Language, thinking and action: towards a semio-constructivist approach in physical education

Abstract

Background: Research about sport pedagogy has recently emerged as a significant interest in student reflective practice within the PE teaching/learning system. This learning process is considered as a type of knowledge of co-construction in action. This epistemological assumption postulates that the ‘knowledge-in-action’ is the result of an active meaning attribution, and serves as a basis for developing a reflective attitude. In order to understand how the student, when faced with a problem-solving setting, interprets and makes pertinent-for-him/her decisions, the researcher focused on language production as an action. If learning is supposed to create a significant network of available action strategies, the challenge is to enter within this student's world while avoiding thinking like him/her. In opposition to information theory, semiotics considers the learner as an ‘event interpretant’ and the action production as a ‘closed text’. A semio-constructivist approach is based upon recent outcomes extracts from conversational pragmatics, argumentative rhetoric, and reception aesthetics as new tools for analyzing the produced discourses ‘about’ action and ‘as’ action. There are three theories referenced: (1) ‘Speech Acts’ (Austin); (2) ‘Open opera’ (Eco); and (3) ‘Expectation horizons’ (Jauss and Iser). Purpose: This paper studies the co-construction of knowledge-in-action from the language sciences' theoretical frameworks. The purpose is to understand the way he/she interprets his/her reality through excerpts from previous research. Data excerpts: Examples are extracted from verbal exchanges between fifth grade students in a collective ball game, after a game play collected during research. Findings: Between language, thinking and acting, plurimodal interactions make it possible to formalize action strategies in a relevant manner. Conclusions: These issues for language inquiry open up promising perspectives in the understanding of the student learning process as an active meaning co-construction. New perspectives for giving the student a status of ‘knowledge author–actor’ are explored in relation to pedagogical issues.