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

本科学与社会论文改进基金关注科学环境中不同类型的学习，特别是语言和其他符号学模式在科学学徒过程中所扮演的角色。NSF支持12个月的实地考察。数据收集方法包括：(1)对实验室的学习情况进行视频和音频记录；(2)对每周会议进行视频和音频记录；(3)对参与者进行访谈，以获得额外的数据，以澄清复杂的程序。这项研究将试图探索语言在科学解释的形成中的作用，无论是在日常口语表达中，还是在对“铭文”的解释中（Latour & & Woolgar 1979），这些“铭文”是由复杂的技术仪器分析得出的。此外，它将通过提出科学证据以互动和共识的方式固定，在对话和问答程序等互动惯例的帮助下，研究语言对科学理论建设的贡献方式。该项目将实验室描述为一个社会空间，科学家在这里工作和发展他们的理论，专家在这里引导新手进入该领域。该研究侧重于在实验室中遇到的学徒制的不同方面，特别是获得科学方法和技能所涉及的学习过程，以及学习“如何成为一名科学家”的更透明的过程；能够接近并“与实践的历史联系起来，更直接地参与其文化生活”（Lave and Wenger, 1991:101）。将特别注意在科学讨论中使用隐喻，以发现在感知数据的方式中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媒介的方式，但这项研究将通过研究具体行动如何成为学习经验的重要组成部分（例如通过标志性手势或视觉解释）来补充这一点。撰写微生物实验室人种志的项目告知了人类学至关重要的几个方面。虽然这个社区很小，但它代表了一个更大的社区，即微生物学的专业世界。对科学实验室的研究提供了对某种具有自己的实践、学术、思想、感情和信仰的认知共同体的见解。它解决了语言人类学的问题，即该学科如何将当地话语的微观分析与更大的社会话语的宏观分析相结合。此外，本研究试图通过研究科研团体成员之间的互动来调查科学知识的获取，并将广泛强调非语言互动，这一观点迄今为止在该学科中占据外围地位。它通过研究如何通过语言在互动中获得科学和技术的理解，为“科学，技术和社会”领域做出贡献。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，而这些知识的产生方式在它如何影响社会方面起着不可或缺的作用。

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.