Cycles of creation & destruction in a cartoon.

It seems that when adults write about watching “Phineas & Ferb”, a Disney animated series produced by Dan Povenmire and Jeff Marsh from February 2008 (Wikipedia November 2012) they generally make a category entitlement of “watching it with my children”.Well, I'm a thirty something year old male who once woke up one Saturday morning and switched on the TV and accidentally watched “Phineas & Ferb” and was surprised at how easy it was to watch. It seems to have fairly high production values, much of the humour involves wordplay and misapplying plot rules it creates over time and some of it is quite sophisticated for a kids show. So you may enquire “Aren't you too old to watch a Saturday morning kid's cartoon?” and I would respond “Yes, yes I am”.

I was wondering if there was any academic work on what I was watching. So far, I have found a journal article by Kit Johnson (Johnson 2012) that uses "Attack of the 50 Foot Sister", Season 2 Episode 3 as its insipiration for its title. The article studies fashion model visas. In the episode Candace rejects an offer of a modelling contract because it is "nothing more than a plot to make money by encouraging people to feel bad about themselves" (Johnson 2012 : 863).

 Two web articles of note on this topic are Matthew Belinke's Myopia of Childhood and Margaret O'Connell's The Mildly Mad Scientific World of Phineas and Ferb. Matthew Belinke in Myopia of Childhood argues that the world view of the cartoon is the world view of children but differs from a common plot in children's cartoons where the children know more of the big picture than adults as part of a fulfilment fantasy of outsmarting the adults (Belinke 2011). He argues that there are multiple worlds revolving around each other in the cartoon and that the kids manifest a childlike myopia in which they let the world take care of itself and focus on having fun (Belinke 2011), which is not a bad value orientation for its intended audience.

Margaret O'Connell in The Mildly Mad Scientific World of Phineas and Ferb contrasts the female characters in this cartoon to the female characters in the 1997- 2003 cartoon Dexter's Laboratory and finds that the female characters portrayed in Phineas & Ferb are generally more intelligent, complex and sympathetic characters (O'Connell 2012).

As a kids cartoon it has a high degree of predictability in the plot, in fact much of the humour is based around the consistent plot structure and the characters awareness of this, the characters almost break the third wall but not quite. The cleverness of the show is how each episode is a variation of recurring plot structure elements. Phineas and Ferb are step brothers whose genius level intellects complement each other to enable them to create fantastic technological creations, and Candace is their older step sister.

Each episode has the same plot structure,

• Phineas and Ferb work out what they are going to do today (think of Pinky and the Brain, “What will we do today Pinky?” “Today we will try to take over the world!”).
• Candace their older sister tries to find out what they are up to so she can bust them.
• Phineas & Ferb meet their friends, Isabella, Baljeet & Buford. Isabella has a crush on Phineas and always asks “What ch'ya doing?”. They begin their project with their friends helping.
• Perry the platypus finds a secret entrance to his spy base.
• Phineas & Ferb ask “Where's Perry?”. Perry the platypus gets given his mission for the day by Major Monogram (“I'm Major Monogram, I'm on the big screen, I'm Major Monogram and I wear green” sung to the tune of the Man from UNCLE theme song).
• Doofenshmirtz is always building a machine that is designated by what it does, a verb- inator, with the object of “taking over the tri-state area”. It is never “take over the world” and in several episodes he specifically states “you can't rule over the tri-state area if you destroy it” to other allies who don't get his objective. Part of the motivation for this is that Doofenshmirtz has a more successful, good looking brother who is the mayor of the “tri-state area” and Doofenshmirtz is jealous. In an episode Doofenshmirtz is trying to identify why he is always failing he recognises the common element, he is always building an “inator” so the next machine he has built is a “non-inator” (Series 3 Episode 3. Phineas's Birthday Clip O Rama). Hilarious.
• The thing Phineas & Ferb create is always cool and fun and often epic in scale, thus obviously worth the attention of the boys mother and so Candace spends time trying to get the attention of the mother, who is called “Linda”.
• Perry the Platypus gets caught in Doofenshmirtz's trap, Perry breaks out, something clever happens and Perry defeats Doofenshmirtz's scheme.
• Linda the mother treats Candace as someone who has an obsessive compulsive disorder with regards to her brothers, and she probably does, she needs to “bust” her brothers. In season 2 episode 32 “The Best Lazy Day Ever” where her brothers take a rest, doing nothing bustable, it precipitates an existential crisis in Candace. Hilarious for a kids cartoon. Eventually in every episode Linda finally pays attention to Candace's entreaties and goes to look at what Phineas & Ferb are doing. Her experience of this is often a source of humor, is talked about as an issue with Candace and the mother tries to take steps to control this behaviour. For example, in Season 2 Episode 46, “Out of Toon” when Candace phones her mothers cell phone the answer phone message is “Please leave your psychotic rant about your brothers at the end of the beep”.
• When Linda, the mother, finally looks at what Fineas & Ferb have been doing it is always too late. Their project and all evidence of it is removed, often this is due indirectly to the destruction of Dr Doofenshmirtz's “inator” by Perry the Platypus. Sometimes it becomes a less mind boggling approximation of what Candace is describing. For example in Season 2 Episode 9 “Chez Platypus”, the step brothers build a restaurant, when Candace finally gets Linda to look, the restaurant has disappeared leaving only tables and chairs and thus it looks like the step brothers and their friends have been playing restaurant.
• Perry the Platypus reappears and Phineas or another character recognizes the return of Perry with a variation of the phrase “Oh,there you are Perry.”

There are generally two cycles of creation and destruction each episode. The boys in each episode are creating their project, it is like children playing but in the context of the cartoon what they make works to achieve fantastic results and it is fun. Candice the older sister is trying to police her brothers innocent creativity and invariably fails to obtain proof for the authority figure in the Phineas and Ferb cycle, which is Linda the mother. Their project invariably gets removed, destroyed or escapes by the time Linda the mother gets there to observe.

The second cycle of creation and destruction is between Perry the Platypus and Dr Doofenshmirtz, this is adults doing work, from a kids perspective (Belinke 2011). In this cycle Perry the Platypus is trying to police Dr Doofenshmirtz's machiavellian creativity. He is empowered by Major Monogram with the authority to police Dr Doofenshmirtz's creativity and succeeds, making the world safe. Once the scheme is foiled Perry returns to being Phineas and Ferb's pet at the end of the episode. Both Candace and Perry have "police" roles in the context of the cartoon but only Perry appears successful in his police role. Candace when she is not engaged in a policing role is often portrayed as obsessed with her relationship with Jeremy and doing teenage things with her friend Stacy. Her relationship with Jeremy is generally portrayed in a positive way and makes her a more sympathetic character as compared to simply being an antagonist. 

Thus there appears to be two entwined cycles in each episode, the innocent creativity of children which is unimpeded and the goal directed creativity of adults, which is impeded. I often wonder the degree that the world view of the episode writers intrudes, perhaps unintentionally into the episode.



Images from Wikipedia November 2012.



Adults as represented by a silent Platypus wearing a fedora and Dr Doofenshmirtz, a comic stereotype of an American German scientist. Ah well. These cycles are what is designated as plots and subplots by Margaret O'Connell (O'Connell 2012) and "multiple worlds revolving around each other" by Matthew Belinkie (Belinkie 2011).

Bibliography

Belinkie, Matthew. (September 2011). Phineas and Ferb: The Myopia of Childhood. @ http://www.overthinkingit.com/2011/09/15/phineas-and-ferb . Last viewed 5-11-2012.

Johnson, Kit. (2012). Importing The Flawless Girl. In the Nevada Law Journal. Volume 12. Pages 831 to 867.

O'Connell, Margaret. (October 2012). Mad Science for Girls (and Boys), Part 2: The Mildly Mad Scientific World of Phineas and Ferb. Published by Sequential Tart @ http://www.sequentialtart.com/article.php?id=2316 . Last viewed 8-11-12.

Wikipedia. (November 2012). Phineas and Ferb. @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_and_Ferb . Last viewed 8-11-12.

Addendum (24/4/2019)

It is interesting how interpretation of a subject changes with observation over time. The creators of Fineas & Ferb (2007), Dan Povenmire & Jeff "Swampy" Marsh have developed a new TV series called Milo Murphy's Law (2016) which is set in the same fictional setting of Fineas & Ferb, in the Tri-state area. I found a video (2019) called Phineas & Ferbs Holistic Universe by some guy calling himself Quinton, that despite its pretentious tone I found interesting. It discusses plots, characters, differences and similarities of the two shows.

Lifeline (1959) Interview : “Mars and Venus speak to Earth.”

 

Link to Adam Curtis's blog with video

Lifeline was a medical interview program made by the BBC and produced by Hugh Burnett during 1957 to 1959. In “Mars and Venus speak to Earth” the interviewer has George King, a taxi driver who founded the Aetherius Society describe being contacted by “The Space people”, plays a recording of his mothers description of a “flying saucer” and demonstrate a “trance” in which Mr King in a monotone voice contacts a space person “Aetherius from Venus” to deliver a message, which may have been a part of George King's motivation in appearing on the show.

The programme then has an Astronomer “Dewhirst” present his perspective on the abnormal account and then a Jungian psychiatrist interprete symbolically the significance of Mr Kings abnormal account. The program functions as part of a dominant discourse of Science that phenomena can be investigated rationally and explained using Science. 

 

There are a number of power relationships evident in the medical interview program, Mr King is exposed to public scrutiny and compelled to provide evidence for his world view while the psychiatrists remain anonymous due to category entitlements of their profession and subject his account to the Scientific Discourse of Astronomy and Psychiatry circa 1959. He is treated as an object of enquiry, made very much part of an outgroup, with the dominant ingroup being the scientists. Part of this scientific discourse is the value of impartiality, thus Mr King is invited to provide a trance, which I would argue is form of display in the spiritualist tradition, he speaks in a monotone, the intonation is supposed to convey otherwordliness and tries to evoke the transmitted entity as being superior and benevolvent, Aetherius refers to the interviewer as “my friend”. The interviewer questions Mr King as the transmitted intelligence Aetherius, asks him “ Where are you speaking from now?” around 17 minutes, 47 seconds into the program (I, 17:47), Mr Kings reply as Aetherius is “I am sorry my dear friend, I cannot answer that question for you”. Mr King is invoking a resistance discourse, the Scientific fallibility discourse, that Science does not know everything and thus there are limits to the human ability to account for abnormal experience. This counter discourse is apparent in Mr Kings attempt to account for the construction of “flying saucers” indicating that they are made of an “organic metal” around 7 minutes 22 seconds and that it has a “living cellular structure”.

The topic flow of the interview is controlled by the interviewer, with the interviewer making interrogations, repeating the points he wants to make . Cohesion is maintained in Mr Kings account by anaphoric reference using “it's” and “it is” which occurs in many of the utterances of the scientists. When the interviewer invites Dewhirst the Astronomer to “deal” with Mr Kings account of the construction of a flying saucer Dewhirst indicates “Mr King and I are not speaking the same language” around 23 minutes in the program and indicates the lexical item “organic metals” is completely meaningless. Thus Mr King is clearly speaking a inferior language variety in the context of the program. Part of the problem is that Mr King is trying to use the Dominant Scientific discourse to provide validity to his account against ingroup Scientists. They function as gatekeepers in this program for what constitutes scientific truth. Mr King in using the lexical item “organic metals” is using two mutually exclusive concepts in a dialectical way to indicate the material is a synthesis of these two mutually exclusive concepts. Mr Dewhirst the Astronomer, a member of the dominant ingroup of scientists refuses to acknowledge it as a lexical item. Both the scientists and Mr King are trying to evoke truth values consistent with the Dominant Scientific discourse, the value of empirical observation but Mr Kings evidence is based on flawed testimony and cannot be falsified as it has a heavy religious component thus the scientists describe him as “sincere but deluded” and thus provide an account for Mr Kings actions, that is representative social issues of the time.

The interviewer and other scientists speak a formal scienfic Oxford English register and use forms of politeness and titles when referring to each other. Politeness and impartiality aside I am inclined to wonder how nice it is to be subjected to investigation and described as “sincere but deluded”. Mr King had an agenda and the scientists referred to him as Chairman of the Aetherius Society. Thus there must have been reasons for Mr King to maintain involvement with this program, possibly psychological and esteem based. He eventually became a cult leader and the Aetherius Society is an  established UFO religion.

 

The 1959 TV broad cast is also referenced in a documentary "TV's Believe it or not", describing the development of TV broadcasts over time. The interview is described as an example of the bizarre content of early TV programs. .   

Tom Brown's Schooldays and the Olympic Games

Before the first modern Olympic games, held in Athens in 1896, there were regional “Olympic festivals” motivated by various ideologies and consisted of an amalgam of sports, for example, the 1850 Wenlock Olympic Class, a small village in Shropshire had tilting, football, quoits, cricket and fun events such as a wheelbarrow race (Toohey 2007 : 32).

The motivation for holding the Olympic festivals involved a valuing of the perceived glory of the ancient world and a belief of the intrinsic values of playing sport, often associated with a militant nationalism, such as "fitter men of the nation will mean the nation is more successful at war", for example. The Olympic ideal was that people were motivated to  play sport due to its intrinsic benefits, thus the compeditors were amateurs. It was associated with a “Muscular Christianity” which held the value of “a sound mind in a sound body”, comparable to the ideals of moral and physical development found in “Tom Browns Schooldays” by Thomas Hughes, a ex-pupil of Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby School who extolled the virtues of “Muscular Christianity” (Toohey 2007 : 31). The Ideal of Olympianism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. It blends sport with culture and education. Creating a way of life based on the joy found in effort, educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles (Toohey 2007 : 42). Thus the early Olympic festivals were attempting to revive a somewhat fictional memory of the Greek Olympic games that were to embody the “Muscular Christianity” found in “Tom Browns Schooldays”.

The Modern Olympics grew out of the correspondences of individuals holding local “Olympic” events and the first attempt to internationalise the “Olympic” festivals was Dr Brooks of the Much Wenlock Olympics in 1881 who attempted to organise an Olympic festival in Athens. This attempt failed but the Frenchman Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who met Dr Brooks in 1890 while organising an international congress on Physical Education managed to fashion a Olympic revival which culminated in the 1896 Olympic games in Athens.

Hosting the Olympics Games is now seen as a great opportunity for revenue, economic development and urban renewal (Shoval 2002 : 584) and since the 2008 Olympic games has become a “mega event” (Gold & Gold 2008 : 300) thus there is much competition amongst potential hosts. For the initial Modern Olympic games held in Athens in 1896 the instructions were written in French, at the time French had a history of being the language of diplomacy and high culture within Europe and thus had significant linguistic capital. The London bid for the 2012 Olympic Games won over the Paris bid in July 2005. The London bid won in terms of the cultural resources that London could bring, comedians, actors, monarchy with a rhetoric of urban renewal and infrastructural development to areas of the city.

For the 2012 Olympic games, French was selected to be one of the official languages of the 2012 Olympic games, it was used to introduce the games, it took precedence during the presentation of medals and was used in other ceremonies, was present on “billboards and pageantry” and used for signage and commentary. This was a requirement imposed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as part of the conditions for hosting the 2012 Olympic games. The motivations behind this may reflect an awareness of the linguistic dominance of English, thus attempt to introduce a degree of linguistic pluralism and also be a nod toward the history of the Olympic games.

Bibliography

Gold, John R. & Gold, Margaret M. (2008). Olympic Cities: Regeneration, City Rebranding and Changing Urban Agendas. In Geography Compass. Volume 2, 5. Pages 300 -318.

Shoval, N. (2002). A new phase in the competition for the Olympic Gold: the London and New York bids for the 2012 Games. In the Journal of Urban Affairs. Volume 24, 5. pages 583 -599 

Toohey, K & Veal, A.J. (2007). The Olympic Games: A Social Science Perspective. Published By CAB international. Pages 31 & 42.

Character silhouettes for Byzantine RPG

 

On the De Rerum Natura  "Nature of Things" by Titus Lucretius Carus, translated by William Eleary Leonard. The poems main purpose was to convey the Epicurian philosophical position and provide comfort for a Gaius Memmius. Ataraxia is described as a kind of peacefulness of mind  derived from suspending judgement, in terms of belief in the afterlife, the supernatural and political positions. The Stoics defined this as mental tranquility, apatheia, the absence of passion.

It has content that is a near the modern view,

     The narrow path of man's ambition;
     Since all their wisdom is from others' lips,
     And all they seek is known from what they've heard
     And less from what they've thought. Nor is this folly
     Greater to-day, nor greater soon to be,
     Than' twas of old.

There are things outside immediate human experience, that cannot be directly known within the human life span, it takes many generations of accreted knowledge. The limits of Titus Lucretius Caruses knowledge is thus, he knows the world is not eternal, uses a theory of atoms described by Democritus, he looks at mist and air and talks about ether. He describes a theory where the closer the planetary bodies and constellations are to the earth, the slower they move through the sky, thus the sun and moon move slower than star constellations. Looking at his descriptions of the origins of life, in Book V, he writes that "from the sky breathing creatures can never have dropped" and "Nor land dwellers have ever come up from the seas of salt" and thus what remains is that life came from the earth. This argument is justified by observation of the growth of plants, with the " concretion of rain and the heat of the sun" and he describes the earth by the metaphor of "Mother". In the absence of 2000 years of cultural evolution and the recent development of scientific enquiry I doubt I could reach a better conclusion. I find it interesting that he considers the other alternatives as well, this could be due to other sources, such as origin myths.

Near the end of book V it has a description of the plague of Athens, based on the description by Thucydides (431 BC) in his The History of the Peloponnesian War.

Its description via wikipedia is here.

 Various pathogenic sources have been suggested, including Measels (morbillivirus), Yersinia pestis, Salmonella typhi, influenza with a toxin producing staphylococci, more recently Rickettsia prowazekii and hemorrhagic viruses. The strongest argument seems to be for Rickettsia prowzekii, which is spread by the human body louse Pediculus humanus and is a small intracellar bacteria that stains poorly with Gram stain (Murray et al 2009 : 432). Clinical disease starts eight days after exposure with non specific symptoms, then myalgia, fever, headaches and potentially pneumonia, arthralgia and neurological involvement. A petechial or macular rash occurs in 20 to 80 % of patients. Mortality is around 20 to 30 % when untreated.

Ultimately the pathogenic source of the plague of Athens cannot be conclusively identified, there may be issues with Thucydides description.

Bibliography

Murray, Patrick : Rosenthal, Ken S & Pfaller, Michael A. (2009). Medical Microbiology. (Sixth Edition). Published by Mosby Elsevier. Page 432.

Sketching St Pauls, Symonds Street



An attempt to draw parts of St Pauls Church on Symonds street. It has arches and spires with patterned bricks. Didn't quite work the roof tiles out.  Freehand then used ruler later.





St Pauls #1
29-8-12






St Pauls #2
21-10-12

St Pauls #3
10-11-12

Jennie #2
16-9-12

St Pauls #4
19-11-12

Notes concerning Olympic games

The biggest influence on me concerning the Olympic games would be the comic "Asterix at the Olympic Games" by Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo (1968), which apparently satirized the use of performance enhancing drugs by athletes, an issue that was recognised by the Olympic games committee in 1968 and attempted to police, the first banned substance identified by the IOC was ethanol in a pentathelete but as analytical methods improved further substances were identified over time . The earliest proof of this issue was at the 1960 Rome Olympic games when Danish cyclist Knud Emarch Gensen fell from his bike and later died, he was found in autopsy to have high levels of amphetamine which is stated as causing him to loose consciousness during his race. I was oblivious to these issues as a kid and felt sorry for the Romans who got trashed by the Gauls due to the deus ex machina of Getafix's potion (I also now get the joke name), despite all the effort the Romans put in. Incidentally the "Asterix" comics pretty much were  my first exposure to ancient history as well, such as it is. 

Asterix at the Olympic Games.

The Olympic games in ancient greece had a religious significance, honoring the culture hero Heracles and were over time associated with a period of peace between city states, held at Olympia in western Pelleponnesus in the city state of Elis (Toohey et al 2007 : 13), these games were exclusively male, women could compete in the Games to Hera and it was believed that the gods influenced athletic ability. The first known Olympic victor was a cook called  Corobeus of Elis who won the stade race, a running lap around the stadium which ended with contestants facing a sacred altar to honor Zeus (Toohey et al 2007 : 13). Over time the amateurism was lost and the idea of the gods influencing the outcome became increasingly suspect. Amateurism in this context means doing something for intrinsic rewards as compared to doing something for extrinsic rewards (Toohey et al 2007 : 31).

The first known example of cheating in the Panhellanistic Olympic games occurred when the boxer Eupolus of Thessaly bribed three opponents to loose to him. (Toohey et al 2007 : 22).

In the end the influence of the Romans was not benign, Sulla sacked Olympia to finance his army in BC 85 and Nero postponed the Olympic games from AD 65 to AD 67 to fit them into his schedule so he could compete in the chariot race and in the end failed to compete, yet he was still proclaimed the winner, thus clearly near its end it became a debacle. In AD 393 the Emperor Theodosius I abolished all pagan festivals and this included the Olympic games.

Bibliography

Goscinny, Rene & Uderzo, Albert. (1968). Asterix at the Olympic Games. Published by Orion.

Toohey, K & Veal, A.J. (2007). The Olympic Games: A Social Science Perspective. Published By CAB international. Pages 9 to 24.

Safety Not Guaranteed. A movie coming out in October 2012

 

 

 

14-9-2012.  Aubry Plaza (Not really a fan but she knows her audience).

                     Apparently the interview dates from around July 17th

 

Aubry Plaza was on the Late Show with David Letterman, possibly "playing herself".

 

Around six minutes into the interview. (To paraphrase)

 

Letterman asks, "What do you do for fun?".

 

Plaza (Looks right, then left back to Letterman) "Umm, well thats an interesting question. Not a lot. I play a lot of board games."

 

Letterman "Like what?"

 

(Audience laugh)

 

 She answers (deadpan) " I play the Battlestar Galactica board game."

 

(Audience laugh, someone claps)

 

Letterman mumbles, hand motion conveying apology "I don't know what that is"

 

 Plaza " It's a, it's based on the TV series you should see it on your i pad "

 

(To paraphrase) Letterman straightens up his tie "You know what? I started playing last weekend with my son  this board game and it drives him crazy, it's Risk. Have you ever played Risk?"

 

Plaza "No I haven't played Risk but I would like that."

 

 Letterman "It's the game that goes on for ever. It goes on for ever". Letterman coughs.

 

(Audience clap) 

 

Plaza agrees then responds

 

"The one I play is also like that. It's an eight hour.., Its one of the most complicated board games you can play and I wear the, a costume when I play."

 

(Audience laugh)

 

Letterman "No you don't"

 

Plaza "No, yeah I do."

 

Letterman (His tones go down) "No you don't."

 

Plaza "OK"

 

Letterman laughs.

 

 



Read Cloud Atlas (2004) by David Mitchell several years ago, which is now becoming a film direct by Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis, of Matrix fame, with big name actors such as the ever sinister Hugo Weaving, Jim Broadbent, Tom Hanks, Halle Berry & Hugh Grant . It has a narrative structure that I would have thought would make it difficult to film but given the relative success of movies like "Inception" I guess that more complex narrative structures are a genre that have greater appeal now, as compared to David Lynch's (1997)  "Lost Highway" in which you have the film divided in two as two narratives that are distorted mirror images of each other, which has a cult following. Given there is a chronological order to "Cloud Atlas", in which each story breaks off halfway through with its central post apocalyptic future, it should be fine, in fact I kind of wish I had not read the book so I could enjoy the movie more. There are plot twists and scenes that could be great if you don't know about them.

Willfull ignorance of a novel and appreciating its content in other media is something that I "achieved", if by passively not doing something is an "achievement", with the whole "Game of Thrones" thing thats been popular for the last two years, despite having acquired two copies of George RR Martins "A Game of Thrones". I am assured they are good and will read them when I have more spare time in a couple of months.

One thing I found about the novel is its "nature red in tooth and claw" portrayal of human compeditiveness, the grand narratives that provide meaning to the more personal relationships of people and provides validity to exploitative social relations, there is supposed to be hope but I pretty much took in its bleak portrayal of human nature. Perhaps the movie version will be more "hopeful".

The Dominion Road Issue.

Dominion Road is a long road in Auckland, New Zealand that stretches through several suburbs, at the moment (from 2010) there is a project to widen Dominion Road called the "Auckland Transport Dominion Road Upgrade", and of course "Upgrades" are always a progression  of an inferior state to a superior state. Such is the language used.

The issue with widening Dominion Road in Auckland, as described to me, is that this would remove parking spaces, cycle lanes and footpaths for the sake of increasing traffic flow from the suburbs to the city center and back. This  would negatively effect local businesses and disrupt the community that exists on Dominion Road. There is an argument that Dominion Road has historically been culturally significant and is associated with a  middle class community of storeowners and people living in the area. On the top of my head, evidence in support of this would include that it was the subject of a Mutton Birds Song "Dominion Road", but of course proving its cultural significance and the existence of community is complex and political, see figure 1.

Figure 1: A flyer put in local letter boxes to raise local awareness

My exposure to the arguments against the widening of Dominion Road have been interesting discursively, although this is possibly due to the individuals involved, which have featured the argument that many of the new shop owners, who are immigrants, don't have a sense of its history and don't have a sense of community and thus will not adequately oppose this idea. This of course has racial dimensions, New Zealanders are relatively quite sophisticated in their approach to non western cultures but the new form of racism tends to be supported with "common sense" propositions of reality that have value statements that are embedded within a wider set of moral values (Augoustinos et al 1999 : 90). In this case "community" is arguably being used as part of a set of moral values that the "immigrant" shop owners do not have. Associated with this is the argument that the immigrant run  businesses are only being run for the purposes of obtaining New Zealand citizenship. Apparently one of the current Immigration/ Permanent Residence pathways is the Long Term Business Visa (LTBV)/ Entrepreneur visa pathway which requires the business to be run for two years minimum, so the argument is the shop owners are holding out for two years before folding and doing something else for the immigration purposes and thus are not really interested in the community and/ or what is to the benefit of business on Dominion Road.

When I first heard this argument, I found it compelling and asked questions such as how do you know? Part of the answer was, "They have poor English, they are isolated". My next question should have been  "Is it possible that there exists an equally valid community  of people who don't speak English as their first language", but the reality is, in the situation one has the motivation of just getting along and not causing unnecessary fallout.

When reading about the LTBV/ Entrepreneur visa to Permanent Residence pathway it has the criterion that the business has to be "successfully established" and provide benefit to New Zealand, creating employment, increasing foreign exchange earnings or exports, revitalizing existing businesses or introducing new products, services or technology. Not to immediately discount the two year minimum argument on the basis that this criterion was not mentioned, because the gap between a reasonable sounding goverment statement and the reality can be significant but even if they are only trying to meet the two year minimum business period for Permanent Residence purposes, wouldn't some kind of positive involvement in the wider community, in which they could provide some kind of documentation and personal narrative be useful for that Permanent Residence. Could this not be a basis for an interest in this issue if they are presented with the facts?

The community argument is also being used against the  Project Director, who is of Dutch origin, thus it is argued that this person does not have a sense of community on the basis of being foreign and thus does not know what he is destroying. This is a logical fallacy in the sense that it is an "Ad hominem argument" and thus not evaluating the effects of the road widening approach on the community or what the road widening will do to the cultural value of Dominion Road. But these types of arguments are part of the general "common sense" discussion over the issue and possibly are part of a tradition of resistance that exists in the wider New Zealand culture, the kind of language used in Union and Dock worker strikes.. The community argument is embedded in a wider set of moral values and the concept of community is vague enough to be used  in problematic ways. I like the concept of community and it is something I value but I have problems in the way the concept is being used discursively but perhaps the ways it is being used is more in line with the political realities.

Bibliography

Augoustinos, Martha: Keith, Tuffin & Sale, Lucinda. (1999). Race Talk. In the Australian Journal of Psychology. Volume 51. No 2. Pages 90 -97.

Utterly inadequate Notes on the Social & Cultural construction of emotion

Emotion is an important aspect of human motivation, there are biological, cognitive and social & cultural construction aspects. Arguably most understandings of the topic of emotion are culturally bound and there are cultural and personal processes to the construction of emotion but on the basis of facial masculature there are at least 5 biological dimensions of emotion and these can compose other subordinate emotions that can further be interpreted in the context of circumstance, other or self cause, wether they are understood as positive and negative (good or bad value) and the degree of potential of control, and this is not going into discursive processes. So big topic, unlikely to be adequately covered here, but here we go. 

On the basis of facial musculature there are a minimum of 5 basic families of emotion, this is linked to a facial feedback hypothesis, that when transformed into conscious awareness, is a major part of the personal experience of emotion (Reeve 2009 : 339). This is arguably the 5 basic families of emotion that are universal to the human experience and are five dimensions without social & cultural construction.

          Figure : Eight Major facial muscles involved in the expression of emotion
                                                                                                 (From Reeve 2009 : 339)

There are universal dimensions of emotion that have specific meanings in social interaction and a cultural context. This tends to be evident in the emotional repertoire of people, for example in cultures heavily influenced by American culture "Love" is constructed to mean a form of happiness while in Chinese culture "Love" is constructed as a form of sadness, the meaning of love to people of these two different cultures is different (Reeve 2009 : 358). There are economic and cultural explanations for this, love as meant in the American meaning as "Romantic love" and relationships are formed in this context, irrespective of the reality, this is how it will be interpreted and is constructed in major forms of media. In traditional chinese culture "Romantic love" has the potential to break down respect and deference that is shown in the traditional relationships composing community. Situations define what emotions are most appropriate and expected, thus people tend to select a setting and construct a particular emotional experience for themselves, aspects of situation include interpersonal status and are significant in creating, maintaining and dissolving interpersonal relationships.

                                      Figure : Cluster Analysis of Basic Emotion Families
                                                                                      (From Reeve 2009 : 357)

Emotional contagion is the tendency to automatically mimic and synchronize expressions, vocalizations, postures and movements with those of another person, thus converging emotionally.

Aspects of this topic include emotion knowledge, expression displays, expression management and emotion control.

Emotion management involves internalizing strategies for emotion control, can include

• Transforming the meaning of the situation
• Use of the situation, such as projection or blame
• Resolve inconsistencies through humour
• Avoid contact 

Each situation, or communication event, putting this within a discursive approach will have an emotional component that may involve emotion management and an internalized strategy.

Bibliography

Reeve, Johnmarshall. (2009) . Understanding Motivation and Emotion. (5th Edition). Published by John Wiley & Sons. Pages 357-363.

Neurotransmitter circuits

Neurotransmitters act as chemical messengers in the synapse between neurons, there exist neurotransmitter pathways that are clusters of neurons and projections that communicate using a particular neurotransmitter. Four motivationally relevant neurotransmitters are

1.  Dopamine, generates good feelings of reward
2.  Serotonin which influences mood and emotion, serotonin deficiency is associated with depression.
3. Norepinephrine which regulates  arousal and alertness
4. Endorphin which inhibits pain, anxiety and fear by generating positive affect.

For Dopamine the ventral tegmental area is associated with the "want" to do one course of action over another, generally with biologically significant  events. The ventral tegmental area releases dopamine into other brain areas such as the prefrontal cortex and the pattern of release is predictable in proportion to the events expected outcome and actual outcome (hippocampus). Dopamine release is greatest when rewarding events occurs in ways that are not expected, it facilitates the learning of an events motivational significance.

Hormones  such as cortisol are released in response to stress via the hypothalamus- pituary-andrenocortical physiological pathway due to social-evaluative threats.
Testosterone is associated with high sexual motivation.

Oxytocin is a hormone produced by the hypothalamus and is colloquially known as a bonding hormone,"tend and befriend" stress response that enhances  reponses associated with counsel, support and nurturance (Reeve 2009 : 67) . This makes it sound like a wonder molecule for prosocial behaviour, of course the reality is more complex.

Amusingly,  IO9 which occasionally tries to be funny like Cracked.com with "lists" did one on why oxytocin is such a great molecule  but also features another more balanced article. The hype surrounding oxytocin  began with a study by Kosfield & Heinrichs (2005) in which participants played games of trust while sniffing Oxytocin. In fact its influence is dependent greatly on the orientations of the individual and is one of many interactions.

Bibliography

Kosfeld, Michael: Heinrichs, Markus: Zak, Paul J: Fishchbacker, Urs & Fehr, Ernst. (2005). Oxytocin increases trust in humans. In the International Journal of Nature. (June 2005). Pages 673- 676.

Reeve, Johnmarshall. (2009) . Understanding Motivation and Emotion. (5th Edition). Published by John Wiley & Sons. Pages 62- 71.

Sketch while drinking coffee on Symonds Street.

Bought The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett & Steven Baxter, (2012) published by Doubleday.






















In it someone publishes schematics of a simple device, consisting of three wires, a switch and is powered by a potato that facilitates people "stepping" (or sliding aka the TV series) into alternate realities, with a directional component that is purely abstract, east & west. The novel notes that "Americans tend to step west" (Go west young man) and the "Chinese step east", a inference on the way people make choices. They find the alternate realities do not feature human population and so the original earth becomes depopulated as people immigrate and natural resources are in abundance which causes a drop in the value of resources in the original earth.

There is a lot of subtle humour, some of the characters and ideas are comparable to characters and ideas in Pratchett's Disk World series but they are interpreted in a science fiction context. The hard science, such as explanation of the other "long earths" is only lightly touched upon but there is a sense of statistical probabilities in the idea of "belts" of long earth, which have ecological and evolutionary differences, changes in flora & fauna, this is to its credit as the more interesting social and cultural implications of the technology is more thought out and has implications to situations of the characters and humanity in general. Some of the worlds are "Jokers" that have had some major ecological catastrophe, such as a massive asteroid impact, changes in geological formations which have massive weather effects and are not safe for human colonization.

Some of the characters are able to step without the device, in the course of the book it indicates a particular percentage of humanity has this ability and  explores the implications of being able to step in an evolutionary context. The development of the ideas are like a good H.G. Wells novel with the advantage of the more modern world view. I initially approached this novel as a Terry Pratchett fan but looking into Stephen Baxters novels there are a lot of big idea science fiction titles that I will check out. Checking Baxter out I notice he wrote "Time Ships" which is a  continuation of H.G. Well's novel the "Time Machine" which I read when I was in high school and it had a lot of ideas comparable to this novel, so my comparison is not just incidental.

Playing Civilization 5 Gods & Kings while sick for past 3 days.

This is before the technology victory. While playing the game to make sense of it, it becomes a narrative. I suspect this is common to many who like this series.

We are the Purple, "Romans" with a Zoroastrian religion, who eventually expanded to control the Northern American continent, thanks to the success of our Legions and had a colony in South America around 1000 AD, exploring the world in caravels. 

Around 1300 AD we were in a trade/ defense treaty with Light Green, who occupied around the Arabian Peninusla and India. The White who occupied Europe invaded Light Green around 1400AD and took their capital city, we had no military presence in the area and could do nothing. After a series of skirmish wars with the Blue, they invaded but they could not defeat our Legions and invading them was problematic, no borders changed and we were happy with peace with our eastern brothers (Blue).

                                    (Civilization V : Gods & Kings 1090 AD)
                                           
With the memory of our Light Green brothers, around 1400 AD we crossed the sea with the best units of the day Musketmen with cannons protected by Caravels and slowly reduced Whites cities and incorporated them as puppet states. We eventually made it to the Light Green capital city and liberated them around 1600AD. There were civilian and infrastructure issues in trying to control populations so far from our central government that we relied on puppets states and decided to cede some of the conquered territories to the Light Green to administer.

Given the success of our overseas military expeditions it was deemed that incorporating African territories into our sphere of control was a realistic objective, so we invaded the African civilization which had a number of significant resources and historical achievements, this was done with our best and newest units of the time, World War One Infantry. This objective was achieved with a diplomatic cost. Instead of being viewed as "protectors against villans" by most world civilizations we regrettably acquired a reputation for being blood thirsty, this effected our ability to trade with them but at least they seemed scared.

The Light Green became our allies with trade and defence pacts but were threatened by the Yellow who occupied Central European/ Asian area. It became neccessary to support militarily the Light Green guys and maintain a presence in the area for stability, by this time our technology was early 1900 with Gatling guns, Artillery and World War One infantry while the general technology level of the world was late Medieval/ early Renaissance.

The pacification of the Yellow was problematic, they had muskets and cannon against our World War One Infantry and Artillery but overtime was acheived, we took one of their minor cities to use as a Military  Base to maintain a permanent presence in the region and ceded most of the conquered territories to Light Green. We also transferred 2 World War One Units to Light Green to support their military operations, this aid eventually became a tank brigade and destroyer as well.

                                   (Civilization V : Gods & Kings 2008 AD)

By the end of the game the general world technology level was late industrial, the major power blocks were Dark Green in Asia and India, Light Green in Central Asia and Arabia with Purple controlling North America and Southern America with Colonies in Australia, Africa and puppet states in Europe. We had Atlantic and Indian fleets with aircraft carrier capabilities and troops along the Light Green/ Dark Green Border ready to protect Light Green. Despite a diplomatic failure with Dark Green, who sadly characterised Purple as blood thirsty aggressors, there was no available cause for military operations against Dark Green, despite growing tension between Light Green and Dark Green. The Blue had become an Industrial society in their isthmus but despite diplomatic aid were insular and had not engaged in any military operations against purple for over 1000 years. If we could have formed a defense pact with them we would have but they were allied with Dark Green. The dominant religion amongst the Purple populations was Zoroastrianism which had beliefs that emphasized pilgrimage, a religious community and defender of the faith

I sort of imagine the society to be similar to the one portrayed in the book "Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins, at least the "Roman" influenced technologically advanced society centered around North America. Well finished that, that was three days..

Localised areas of the Central Nervous System with function.

                                                                                                  (Reeve 2009 :47 CNS)

The current paradigm concerning motivation holds that motivation interpretations of human behaviour can be made at multiple levels, that include local neurological, cognitive, cognitive-social, cultural processes and from an evolutionary perspective.

On the basis of neurological activity in brain structures that are monitored during motivational or emotional experience and with associated cognition an arguable classification of brain activity has been mde in terms of Approach, Avoidance and Arousal orientations.

These orientations do fit in with drive theories and ultimately an evolutionary origin but proximately describe 3 observable clusters of neurological activity, the Approach orientation can be conceptualised as describing "Interest, engagement and affirmation", the  Avoidance orientation describes "To avoid, fear, unpleasant, inhibition" and the Arousal orientation is to do with waking and attention, and is associated with the reticular formation.

The reticular formation is significantly associated with waking, it is part of the spinal cord and has ascending nerves into the cortex and descending nerves from the cortex that regulate muscle tonus.

Approach-Orientated Structures

• Hypothalamus associated with pleasureable feelings to do with feeding, drinking and mating.
• Medial forebrain bundle associated with pleasure and reinforcement.
• Orbitfrontal cortex associated with the incentive value of events and choice making
• Septal area associated with sociability and sexuality
• Nucelus accumbens associated with the experience of reward (dopamine) and “liking things”.
• Anterior cingulate cortex associated with mood, volition and making choices.
• Cerebral cortex (frontal lobes) associated with planning, goal setting and the formulation of intentions
• Left prefrontal cerebral cortex associated with approach motivational and emotional tendencies
• Medial prefrontal cerebral cortex associated with learning response-outcome contingenceis that underlie perceived control beliefs and mastery motivation

Avoidance Orientated Structures

• Right prefrontal cerebral cortex associated withdraw motivational and emotional tendencies
• Amygdala associated with the detection and responding to threat and danger
• Hippocampous associated with behavioural inhibition system during unexpected events

Arousal Orientated Structures.

• Reticular formation associated with arousal
  

Structures indicated in the diagram

The Hypothalamus

The hypothalamus controls the sympathetic and parasympathetic autonomic nervous system and the pituary gland, which means it is involved in the regulaton of the endocrine system, it regulates the anterior pituary gland through releasing hormones and secretes AVP and oxytocin stored in the posterior pituary gland.

The pituary gland regulates the endocrine system and plasma osmolality (Gaw et al 2003 : 73). The anterior pituary gland produces Adrenocorticotropic hormone, Follicle Stimulating hormone,  Growth Hormone, Lutenizing Hormone and Thyroid Stimulating Hormone which act on other tissues and are involved in feedback cycles. Adrenocorticotropic hormone is significant in this discussion because it acts on the Adrenal cortex to regulate cortisol and stimulates the production of adrenaline precursors. The sympathetic systemic via spanchnic nerves to the adrenal medulla stimulates the release of adrenaline a non selective agonist on andrenogenic receptors.

 The Hypothalamus produces arginine vasopressin and oxytocin which is passed along axonal nerve fibers to the pituary stalk of the posterior pituary gland and are stored as granules. Secretion of arginine vasopressin regulates plasma osmolality, is released with severe blood volume depletion via cardiac baroreceptors and in situations of stress and nausea. Oxytocin is released in response to suckling and uterine contraction (Gaw et al 2003 : 76).

Therefore the Hypothalamus's role in approach responses appears to be arousal through the sympathetic nervous system and relaxation throught the parasympthatic nervous system and regulation through endocrine control.

Medial Forebrain Bundle

The medial forebrain bundle is a collection of pathway like fibers that connects the hypothalamus to other limbic structures, including the septal area, mammillary bodies and the ventral tegmental area. It is described as being heavily involved in reinforcement, a "pleasure center", in humans it seems to be associated with positive feelings.

Orbitofrontal Cortex

This area is associated with processing incentive related information, to decide what is desirable or not and the comparison of alternatives

Amygdala

The Amygdala is a collection of interconnected nuclei associated with emotion and motivation, such as fear, anger and anxiety and is involved in the perception of other peoples  emotions, reading facial expressions and awareness of our own moods (positive or negative affect different from emotions). It is involved in the role of learning new emotional associations, such as learning to feel fear in situations that potentially involve harm. It sends projections to many areas of the brain, significantly in the direction of away from the Amygdala to other regions and it has been hypothesized that this is why emotion tends to overpower cognition, significantly negative emotions.

Septo-Hippocampal Circuit

The septo-hippocampal circuit involves  the integrated action of several limbic structures including the septal area, nucleus accumbens, hippocampus, cingulate gyrus, fornix, thalamus, hypothalamus and mammillary bodies. It includes cereberal cortex interconnections thus a significant amount of cognitive activity from memory and imagination are input into the circuit, thus the septo-hippocampal circuit forecasts emotion with upcoming events, pleasure and anxiety.

The nucleus accumbens  is involved in deriving pleasure from naturally reoccuring reinforcement, such as good food and social acceptance, relational needs and also addictive drugs. It is involved in liking certain types of food.

The hippocampus constantly compares  incoming sensory information with expected events from memory, if everything happens as expected (things are ok),  then it does not generate signals from the septo-hippocampal circuit to produce anxiety. When the unexpected does not occur the septo-hippocampal ciruit sends out signals to produce an anxious high arousal state. Anti-anxiety drugs such as alcohol and barbiturates quieten the  septo-hippocampal effect. Dissapointment, failure and punishment, because they involve the generation of unexpected events or at least counterfactual thinking, generate anxiety ridden behavioral inhibition (things are not ok). Coping attempts to deal with environmental stressors, when successful, generate the release of endorphins, which shuts down the septo-hippocampal circuit, generating anxiety releif and positive counter feelings.

Anterior Cingulate Cortex

The anterior cingulate cortex is associated with the processes of day to day mood control (positive & negative affect), volition and making choices. Sadness and depression  is associated with decreased activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, mental activity and choice making is associated with an increased blood flow.

Reticular Formation

The reticular formation is involved in arousal and the process of awakening the brains motivational and emotional engagement. The antomy of this area of the upper spinal cord, which goes into the medulla and pons, consists of the ascending reticular activating system, which has nerves in the brain to arouse the cortex and the descending reticular formation to regulate muscle tonus. Thus it is involved in regulating peoples behaviour when asleep. It is involved in pain modulation and damage to the reticular formation can induce permanent coma.

The Prefrontal Cortex

At the very least,the cerebral cortex has left right distinctions and a medial, temporal and occiptal distinctions. The frontal cortex is associated with peoples conscious goals, that are routinely opposing, involve multiple factors and can be high order, such as those described in McClellands Needs theory or Murrays Psychogenic Needs. Thoughts that stimulate the right prefrontal cortex generate negative and avoidance -orientated feelings, whereas thoughts that stimulate the left prefrontal cortex generate positive and approach-oriented feelings. Basic personality differences exist between people as some people have especially sensitive right prefrontal lobes that tend to make them vulnerable to negative emotionality, while others have especially sensitive left prefrontal lobes that leave them vulnerable to positive emotionality.

Positive emotionality is not necessarily the advantage it might seem, in social psychology being in a good mood is associated with an increased willingness to help others, which means they are more susceptible to social influence. People in a good mood are more likely to use heuristic thinking and increased reliance on general knowledge with availablility heuristics (Baron, Byrne & Branscombe 2006 : 71).

This leaves me with questions on the significance of handidness and the significance of language and spatial awareness left-right hemispherical orientation of the cerebral cortex. I will edit this as find answers, this is heavily from Reeve 2009.


References

Baron, RA: Byrne R. & Branscombe, N.R. (2006). Social cognition, Chapter 2 in Social psychology, (11th Edition). Published by Boston: Pearson. Page 71.

Gaw, Allan : Cowan, Robert: O'Reilly, Denis; Stewart, Michael & Shepherd, James. (2003). Clinical Biochemistry. (2nd Edition). Published by Churchill & Livingstone. Pages 73 to 94.

Reeve, Johnmarshall. (2009). Understanding Motivation and Emotion. Published by John Wiley & Sons. Pages 47- 74.

Cards from Japan, colourful, interesting, nice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks Noriko

 

 

 

Drawings for an RPG.

Simonov PPS43

Part of an assignment.

Discursive approach in psychology

The Discursive approach in psychology is a qualitative method that investigates the modes of communication people use, which includes speech and text writing but also includes interactions such as non verbal communication, repetitions and pausing (Lester 2011, p 283) with the understanding that these modes of communication contain strategies and methods to perform particular actions (Potter & Hepburn 2005, p339). This approach can be understood as an approach within the traditions of Discourse analysis (Potter & Hepburn 2005, p 338) which was developed as a way of examining the sociology of scientific knowledge (Wooffitt 2005, p 18). Important early work in what is described as Discursive psychology was published by Potter and Edwards in the 1990's (Edwards & Potter 1992) and their influences are described as Ethnmethodology, Conversation Analysis developed by Harvey Sacks and Willigs Rhetorical analysis among other influences (Tuffin 2005, p 81).

There is a recognition that the challenge of Wittgenstein's postulation in 1958 that mental concepts are grounded in communicated actions to the Cartesian model of mind and body and to the view of language only being a behaviour produced by cognition (Lester 2011, p 281) may have been an early influence in the development of Discourse analysis (Lester 2001, p 283). As a qualititative method it is suited for investigating experience imbedded in real life contexts and intentional actions (Marecek 2003, p 55) and facilitating research with an ends that can be potentially lost in quantitative research methods. Qualititative methods when used in conjunction with reflexive methods are potentially more honest in representing the subjective aspects of the research process facilitating an understanding of the context of the research as a historical process (Marecek 2003, p 63).

Significant theoretical approaches in Discourse analysis are that communication is a medium of human action and interaction that is part of greater set of practices that are situated in a context of previous communication, can be situated within institutions and can have rhetorical functions (Potter 2003, p 76). Discourse analysis approaches various modes of conversation as constructed by language resources but also holds that they construct the way people experience events and actions and their interpretations of events and actions, thus peoples phenomenological worlds are constructed and stabilized in modes of conversation containing action orientations (Potter 2003, p 76).

As an approach Discursive analysis can be differentiated from other forms of Discourse analysis by its focus on specific modes of conversation, its focus on data from specific social practices that are placed in context instead of approaching discourse as an abstract object (Potter 2003, p 75) and understanding construction as a process that is not abstract (Potter 2003, p 75).

When the Discursive approach describes modes of communication being constructive while carrying out rhetorical functions as action orientations it holds that language use is a primary social activity that is constructed to meet the requirements of the situation. It posits that emotion, attitudes and memories are constituted in and through the way they are talked and written about (Tuffin 2005, p 88), thus discursive constructions are constructed by and constructing of self and identity. It suggests that emotion is produced in the context of interaction and thus psychological knowledge should be studied in the context of conversation & interaction. This philosophy is associated with a methodology derived from Harvey Sacks Conversation Analysis that has a utility in recording and analysing the interaction of people and their accounts (Tuffin 2005, p 80). Initially the data of discursive analysis was of conversational interviews but recent work focuses on natural institutional interactions such as therapy, helpline talk and case conferences so long records are available (Potter 2003, p 74).

The ideas of the Discursive approach used for analysis are that conversations and interactions are constructed of statements that are composed of linguistic resources and invokes packages of ideas, the interpretive repertoire of individuals (Tuffin 2005, p 85). The interpretive repertoires that individuals have are systematically related sets of terms, that have a stylistic and grammatical coherence that are organised around central metaphors (Tuffin 2005, p 85). Thus modes of conversations involve working with these resources to achieve action orientations.

References

Antaki, Charles: Billig, Michael, Edwards & Potter, Jonathan. (2003). Discourse analysis means doing analysis : A critique of six analytic shortcomings. In Discourse Analysis Online (2003). pages 1 -9.

Edwards, Derek & Potter, Jonathan. (1992). Discursive Psychology. Published by SAGE Publications. Pg 1 -196.

Hutchby, Ian & Wooffitt. (1998). Conversation Analysis: Principles, Practices and Applications. Published by Polity. (Source of Assignment Conversation Extract).

Lester, Jessica. (2011). Exploring the Borders of Cognitive and Discursive Psychology: A Methodological Reconceptualization of Cognition and Discourse. In the Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology. Volume 10, Number 3, 2011. Pages 281, 282 & 283.

Marecek, Jeanne. (2003). Dancing through minefields: Towards a qualititative stance in Psychology. From Qualitative research in psychology: Expanding perspectives in methodology and design. Editors Camic, Paul M; Rhodes, Jean E & Yardley, Lucy. Published by the American Psychological Association. Pages 55.

Potter, Jonathan. (2003). Discourse analysis and discursive psychology. From Qualitative research in psychology: Expanding perspectives in methodology and design. Editors Camic, Paul M; Rhodes, Jean E & Yardley, Lucy. Published by the American Psychological Association. Pages 73 to 94.

Tuffin, Keith. (2005). Understanding Critical Social Psychology. Published by Sage, London. Pages 80, 81, 85 & 88.

Woffitt, Robin. (2005). Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis: A Comparative and Critical Introduction. Published by Sage. Printed in Great Britain. Pages 13 & 18.

Notes

Importance of interaction, specific kinds of actions are appropriate or expected.. Interactions have a shape and form as a series of connected actions (Wooffitt 2005: 8). Conversation analysis seeks to make sense of those events of which the transcription is a representation.

Look for core phases.

Introduction, reciprocated questions, 1^st point of conversation.

Negotiate an exit. Preclosing the reciprocated farewells.

Types of utterances

Constantive- report and Performative “suggest action”. Promises, warnings, declarations. Utterances are speech acts (Sacks). Amongst strangers names are exchanged. Intuition cannot anticipate the diversity of content.

Laughter acts as a form of alignment and affilitation with the on going talk.

Statements about abnormal events tend to have “at first I thought but then” statements by sane people. Schizophrenic individuals tend to not present their observations in a mundane to abnormal format, sane people tend to first ground their experience in the mundane to diffuse criticism.

Recycled components : repeated word or phrases following  the overlap of someone else's speech act.

Construction unit, transition relevance place.

Turn taking can be indicated by intonational completion as compared to syntactic & pragmatic completion (From Ford & Thompson (1996) Interaction and Grammar. Published by Cambridge University Press. Pages 147- 151.)

Issues to do with variability.

• Obtain statements by interview or by observation in a natural setting
• Look for broad similarities between statements
• If there are similarities occurring frequently, take statements at face value, they equal what is going on. This is flawed and the circumstances of its production needs to be investigated.
• Construct a generalized version of participants accounts of what is going on, present this as ones own analytic conclusions (Gilbert & Mulkay 1984: 5)
  CA

(From Opening Pandora's Box: A Sociological Analysis of Scientists' Discourse
 By G. Nigel Gilbert, Michael Joseph Mulkay. Published by Cambridge University Press)