This course is part of the LDL program. To see details about the courses of the program and access basic resources and instructions, please refer to the Learning Design and Leadership Website. Refer to your course community and the course syllabus for specific timelines and project descriptions.

COURSE PURPOSES

We want to do two things in this course:

1. To introduce you to some of our recent work and thinking in the areas of new (and old!) media of communication and meaning-making.
2. To discuss the interpretive research methods that we, and many others, use.

ON MEANING

The content of this course is centered around the ways in which we interpret the changing meanings of meaning, particularly in the light of the digital disruptions people have experienced since the last quarter of the twentieth century that have affected almost every aspect of life. These are a demonstration of our approach to interpretive methods.

The two core volumes (linked to the library e-editions below) that support this course can be read either in a linear way or on the basis of your interests. As well as articulating our own view, they are a tour through some of the main interpretive frameworks and interpretive frameworks that constitute our collective intellectual interesting. This is a series of short stories, and you hope you will find them, at the very least, interesting!

• Cope, Bill and Mary Kalantzis. 2020. Making Sense: Reference, Agency and Structure in a Grammar of Multimodal Meaning. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Kalantzis, Mary and Bill Cope. 2020. Adding Sense: Context and Interest in a Grammar of Multimodal Meaning. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.
• As you read these books, be sure to view the supporting media.

We recommend you read sections of these books each week, and respond to them in the comments.

For week 1 read and see:

• Making Sense, Part 0; Adding Sense, Part 0.
• Supporting Media.
• Also in week 1 or 2, see Update 1B for some additional readings illustrating our interpretive approach.

ON INTERPRETIVE RESEARCH METHODS

Interpretive methods have been outlined in theory in several ways. The two Sense books are specific examples of the use of interpretive methods. There is a literature on an approach named “interpretive” (or "interpretative") methods in their own right. This is relatively new and often lightly argued, at least compared to the extensive literatures on quantitative and qualitative methods. However, the disciplines of history, philosophy, and social/cultural theory have long been interpretive. So have meta-analyses, which overview and synthesize an existing literature.

At times you might call the content of this course applied linguistics, semiotics, history, philosophy, social theory, or when it engages the area of data modeling and software design, even computer science. The overarching term to name the research method used across these domains is "interpretive."

Interpretive methods stand in contrast to the other canonical methods approaches. Quantitative methods count things. Qualitative methods describe things. Interpretive methods tie together meaning patterns. Not that these three canonical approaches to research methodology can ever do without at least some element of interpretation; nor on the other hand can interpretive methods ever leave the countable and qualitatively describable world.

One of the great thinkers in this area has been Tom Schwandt - here is a brief summary of his work, with references from the upcoming history of the College of Education that Bill has been writing. Do follow up the references!

On Interpretive Methods:

• Yannow and Schwartz-Shea, Interpretive Research: Characteristics and Criteria.
• Bhattacherjee, Social Science Research: Principles, Methods, and Practices, chapter 12.
• Dobson, Approaches to Theory Use In Interpretive Case Studies.

On Narrative in Interpretive Methods:

• Clandinin, Caine, and Jackson, Narrative Research in Education.
• Clandinin and Huber, Narrative Inquiry.

On Semiotics:

• Hasan, Ruqaiya. "Semiotic Mediation and Mental Development in Pluralistic Societies: Some Implications for Tomorrow’s Schooling." Learning for Life in the 21st Century: Sociocultural Perspectives on the Future of Education (2002): 112-126.
• Van Leeuwen, Theo. Introducing Social Semiotics. Psychology Press, 2005.

ON THE INTERACTION OF METHODS

This course introduces you to Interpretive methodology by way of theory and the specific example we offer in the two Sense volumes and our other recent work.

Interpretive methods can stand on their own. The traditional disciplines of history, philosophy, social theory and literary studies are wholly or principally interpretive. A meta-analysis is a synthesis, review or conceptualization of existing theory or empirical work.

However, even qualitative and quantitative empirical methods must involve some sort of interpretation when they ask, what is the existing theory or logic model that is being applied to the data? What is its relevance and appropriacy? (Sometimes, this is called “construct validity.”) What are the theoretical implications that emerge from the analysis of the data?

In other words, interpretive methods are also are an (essential!) part of empirical methods. For those in the course who are participating in the doctoral program, here are the ways in which interpretation plays an essential part in a conventional five chapter dissertation. (And for masters students, it's an illustration of how interpretation is integral to all research activity.)

COURSE STRUCTURE

This course explores, both philosophically and empirically, the patterns involved in meaning making and the methods by which it can be interpreted and narrated. It does so via an example—the examination/deconstruction of what we have called “transpositional grammar.” See the very quick summary on this page.

Weekly Updates: The course is structured around the five key questions about the making of meaning that are posited by a transpositional grammar. These can be asked of any artifact or meaningful phenomenon and in any form of representation or communication, questions of:

1. Reference – What is this about?
2. Agency – Who or what is doing this?
3. Structure – What holds this together?
4. Context – What else is this connected to?
5. Interest – What’s this for?

The five updates that follow explore these one by one. The full schema is here.

Here are some more introduction and overview videos:

Peer Reviewed Work:

Our two Sense books and their associated media employ interpretive methods to map out the dimensions of a multimodal grammar, analyzing the role of media, including digital media, in giving shape to our meanings. They use a mixture of the interpretive disciplines of history, philosophy, and social-cultural theory to make an argument about the theoretical notion of “transposition” and its practical applicability.

For this project, choose a topic of interest in an area of human meaning-making. The area could be an aspect of education, but need not necessarily be that. You could choose to look a media (newer digital media or older media), language, image, or one of the other “forms of meaning” that we explore in our two sense books. Look ahead at the topics in these two books for ideas, but also, don’t feel constrained by the topics you find here. Our main reason to have you read these books is to illustrate interpretive methods at work.

Use interpretive methods to explore your chosen topic – in education or any other domain. How do interpretive methods add depth to your understanding of this concept? You may wish to apply interpretive constructs from our transpositional grammar.

Write an interpretive analysis of your topic. Perhaps, if you are in the doctoral program and have in mind possible general topic area, you might choose that. But if you do, in this course, we want you mainly take an interpretive approach to the topic. Even if you finally choose an empirical methodology (e.g. qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods), you are going to need an interpretive part.

If you are worried about choosing a topic, please feel free to run some ideas past us. We mean this to be very open, allowing you to choose something of relevance to your research, or a new area of digital media or education that you would like to explore using interpretive methods.

Your work should contain a methodology section in which you discuss the nature of intepretive methods. This aspect of your peer reviewed project is meta-theoretical, that is you are being asked to develop an account of the theory of interpretive methods - its purposes, possible deployment and the types of analysis that it can generate. If you are a doctoral student, you may (or may not) wish to have your dissertation topic in mind as you write this work. Key questions: What are interpretive methods, in general, or as applied in a mainly interpretive discipline (e.g. history, philosophy, cultural/social theory)? Or, how are interpretive methods operationalized in a meta-analysis? Or how are interpretive methods applied in qualitative or quantitative empirical research?

Your work should then apply principally interpretive methods to your chosen topic. For general guidelines on the peer reviewed project, visit the peer reviewed project pages. There are two main differences in this course: 1) instead of two main sections, theory > practice, this course suggests two somewhate different sections: interpretive methods theory > interpretative methods application to your chosen topic; 2) we are not offering the learning module option in this course.

When it comes to peer review and self-review, you will be applying the "knowledge processes" rubric that we use in all our LDL courses. Here are some of the ways in which interpretive methods map against this rubric:

Comment: What are the main features of interpretive research? How is it different from qualitative and quantitative research? What are its strengths and weaknesses? (Also, although we've made the videos, the books and their supporting media at the website are the source texts. Please read as much as you can there! The library has purchased them as e-books, links above in this update.)

 

 

Following are some (mostly recent or upcoming) scholarly publications by Cope and Kalantzis related to this course. We'd like you to read some of them to get a broader sense of our thinking. Please join the New Learning community in CGScholar for updates as we publish new work! And for this course specifically, join the Meaning Patterns community.

• After Language: A Grammar of Multiform Transposition
• Multiliteracies: A Short Update
• Towards Education Justice: A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies, Revisited
• Multiliteracies: Life of An Idea
• Pedagogies for Digital Learning: From Transpositional Grammar to the Literacies of Education
• Artificial Intelligence in the Long View: From Mechanical Intelligence to Cyber-social Systems
• The Clause, Revised: On Cyber-Social Meaning
• Futures for Education Research
• Meaning without Borders: From Translanguaging to Transposition in the Era of Digitally-Mediated, Multimodal Meaning
• The Problem of Empathy

Make a Comment: Read two of these recent publications. What are the main takeaways? Or things that surprise you? Or things you agree or disagree with. Please select articles you have not read or reviewed in another course.

What is this about? (Specification, Circumstance, Property)

Reflect on how we identify and point to meanings in the world. How do singular instances become generalizable concepts in text, diagram, embodied expression and other forms of meaning? How do we represent the properties of things—their qualities and quantities?

Read and see:

• Making Sense, Part 1.
• Supporting Media.

Some Education Applications: Meaning can be made by what is called exophoric reference such as that found in the discourses of the lecture and the textbook. This approach recasts the world into classroom texts and modes of pedagogical engagement. It performs the role of conceptual thinking in the creation of frameworks of disciplinary knowledge.

Comment: ‘How’ and ‘What’ does this particular question about meaning, contribute to interpretive research or a narrative approach?

 

Who or what is doing this? (Event, Role, and Conditionality)

Reflect on how represented meanings reflect and enact patterns of agency. How do subject and predicate interact in moments of action? What are the characteristic relations of self, other and thing? What are the patterns of conditionality that underlie agency (assertion, requirement, possibility)? How do we identify agents and agency in representation, and analyze their impacts on each other.

Read and see:

• Making Sense, Part 2.
• Supporting Media.

Some Education Applications: Meaning patterns can represent learner differences in theory and practice: that is, the experiences learners bring to learning; the relationships of identity to belonging in a learning environment; strategies for productive diversity in learning; deliberate or unconscious preferences.

Comment: ‘How’ and ‘What’ does this particular question about meaning, contribute to interpretive research or a narrative approach in education or other contexts?

What holds this together? (Ontology, Design, Relation, and Metaontology)

Consider: what are the ontologies (the nature of being) of the ideal and the material? When and how does the scope of the one (the ideal or the material) exceed the other? How do we understand meaning as a process of design, that is, patterns that represent a play of the ideal (imagination) and the real (the material resource or media for meaning)?

Read and see:

• Making Sense, Part 3.
• Supporting Media.

Some Education Applications: Meaning patterns are to be found in the "structure" of materialized architectonics of physical and virtual classrooms; the ideal architectonics of the virtual. What are the ways in which pedagogical organization (real and virtual) impacts on learning? What are the impacts of what has been selected to be is present and what is omitted?

The materialized architectonics of physical and virtual classrooms; the ideal architectonics the virtual. The ways in which pedagogical organization (real and virtual) impacts on learning.

Comment: ‘How’ and ‘What’ does this particular question about meaning, contribute to interpretive research or a narrative approach?

What else is this connected to? (Materialization, Participation, Position, Medium, Association, and Genre)

Consider how meanings relate to context differently by likeness, directedness and abstraction (Peirce’s icon/index/symbol). How does participation in meaning vary (representation, communication, interpretation)? How do choices of material media both open and constrain possibilities for meaning? How does choice of media influence communication and interpretation?

Read and see:

• Adding Sense, Part 1.
• Supporting Media.

Some Education Applications:  The question, "What else is this connected to?" can reveal the underpinnings of the media and mediation choices across discipline areas; that is why it is important to meaning that "context" is brought to bear in teaching and learning, as well as all other disciples.

Comment: ‘How’ and ‘What’ does this particular question about meaning, contribute to interpretive research or a narrative approach?

What is this for? (Rhetoric, Program, Reification, Sociability, and Transformation)

Read and see:

• Adding Sense, Part 2.
• Supporting Media.

Education Applications: Consider research ethics and the problem of empathy. How are ‘interests’ reflected in deliberate or unconscious choices/biases in meaning patterns?

Comment: ‘How’ and ‘What’ does this particular question about meaning, contribute to interpretive research or a narrative approach? How critical is the issue of "interest" to the communication and interpretation of meanings.