Inquiry #11

What Is Literacy Doing Here?

My nexus model of action theorizes literacy practices through four dimensions suggested by Scollon’s (2001) nexus theory.

The top triangle represents the real-time site of engagement, a moment that focuses on some who-doing-what-with-which-materials in order to make a meaningful artifact. In the model, mediated discourse theory expands the focus from examination of this here-and-now moment to consider three simultaneously social, ideological, and material forces: 1) practices and their social histories/possibilities, 2) discourses and identities, and 3) use of and access to artifacts and their material trajectories. Each of the smaller triangles along the bottom of the model provides an entry point for examining practices, discourses, or artifacts to analyze the site of engagement and trace the circumferences of the focal mediated action (Wohlwend, 2014, pp. 64–65).

While the diagram above represents these four dimensions as parts of a larger triangle, it can be helpful to think of each one as a facet or window into a site of engagement that provides an entry point for analysis. Each facet provides a unique view that reveals something different about the same moment.

Finding Nexus Within an Activity Model

It’s helpful to explore directions for your nexus analysis by unpacking the situated activity in the nexus of practice. You can also get a sense of the scope of this analysis to see what your research focus will uncover . . . and what you might be overlooking.

Here are some questions that will help you follow the histories and emanations of literacies, activity, materials, and people as they cycle in and out of a nexus of practice. I’ve added Scollon’s three forces below to situate this model in the larger themes of this book.

Individual Appropriation

What mediated action is used by a social actor with this set of physical tools and materials? What is the actor’s purpose in using these tools? What is being transformed or produced?

Interaction Orders and Cultural Patterns of Collaboration

Who belongs here? What past identities are expected? What future identities are imagined?

Which identities are valued in this discourse? How do identities relate to each other?

Who decides what matters? Who authorized the rules and roles that operate here? How can existing meanings, rules, or roles be changed and by whom?

Historical Bodies and Social Histories of Participation

Which social practices for meaning-making (semiotic practices) seem routine (natural, expected) and necessary for participation? Which valued and typically backgrounded practices are foregrounded in order to be explicitly taught to novices so that they can participate?

How do social actors wield these routine practices? How do they combine actions with other actions to display expertise and exert power over others? What practices and relationships influence belonging and apprenticeship?

How do mediated actions in everyday routines fit into cycles of histories and anticipated futures of social practices in this culture? For example, how did certain practices become routine?

Discourses in Place and Material Histories of Use and Access

Who gets access? Which identities get access to the materials needed for this mediated action? How?

Who produces what? How are expert/novice relationships established through artifact production?

How did these materials get here? What do materials mean here? Which meaning histories are made relevant?

References
Scollon, R. (2001). Mediated discourse analysis: The nexus of practice. London: Routledge.
Wohlwend, K. E. (2014). Mediated discourse analysis: Tracking discourse in action. In P. Albers, T. Holbrook, & A. S. Flint (Eds.), New methods in literacy research (pp. 56–69). New York: Routledge.

photos by KEW

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