Robert Bracewell

The Cognitive Representation and Processing of Discourse: Function and Dysfunction

Natural language discourse, when viewed from a cognitive and psychological perspective, is a manifestation in extended natural language productions of conceptual representations and thought processes. A discourse reflects knowledge (of the writer or speaker as well as the reader or listener), purpose in communicating meaning through language, and the cognitive processes required to produce and comprehend knowledge and represent it as discourse. Thus, to a cognitive psychologist, discourse is viewed in terms of the knowledge and processes that generated it and that are required to understand it.

Cognitive processes in composing and comprehending discourse

Cognitive processes involved in literacy tasks are considered from a theoretical viewpoint that develops a unified account for both discourse production and comprehension. This approach identifies two broad categories of discourse processing. Framing processes produce a conceptual structure, or frame, for a text. Regulating processes access language structures, translating conceptual structure into a text for production, and regulating construction of the conceptual structure for comprehension. The approach leads to an analysis of constraints that apply to discourse production and comprehension tasks and to a methodology based on propositional analysis of texts for investigating discourse processes on such tasks. Preliminary results of research on childrens story production and comprehension indicate that framing processes are common to both types of tasks.

Tasks, Ensembles, and Activity: Linkages between Text Production and Situation of Use in the Workplace.

This article is concerned with characterizing literacy activity as it is practiced in professional workplaces. Its starting point is activity theory, which grew out of the work of Vygotsky and has been subsequently elaborated in Russia and elsewhere. First, the authors propose that existing versions of activity theory are unable to account adequately for practical human activity in contemporary workplaces, and present a revised perspective that opens the way for new theoretical developments. Second, they elaborate two new constructs, task and work ensemble, and apply them to a short collaborative writing sequence collected in the field. Both constructs are seen to account in a substantive way for the structure of the composing activity carried out by the collaborators. They close with a discussion of the complementarity and theoretical advantages of the two constructs.

The manifestation of transference during early psychotherapy sessions

Despite the clinical use of therapeutic transference across various schools of psychotherapy, there have been relatively few empirical studies of this phenomenon, none of which has examined transference with a non-pathological population. In this study, the core conflictual relationship theme (CCRT) method was used to examine the manifestation of therapeutic transference in the first three sessions of 22 counselling contracts with high-functioning individuals. Factor analyses of the wish (W) and response of other (RO) components of the CCRT indicate a complementary pattern of relating in which the therapist is idealised and others are devalued. Within the response of self (RS) component, clients exhibited a concordant relational transfer whereby they had a negative response to both the therapist and others. Additionally, control issues emerged in the W component for significant others and in the RS component for the therapist.

Objects of Study in Situated Literacy The Role of Representations in Moving from Data to Explanation

This article treats the representations that are studied in situated literacy and an associated methodological approach based on semantic analysis that characterizes the representations in a systematic and principled manner. Application of the method is illustrated for four situated literacy examples: (a) mother-child word-naming games, (b) childrens story writing, (c) journalistic writing, and (d) technical writing. The description of representations that is obtained constitutes an explanation of the literacy actions in that it reveals cultural, social, and cognitive influences on these actions.

The manifestation of transference during early psychotherapy sessions: Exploring an alternate data source for therapist narratives in transference research

Abstract Introduction: Previous transference studies have compared in-session client narratives about significant others to in-session client narratives about the therapist, limiting data to the information that clients are willing to share with the therapist. Method: The first three sessions of 30 therapies with high-functioning individuals were examined using the Core Conflictual Relationship Theme (CCRT) method. Client narratives about others were drawn from the psychotherapy sessions and client narratives about the therapist were drawn from a Participant Critical Event (PCE) interview conducted after the third session of therapy. Results: Factor analyses of the CCRT components indicated several relational patterns: a complementary pattern of relating characterised by a devaluation of the therapist and idealisation of others; a concordant relational transfer where clients feel bad with both the therapist and others; and as clients experience control issues with significant others, they wish to adopt a ...

Designing a Well-Formed Activity System for an ICTs-Supported Classroom

This case study presents a new approach to overcome problems with information and communication technology (ICT) integration in K-12 school education. We analyzed contradictions that a Grade 7 mathematics teacher faced in his teaching practices and helped the teacher design and construct new models of teaching. The constructs of mediation and contradiction in Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) framed the analysis of existing teaching practices as well as the design of interventions. Identified contradictions were (a) contradictions in the use of ICTs between teacher and students; (b) contradictions among ICTs, rules of communications, and division of labor, and most importantly (c) contradictions between activity object and outcomes. Findings indicated that the designed interventions on the teaching practices based on the identified contradictions from CHAT perspectives played a large role in helping the participant teacher transform the existing ill-formed activity system into a well-formed one.