MARTA MILIAN GUBERN
3. ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
Protocols of verbal interactions among the participants in five collaborative groups along two class sessions constitute the data of analysis, together with the successive versions of the text being elaborated, in order to find out how the interactions re- ferred to above contribute to learning. The parameters observed refer to: a) charac- teristics of the collaborative composition process, aiming to find any general fea- tures in the processes followed by the different groups to establish a possible rela- tionship between working in group and learning; b) explicit references to readers, aiming to establish the influence of the social context of reception; c) explicit utter- ances including references to the second person pronoun, to follow the presence of the different contexts involved in the process; d) reformulations of the text being written, known as “attempted text”, aiming to observe the incidence of the different contexts participating in the composition process in the writers’ activity.2
1 The questionnaire was presented to the younger students in a previous session. They should answer the following questions; 1) What do you see when looking through the kaleidoscope eye-hole?; 2) What happens when you turn the kaleidoscope to the right or to the left?; 3) Why do we see so many images?; 4) What is inside the tube?
2 The research questions are broadly referred to in these parameters. Characteristics of the collaborative process (parameter a) and reformulations of the text being written (parameter d) are clearly addressing questions 3 and 4, that is to say, will give evidence of how the con- text of the task and the context of learning interact, by showing how much time – in turns – they devote to elaborate knowledge and how they contribute to build learning through plani- fication, and also through revision; and how variations in the text being written can be re- lated to learning and especifically to what learning issues. Parameters b and c – references to
3.1 The Composition Process
The procedure followed for the analysis in this part presents the following steps: (a) establishing episodes or phases in the development of the process3; (b) establishing categories for the units of analysis in order to be able to generalize; (c) establishing comparisons between the processes followed by the various groups.
Figure 2. Distribution of episodes by categories according to the number of turns in five groups.
The categories taken into consideration are: Regulation of the process, Elaboration and Planning, Textualisation, Revision and Digression. The chronological vision of the distribution of episodes by categories in each group reveals the different dynam- ics followed in each group, as it is shown in Figure 3. This fact shows the diversity of the processes and the diversity of factors causing these processes, as well as the differences in the representation of the task and the way of managing it).
readers and uses of the second person as indicators of the different addressees contributing to the task – try to answer questions 1 and 2, referring to the context of reception and to the context of the task as the mirror of all the contexts interacting within.
3 Delimitation of episodes in the verbal protocols giving account of a shared activity is always controversial. Episodes in these protocols are established following a descriptive procedure, and categories are established following this description. The categories broadly correspond to the operations carried out by students during the writing process. Two external raters have checked the segmentation in episodes. The agreement among these raters and the researcher goes from 82% to 95% in all groups. Divergence among raters corresponds mainly to boundaries between episodes – one or two speech turn is the maximum difference stated-, they fully agree in the established categories.
Figure 3. Distribution of activities in subsequent episodes along the process for two different groups (Group 2 at the top, Group 3 below). At the Y-axis the number of turns in rang4. In spite of all the differences, however, we should also mention the coincidences, as shown in the graphic of the distribution in percentages of the episodes by categories and by groups (figure 4). As it is shown in figure 4, all groups follow the same op- erations, though at different moments along the two sessions and allocating a differ-
4 Rang indicates the number of turns: From 0 to 10 turns, rang 1; from 10 to 20, rang 2 ; from 20 to 30, rang 3. For example, rang 11 indicates 100 to 110 turns.
ent amount of time – in number of turns – to each of them. Differences among groups refer mainly to the revision operation, though an imbalance between plan- ning/elaboration and revision episodes is a relevant datum (see, for example, groups 1 and 3, where they spend more turns in elaborating and less turns in revising, whereas in groups 5, 4 and 2, there is a more regular quantitative distribution be- tween the planning/elaboration and revision operations). This can be justified fol- lowing closely the dynamics of work in every group, but it is not going to be pre- sented in this chapter.
Figure 4. Distribution of episodes according to categories of activities and groups (Groups 1-5) in percentages.
3.2 References to the Addressees
To give account of the writers’ representation of the addressees we may observe the amount of references to these addressees during the process, and also the kind of references they use. The qualitative analysis of the reference linguistic forms con- veys information related to the challenges offered to the writers by the context of reception. Along the writing process, all groups refer to the addressees in some way or other. They become part of the task. In all groups the student writers refer to ad- dressees by using a pronoun or a general noun clause: they, them; the younger stu- dents, second-form kids. What is more relevant in their references belongs to the semantic field, expressed mainly by the verb. The verbs refer mainly to the level of knowledge of the addressees – to know, to understand, to realize, to have clear-, or to the condition of experts assumed by the writers – to explain, to say, to make them think.
Example: In group 3, they are discussing about the use of the word multiply. They are not sure the addressees will be able to understand this word in a different context out of the specific field of the arithmetical operation.
778 779 780
E- P- X-
“multiply”? “reproduce” may be better.
“reproducing” is what a mirror does.
Yes, but this is still more difficult to understand to them!
864 865 866 867 868
P- E- X- E- X-
multiply!
which reproduces
Let them look the word up in the dictionary!
A first-form kid does not know how to use a dictionary!
But he must learn to use it!
They end up by looking in the dictionary themselves to find a solution. They find it:
repeat several times
Concerning the amount of references to the readers along the process, the analy- sis of occurrences by groups and by sessions, according to the total number of speech-turns, gives a greater concentration of references in the first session, mainly uttered by the observer, who is probably trying to help with the representation of the task.
3.3 Uses of the Second Person
The communicative relations established among the various speakers, either real or projected in the context of production, may be followed from the use of the second person in the dialogs. The analysis of these second person forms takes into account both morphological categories and the categories of speaker, enunciator and ad- dressee5 (Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 1980, 1990; Maingueneau, 1993). Table 1 shows the categories and the people they refer to.
“Speaker” refers to the individual who is physically uttering the words, either the pupils or the observer. “Enunciator” refers to the one who takes in charge the words being uttered. In this situation, utterances may be attributed to a single pupil, to the group as a voice, to the observer, or to the teacher of the class, who in some way or other, is present in the task as the “giver of instructions”. “Addressee” refers to the interlocutor every speaker is directing their words. Among the uses included in the group “addressee”, it is important to underline the category impersonal or general, which appears frequently in all the working groups. This general addressee is in ac- cordance with the role of “destinator” (Maingueneau, 1990). It works as a potential addressee, which often is wrongly identified with the enunciator or utterer, or with the role of “coenunciator” (Culioli, 1990), that is to say, an addressee presented both as an utterer and receiver of a discourse valid for both positions. “You”, an example
5 These categories follow Kerbrat-Orecchioni’s framework on the interactive situation be- tween participants presented in her study on Les interactions verbales (Verbal interaction) (1990-94), as well as the proposals presented by Maingueneau referring to the analysis of conversations in literary texts
of the circular nature of communication, appears when elaborating the thematical contents, where the propositional content of the statement becomes a generic state- ment.
Example Group 37: 598 Obs.
599 E.
600 Obs.
601 E 602 X 603 E 604 X
It would happen the same with hard paper instead of mirrors; they would form a different image, because you move them
Cause you move them, //and they change//
//and they change their position//
. . .their position. . . and. . . that’s it!
And that’s it. But in this case the images wouldn’t be so beautiful!
Because you would always see the same!
No, you wouldn’t always see the same!
I mean, you would always see. . . The comparison inside the groups is shown in figure 5.
6 The term “enunciator” may seem a bit strange to English readers. It refers to the author of the utterance, the one who takes in charge what is being said. The Latin stem where it derives from is shared in the Roman languages: French: énonciation, Spanish: enunciación. In Eng- lish it corresponds to “utterer” which may be a confusing word, putting together the mean- ings of “speaker” and “utterer” in the sense of “the one who takes in charge what is being said”.
7 In English it is a bit difficult to show the use of “you” as referring to an impersonal or gen- eral addressee. In the example, every participant uses “you”; there is no change to the first person even though each one apparently is referring to his/her personal experiences. They are using the pronoun “you” in a general sense: “you” is anybody in a similar situation, so it relates to a hypothetical situation where anybody could be placed: what happens to the indi- vidual may be considered as general, beyond the concrete circumstances of the interlocutors.
Figure 5. Distribution of person forms according to the category of addressee in percentages.
Some observations:
Low percentage of uses addressing the real addressees: pupils of form.
Low percentage of uses addressing the observer. The differences show the role that the different groups give him/her, from a close familiarity or participation (G3) to the minimal direct interpellations (G4).
Occurrences concerning the interpellations addressed to the participants, con- sidered both individually or as a group are extremely varied among groups.
The percentage of occurrences addressed to a general addressee, concerning the elaboration of the topic, almost reaches the 20 % of all the references, in all the groups, except in G4 (40%). Relating these data to the category of speaker and enunciator, what comes to light is that the pupils acting as a group, in the role of enunciators, mostly use the second person referred to a general addressee, that it to say, the pupils themselves assume the authorship and, consequently, they as- sume the elaboration of the content.
3.4 Reformulations
The concept of reformulation has been used diversely related to the linguistic use.
From the different notions implied by the word “reformulation” in the field of lan- guage sciences, we may underline: (a) the notion of interactive completion, related to the notion of verbal acts of textual composition (Kotschi, 1986); and (b) the no- tion of metalinguistic activity (Bouchard, 1988, 1993; Camps, 1994a; Camps et al.,
1997; Darras and Delcambre, 1989; David and Jaffré, 1997; Fabre, 1987; Scar- damalia et al., 1982).
The first of these notions refers to the construction of the discourse as a dynami- cal and shared process, not an individual one. Some verbal acts take place in this process, meant to evaluate or to reformulate the already produced discourse, in order to solve possible difficulties or communicative problems, in the sense of paying at- tention to the produced statement and offer an alternative version to the first formu- lation. The “interactive achievement” represents an act in which the interlocutors collaborate negotiating a suitable formulation8.
The notion of metalinguistic activity is understood as a backwards operation to the statements produced by the utterer or by other participants (Camps et al., 1997;
Camps and Milian, 2000). It implies an activity of thinking about the language, in which the knowledge on the language and its use, shown in the changes introduced by the reformulated statement, play an important role9.
The concept of reformulation is related to the notion of attempted text (Camps, 1994a; Camps and Milian, 2000). It refers to the successive reformulations of the text being written, which become the traces of the factors having an influence on the process. These changes may offer information on the representations that the writers have about the text, about the elements that conform it, about its explanatory power, about who will read it besides the addressee, about the adjustment required by the written language norms, etc.
The presentation of reformulations as a grid allows the observation of the changes in the attempted text and the exact elements that are being modified, as well as who suggests them and in what order does the suggestion or modification take place. The dynamics of the group within the task process becomes evident from the localization of the speaker and the turn, and at the same time helps determining the length of the negotiation of a certain piece of text, and of the level of intervention of the participants. Table 2 shows an episode of reformulation.
Two general comments can be done when analyzing the reformulations: the ne- gotiation of the contract for the conversation and communication – among partici- pants and among writers/utterers and addressees; and the reflection about language and its suitability to the situation of communication. There are no differences among groups: in all the groups there appear reformulations that show the capacity for judgment and reflection on the language; in all the groups there are given examples
of reformulation that show the adequacy to the communicative situation.
8 This concept is known as “interactional achievement” (Goodwin, 1979, Schegloff, 1982;
“complétude interactive”, Roulet, 1987; “accomplissement interactif”, Gülich, 1986, 1993.
9 De Gaulmyn (1994) and Bouchard (1996) use the terms “conversational writing” and
“writing conversation” to refer to the situations of collaborative writing, where participants speak to write and where the distance between text production and text reception allows con- sidering the text as an object to experiment and apply the writer’s knowledge and intentions.
The following remarks refer to the possibilities offered by the analysis of the refor- mulations in order to get information on the process of collaborative composition:
The active participation of the members in the group in the task shows a shared attention to the operations being carried out. The pupils participate effectively as “person-plus” (Perkins, 1995), that is to say, the suggestions of the attempted
10 See appendix A for the full transcription of this episode.
11 The position of the adjective shows the different word order in a Roman language versus English. I kept the disposition of Catalan, for it reflects more clearly the sense of the interven- tions.
12 The final sentence in this episode is: “In the other end a paper or translucid film is placed, which can have different colors.” The reformulations in this episode give evidence of the hesi- tations, proposals and counterproposals in relation to the utterers’ position concerning the kaleidoscope (they are doubting between explaining how to build a kaleidoscope or explain- ing how it is built).
text gather all the members of the group together and allow them either to dis- cover possible solutions to the problems that are risen along the process or to detect problems previously not perceived from an individual perspective.
The narrow span of the changes, generally without a written basis, allows us mentioning the restrictions of the working memory and of the attention, but it also reveals a shared representation of the composition process, gathering new fragments of the text linearly towards the left and also without having a global idea of what they are producing, as in the knowledge telling model of composi- tion process. It appears to happen following these premises, but sometimes the reformulations do not add text to the left but reorganize, and even project or an- ticipate new text as Bouchard (1996) suggests according to a pragmatic and se- mantic representation of the task, not strictly in syntactic terms.
On the other hand, the analysis of the verbal protocols points out to the presence of implication and negotiation among group members in order to make the text fit to the situation and the addressees. The dedication to the elaboration and reelaboration of the topic contents is also stressed. This brings us closer to the “knowledge trans- forming” model, although we must accept that the representation of the text as a product which guides the pupils becomes incomplete and, sometimes, even non- existent. The lack of a global vision of the text causes the lack of explicit criteria for its elaboration, and the writers follow their own experience as science textbooks readers – precision in the words, detail – and they also follow their experience in the school writing tasks – attention to the written language norms.