Aphasiology, 13, 243–249. Green, J., Franquiz, M., & Dixon, C. (1997). The myth of the objective transcript: Transcribing as a situated act. TESOL Quarterly, 31, 172–176. Have, P. ten (1999). Doing conversation analysis: A practical guide. London: Sage. Heritage, J., & Atkinson, J. M. (1984). Introduction. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp. 1–15). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Iran-Nejad, A., & Cecil, C. (1992). Interest and learning: A biofunctional perspective. In K. A. Renninger, S. Hidi, & A. Krapp (Eds.), The role of interest in learning. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Jefferson, G. (1989). Preliminary notes on a possible metric which provides for a ‘‘standard maximum’’ silence of approximately one second in conversation. In D. Roger & P. Bull (Eds.), Conversation: An interdisciplinary perspective (pp. 166–196). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Mu¨ller, N., & Damico, J. S. (2002). A transcription toolkit: Theoretical and clinical considerations. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 16, 299–316. Psathas, G., & Anderson, T. (1990). The ‘‘practices’’ of transcription in conversation analysis. Semiotica, 78, 75–99. Roth, W.-M. (2005a). Doing qualitative research: Praxis of methods. Rotterdam: SensePublishers. Roth, W.-M. (2005b). Talking science: Language and learning in science. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Roth, W.-M., & Middleton, D. (2006). The making of asymmetries of knowing, identity, and accountability in the sequential organization of graph interpretation. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 1, 11–81. Szybek, P. (2002). Science education – an event staged on two stages simultaneously. Science & Education, 11, 525–555. Tobin, K. (1987). The role of wait time in higher cognitive level learning. Review of Educational Research, 57, 69–85. Tobin, K., & Roth, W.-M. (2006). Teaching to learn: A view from the field. Rotterdam: SensePublishers. ¨ stman, L. (2002). Learning as discourse change: A sociocultural mechanism. Wickman, P. O., & O Science Education, 86, 601–623.
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Pei-Ling Hsu is a former high school science teacher. She received her MS. in science education from National Taiwan Normal University in Taiwan. Currently, she is pursuing her doctorate in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at University of Victoria working on a federally funded research project investigating scientific and technological literacy related activities. Her research interests focus on science apprenticeship education, discourse studies and sociology of science.
Busting boundaries: Rethinking language from an epistemology of difference2 Wolff-Michael Roth [Labov] takes the example of a young black person who, in a very short series of phrases, seems to pass from the Black English system to the standard system eighteen times. Is it not the abstract distinction between the two systems that proves arbitrary and insufficient? For the majority of forms belongs to one or the other only by virtue of the fortuities of a given sequence. (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980/1987, p. 93)
01 M: What is he trying to do? 02 T: I don’t know if he is trying to change it. 03 C: I am not trying to get on this one. I am going to another cell. I am looking for another cell.
Language is one of the primary means to mark out sense in any setting. For me the central question Mattias Lundin raises in his article is about boundaries that he, as many others, discover between the language (parole) spoken in some settings characterized by the adjective ‘‘everyday’’ and the language in other settings spoken in specialized settings (e.g., school science classrooms). But is there something like a language game that is demarcated from other language games? Are speakers of a language aware that they have crossed a boundary into a different topic and grammatical context? Is there something like a language let alone a language game? Is language bound to a ‘‘system of meaning making,’’ which is transmitted to students or which travels or does not travel as a human body moves from outside the school to inside, from outside a laboratory to inside, from outside a home to the inside? Let us take a look at the excerpt that opens these comments. Who are the three people that are speaking? In which context do they speak? Are these auto mechanics talking about a car battery, for which they attempt to figure out which of the cells does not work? Are these farmers talking about the cells in which they have deposited seeds, where they grow to become small plants until set outside? Or are these inhabitants of a former students’ physiology laboratory, where they search for suitable cells to do cell electrophoresis? Well, the episode was recorded in none of these places, though as a visitor to each of the places evoked I have had or overheard conversations about cells that took similar turns. My excerpt actually was recorded in an advanced biology laboratory studying fish vision, where I spent 5 years conducting research both as natural and as social scientist. (For my purposes, a fiction 2
Citation for this forum contribution: Roth, W.-M. (2007). Busting boundaries: Rethinking language from an epistemology of difference. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 2(1), pp–pp.
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writer could equally well have employed the exchange and thereby would have realized the same cultural possibilities that the biologists in my study had available and factually realized.) The first lesson we can draw from this example is this: Language is quite flexible and the same (kind of) talk can be found in different settings, filled with different tools and instruments, characterized by different rules and division of labor, and producing quite different outcomes. The second lesson we can learn is that in each case, while overhearing the conversation, I did not experience having crossed a boundary. Rather, my movements were quite smooth and uninterrupted: from the street into the car shop, from the restaurant where I had dinner into my former student’s physiology laboratory, from the road I cycled onto the farm where I learned about different techniques for raising seedlings, or from my office to the fish vision biology laboratory. That is, although I am differently located with respect to the activities that I have become (marginally) a participant in, and therefore the different kind of identity I realized in the process (‘‘the subject, entering into society in a new system of relationships, also acquires new—systemic—qualities that alone form the real character of personality’’ [Leont’ev, 1978, pp. 109–110]), there is also a sense of continuity. There is a sense that there is an experience of continuity, an innermost stable Self that has moved through the different settings described. There was no boundary, such as the one I experience between air and water when jumping into a swimming pool or as presented by a wall between two rooms, preventing me to move from one to the other in a straight line. The notion of language game—which I, admittedly, have used extensively in the past to write/think about language in science classrooms—inherently implies the notion of boundary. Any sort of game, soccer, football, or tennis has a boundary that confines play to its inside (marked by lines) and determines everything that occurs on the other side as ‘‘out’’ or ‘‘out of bounds,’’ always followed by a stop of play. Rules are central to this notion of the game, and referees, umpires, and lines persons are there to watch that what happens on the field does not violate the set of rules anchored in some reference document. Out of bounds not only means outside of the lines that mark the field but also has the sense of outside of the rules that have been agreed upon for the game. Thus, there are certain moves one can make with the figures on a chessboard and there are others that are out of bounds (e.g., a king that moves by more than one field at a time). In writing this commentary to Lundin’s feature article, I intend to counter the current trend to take human speech as the voicing of the inner person, a perspective that lends itself to the rampant individualism of the Western world. I intend to call attention to and observation of an admonition in a lecture in the fall of 1950: If speech, ‘‘is taken to be the voicing of the inner man,’’ is regarded as language itself, ‘‘then the nature of language can never appear as anything but an expression and an activity of man. But human speech, as the speech of mortals, is not self-subsistent. The speech of mortals rests in its relation to the speaking of language’’ (Heidegger, 1971, p. 208).
Sameness and difference Much of present day theorizing in the social science and thinking in philosophy is grounded in an epistemology of the same and difference is thought as what lies
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outside the boundaries defining the same (Deleuze, 1968/1994). Thus, whatever occurs inside the boundaries of a (language, soccer, chess) game is the game—like A = A, the game (A) is the game (A) because it lies inside the boundaries of the game—and everything else is different. This positioning leads researchers, politicians, and everyday folk more generally to reason that the different is singular; that is, if you or something is different (from the norm, the rules, off the board, on the other side of the boundary) then it is singular. The problem with such a position is that singularity (exceptionality) is theorized as the consequence of difference with respect to the same rather than the other way around or, a viewpoint I take here, as the singularity of difference, which becomes the starting point of any ontology. With respect to language, the old epistemology that grounds everything in the same has monolingualism (e.g., ‘‘everyday language game’’ ‘‘scientific language game’’) as its effect: ‘‘Monolingualism ... tends, repressively and irrepressibly, to reduce language to the One, that is, to the hegemony of the homogeneous. This can be verified everywhere, everywhere this homo-hegemony remains at work in the culture, effacing the folds and flattening the text’’ (Derrida, 1998, p. 40). In school science, the consequence of monolingualism is the colonialist move to impose some forms of talking/writing and to downgrade (viz. penalize, punish) the use of other forms of language, for example, the students’ use of the languages that they speak outside the classroom. In the same vein, it is a regular practice to exclude from classrooms the languages of recent immigrants and all the forms of knowing tied to them; and it is rare indeed to see North American teachers who allow students to express themselves in languages other than the regular classroom English (French, Spanish) (e.g., Cummins, 2000). When we ground ourselves in an epistemology of difference, however, we arrive at radical alterity: not even the Self is identical with itself or, to express this thought in a different way (to be discussed below), the Self is different from itself. At the very moment that I articulate my most private thoughts for the benefit of someone else, I have to use a language that is not mine and therefore already are other than myself. That is, at the very instant that I articulate what some my think of as the most singular and subjective a person is capable of, I am no longer myself: ‘‘Once I speak I am never and no longer myself, alone and unique’’ (Derrida, 1995, p. 60). In this case, as always when I use language, I speak one language but it is not mine, because, ‘‘since it returns to the other, it exists asymmetrically, always for the other, from the other, kept by the other. Coming from the other, remaining with the other, and returning to the other’’ (Derrida, 1998, p. 40). The one language is different from itself, always singular, from me, and plural, for the other and from the other. Self-identity cannot exist independently of mediation and synthesis: ‘‘[s]ince the era of speculative Idealism it is no longer possible for thinking to represent the unity of identity as mere sameness, and to disregard the mediation that prevails in unity’’ (Heidegger, 2002, p. 25). Taking up this approach, recent philosophical developments—mostly by French philosophers including Gilles Deleuze, Didier Franck, Jacques Derrida, and Jean-Luc Nancy—begin with the presupposition that everything is different, not only with respect to other entities but also with respect to the thing (person) itself. The motto is captured in the diction ‘‘Tout autre est tout autre’’ (each and every other is totally other) (Derrida, 1995, p. 82), which points us to a less presupposing presupposition: everything is radically singular and therefore different. Here, thinking begins by presupposing the inherent differences and takes any sameness as the outcome of a (social, societal) construction. Thus, in a strong sense,
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even the apparently intuitive arithmetic equality A = A is incorrect, as the ink and paper producing the first instance of ‘‘A’’ are very different from those producing the second instance of ‘‘A.’’ This is the way of language, as soon as we utter one phoneme, the world has changed and with it the resources available for marking and remarking sense: A „ A or serum „ serum, as I show below. With respect to language, this position then leads us to the following incompossible situation where we only ever have one language that is not self-same (Derrida, 1998, p. 7): 1. We only ever speak one language. 2. We never speak only one language. That is, the French in which Derrida writes, as all language is non-identical with itself: A „ A. The immediate upshot of this is that there is not and cannot be a metalanguage, for it, too is part of monolanguage. Language always summons a heterological opening that permits it to speak of something else as it addresses itself to the other. The second upshot is that there is no boundary, or there are boundaries everywhere, even within any such English, French, or Spanish that students speak in North American schools. The heterological nature of language immediately is evident throughout the episodes Lundin uses in support of his claims about the role of teacher questions as a means for bridging different games of language. Teacher: Has somebody received some kind of serum at any occasion? Do you recognize the word? From films? Why is it taken? Peter: A truth serum. Teacher: A truth serum (.) mm the question is if it exists. A serum is ready-made antibodies that are injected. ... Lundin interprets this exchange as one where a student performs a brief turn at talk ‘‘to fill the gap.’’ He suggests that ‘‘serum’’ was the word to be related to the science language game and that ‘‘truth serum’’ was ‘‘not fully accepted by the teacher.’’ Lundin suggests that in responding the way he did, Peter disclosed his everyday experiences concerning the word ‘‘serum.’’ For me, this analysis involves at least three problematic issues. First, the author analyses the language that the student and teacher use as if they were both singular beings whose verbal productions can be analyzed independently of the contributions of the other. However, as both are within the school, thereby producing and reproducing the activity of schooling, their language responds to and produces what they do—producing a science class. The language they use is not singular—scientific or everyday—but inherently other. Thus, I do not see Peter filling in a void. Rather, he offers something that makes sense from within the lifeworld of students like him, responding in the way it makes sense for them to do. The performance of ‘‘A truth serum’’ was set up and provoked by and in the preceding utterance, which in fact it completes as a question. Thus, ‘‘A truth serum’’ turns out to complete the preceding utterance ‘‘Do you recognize the word? From films? Why is it taken?’’ as an intelligible question–answer pair. Without his utterance, the teacher’s performance would have dangled in the air, waiting to be completed. Simultaneously, the utterance sets up the teacher in her next turn. That is, Peter has uttered something that the teacher now can evaluate in terms of the answer she really was fishing for. In her talk, she expresses not wanting to hear about ‘‘truth serum’’ but about serum blood that is used in transfusions. Here, then, we
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recognize the polysemy, or rather, the heterologous nature of language: the teacher speaks about (blood) serum, whereas Peter speaks about truth serum: serum „ serum, or, more generally in the form of variables that can take any desired value, A „ A. In this episode, the teacher and Peter actually complete more than an ordinary question–response sequence; they in fact complete a sequence that is familiar to those who study forms of discourse in everyday classrooms. The sequence reaches across the three turns, constituting an initiation (‘‘Why is it taken?’’), a response (‘‘truth serum’’), and an evaluation (‘‘the question is if it exists’’). Having come to be known under the acronym of I-R-E, it is a primary means for seeking and instituting teacher control over content and process of classroom conversations (Lemke, 1990). The utterance completes a legitimate question–answer pair, particularly in the light of a second dimension. Second, Peter’s response does not lie outside the language but fully inside. He has responded in a way that is appropriate both within and outside the context of science, both within and outside the context of the everyday. This is so because a ‘‘truth serum’’ (also ‘‘truth drug’’) is a drug used by police officers, intelligence, or military personnel for the purposes of inciting unwilling persons to speak about topics they do not want to reveal; the legality of the use of such drugs, frequent during the cold war, has been reevaluated by the U.S. Congress following the events obliquely referred to by their date as 9/11 (Odeshoo, 2004). Sodium thiopental (or sodium pentothal) belongs to a class of barbiturate derivatives used both as intravenous anesthetic and as an inhibition-relieving drug. That is, Peter in fact produced a conversational resource that had the potential to delve more deeply into chemistry, physiology, and other scientific topics. It is therefore entirely possible that Peter has seen a movie in which there was talk about truth serum, just in the way the teacher was asking in her utterance preceding him. It is precisely in a film that he is most likely to have encountered the idea of a truth serum rather than elsewhere in his life—if it is anything similar to my own life, in which I, a rare moviegoer, have never encountered the word or concept. That is, the concept of truth serum is used both in popular culture—movies, novels—and within the scientific culture: was the truth serum not developed by the scientists of Abbott Laboratories under the leadership of the chemist Dr. Ernest H. Volwiler? Third, rather than focusing on the turns that individuals perform and reducing words and utterances to the experiences of this or that person, it is a methodically better move to study language (parole) at the level of the conversation. This would allow us first to understand that topics and grammar are produced for the other and therefore reflect what speakers presuppose as being shared. When Peter proffers ‘‘truth serum’’ as a candidate answer to the candidate question ‘‘Do you recognize the word?’’ he, as everyone else in the room, can presuppose the intelligibility of the utterance. In fact, the teacher does acknowledge the term as something intelligible but questions whether something as such exists (‘‘the question is if it exists’’). The teacher’s turns at talk only make sense if we (all those present and the analysts) presuppose that students collectively do understand what is being uttered. As we take an analytic perspective on the conversation as a whole, we observe language that makes use of teacher and students to realize itself concretely in the present situation. The individual speakers do not own this language, which always already pre-exists them, comes from the other and is for the other, and continues to exist even when any or all of the participants in this classroom are gone. The speakers only realize concretely existing possibilities in
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and with language; and they draw on it in their efforts of producing and reproducing schooling generally and this science lesson in particular. Language thereby includes, as the linguist Hjelmslev remarked, unexploited possibilities or potentialities (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980/1987) that continually change and expand with every communicative act and the immanent feature of language to be heterogeneous and continually variable.
Difference, heterogeneity, hybridity The advantage of thinking about language based on an ontology of difference lies in the fact that it allows us to understand the events that occur each and every day in science classrooms and elsewhere. Science students and all others are continually involved in hybridizing hybridized language—language is not the One and is continually produced as Other. Language never is the same, and the moment I speak it already is different passage of one heterogeneous language into another. It is, as we saw in Peter’s contribution, is not identical with itself but different. We always mean other than we say, which is a different way of denoting what the adjectives heterological and heterologous—coming as they do from a combination of hetero- (Gr. •seqo [hetero], different, the other of two) and logos (Gr. ko´coV [logos] word, ratio)—refer us to. Thus, from the perspective of the conversation as a whole, language unfolds itself, always intended for the other, presupposed as intelligible, yet at any instance heterological, heterologous, and heteronomous (subject to different laws, e.g., deriving from the singularity of the participants). More so, it is also heteronomous, heterological, and heterological from instant to instant, as different speakers (singularities) realize its possibilities without any chance of assigning this or that word to this or that place as its originary and original birthplace and proprietor. Scientists do not have a proprietary claim on the words ‘‘serum,’’ ‘‘blood serum,’’ or ‘‘truth serum.’’ (The two kinds of differences map onto the two kinds of gaps Hsu articulates in the preceding commentary on Lundin’s article.) Language does not have boundaries; it is not proprietary to any individual or group. In fact, having a language all for yourself runs counter to the very idea and practice of language—there is no private language that could be owned by individuals or groups. Language does not recognize boundaries, allowing itself to be produced and reproduced by auto mechanics, farmers, students in a physiology laboratory, or fish vision researchers—the same words and utterances always meaning differently than they say. Precisely because scientists are unable to lay claim on language can students like Peter come to hear ‘‘truth serum’’ in a movie or read about it being used in a novel or comic strip. Precisely because language is not owned by any individual or group can students as Peter come one day to talk like a scientist, as a result of transformations that occur in his concrete realizations of language. At what point will he face the boundary? At which point does he cross it? Will he experience having crossed a boundary? Based on my own life experiences and studying different cultures using apprenticeship as ethnographic method, I can say that the transitions within and between the languages spoken between different settings always are continuous and, even in the case of a foreign language, presupposed to be continuous. This continuity is presupposed and produced in translations, which occur not only between situations, but, as flagged in the opening part of this article, even within situations—which should be characterized by a single language
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game—for example, when we say something in a different way to assist others in understanding. Peter in fact may experience something like a boundary, but not in speaking and not in uttering ‘‘A truth serum.’’ Boundaries do not exist as such: human beings make boundaries on the fly and for the purposes at hand. Thus, if language is a game, if a language game at once defines the legitimate terrain, context, and the means of this definitory production, then it incorporates the very resources for its own demise and disruption and destruction of the situation at hand. In contrast to games, which have their rules changed every now and then from the outside—officials of a sport change the rules, not the players (while playing)—language would have to be theorized as a game that contradictorily changes itself in the process of concretely realizing itself. Imagine the following change were to take place in the quoted (but abbreviated) classroom episode: Teacher: Do you recognize the word? From films? Why is it taken? Peter: A truth serum. Teacher: A truth serum (.) mm the question is if it exists. Peter: Fuck you. Just look up the term on the Internet. In this situation, we can hear Peter’s return utterance as an evaluation in its own right: Whereas the teacher evaluates the student utterance with respect to her intention of teaching about blood serum, Peter evaluates her evaluation as unreasonable with respect to what he knows about it—and if it were only the hint that one can find information about it on the Internet. The turn would then have to be described and theorized as an extension of the I-R-E schema to become an I-R-E-E. Most teachers will not put up with such evaluation generally and, here, the particular words used to articulate it. Peter may be sent off to the principal’s office or suspended for a few days for inappropriate talk. In this, he would have found after the fact that he had crossed an (invisible) (border) line that the teacher had drawn to distinguish admissible and non-admissible aspects of language in this classroom. That is, if anything, then a boundary was established after the fact: but it, as any linguistic boundary, is one within a language rather than between languages. But then, this turn again offers possibilities for conversational topics during the discussion of which students can learn. Thus, in my own career as a classroom teacher, I tended to address issues of language and its effects head-on, for example, while asking students attending a boys school who had talked about ‘‘chicks’’ they dated to reflect with me on possible reverse scenarios were girls talked about them as ‘‘dicks’’ or ‘‘dick heads.’’ It is possible to change the classroom talk (for a moment) in this manner precisely because language simultaneously does not have a boundary and is full of boundaries. Any salient boundaries are the results of negotiations and local processes rather than things that exists in and for themselves prior to the teacher– student transaction. They boy had transgressed; and this transgression was reincorporated and used productively in the situation. Some science educators use Homi Bhabha’s notion third space to theorize the language spoken in some situation as being a hybrid between two pure linguistic cultures, home and science or as the space between the (different) understandings scientists and everyday folk have when speaking/hearing some word (e.g., Wallace, 2004). The notion is problematic, however, on multiple fronts. First, unlike the heterological approach I advocate here, spoken language and meaning are said to
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exist between conversationalists or between cultures, when in fact it always occurs within. Language is not between entities but is the very terrain and resource for making any current situation as what it is. Second, language is not between speakers and listeners but always for the other to which language comes and returns. It is not speakers’ and listeners’ meanings that ought to be confronted and separated by a ‘‘third space’’; rather, the heterogeneity of the irremediably first space needs to be recognized and theorized. More to the point: School is not a third space in which teachers and students meet occasionally. It is their primary workplace for important part of each waking day. It is characterized by language that is itself as hybridized as any other language spoken during other parts of the waking day. Thus, in the hallways, schoolyards, bathrooms, and perhaps gymnasiums, Peter’s ‘‘fuck you’’ may be an appropriate way of evaluating the situation; and even teachers may use the utterance while talking to their colleagues in the staffroom. At this point, we do not have the answers to the questions concerning boundary crossing from a heterological perspective, which requires us to adopt a research method that follows a student like Peter for long periods of time through his studies and into his eventual career. I do have, however, multiple ‘‘boundary-crossing’’ experiences, which were not crossing boundaries at all. Thus, repeatedly I used apprenticeship as an ethnographic method to become part of a variety of workplaces, all of which I had not known before: ecological fieldwork, laboratory-based fish vision biology, environmentalism, and fish hatching. In each of these situations, I became part of the places and communities over periods ranging from 3 to 5 years. Yet in none of these instances did I have the sense that I was crossing a boundary. In each case, the ways in which I realized language and other practices slowly and imperceptibly changed over time. I became better at talking and doing lizard ecology, fish vision biology, environmentalism, and fish hatching. Whereas on my first or second day I may have asked, as in the introductory episode, ‘‘What is he trying to do?’’ I no longer needed to ask this question after a week or two of working in the laboratory, contributing to the collection of data, ultimately leading to a scientific research article on the absorption of light in various retinal cells. I actively participated in the linguistic economy of the laboratory, the scientists’ house or home (Gr. oı´jo-V [oikos]), contributing to its production, reproduction, and management (Gr. –mo´loV [nomos], f. me´leim [nemein], manage, control). In a similar way, I do not see Peter to be crossing one or more boundaries but understand him to participate in the economy of the classroom, drawing on the possibilities of an inherently heterogeneous, heterologous, and heterologic language. He cannot but surrender to this language. ‘‘Language speaks,’’ which ‘‘means at the same time and before all else: language speaks’’ (Heidegger, 1971, p. 198). This is the essence of language—it speaks rather than being expression or human activity. Language speaks and thereby makes present: it calls to nearness that which is remote, which, in Peter’s case, are entities and events surrounding the use and naming of truth serums, which include in their possible semantic fields crime, espionage, psychotherapy, and hypnosis. But it is not Peter in particular: the possibility of association of serum and truth serum predates him. More so, the calling to nearness does not wrest the truth serum away from the remoteness, ‘‘in which it is kept by the calling there. The calling calls into itself and therefore always here and there’’ (p. 199). In the present instance, the utterance ‘‘A truth serum’’ not only calls into presence some thing but also possibilities, for example, to talk about the
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heteronomous, heterological, and heterologic use of ‘‘serum,’’ which simultaneously denotes a part of blood (blood-serum, the greenish yellow liquid that separates when blood coagulates), the substances in the serum (e.g., serum-transaminase, serum-lipid), a variety of therapeutic agents (e.g., anti-tetanic serum, antidiphtheritic serum), and the anesthetic sodium pentothal also known as ‘‘truth serum.’’ Other possible topics that came into being with the utterance ‘‘truth serum’’ are ontology (the science of being, from Gr. o¨m [on], being), as in the teacher utterance the very existence of the thing denoted is called into question (‘‘the question is if it exists’’). The utterance also brings into being the possibility of discussing epistemology (science of knowledge), including the question about how there can be a name or concept without a corresponding thing in the world and why we lend credence to talk about ‘‘hadrons’’ or ‘‘black holes’’ but not to that about ‘‘truth serums.’’ For a brief moment, there existed other possibilities, such as that of investigating the chemical compositions of matter in blood serum and how these are absorbed or not in and by the body, including the question about how complex molecules such as sodium pentothal can migrate through the walls of the blood vessels.3 None of these possibilities are pursued and realized, a commentary that I use and want to be heard as a description rather than (inherently ethically loaded) prescription. Rather, the teacher moves to evaluate the appropriateness of the utterance with respect to her intended question, though Peter’s performance has offered a very different but equally plausible, intelligible, and potentially productive hearing. As a consequence, the possibility for a student-initiated investigation was shut down and disappeared.
Coda: reappraising language Conceived of as a game, (mono-)language exhibits its rules, structures, and the contexts in which it is used. This is a problematic perspective, as it does not account for the productive nature of language. Must we not admit with Deleuze and Guattari (1980/1987) that every game (system) is in constant variation and is not defined by constants (rules, structures) and homogeneity but on the contrary by its variability? Is there not a day that the languages we use change through their very use. Each language ‘‘is open to radical grafting, open to deformations, transformations, expropriation, to a certain a-nomie and de-regulation’’ (Derrida, 1998, p. 65). It is a system whose unity is both reconstituted and expanded at each moment, thereby questioning the very existence of a language or the language. We only ever have one language, but it is not at one with itself because at the very moment it is realized it already differs. We always are in language and with language; there is therefore no privileged language that could serve as a mediator, a go-between, a universal. A third language that unambiguously, universally, and self-identically encodes meaning and therefore is the measure in terms of which all other languages can be evaluated, compared, and translated is inconceivable because it simultaneously requires the existence and nonexistence of singular expression–meaning pairs (Ricœur, 2006). This also means 3
Its chemical IUPAC name is: 5-ethyl-5-(1-methylbutyl)-2-sulfanyl-1H-pyrimidine-4,6-dione, and the chemical formula reduces to: C11H18N2O2S. Readers can find a 3-D rendering of its structure at the URL: http://redpoll.pharmacy.ualberta.ca/drugbank/cgi-bin/getCard.cgi?CARD=APRD00660.txt.
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ideal (strict) translation is an impossibility, even if it occurs as internal translation, an Anglo-English (Franco-French, Hispano-Spanish) translation that plays on the nonidentity of a language (idiom, dialect) with itself. Each time we use a phrase such as ‘‘that is’’ or ‘‘in other words’’ we attempt such a translation within language without any hope of communicating any better than with the expression that precedes the modifiers. The languages of science classrooms are hybrids, as any other language in any other place (house), contributing to the situated (exchange-based) economy of the situation. In the process, hybrids of hybrids are created, as heterogeneous languages continually undergo me´tissage with themselves and other languages, transforming themselves in the process of becoming more apt at relating persons, things, and world. This increasing aptness—and the increasing action possibilities it applies—is the very expression and definition of learning. I think about languages in the way others have written about culture: ‘‘Culture—or what are called cultures—they don’t add up. They encounter one another, mix with one another, alter one another, reconfigure one another. All cultures cultivate one another: they clear one another’s ground, irrigate or drain one another, plough one another, or graft themselves onto one another’’ (Nancy, 2003, p. 282). That is every culture is in itself ‘‘multicultural,’’ just as any language is in itself multilingual, a hybrid, a melee, alterity par excellence. Well-knowing that I am using a language that is not mine, nor write about a topic that has singularly emerged from some inner-most me, but is the result of a continuous transformation of possibilities inherent in language itself, I end this commentary with a quote from a language philosopher with a position not to far off from Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose work centrally influenced the theoretical notions of the feature article. The quote points us elsewhere than where we have been standing and thinking when it comes to language and science education. It is not a matter here of stating a new view of language. What is important is learning to live in the speaking of language. To do so, we need to examine constantly whether and to what extent we are capable of what genuinely belongs to responding: anticipating in reserve. For: Man speaks only as he responds to language. Language speaks. Its speaking speaks for us in what has been spoken. (Heidegger, 1971, p. 210) References Cummins, J. (2000). Language, power, and pedagogy: Bilingual children in the crossfire. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Deleuze, G. (1994). Difference and repetition (P. Patton, Trans.). New York: Columbia University Press (First published in 1968). Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press (First published in 1980). Derrida, J. (1995). The gift of death (D. Wills, Trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Derrida, J. (1998). Monolingualism of the Other; or, The prosthesis of origin (P. Mensah, Trans.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Heidegger, M. (1971). Poetry, language, thought (A. Hofstadter, Trans.). New York: Harper & Row. Heidegger, M. (2002). Identity and difference (J. Stambaugh, Trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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Lemke, J. L. (1990). Talking science: Language, learning and values. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Leont’ev, A. N. (1978). Activity, consciousness and personality. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Nancy, J.-L. (2003). A finite thinking. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Odeshoo, J. R. (2004). Truth or dare? Terrorism and ‘‘truth serum’’ in the post-9/11 world. Stanford Law Review, 57, 209–255. Ricœur, P. (2006). Sur la traduction. Paris: Bayard. Wallace, C. S. (2004). Framing new research in science literacy and language use: Authenticity, multiple discourses, and the ‘‘third space.’’ Science Education, 88, 901–914. Wolff-Michael Roth is Lansdowne Professor of Applied Cognitive Science at the University of Victoria. He specializes in the study of knowing and learning science and mathematics across the life span, drawing in this work on cultural-historical, linguistic, sociological, anthropological, and philosophical frameworks. His recent publications include Learning Science: Singular Plural Perspectives (SensePublishers, 2006), The Culture of Science Education: Its History in Person (with K. Tobin, SensePublishers, 2007), and Talking Science: Language and Learning in Science Classrooms (Roman & Littlefield, 2005).
Action for purpose in a language game in motion4 Mattias Lundin The title of my article, ‘‘Questions as a tool for bridging science and everyday language games,’’ implicates that questions can be used as a tool for bridging language games. In the text I show how questions are asked and how transitions between language games are made. Hsu asks whether questions are determinate influences or resources that may facilitate such processes. The word ‘‘tool’’ is chosen in order not to claim any determinant relation. On the contrary, a tool can be used for many different purposes. A screwdriver can be used for screwing or to widen a loose joint. It can also be purposeful to use the screwdriver as a blackboard pointer in the classroom. Similarly, questions can be used for various purposes and the use of a question may have different consequences. In the feature article, I do not aim at studying the participants’ purposes; instead the bridging between language games should be seen as one consequence of the use of questions in some of the exemplified conversations. Hsu has taken the analysis of the excerpt a step further when she suggests gaps on two levels. In my text, gaps are used to point out that a need for relation has been encountered in the conversation. Relations are continually established as we talk and these can be used to bridge two language games. This is for example shown in the conversation where the teacher asked if anybody had seen a person with defect valves in the veins of the legs. In this conversation Jim asked for a relation between ‘‘defect valves’’ and ‘‘see.’’ The relation constituted of an account of an experience (‘‘that kind of blue’’), here regarded as a part of an everyday language game. The teacher accepted the relation, even though the words ‘‘varicose veins’’ transferred the conversation back to a school science language game. In order to be able to claim gaps on two levels, the discrimination of at least two language games need to be done prior to the identification of what Hsu refers to as a ‘‘game gap.’’ In my analysis any discrimination of language games is not made on beforehand. Instead these are 4
Citation for this forum contribution: Lundin, M. (2007). Action for purpose in a language game in motion. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 2(1), pp–pp.
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established as the participants go on with their conversations, for example as they elucidate what is part of and beyond the scope of the language game. During science lessons, students (hopefully) learn to participate in a science language game or a school science language game. During other periods of a school day students may socialize using what I refer to as an everyday language game. As seen in the excerpts a school science language game involves transitions to everyday language games and vice versa. In Fred, Mark, and Kevin’s conversation, an everyday question never became translated to a science language game question although a reply was given. Contrarily to Hsu, I argue that a science language game answer was given. What could have been helpful in their conversation is a question formulated in a science language game and that corresponds to the initial everyday language game question. That is, I cannot argue that the everyday language game question was transferred to a science language game, as Hsu argues, until data that support such interpretations is elucidated. Furthermore, Hsu asks how students can be brought into another discourse community when the only resource they have is being good at their everyday language game. From my point of view, language games are not distinct units. You learn a language game by observing and participating in it. Similarly, you may learn to play a party game by observing and participating in it. Similarities between different language games facilitate our possibilities to go from one game to another. Yet, it is not possible to define similarities between language games on beforehand and these need to be characterized as family resemblances. Wittgenstein (1953, § 67) writes about family resemblances between words and explains these in terms of the similarities that are shared between some family members. That is, words can be used in various ways and there is not necessarily a core resemblance between all uses. Some members of a family share one family resemblance while other members of the same family share another. There are not necessarily any core resemblances shared by all the members. In the same way, two language games might have similarities that facilitate a newcomer’s transition, while in relation to another language game another similarity becomes evident. In her commentary, Hsu emphasizes the importance of bringing to the foreground details of transcripts that are crucial for the analysis. One such example is the length of pauses. I cannot but agree. Concerning these particular transcripts Hsu argues that it is crucial to know the length of pauses because a long pause might indicate hesitation, which, in turn indicate something might not stand fast. However, hesitation is not the only indicator that something does not stand fast. Somebody shaking his head or shrugging could make the same meaning. There are many possible things to transcribe and the more items that are added, the more difficult the transcription will become to read. My point of departure (although not told in the text) has been to make clear when gestures or pauses become crucial. To point out what stands fast in a conversation implies explicitly to address utterances that are not questioned. Concerning the feature article, no questions, pauses or other things were interpreted as an indicator of a gap. A concern that I regard to be more important than the convention for transcription is the accuracy of translations. The students speak Swedish and the excerpts are translated to English and sensitivity is needed not to loose colloquial expressions when translating. As an additional remark I would like to emphasize that the research focus is separated from all claims upon how utterances are understood by the participants. The research does consequently not involve making any claims on the participants’ comprehension.
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Roth’s starting point is that there is no metalanguage because ‘‘everything is radically singular and therefore different.’’ Roth explains the idea claiming that not even ‘‘A’’ really equals ‘‘A’’ because a letter cannot be identically reproduced. I agree, but yet, how could we understand each other unless we would be able to identify an ‘‘A’’? My point of departure is that we act upon the idea as though ‘‘A’’ = ‘‘A.’’ That is, at some point we need to stop doubting whether ‘‘A’’ = ‘‘A’’ or not. We need to stop doubting in order to pursue what we are doing. ‘‘If you are not certain of any fact, you cannot be certain of the meaning of your words either’’ (Wittgenstein, 1969, § 114). That is, we go on and leave the doubts behind. The correspondence between the two A is made in the praxis of the language and not as a predefinition. A bit provocatively Wittgenstein (1953, § 38) claims that ‘‘... philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday.’’ Nevertheless, there might be circumstances where the meaning of ‘‘A’’ is separated from ‘‘A.’’ Consequently, when we say that ‘‘A’’ = ‘‘A’’ or even that ‘‘A’’ ” ‘‘A’’, it does not imply that the relation would be generally valid. There are crucial features of the two otherwise different ‘‘A’’ that are similar and that may become relevant in relation to the purposes. This implies that distinctions, made for example by the teacher, can be related to the purposes of their ongoing projects in the school science activity. For example, one of the excerpts deals with ‘‘serum.’’ Roth claims that Peter’s response does not involve crossing any boundary. He also asks whether Peter experienced crossing a boundary. Peter’s comprehension of the utterances is beyond the scope of the analysis. Nevertheless, the teacher in the exemplified conversation pointed out a boundary and ‘‘truth serum’’ was communicated as beyond the scope of the language game. Only if we take a superior viewpoint is it possible to argue about what should and should not be regarded as part of a science language game. Such viewpoint is not taken in the presented study and only the participants’ utterances can elicit boundaries. This does not mean that the participant consciously experiences or establishes a boundary. Rather, I suggest that the teacher (in the exemplified conversation) might have experienced an utterance that did not fully fit with the presented purposes (which are part of the language game). The argument implies that language games or any other boundaries do not exist generally; they might stand out as we act to achieve our purposes/wishes. Studying language games implies claiming ‘‘the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life’’ (Wittgenstein, 1953, § 23). Language games are not something fixed. Symbols, words and sentences change as well as the language games—some come into existence and other get forgotten. Roth asks whether a game (such as a language game) is not in constant variation and claims that it cannot be defined by rules. I argue that the rules of a language game are not pre-defined, because those have to be found in the participants’ actions. It is only possible to identify a language game because we agree in how language is used, and as we do that, the language game stands out. For example, meaning of words come with the use of them and there is no agreement made on beforehand about how words should be used: ‘‘A meaning of a word is a kind of employment of it. For it is what we learn when the word is incorporated in our language’’ (Wittgenstein, 1969, § 61). A rule of a language game does not give cause. A rule is a construction after the event. When studying the use of language in a particular setting, as in the feature article, the rules for language use become visible. ‘‘We always mean other than we say,’’ Roth claims. The question is then what meaning implies. Even if ‘‘A’’ would not equal to ‘‘A,’’ that is, even if we say
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differently than we mean, a great deal of the conversations that we daily pursue indeed go on smoothly. ‘‘A’’ is interpreted to equal A and the response to my utterance indeed is intelligible, even if I might have said differently from what I meant. That is, despite these differences/problems/heterogeneities conversations go on as words are uttered for different purposes, to point out issues and items. Furthermore, Roth argues that ‘‘truth serum’’ should be regarded as part of a science language game. Maybe that is a reasonable claim. However, to make such a claim implies taking a superior viewpoint and claiming that the teacher’s distinction would be false: ‘‘A truth serum (.) mm the question is if it exists?’’ My point of departure is not to classify the participants’ utterances in that way but to elucidate when they attempt to cross over to another language game and the phrase ‘‘truth serum’’ was in fact not picked up by the teacher. The occasion when Peter and the teacher talked about serum, is indeed an example of an I-R-E sequence such as Roth suggests. Nevertheless, my starting point is that utterances are made for a purpose—it can be that one purpose for making utterances is to accomplish I-R-E sequences. That is, as the teacher posed the questions (being part of a question–answer pair) a gap was brought out. The teacher’s utterance implied that a response was needed (indicated with a question mark). Using my terminology I say that the teacher turned the students’ attention to a gap between serum and the outside world. When Peter answered, he filled the encountered gap with a relation to truth serum. Roth brings up various possibilities that come with the suggestion ‘‘truth serum’’ and concludes that possibilities for student-initiated investigation was shut down and disappeared. However, the point of departure in this research is to provide understanding of how school science activities are realized. Consequently, to claim that the accomplished actions would be inappropriate with regard to the teacher’s purposes or any other participant’s requires taking all the conditions in consideration when suggesting different actions. However, in order to be able to take all the conditions in consideration we would have to re-live the situation. Subsequently, as outsiders, we can never fully put in question the participants’ actions—only elucidate actions from a chosen perspective. For example, we can comment that Peter’s utterance provided possibilities for discussing the migration of molecules through the walls of blood vessels, as Roth suggests, but we cannot say that the possibilities would have implied better actions with regard to the circumstances, because my perspective does not involve anything such as a superior viewpoint.
References Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Wittgenstein, L. (1969). On certainty. Malden: Blackwell. Mattias Lundin is a PhD student at University of Kalmar, Sweden, and part of Swedish National Graduate School in Science and Technology Education Research. His research focuses on how school science activities are carried out in compulsory school and his thesis is slated to be presented and defended in 2007. He trained as a science teacher and has experience teaching 13- to 15-year-old students. He currently works part time teaching courses in science education.
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