How the sociology of translation can help us understand a social science framework--cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT)--as a set of uneasy settlements that both further and betray their original intentions. How do social science frameworks get taken up and spread? In
Triangles and Tribulations, Clay Spinuzzi uses the sociology of translation to reread the history of one such framework, c
ultural-historical activity theory (CHAT). CHAT originated in the 1920s and 1930s work of Soviet psychologists in the Vygotsky Circle, with its key insight--mediation--depicted in a simple triangular diagram drawn by Lev Vygotsky. From there, CHAT was developed and popularized by international scholars, including Finnish researcher Yrjö Engeström, who used Vygotsky's triangle as a basis for his own. Through this progressive development, CHAT carried on the work of its forebears, building on their foundations--or so we are sometimes encouraged to understand these transformations.
But each such translation, Spinuzzi argues, is also a
betrayal Each innovation opens new possibilities for CHAT but also disrupts a previous settlement. Examining specific points in CHAT's history, Spinuzzi reviews how CHAT has been applied to different domains, in service to different projects, and evaluated through different trials, undergoing rhetorical transformations. These translations, sedimented as a series of settlements, have allowed it to persist as a social science approach and develop as a framework for workplace studies. But they have also involved accumulating concepts and terms from various social sciences, yielded radical changes in scope, and led to ongoing disputes about what constitutes its unit(s) of analysis. In examining CHAT's triangles, Spinuzzi considers how social science frameworks live through practice and dialogue so that they can continue becoming meaningful to others.
翻譯社會學如何幫助我們理解社會科學框架——文化歷史活動理論（CHAT）——作為一系列不安的定居點，既推進又背叛其原始意圖。
社會科學框架是如何被採納和傳播的？在Triangles and Tribulations中，Clay Spinuzzi利用翻譯社會學重新解讀了這樣一個框架的歷史，即文化歷史活動理論（CHAT）。CHAT起源於1920年代和1930年代蘇聯心理學家在維果茨基圈的工作，其關鍵見解——中介——由Lev Vygotsky繪製的一個簡單三角形圖示所描繪。從那裡開始，CHAT被國際學者發展和普及，包括芬蘭研究者Yrjö Engeström，他以維果茨基的三角形為基礎進行自己的研究。通過這一漸進的發展，CHAT延續了其前輩的工作，建立在他們的基礎上——或者說，我們有時被鼓勵這樣理解這些轉變。
但Spinuzzi主張，每一次這樣的翻譯也是一種背叛。每一項創新為CHAT開啟了新的可能性，但也擾亂了先前的定居點。通過檢視CHAT歷史中的特定時刻，Spinuzzi回顧了CHAT如何被應用於不同領域，服務於不同項目，並通過不同的試驗進行評估，經歷了修辭上的轉變。這些翻譯，沉澱為一系列的定居點，使其作為一種社會科學方法得以持續存在並發展為工作場所研究的框架。但它們也涉及從各種社會科學中累積概念和術語，產生了範疇上的根本變化，並導致了關於什麼構成其分析單元的持續爭論。在檢視CHAT的三角形時，Spinuzzi考慮了社會科學框架如何通過實踐和對話而存在，以便它們能夠繼續對他人產生意義。
Clay Spinuzzi is a Professor of Rhetoric and Writing at the University of Texas at Austin. His books include Tracing Genres through Organizations (MIT Press), Network, and All Edge.
