2.1.1 CultureThe sustained development of culture, as manifested by the production, re-production and usage of tools and signs, is unique to humans. The relationship between humans and their cultures is two-way, in that human mental functioning is as much a product of the prevailing culture (in that it is in the context of culture that language evolution is nurtured, and sense is therefore made of one’s environment), as it could potentially be for its reproduction. As such, humans do not react directly with their environment, but through these cultural means, tools and signs.
For example, Kress (in press) acknowledges the differing functional specializations of text and pictures as conveyers of meaning. In the present study for example, students used text messages to communicate procedural information (eg “turn left at the coffee shop”), and used pictures to communicate appropriate orientation (eg “walk straight till you see this sign”). The relative frequencies with which text is used, vis-à-vis pictures, are a proxy for the respective functional loads placed by adolescents in peer communication.
Analyses of functional loads in communication tend to be hampered by the many modes by which people communicate (speech, visual depictions, gestures, body positioning – to name a few). By requiring communication through an exchange of text- and picture-messages, the study attempts to simplify the variables somewhat. As students interact through exchanging their respective criterial features of their local environments through text- and picture-messaging, it is hypothesized that their cognitive maps of the various field sites will be reinforced.
This is predicted by both the so-called conjoint retention hypothesis (Kulhavy and Stock, 1994) as well as Clark’s and Paivio’s (1991) work on dual coding. Picture-messages (with or without text appended) allow the encoding and retrieval of information-as-textual-proposition and information-as-images. According to Winn (1995), such dual coding enables conjoint retention, which in turn improves understanding and recall.
Wertsch (1998) has suggested that the tripartite conception of the relationship that humans have with the environment – ‘agent acting with mediational means’ – is the basic unit of describing human activity. It has since been expanded based upon Leont’ev’s Marxist interpretations of the division of labour in activity theory, as manifested in, for example, the cultural institutionalization of practices of mating, reproduction and upbringing, as well as of the evolution of rituals, traditions and rules.
Leont’ev elaborated on such transitions from the natural and ecological, to the economic and historical, by making explicit distinctions between automatic operations, individual action driven by a conscious goal, and collective activity driven by an object-oriented motive, of which the individual subjects may or may not be consciously aware.
In other words, the individual’s action can only be fully understood within the context of a cultural motive, while at the same time it can only be realized through operations selected according to the relevant conditions in the situation. As conceived by Leont’ev, actions are relatively short-lived and have a temporally distinct beginning and end. Activity, on the other hand, is not reducible to actions. Ideally, activity systems evolve over socio-historical time.
Leont’ev’s expansion of Vygotsky’s structure has, of course, been represented by Engeström (in Cole and Engeström, 1983). Leont’ev’s elaborations upon the original model can be seen as his response to try to situate an individual’s action within its prevailing historico-cultural context (Wells, 2002), or, as Cole (1996) would have it, within the the ‘garden’ of culture.
In Engeström’s representation of the model of cultural-historical activity theory, the subject refers to the individual (or sub-group) whose agency is chosen as the unit of analysis. The object refers to the problem space at which the activity is directed, and which is transformed into outcomes, with the help of physical and symbolic instruments; it is therefore both a given, as well as something that is anticipated. Objects meet needs, and therefore gain motivating forces which, in turn, define the parameters of the activity. The community comprises multiple sub-groups who share the same general object and who define themselves distinct from other communities. The division of labour refers to both the horizontal and vertical division of tasks, and the rules refer to the explicit and implicit regulations, norms and conventions which constrain actions within the system (Engeström, 2002).
Wertsch (1995) has leveled a critique of activity theory – or, more precisely, of the perceived dichotomy in schools of psychological research between the relative primacies of (respectively) sociocultural setting and mental functioning (as represented by activity theory on the one hand, and Churchland (1988) on the other). Wertsch’s third way, is that “mental functioning and sociocultural setting be understood as dialectically interacting moments of a more inclusive unit of analysis – human action”. Conversely, such action provides a context within which the individual and society are understood as interrelated moments.
Understood thus, human action is contextualized within an interplay of multiple influences operating on individuals and society as a whole. The relative influences and roles of each, with regards to shaping the action under investigation, would vary over time. As such, Wertsch’s approach stands in apposition to the deterministically-linear unidirectionality as suggested by classical activity theory. For example, Wertsch calls to attention that the inclusion of new mediational means (which would themselves be elements of a sociocultural setting) in an activity would not simply influence the facility of an existing action, but would instead bring about a new action by dint of its impact upon mental functioning. <- 2.1 Theoretical Foundation and Key Definitions -> 2.1.2 Language |
