I just read a paper that I should have read before submitting my recent PERC paper on ontologies for energy. I hope I get the opportunity to address this paper during the review process:
Brookes, D. T., & Etkina, E. (2007). Using conceptual metaphor and functional grammar to explore how language used in physics affects student learning. Physical Review - Special Topics: Physics Education Research, 3(010105), 1-16. Link
The authors use conceptual metaphor to account for student difficulties in quantum mechanics. They especially address metaphors for energy, including the conceptualization of heat as a fluid and of energy as a vertical location. The hypothesis of the paper is that "students overextend and misapply conceptual metaphors in physicists' speech and writing."
Some things that I see as being the same about our work: We are both applying theories of conceptual metaphor. We are both especially interested in metaphors for energy. We are both identifying metaphors using linguistic analysis of (1) expert physics discourse and (2) physics learner discourse. Using similar techniques, we identify two of the same metaphors for energy: as a substance, and as a vertical location. (I have a third one too.) We are also in agreement that expert physicists have multiple coherent metaphors and use them all, ideally knowing the applicability and limitations of each.
Here are three things that I see as contrasting about our work, mostly in the category of theoretical premises. (I'm attributing them to myself only not because I am solely responsible for them but because I didn't consult my coauthors before writing this post!)
Brookes & Etkina: Many metaphors are wrong (they use "defunct" and "historical"). Certain metaphors are correct ("modern," "conventional").
Scherr: All metaphors contribute to a valid understanding - all are good for something. Certain metaphors are better for certain purposes (e.g., substance is good for conservation).
Brookes & Etkina: Students acquire metaphors/language from teachers. (This is consistent with their grounding in Chi & Slotta.)
Scherr: Metaphors are natural to human thought. Language is learned by Vygotskian internalization, which is not a straightforward acquisition from experts.
Brookes & Etkina: If we experts are not careful, we may make ontologically mixed statements, and may cause novices to suffer from ontological misclassification (a cognitively serious condition; again, this is Chi.). For example, students think particles get tired, because expert speech led them to ontologically misclassify particles.
Scherr: People (experts and novices) have easy cognitive access to a variety of ontologies. (See Gupta et al.) Expertise with discipline-specific metaphors includes knowing which features to map; novices may export different features than experts, but their understanding is potentially flexible.
This paper was my first introduction to conceptual metaphor and the role of the intersection of language and concept! It was here that I first learned about Lakoff & Johnson ("Metaphors We Live By", not "Philosophy in the Flesh"). B&E's paper was one of the central texts in Meaning, Math, and Motion (my linguistics, mathematics, physics program in 2010-2011). They have a second paper following this line of inquiry: "'Force', Ontology, and Language http://prst-per.aps.org/abstract/PRSTPER/v5/i1/e010110
ReplyDeleteI think that in the first contrast you mention in your post, your premise not be as divergent from theirs.
ReplyDeleteFrom their paper (p. 2) "Even defunct analogies (type 2) represent productive modes of thought for physicists. There is a class of problems for which it is quite adequate to talk about heat as a fluid. For example, when there is no work being done on or by the thermodynamic system, it is satisfactory to think of heat flowing into or out of the system and that the change in temperature of the system is directly proportional to the amount of heat gained or lost."
I understood that "defunct analogies" to be short-hand for "defunct analogical models", which they defined earlier (p. 1): "Defunct analogical models. It is often the case in
physics that older models, whose limitations have been experimentally exposed and supplanted by better models, live on in the language of physics. The caloric theory of heat lives on in phrases that reflect the “heat is a fluid” metaphor. For example, “heat flows from object A to object B.” Physicists use these metaphorical pictures when they reason. We will elaborate this point further below."
So I don't think that I'd agree with a characterization that B&E are talking about certain metaphors being "wrong" while others are "correct".
I interpret B&E as using "defunct" and "historical" to refer to _models_, and I think that might be a fairly standard way of speaking of those models. At the same time, they acknowledge how these models can still be "satisfactory" and "productive modes of thought" and that "physicists use these metaphorical pictures when they reason."