La mediación semiótica de las acciones humanas: análisis sociocultural de la situación experimental

Resumen

El presente artículo se centra en desarrollar una serie de ideas que permiten conectar los planteamientos de diferentes autores, tan dispares como cercanos, respecto a la considerateón de las acciones humanas como semióticamente mediadas. Uno de los puntos centrales del mismo tendrá que ver con un análisis de la naturaleza comunicativa de un contexto específico—una situación experimental—que será considerado como un escenario de actividaden el que distintas subjetividades entran en contacto. Se empleará para ello la idea de intersubjetividad como un proceso de coordinateón de las contribuciones de los participantes en la actividad conjunta, en el que serán vitales tanto los acuerdos alcanzados como los desacuerdos en la consecución de determinados estados de conocimiento compartido.

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to develop a set of ideas that enable us to link different authors' perspective on the semiotically mediated nature of human actions. An important aspect involves analysing the communicative nature of a especific context: the experimental situation. Traditionally, it has not been usual in psychology to treat the experimental situation as an object of study for research. Here, it is considered as an activity setting in which different subjective realities come together. The notion of inter subjectivity will be crucial in this analysis. It will be approached as a process of coordinating participants' contributions to the join activity. We consider that the dynamics of both agreement and disagreement is essential to achieve a common level of knowledge.

Extended Summary

The paper sought to abandon traditional approaches toward the experimental situation. This is generally viewed only in terms of the subject carrying out the action and the task being performed. Thus, we do not consider the experimental situation to be two-sided (subject-task), but rather a three-sided situation (subject-experimenter-task). The experimenter will be the link between the demands made by the experimental instructions and subject's task performance. Therefore, the experimenter is viewed as a social agent who is essential for the activity to be carried out.

Traditionally, in psychology, it has not been usual to approach the experimental situation as an object of study. Indeed, it has simply been considered as the context in which subjects' perform tasks, carry out instructions, etc. However, from a sociocultural perspective the experimental situation is seen as an «activity context» (Wertsch, 1988) present in the life of the individual and, hence, as an object of analysis.

A deeper analysis has led us to think that, even if the experimental situation is not conceptualized as a social or interactive situation, subjects who have problems trying to solve the task will perceived it as a social situation. That is, as an interactive situation in which the experimenter is a potential collaborator (Vygotsky, 1979; Goudena, 1987). In Bakhtin's words, the experimenter becomes a possible interlocutor (Bakhtin, 1981, 1987; Wertsch, 1988). Thus, both experimenter and subject transform the experimental situation into a dialogical one, which they perceive as a communicative context.

From this perspective, two definitions of the task situation in this communicative context are put forth. Wertsch (1984) defines it in terms of the way in which the task situation (i.e., objects, goals, instructions, etc.) is represented or interpreted by the participants in the activity. However, any situation has different possible interpretations, and speech plays an important role in these communicative exchanges. Speech is more than a good instrument to exchange information. It is much more as, according to Rommetveit (1979), it may be used to impose a structure on a specific situation. Indeed, it is crucial to create a social reality temporarily shared by the interlocutors.

It is important to note that the discrepances between the two definitions are related to what subjects did afterwards. But, how can we explain these discrepancies? How can we explain these two different ways of understanding the task? For this purpose we turn to M. M. Bakhtin, language philosopher and semiologist. This author's notion of voices, dialogue, interanimation, etc., are useful to analyse this confrontational situation.

We think that an experimental situation brings into contact two personalities speaking, two individual consciousness, or in Bakhtin's terms, two voices expressing their own viewpoint. There is, on the one hand, the experimenter's voice. This is the formal, abstract, and decontextualized voice that informs subjects what is required of them. This voice could be defined as the scholar's voice or that of modernity. In Wertsch's words, this is the voice of decontextualized rationality. On the other hand, there is the subject's voice expressing his/her socialization experiences. This is the informal voice, the voice of everyday life.

We can observe, as Bakhtin points out, that the voices are always socioculturally situated. Participants in the experimental situation will have to negotiate their definitions of the situation to achieve a state of intersubjectivity that allows communication to take place. It is during this negotation that the experimental situation becomes a communicative situation.

Palabras claves:

• Acción
• mediación semiótica
• intersubjetividad
• situación experimental

Keywords:

• Action
• semiotic mediation
• intersubjectivity
• experimental situation