Calibrating Bodies and Cognition through Interactive Practice in a Meaningful Environment

Abstract
Using as data videotapes of archaeologists working to see and map structure in the dirt that they are excavating; meaning-making in the home of a man with severe aphasia; and sequences of naturally occurring talk-in-interaction, this talk will investigate action, cognition, language use and objects as phenomena constituted through actual agent-object inter-action. In particular: rather than viewing ‘cognition’ as an abstract process lodged entirely within the mental life of sentient beings, ‘language’ as a nonmaterial process situated within the psychological life of the individual, and ‘objects’ as mute, unmoving entities, this presentation will focus on the mutual constitution of actors, objects, and communities within the ongoing organization of situated language use and of dynamically unfolding activities. From such a perspective, ‘cognition’ emerges as a consequential and practical issue – part of the process through which both the world that is the focus a community’s scrutiny, and other actors, are known in just the ways that allow the work of the community to be accomplished. It will be argued that both cognition and action emerge through the systematic transformation of environments that contain a range of structurally different kinds of resources that mutually interact with each other.

About the Speaker
Professor Goodwin's research has focused on many aspects of language and interaction, including the co-construction of meaning, participation frameworks, the ethnography of science, aphasia as a social process, the social organization of perception through language use, as well as discourse in the professions. In particular, his work focuses on the practices human beings use to construct, in concert with each other, the social, cultural and cognitive worlds they inhabit. Central to this process are Language, structures for the organization of action-in-interaction, and an ecology of sign systems that includes not only talk, but also a range of different kinds of displays made by the body, as well as the semiotic structure in the environment.

Internationally recognized as a pioneer in the field of interaction studies, Professor Goodwin has been the recipient of many honors, most recently being granted an honorary doctorate at the University of Linköping in Sweden. His most recent works include the edited volume Conversation and Brain Damage (2003: Oxford University Press) and an anthology of his own writings translated into Italian entitled Il Senso del Vedere: Pratiche Sociali della Significazione (2003: Rome, Melterri Editore).