Verbal-Visual Mediation: cultural artifacts of power and control for studies of school context in Applied Linguistics research

Adolfo Tanzi Neto

doi:10.1590/1678-460x2019350305

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article we explore the data and theoretical discussions of a larger research (Tanzi Neto, 2016, 2017) and present one of the analysis tools of the research group NUVYLA-CNPq (Nucleus of Studies and Research of Vygotsky School in Applied Linguistics), created in 2018. In the framework of a dialogue between Vygotsky, Bakhtin and Bernstein, the research group seeks to demonstrate how the dimensions of verbal-visual utterances (artifacts) practiced in school spaces - embedded of multiple languages - mediate the formation of human consciousness. For this discussion, we analyze the verbal-visuality of different exhibitors from two public school contexts in Brazil. In the first one, of social base of more hierarchical discursive relations, that is to say, of verbal-visual utterances more controlled, the school space is not seen, by its participants, as a place to reach new projects of life, neither as a space of belonging or as recognized social positionings. In the second context, of social base of less controlled relations of power and control, that is, that provides the voice, identity and social position of its participants, we observe a reconfiguration of the dialogical and axiological positions of its participants, creating a school social context of belonging and recognition of its members to achieve future projects.

Highlights

This article explores data and theoretical discussions reached in a broader research (Tanzi Neto, 2016, 2017), whose objectives included answering the question of how social relations and mediation artifacts
In one of the research perspective of NUVYLA-CNPq, we seek to raise the relations between semiotic mediation and its cultural tools along with the relations of power and control in everyday discourses, from the perspective of Bakhtin (2010 [1924]), Vygotsky (1978, 1981), Daniels (2008, 2015), Gillespie and Zittoun (2010), Wertsch (1981, 2007), Bernstein (2003 [1990], 1993, 2000 [1996]) and Hasan, 2012)
We believe that, through the work carried out by our research group, situated in the field of Applied Linguistics, we seek to understand how the dimensions of verbal-visual utterances practiced in school spaces - embedded of multiple languages - mediate the formation of human consciousness

Summary

Introduction

This article explores data and theoretical discussions reached in a broader research (Tanzi Neto, 2016, 2017), whose objectives included answering the question of how social relations and mediation artifacts. Despite advances in Vygotskian theory about how mental actions are culturally, institutionally, and historically situated, little has been discussed about the relationships between cultural tools (artifacts) and power relations and control (Daniels, 2015) In this sense, we believe that, through the work carried out by our research group, situated in the field of Applied Linguistics, we seek to understand how the dimensions of verbal-visual utterances (artifacts) practiced in school spaces - embedded of multiple languages - mediate the formation of human consciousness. The focus is on the communicative chain that involves signs and language in communication, on the social role and the internalized discourse in the process of mediation of human consciousness In this sense, our research group work consists in seeking to understand the tacit forms of mediation that reflect in the minds of others. Bernstein’s conceptions of class relations and the distribution of power are welcome in our research group to think of categories of analysis and modes of interpretation of a school context

Mediational power and control artifacts in a school context

Final Considerations