Two recent books,
co-authored with Ron Scollon, consolidate the approach we have taken
over the past four decades or so to understanding human action.
Geosemiotics* is the study of how action is constrained by the
experiences embodied in the historical body of the actor, the
interaction order governing the action, and the discourses or semiotic
systems in place at the moment of action. Nexus
analysis**examines
how change can be initiated by considering these constraints in
engaging, navigating, and changing a nexus of practice.
We each started with an
interest in Sapir and Whorf and their deliberations on relationships
among language, thought, behavior and reality. By reading Hymes
1966 in conjunction with fieldwork among natives of the northern taiga,
we found these relationships so complex that getting a foothold in this
nebulous inquiry required nothing short of an approach to the
ethnography of communication*** that evolved into nexus analysis.
An early exposition of
our efforts to ground discourse in place we called the Axe
Handle Academy. An essay in Mediated Discourse Analysis on the
back burner is a study
of discourse in action among a group
of martial artists during the Taiwan Missile Crisis.
