ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND
3. Attributions given by Alice Construct the Most Relevant Explanations as
Reflected in Lewis Carroll‘s Alice‘s Adventures in Wonderland.
a. Frame-Working through the Behavior of the Wonderland Creatures
The writers found a cycle of attributing that Alice has accomplished during her adventure. First of all, she receives an action either if it is physically or verbally, then, she observes the behavior of the agent. After observing, she makes an assumption towards the action.
When determin ing the intention of an action, Alice unconsciously also appoints the action into two kinds: causal and reasonable.
Specifically, whereas intentional action is explained by reasons, unintentional action is amended by causes. To determine an intention, Alice needs to go back to the five requirements mentioned in the previous paragraph. Scanning an action based on them, Alice is unconsciously also grouping the action either into the cause or the reason.
Once again, if skill, awareness, and intention are not fulfilled, the action is unintentional. A conclusion can be made, afterwards, that in the process of observing a behavior, Alice needs to determine whether an action acts as a cause or a reason. After that, finally, she can claim it as intentional or unintentional.
Considering her behavior reasonable is what Alice is doing in the above situation. Alice expresses two points that reflect intention, which are (1) she believes that she should be punished and (2) she desires the punishment as she believes she deserves it. Over all, those points are the result of Alice‘s
awareness of the illogical action she has done leading to a punishment, moreover, she has the ability to give and receive the punishment, too. It can be concluded, then, the attribution is based on intentionality considering the existence of awareness, skill, and intention. Those points served behind Alice‘s attribution are called as the nature of reasons, the nature that always appears when a reasonable action is taken. One thing to take a note, her belief towards the punishment is merely literally.
Alice‘s unintentional attribution that is influenced by causal factors. After declaring that she would like to teach the puppy some tricks, she kicks down her own statement by saying that it is impossible as she is not in the right size to do it. Her saying that she wanted to teach the puppy is the causal statement, while saying she is not in the proper size is the causal realization. The causal unintentional attribution is her declaring she forgot to grow up (Carroll, 1897:23).
b. Attributing the Wonderland Circumstance under Alice‘s Psychological Processes
Within the process of receiving an action observing the agent‘s behavior giving attributions to the situation as well as to the agent, there is a psychological process undergoing in the explainer‘s mind. The process occurs between observing and attributing. During the psychological processes, there are three factors that Alice considers inside her head, which are behavior evaluation, pragmatic goals measurement, and information demanding.
Behavior evaluation is done by Alice in the effort of understanding the way other creatures‘ doing and talking. She observes the agent‘s background that lead into an action. This quick behavior-checking gives her the knowledge regarding the agent, so that even though they have just met, analyzing the agent‘s current behavior is
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into a respond. An agent‘s background is considered important regarding its influences towards the agent‘s behavior story. Alice unconsciously understands this whenever she gives attributions. However, her understanding towards background is not merely based on fact as she is only confabbing the possibilities (Carroll, 1897:17). It shows that Alice is attributing everybody in Wonderland, saying they seemingly do not like Dinah, her cat.
Watching the Wonderland creatures freak out after listening to a story about Dinah, Alice can tell that they may have a horrible experience with cats. Cats may be dangerous to them and give them bad memories.
Therefore, they do not like the name of what dangers them to be mentioned. Alice realizes this fact only after the action of running away is taken by the creatures. She does not know anything about this in advance. If she knew, she would not have mentioned Dinah in the first place and continued having a good company.
Pragmatic goals measurement is Alice‘s process of setting goals by uttering a certain attribution. Interacting with other characters in a communicative context enables Alice to accomplish several things in order to get closer to her objective plans. As an example, the plans are such as to grow larger and to go to the Garden. I found there are at least three goals that Alice reaches out through her attributions, which are to lessen another person‘s confusion, manage her own status in the situation, and fend off blame. Through her attributions, she weighs certain purposes whenever she utters statements (Carroll, 1897:24).
Information demanding is needed to make sure that the attributions Alice gives are correct. It requires a verbally and physically observation regarding the agent‘s further information. Previously in the Behavior Evaluation sub chapter, Alice needs to pay
attention to the behavior, whereas in the Information Demanding, common verbal and physical – something that can be listened and seen – are the objects. Excerpt below gives the evidence of information demanding‘s result (Carroll, 1897:31). The situation exemplifies that Alice is sure when she calls out the Footman idiotic. The little girl can come up with this idea after having the conversation in which the Footman shows the evidence that he is not so smart, according to Alice‘s standard. The statements the Footman says are enough to undercover the specific information of his behavior.
Conclusion
According to the analysis of the research findings as discussed in the previous chapter, it can be inferred that in Lewis Carroll‘s Alice‘s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice perceives explanations from the nonsense through the attributions she gives.
Wonderland is a total new world to Alice where she should act according to its nature whereas the young girl has her own nature from the what-so-called normal world. She is faced with a series of situations she has not understood, seen, and experienced before.
Therefore, she tries to retrieve explanations from the circumstance going on including the Wonderland creatures with their peculiar behavior. She relates the nonsense in Wonderland with the sense in her original world as showed in her attributions. There are two main reasons for Alice to attribute: to call into a respond and to figure out her identity as well as goals.
Through her attributions, it can be concluded that Alice psychologically goes through processes with an eye to cultivate the most correct explanations. The little girl unconsciously divides every of her attributions into two extensions. They are pointed to the creatures themselves that assumedly have led the Wonderland circumstance into a madness, and on the
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other hand, to the environment that allegedly forms the nonsense.
Moreover, Alice attributes Wonderland and its creatures in a process that includes the steps of frame-working through behavior and attributing under psychological processes. By frame-working, Alice speculates the creatures‘ intentions in order to receive an understanding and to call into a correct respond. The intentions itself are two:
reasons that lead into intentional actions and factors that cause unintentional ones.
Meanwhile in the next step, by attributing under psychological processes, Alice completes three sub-steps: behavior evaluation, pragmatics goals identification, and information resources.
References
Malle, Bertam F. 2003. Attributions as Behavior Explanations: Toward a New Theory. University of Oregon.
Heider, F. 1958. The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. New York:
Willey
Carrol, Lewis. 1865. Alice;s Adventure in Wonderland. Basington, UK:
Macmillan Publisher.
Baxter. Lislie A. 2008. Engaging Theories in Interpersonal Communication:
Multiple Perpectives. California:
SAGE Publications
Conrad, Clifton F and Ronald C. Serlin.
2011. The SAGE Handbook for Research in EducATION: Pursuing Ideas as the Keystone of Exemplary Inquiry. California, US: SAGE Publications
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