Doctoral Dissertation Research: Learning through Interaction and Embodied Practice in a Scientific Laboratory

这篇科学与社会论文改进助学金专注于在科学环境中的不同类型的学习，特别是语言和其他符号形式在科学学徒中所扮演的角色。。美国国家科学基金会支持为期12个月的实地考察。数据收集方法包括：(1)实验室学习情况的视频和音频记录，(2)每周会议的视频和音频记录，以及(3)与参与者的访谈，以获得额外的数据，以澄清复杂的程序。研究将寻求探索语言在制定科学解释方面的作用，无论是在日常口语表达中，还是在通过复杂的技术工具进行分析后对“铭文”(Latour&Amp；Woolgar1979)的解释中。此外，它还将通过提出科学证据以互动和共识的方式固定，并借助对话和问答程序等互动例程来考察语言对科学理论建设的贡献。该项目将实验室描述为一个社交空间，科学家在这里工作和发展他们的理论，新手在这里由专家发起进入该领域。这项研究侧重于在实验室中遇到的学徒制的不同方面，特别是在获得科学方法和技能方面的学习过程，以及学习“如何成为一名科学家”的更透明的过程；获得并“与实践的历史相联系，并更直接地参与其文化生活”(Lave和Wenger，1991：101)。将特别注意在科学讨论中使用隐喻，以发现感知数据的方式可能发生的范式转变。虽然其他人已经研究了语言作为学习某种东西的媒介的功能，但这项研究将通过观察具体行动如何成为学习体验的重要部分来补充这一点，例如通过标志性的手势或视觉解释。撰写微生物实验室的人种志的项目揭示了人类学的几个至关重要的方面。虽然这个社区很小，但它代表了一个更大的社区--微生物学的专业世界。科学实验室的研究提供了对某种认知共同体的洞察，它具有自己的实践、学术、思想、感觉和信仰。它解决了语言人类学关注的问题，即该学科如何将对地方话语的微观分析与对更大社会话语的宏观分析结合起来。此外，这项研究试图通过研究科学研究群体成员之间的互动来调查科学知识的获得，并将广泛强调非语言互动，这一视角迄今在该学科中处于边缘地位。它通过研究如何在互动中通过语言获得科学和技术理解，为“科学、技术和社会”领域做出了贡献。这项研究的更广泛的影响是通过认识到科学工作场所代表的知识在我们这个复杂的技术世界中变得越来越重要，以及这些知识的产生方式在它如何影响社会方面发挥了不可或缺的作用。

This Science and Society Dissertation Improvement Grant focuses on different kinds of learning in a scientific environment, especially the roles that language and other semiotic modalities play in scientific apprenticeship. . NSF supports twelve months of fieldwork. The data collection methods include: (1) video and audio recording of learning situations in the laboratory, (2) video and audio recording of weekly meetings, and (3) interviews with participants to obtain additional data to clarify complicated procedures.The research will seek to explore the role of language in the formulation of scientific explanations, both in spoken everyday expressions, and in the interpretation of 'inscriptions' (Latour &Woolgar 1979) resulting from analyses made by sophisticated technological instruments. Further, it will examine the ways that language contributes to the building of scientific theory, through proposing that scientific evidence is fixated in an interactive and consensual manner, with the help of interactional routines like conversation, and question and answer procedures. The project describes the laboratory as a social space where scientists work and develop their theories, and where novices are initiated into the field by experts. The study focuses on the different aspects of apprenticeship encountered in the laboratory, especially the learning processes involved in acquiring scientific methods and skills, but also the more transparent processes of learning 'how to become a scientist'; to gain access to and "connect with the history of the practice and to participate more directly in its cultural life" (Lave and Wenger, 1991:101). Special attention will be given to the use of metaphors in scientific discussions, to detect possible paradigm shifts in the way data is perceived. While others have looked at the way that language functions as the medium through which something is learned, this study will add to this by looking at how embodied action is an essential part of the learning experience, for example through iconic gestures or visual explanations. The project of writing an ethnography of a microbiological laboratory informs several aspects of vital importance to anthropology. Although the community is a small one, it is representative of a much larger community, the professional world of microbiology. The study of scientific laboratories offers insights into a certain kind of epistemic community with its own practices, scholarship, thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. It addresses linguistic anthropological concerns about how the discipline integrates microanalyses of local discourse with macro-analyses of larger societal discourses. Furthermore, this study seeks to investigate the acquisition of scientific knowledge through the study of interactions between members of a scientific research community, and will place extensive emphasis on nonverbal interaction, a perspective that so far has occupied a peripheral position in the discipline. It contributes to the field of "Science, Technology and Society" by investigating how scientific and technological understanding is gained through language in interaction. This study's broader impact is found through the realization that scientific workplaces represent knowledge that is becoming more and more important in our world of complicated technology, and the way such knowledge is generated plays an integrated part in how it impacts society.