I am interested in tracking the role of language and dialogue in our psychological life, following a Vygotskian perspective.
Language and dialogue play a key role in development, mediating the interpersonal activities that ground our intrapersonal processes as well as our internal deliberations. They have strong and complex relations with thought, reasoning or memory for example.
Language and dialogue also play a crucial part in the research process. A key aspect of the intervention is the use of language to induce reflection among participants. DPD methodologies demand a long-lasting engagement on the part of researchers and stakeholders. Such methodologies generally rely on research frameworks that are explicitly dialogical. Recorded dialogues constitute an essential part of the data collected; they are crucial for further analysis of the developmental processes identified during the intervention.
Below are a few related research questions:
- Which interactive and dialogical processes are involved in supporting argumentation and thinking?
- How can one “trace” the development of discussion and thought in the transcripts of video-recorded interactions?
- How are development of thought and development of the activity and of power to act of the subjects related?
- Which are the relations between what is said and what is done in interactions, and how can we include materiality in multimodal analysis?