The blog

Two Contributions by François Cooren

01 June 2015

We are posting two contribution (or 'grievances'/'doléances' in French) written by François Cooren before the Diplomatic Writing Week, which took place July 2014 at the École des Mines in Paris: The Canonic Example of Peter and Paul and Methodological Considerations: Video-shadowing :

1/ The Canonic Example of Peter and Paul

The advantage of the example of Peter and Paul is its canonicity, the degree to which it provides an explanation of modes of the coordination of action that distinguish themselves into two opposing arguments which both take the example of the rendez-vous as an “archetype” of coordination: the cognitivist individualism of Pierre Livet (La communauté virtuelle, 1994) and the holism of Vincent Descombes (Les institutions du sens, 1996). Their disadvantage, however, is that they only make it possible to take up one of the modes of the modification of scripts: that of piling up. Above all (and this is most irritating for us in the framework of the present project) the example of the rendez-vous has a reductive effect, in the sense that it seems to reduce the mode of existence [ORG] to the question of the coordination of action. The mode of existence [ORG] is one mode by which macro-actors construct and also establish themselves while the actors articulate and hierarchize the scripts with which they endeavour to make their “black boxes.” The example of the rendez-vous seems to carry this effect of construction, which is so evident and active in the world of organizations. Can we replace this example to do justice to other modes of modification of scripts? [...]

Please click the following link to access the complete contribution on the English version of the site.

2/ Methodological Considerations: Video-shadowing

The [ORG] workshop organized in Montreal was, among other things, an occasion to observe that an analysis of different modes of existence can gain a lot in subtlety and precision by the study of video recordings. The multimodal aspect of terms used in the conversation helps the analysts to be more attentive to intonations, facial expressions, and gestures that indicate the tone that ought to be used to understand what has been said. In this way, you find a parallel with the linguistic idea of modality, the modality of a statement conveys the manner in which it ought to be (com)-prehended or heard. It seems to us that the provisory relationship could benefit from being completed by some methodological indications that specify the manner by which the tones of modes of existence of statements can be identified on the level of everyday experience. Can we identify a methodology of the capture and analysis of data that could allow us to identify the proper tones to each mode of existence? [...]

Please click the following link to access the complete contribution on the English version of the site.

(Kindly translated by Michael Thomas, Timothy Howles and Stephen Muecke)

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