1. Introduction 2. The emergence of learning activity as a historical form of human learning 3. The zone of proximal development as the basic category of expansive research 4. The instruments of expansion 5. Toward an expansive methodology 6. Epilogue.

Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research

We may not be able to make you love reading, but archaeology of knowledge will lead you to love reading starting from now. Book is the window to open the new world. The world that you want is in the better stage and level. World will always guide you to even the prestige stage of the life. You know, this is some of how reading will give you the kindness. In this case, more books you read more knowledge you know, but it can mean also the bore is full.

The archaeology of knowledge

Cultural-historical activity theory has evolved through three generations of research. The emerging third generation of activity theory takes two interacting activity systems as its minimal unit of analysis, inviting us to focus research efforts on the challenges and possibilities of inter-organizational learning. Activity theory and its concept of expansive learning are examined with the help of four questions: 1. Who are the subjects of learning? 2. Why do they learn? 3. What do they learn? 4. How do they learn? Five central principles of activity theory are presented, namely activity system as unit of analysis, multi-voicedness of activity, historicity of activity, contradictions as driving force of change in activity, and expansive cycles as possible form of transformation in activity. Together the four questions and five principles form a matrix which is used to present a study of expansive learning in a hospital setting in Finland. In conclusion, implications of the framework for our understanding o...

/pdf/expansive-learning-at-work-toward-an-activity-theoretical-2axhk8g8a8.pdf

Expansive learning at work: Toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization.

How we Think

The article proposes a framework for the analysis of identity as produced in linguistic interaction, based on the following principles: (1) identity is the product rather than the source of linguis...

/pdf/identity-and-interaction-a-sociocultural-linguistic-approach-2nkp45pi1r.pdf

Identity and interaction: a sociocultural linguistic approach

In this article, Kris Gutierrez, Betsy Rymes, and Joanne Larson demonstrate how power is constructed between the teacher and students. The authors identify the teacher's monologic script, one that potentially stifles dialogue and interaction and that reflects dominant cultural values, and the students' counterscripts, formed by those who do not comply with the teacher's view of appropriate participation. The authors then offer the possibility of a "third space" — a place where the two scripts intersect, creating the potential for authentic interaction to occur. Using an analysis of a specific classroom discourse, the authors demonstrate how, when such potential arises, the teacher and students quickly retreat to more comfortable scripted places. The authors encourage the join construction of a new sociocultural terrain, creating space for shifts in what counts as knowledge and knowledge representation.

/pdf/script-counterscript-and-underlife-in-the-classroom-james-579o722z2m.pdf

Script, Counterscript, and Underlife in the Classroom: James Brown versus Brown v. Board of Education

Elinor Ochs & Lisa Capps, Living narrative: Creating lives in everyday storytelling. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. Pp. xii, 352. Pb. $20.50.Imagine a book on conversational narrative that draws from the fields of linguistics, psychology, literary theory, and anthropology. Now, imagine this book as compelling as a favorite novel and as convincing as a well-designed research report. The nexus of these fields and the artful marriage of these vastly varying genres can be found in the profoundly interdisciplinary and genuinely collaborative book Living narrative. In this volume, Elinor Ochs, a linguistic anthropologist, and Lisa Capps, a developmental psychologist, speak both to those who come to narrative with literary concerns, and to those discourse-analytic minded social scientists who understand spoken, personal narrative as a means to link linguistic phenomena to development of culture and society. Through the course of the book, the authors illustrate how these literary and social concerns need not be dichotomous. Living narrative instills a simultaneous appreciation for the aesthetic and the political aspects of everyday conversational narrative.

Living Narrative: Creating lives in everyday storytelling

A Matter of Taste: How Names, Fashions, and Culture Change.

* Chapter 1: Introduction to Critical Classroom Discourse Analysis * Chapter 2: Dimensions of Discourse and Identity * Chapter 3: Getting to the Talk I: Recording and Viewing in Three Dimensions * Chapter 4: Getting to the Talk II: Transcribing and Analyzing in Three Dimensions * Chapter 5: Analyzing Turntaking Resources * Chapter 6: Analyzing Contextualization Resources * Chapter 7: Analyzing Narrative Resources * Chapter 8: Analyzing Framing Resources * Chapter 9: Analyzing Multi-Modality and Mass Media in Classroom Discourse * Chapter 10: Putting It All Together: A Repertoire Approach

Classroom Discourse Analysis: A Tool for Critical Reflection

This new book offers a timely and lively appraisal of the concept of communicative repertoires, resources we use to express who we are when in dialogue with others. Each chapter describes and illustrates the communicative resources humans deploy daily, but rarely think about – not only the multiple languages we use, but how we dress or gesture, how we greet each other or tell stories, the nicknames we coin, and the mass media references we make – and how these resources combine in infinitely varied performances of identity. Rymes also discusses how our repertoires shift and grow over the course of a lifetime, as well how a repertoire perspective can lead to a rethinking of cultural diversity and human interaction, from categorizing people’s differences to understanding how our repertoires can expand and overlap with other, thereby helping us to find common ground and communicate in increasingly multicultural schools, workplaces, markets, and social spheres. 

Rymes affirms the importance of the communicative repertoires concept with highly engaging discussions and contemporary examples from mass media, popular culture, and everyday life. The result is a fresh and exciting work that will resonate with students and scholars in sociolinguistics, intercultural communication, applied linguistics, and education.

Betsy Rymes

Papers

Script, Counterscript, and Underlife in the Classroom: James Brown versus Brown v. Board of Education

Living Narrative: Creating lives in everyday storytelling

A Matter of Taste: How Names, Fashions, and Culture Change.

Classroom Discourse Analysis: A Tool for Critical Reflection

Communicating Beyond Language: Everyday Encounters with Diversity