The transcripts
of Appendix 1 represent "segments" or contiguous portions of transcribed and
reconstructed activity during one night's flyttrålfiske
off of the south west coast of Sweden.
The segments are ordered by their actual occurrence, although activity
which takes place between segments may be missing, and of course the
reconstruction entails a loss of information from the original events. Segments 1-16 entail portions of the
activity of deciding where to set the trawl for the first draw on the fourth
night of this week's fishing. The
partitioning of activity into segments represents an attempt to focus the
analysis on bounded sequences of events—behaviors and actions (and consequences
of these) caused, intended, and experienced by participants in the activity in
the context of specific environmental states and situations. These sequences of transcribed events are
then used to illuminate mechanisms underlying the organization of participants'
actions (in those contexts where data exist or can be inferred) via
interpretations about the meanings of these behaviors. The interpretations are themselves grounded
in ethnographic knowledge gained by repetitive experience with the details of
this practice, many of which were presented above.
The analysis
thus attempts to interpret the bases for situated actions by drawing on
information about the state of the environment (e.g., the physical context—such
as boats' positions and the states of instruments which represent these
contexts), the expectations of participants (e.g., regularities in the
situation which are routine, well practiced, or otherwise anticipated), the
actions themselves, and the coherence of all of these both forward and backward
in time. The analysis thus works from a
transcribed text of the time course of events and attempts to reveal principles
governing the sequence by recourse to the coherence of the entire corpus and
its particular ordering in time.
It is important
to note that where data are missing, they can sometimes be inferred via (my)
experience with the particular situation and it's regular occurrence in this
context. For example, in order to make
sense of a speech stream with a long pause (possibly even accompanied by the
"beeping" feedback of the radar or navigator cursor movement keys), I may
assume the use of the cursor on one of the instruments to perform a function I
saw performed many times in similar contexts—even though I have no video
footage recording this hypothesized performance. In these cases, the analysis becomes "fictionalized" in the sense
that I may introduce a set of representations which depict an action which I
can only extrapolate from the context and my experience with similar contexts,
rather than actual recorded footage of the event.
This
fictionalization is an unfortunate consequence of limitations in the data
collection procedure but is generally made explicit by the analysis—in which
every attempt has been made to make clear the sources of data and
interpretations of events. On the other
hand, fictionalization is useful because it makes possible a compact
representation of a large variety of events which would only be experienced
over a long period, in a large set of contexts, and entailing an unmanageable
amount of information. One kind of
fictionalization of the transcripts is explicitly marked by the extrapolation
of representations (e.g., the radar display) forward or backward in time (from
a true representation captured on video tape) to inform the interpretation made
about a later or earlier event. Another
kind of fictionalization may be in the form of describing the way an
interaction with an instrument is typically
performed, knowing that this general act was executed but not having recorded
images of the actual performance. This
may be better labelled "schematization" as it depicts a common performance
which—lacking a complete record of the actions—can only be represented in general
form without access to the specific details of the event.
Conventions
used in the transcript are given in full at the beginning of Appendix 1. Here some of the semantics of the content of
the events are described. The pair from
which the data was collected, is made up of the two boats Sydö and Nordö. The captains aboard Sydö are A and D,
those aboard Nordö are B and C.
Only one captain from each boat is on the bridge at any one time—the
other is generally catching up on some needed sleep. On this night, and in general when this particular crew
configuration was on board,[1]
A and B would be in charge until the first draw was under way,
and then the helms are handed over to D and C. As described previously, due to an almost
complete dissociation between the captains of a ship while at work on the
bridge, there is little transfer of information between watches at the
helm. However, changing watch following
the set of the trawl is convenient in this regard because the mass of
information manipulated during the search for where to set the trawl
is—following the set of the trawl—reduced to a few bits of information about
which boats are in the vicinity, and in which direction the intended draw
should proceed.
A and B
are younger (in their early 30's) and D and C are older (in their
late 50's). These particular
configurations of watch on the bridges of the pair, appeared to entail the
matching of temperaments, skills, and personalities of the captains. The younger men are more ambitious, more
likely to employ the technologies on board to organize more information, and
are more likely to confidently interact with an unknown outside agency on
behalf of the business. The older men
are more well-known to (and probably respected by) the other boats' captains,
more likely to use traditional techniques to organize their own actions (e.g.,
radio communication with someone they know or acting on what another boat
does), and are simultaneously more experienced and marginalized on their own
boats.[2]
Since my
recording took place on board Sydö, the situational data referred to in the
transcripts is constructed from the instrument displays recorded there. In particular, lower case letters in quotes
(for example, "g") refer to echoes displayed on Sydö's Relative Motion (RM)
navigational radar. The actual boats on
the water represented by these echoes, for each pair, are given below based on
my reconstruction of the events:
"a" = Spartan,
"e" = Milton
"b" = Midskär,
"k?" = Enskär (uncertain)
"d" = Nordö, "us" =
Sydö
"f" = Vinga/Polen (a setting
pair, V/P)
"g" = Styrsö, "h" = Haken
"c" = unknown boat
? = Viking, ? = Maria
As seen in the
transcript segments, these identities are neither obvious nor consistently held
by the captains. Much of the
information management that takes place is about formulating these identities,
both as a primary objective (in order to know who is doing what) and as a
side-effect of the process of communication between captains which creates
mutual understanding about the situation and what actions to take in it.
The night's
fishing under consideration begins when the fleet of about 14-16 boats leaves
the harbor of Halmstad in the county of Halland on the southwest coast of
Sweden around 16:30. It turns out that
10 of these boats (5 pairs) set their trawls and draw in close proximity to
each other beginning around 18:30. Sydö
and Nordö decide to set their trawl—in unison with three other pairs, as it
turns out—around 19:00. Several Danish
boats also appear in this area on this night.
The analysis below attempts to reconstruct the traffic in the area, but
only has access to the actual traffic through the RM radar screen of the host
boat, Sydö. As a result, the
representations of trajectories only roughly capture the actual paths traversed
by the boats due to the limitations in accuracy of reconstructing boat fixes
from video shots of the Relative Motion radar screen. Nonetheless this reconstruction plays an important role in representing
the context which informs actions taken by participants in the activity (see
Figures 36 and 37).
The fleet
proceeds southwest from Halmstad toward an area south of what is known as Stor Middelgrund ("Big Middle
Shallows"), a shoal in the Kattegatt strait midway between Denmark and Sweden,
about 56° 30' north of the equator (see Figure
36). The previous night, we had
fished northwest of the shoal—as had many in the fleet—but some boats had
reported good fishing south of Stor
Middelgrund as well. One pair (Spartan/Milton) which we had
fished with (north) on the first draw the night before, had drawn here (south)
later in the morning, and is now among the pack we are following. This pair had the most success the night
before, and often appeared to be boats whose activities were of intense
interest to our captains. One of these
boats was also from a neighbor island of Vindö, which may have had an effect
upon the ease with which we were able to communicate and cooperate with this
pair in general. On the other hand
following a certain boat or pair around is neither easy to accomplish nor
necessarily the best thing to do—many factors become involved in deciding where
to set the trawl and who to follow, as becomes clear in the analysis below.
In the
following paragraphs, short synopses are given which summarize events of
interest in each segment. The reader is
advised to first read the transcript
of a segment (see Appendix 1), and then the short synopsis of it below, before continuing
on to the next segment.
This segment
begins with the captain of our boat (A, of Sydö) hailing a pair that he
believes to be setting their trawl (V/P), around 18:25. This belief probably stems from overhearing
a conversation on either the public radio or the private channel of V/P,
or being informed of such a conversation by the captain of our companion ship (B,
of Nordö).[3] A asks for V/P's location, and
is given a very general description which only makes sense for a listener
sharing a lot of context about the situation.
A then checks his understanding of the situation with B
and indirectly suggests a course of action.
This segment
begins with B hailing us to check in after about 5 minutes of radio
silence. A has been on the phone
talking to his wife, who called because she was looking for something in the
house, and B's call leads him to take stock of all of his instruments:
what the fish look like, what the local traffic looks like, and where each of
their boats is with respect to each other, the pack, and the future draw.
There are
several things of interest in this segment.
A has a RM radar and employs it to determine the relative
movements of B. B appears
to need absolute coordinates from A in order to get into coordination
with his TM radar and with A (see Figures 45 and 46). Both of these may be needed to get A
to reason about the future draw—that is, to bring up for discussion where they
are heading and what the others are doing.
This discussion requires labelling the echoes on the screen, and coming
to agreement with each other about who is doing what by knowing which boat is
which. This reasoning is not only
guided by the local constraints of each captain's representations (the
different instruments involved) but also has a particular cultural shape, based
on the conventions of interaction in which B is in fact in charge of
setting the trawl since his boat is carrying it. (This responsibility generally rotates back and forth between
boats of the pair, as described above.)
This segment
follows immediately after Segment 2, and begins in earnest the discussion about
which boats are where. B heard
on the scanner that Spartan passed up the area where V/P were setting
because "there was nothing to see."
This seems to reinforce a decision not to stop, but it also appears to
lead A to believe (or, to reinforce A's belief) that Spartan is
south of them when Spartan is in fact out in front of the pack ("a" directly
ahead, due southwest of A). A
believes that "a" is the boat Viking (I know this because he explicitly
labelled the echoes for me 8 minutes later at 55:18) and he has found no reason
to question that identity.
Of interest
here is the effort to reach agreement on where Spartan's companion boat Milton
is located. B begins with a
question about the identity of a boat that is between the two of them, but
slightly off of this line (see Figures 47 through 49). I believe, based on the follow-up discussion,
that this question is part of his attempt to identify Milton. Notice that the question is framed in a way
that is easily interpreted (both captains have a good handle on each other's
echoes at this point), and that B makes a mistake in specifying which
direction (east or west) this boat is relative to the line between them.
This mistake is
made (repeatedly by B) despite B's TM radar display (which should
mitigate the effects of such problems—i.e., east is always right and west is
always left assuming he has North Up selected[4]
on his display). B maintains
that he is consistently confusing directions because his mental coordinate
system is based on where land (Sweden) lies.
The confusion, I once overheard him telling someone, comes from fishing
in waters on both sides of the
country—thus land is sometimes west and sometimes east of the boats, depending
on whether they are fishing in the Baltic Sea or the Kattegatt/Skagerack
straits. Apparently, B's mental
coordinate system takes precedence over (or at least, in these situations,
interferes with) the represented coordinate system of the TM radar display.
At the end of
the segment, it appears that another difference in radar representation for the
two captain's (in this case the scale) gives B a better handle on where Enskär/Midskär are located (Enskär does not
appear on A's screen, but probably does on B's) and therefore B
has a better handle on which echo's are unaccounted for and which may be
Milton.
In this
segment, A and B reach agreement over which echo is in fact the
setting pair V/P, and that they will probably continue (as the other
boats in the pack appear to have decided) past these waters. Notice that the decision remains implicit in
the dialog. Now that the identity of V/P
is shared, it becomes the basis for future references, although not without
some ambiguity (e.g., 53:00, 56:12, 1:00:06).
In this
segment, A reports good fish and B responds that he is coming our
way. This sequence appears to imply a
commitment to act on A's report—B is planning to come over and
set his trawl if it still looks good, or at least set it near the area we are
now reporting about. B probably
marks A's location on his navigator or radar (see 1:09:25). He definitely used his radar cursor to determine
the distance between the two boats. B
is trying to determine which direction V/P are drawing to plan for a
possible draw. Are V/P
backtracking (over water they have already seen) or heading into waters further
south? It may be that this is hard for B
to see on his TM radar display. It may
also be that this topic is not only about identification but (as suggested)
joint planning about where to draw their own trawl.
In this
segment, A still sees pretty good fish.
B—travelling through deeper water (a bit northeast, but heading
toward A)—has yet to encounter good fish.
A
reports that as the water becomes shallower (19 fathoms) the fish drops
off. B confirms that he is
seeing a little bit of fish at 23 fathoms, but he is still north of where A
was, and northeast of the depth A was in, when A reported seeing
good fish at the "edge". The
depth contours here run largely northwest/southeast, as shown in Figure 57.
Once again,
identifying V/P (the drawing pair) is a concern of B. A has consistently identified them as
"f" and now sees (due to the trace left by his RM radar display) that the path
of "f" is diverging from his own (actually, V/P are dropping
behind and turning north) and coming close to B. Again, it is unclear if B's question
means he does not know which echo is V/P, or if the discussion about V/P
is a public forum for formulating a plan about where to draw (in essence: "do
you understand which way he is setting?" entails the illocutionary force,
"should we be attending to this choice of direction as something we should plan
to do?").
Also of
interest here is the simultaneous (in the same sentence, at 1:00:37)
referencing of boat and echo. The talk
is about something that is an echo, that is located in space (ambiguous whether
the space is on the screen or on the water), and that is "coming back"
(referring to the heading and the possibility that they are drawing or
returning from an unsuccessful search of other waters).
B now
appears to be coming onto the fish that A saw earlier (see Figure
57). He is also inquiring about two
echoes which appear to have come together, and may be boats setting their
trawl. In order to come to agreement about
their location with respect to A, A's absolute coordinates are
communicated. In the process, B
discovers that his radar was reporting a double echo (a false representation
west of A) that he took to be a real state of affairs.
It is also
interesting to note in this segment the use of the verb skära (literally, "to cut").
The verb can be used to define a boat's physical action in the water (to
cut through the water), but is also used (when referring to more than one boat)
to denote the relationship between trajectories or possible trajectories (to
come together, or to separate). This
usage coincides nicely with the plan view representations of radar displays.
In this
segment, A and B continue the discussion about local traffic,
"f" and "c" in particular.
Of interest is the way A's speech takes the point of view of B—that
is, A's use of "we" in talking about avoiding the approaching boats can
only entail B's ship, since the traffic in question is already clear of A's
own boat.
Also of
interest is A's reasoning about B's (mistaken) claim about the heading
of the boat represented by echo "c."
A has a pretty good representation—from the trace left by the RM
radar—of the boat's direction relative to his own. B can only get this information by "fixing" this
approaching boat on his TM radar, or by noticing the narrowing distance between
the echo of "c" and the representations of his own boat in the center of his
radar display. (Note: B may
understand that "c" is coming towards him but simply makes another "east/west"
error.) A reasons that if the
two courses in question are SW and W (B's proposal) then the trajectories would
cross (his own and the other boats' paths would meet starting within some small
area) but if the headings are SW and NE (A's own proposal) then the
trajectories would be parallel (and the boats' paths would not meet within a
small area or, with low probability, coincide). This reasoning is explicitly represented by the parallel trace of
"c" to A's own course, on his RM radar (see Figure 50).
Before this
segment begins, A has been away from the bridge for some 5 minutes. In the interim, there was a radio discussion
between two boats (Haken and Midskär) on the public channel—in which each
reported their absolute coordinates. B
reports that he did see the fish A had reported earlier north of the kant ("edge"), which coincided with the
"mark" he had made (on his navigator or radar) on hearing A's report
(see 52:16; see Figure 57).
A
reports that the boat which is in the lead ("a," which he mistakenly believes
is Viking) is now turning back. He
questions his own belief, which is in conflict with the claim that Viking took
a northerly course—something he may have heard earlier. There follows an interesting exchange in an
attempt to identify where Spartan is.
(In fact, Spartan is "a".) A
remembers Spartan's heading, which indicates to him (assuming no change to that
heading, and a common starting point) that the boat must be in the
vicinity. (This belief was also
expressed—possibly even established—earlier in the transcript at 47:00.) B was possibly mislead by codified
speech into thinking Spartan was north.
Lacking any evidence contrary to this belief, it is probably reinforced
by the fact that several boats are (according to radio reports) northwest of Stor Middelgrund, and are undoubtedly
visible to B. A appears
inclined to abandon his belief that "a" is Viking, because he repeatedly asks
about this echo in this segment. B
then appears to get some new information over his scanner, indicating that
Spartan is just south of A. This
information is not inconsistent with A's established (incorrect) belief
that Spartan has been due south of him ("g" or "h") all
along, and so it is unclear if A makes the connection that "a"
is Spartan.
"Codified
speech" is a kind of tacitly accepted technique of obfuscation for restricting
the access to information. The most
common way to "code" speech is to refer to events that can only make sense to
listeners who share the necessary background—the more restriction desired, the
more idiosyncratic the content which puts more constraints upon the means for
establishing shared meaning. The most
extreme form of coding is to use a kind of metaphoric speech to evoke intended
referents and operations or plans and actions involving them, which only the
intended listener can make sense of.
Thus, a plan to visit new fishing waters in the near future might entail
a need to reconfigure equipment, and references to intended actions (say,
repairs) regarding this equipment might be made obliquely (e.g., "That
equipment that we are renting to those [other] boats is pretty beat up...") so
as not to reveal the fishing plans and yet still communicate about the
equipment repair plans. Likewise,
Spartan's reference (according to B) to "those waters we fished last night.."
may have misled B since he recalls this boat's presence up north, but
not the fact that they were also south (in the vicinity of the pack's current
location) later in the morning.
Styrsö ("g")
hails A to inquire whether we are the boat going southeast here. A
responds that we are going southwest, so it must be another boat. Of interest here is the fact that A
doesn't know prior to the call (I believe) that Styrsö is "g." B told A that one of the boats
south of him is Haken (see 1:10:03), a conversation heard on the public channel
while A was away from the bridge.
A continues to believe that Spartan is south of him, and now he
is told Styrsö is as well. Since there
are only three boats south of him (and Styrsö and Haken are companion boats), A's
suggestion that the unknown boat is Spartan is fairly well reasoned.
It is also
worth noting that—since A speculates in his question to Styrsö, that
Styrsö is south of him—apparently, A infers from the timing of the call
(and the content) that the discussion entails the two echoes on his screen
which are coming quite close to each other: one travelling west/southwest ("g")
the other travelling south/southeast ("a").
This kind of
expectation about radio conversations is truly remarkable. I experienced many instances when our
captains were wondering out loud where a boat was, and someone from another
boat calls just at that moment to resolve the same issue. One gets the sense that the information
field (as constructed—in part—through patterns of exchange on the radio) is to
some large extent shared, and expectations lead to simultaneous inferences or
questions about the state of affairs.
In this
segment, which overlaps with the end of Segment 12, the two boats coming near
each other do establish (with the help of A) radio contact with each
other. In the process of agreeing on a
procedure for maneuvering past each other, the captains engage each other in a
discussion of what the fish look like.
This kind of opportunistic "probing" of intentions and experience is a
commonplace part of all public radio conversation. Another common feature of the discourse shown in this
conversation is reciprocal information exchange. The kinds of questions asked in an exchange are generally turned
around and also asked of the questioner, if such information was not offered by
the questioner first. Thus when St
(the captain of Strysö) proposes that the fish may be to the south of them and Sp
(the captain of Spartan) responds that they have information to the contrary
based on their experience on the night before, St follows with an
account of his own observations.
Finally, a
general discourse style of "teasing" is also shown in this segment. My feeling was that captain's (some more
than others) enjoy flirting with the tacit proscription against being
misleading with one's information.
Between some captains this kind of anti-social behavior receives mutual
support (and thus becomes "social")—but was always subject to potential
reprisal by others, which presumably tends to discourage the practice of
blatant deception. In fact it was
common knowledge that this kind of behavior was most prevalent among the fisherman
from the largest port. This can be explained
by the more abundant and secure informational resources that are available to
these fishermen which tends to reduce their dependence upon the fleet as a
whole.
This segment
really marks the point where B and A now understand the identity
of all of the boats in the vicinity. B's
TM radar can now keep track of these identities by connecting the echoes with
line segments (on manual command from B) something he in fact labored to
do on this evening, I was later told.[5]
In this segment,
B makes the proposal that they set their trawl. This is formally his decision to make (since
he carries the trawl being set on this draw), but is never done
unilaterally. The proposal is clearly
prompted by the actions of Spartan (interpreted to mean that they plan to set
their own trawl). B spends some
time discussing the grounds for his decision by describing the state of the
sonar display (and the fish being represented). This talk appears to be directed at convincing himself as much as
anyone that the decision to set the trawl here is a good one. A is in agreement, and turns south to
check out what the others are setting on.
In this
segment, A turns his boat south and heads into traffic. Prior to this time, we had been on a straight
course out of the harbor (for the last 4 hours). During this time, A was able to leave untouched the
setting on the radar which gives him a consistent representation, with
consistent axes for constructing coordinates used to identify echoes. At 1:20:35 he adjusts the scale of his RM
radar in order to get a more accurate picture of local traffic. In the process (due to the turn—in which the
relative positions of boats on his screen all rotate—and to the scale adjustment—which
wipes out the traces of boat trajectories) A's means for identifying the
boats has been seriously eroded. B
is able to help A reestablish understanding of echo identities. B also pinpoints his location for A
in terms of a wreck which they both have loaded into their navigator data
bases, and which thus serves as a "local coordinate system" in this
instance. The task now, for A is
simply to wait until B has the trawl set in the water, and be there when
this is complete in order to hitch up the trawl and begin the draw.
It appears that
much of the decision about where to set the trawl is based in a very dynamic
process. There is no stable set of
articulated propositions which accurately capture the essential properties of the
activity here. Rather, deciding where
to set the trawl seems to depend on combining a few simple strategies with a
complex yet opportunistic information management process. This process revolves around a few key
instruments which aid in the organization and interpretation of the
situation. The activity also entails a
lot of communication between captains in order to promote understanding of the
situation which enables effective joint action. Finally, the activity is also organized by assumptions about the
social world that are a result of conventions for cooperating and expectations
of success based on experience.
Much of the
dialog between A and B is centered around identifying the actions
of other boats in the vicinity. These
boats are grouped together because of certain tacit agreements about the
productivity of mutual cooperation among the fleet. On the other hand, total cooperation among pairs is not possible
given the realities of each being an independent business with independent
ambitions, identities, and debt burdens.
Some social organization ties the boats together via collective
identity, shared experience, and political power. All of these fishermen share, for instance, a lifestyle and work
activity which unites them viz-a-viz other lifestyles and even other kinds of
fishing—they share a common practice and the resultant meanings of action in
it.
The very
general strategy for deciding where to set the trawl on this evening, and in
general, takes the form: (a) follow the pack and make sure it is never too far
away, (b) keep watch on all other pairs and evaluate their actions and reports
of where they are and what they are seeing, (c) develop one's own information
about the fish, perhaps by following up information received privately or by
searching waters off of the beaten trail of the pack. The actual implementation of these steps entails an elaborate
process of disambiguating who is who on the water, in order to evaluate where
the best fish is located. This process
of disambiguation appears (from the analyst's standpoint) to be largely a
matter of "binding" the identity of radar echoes in independently managed
representational fields—the two captains' radar displays. This process is both facilitated and made more
complex by the different representational capacities and access to information
of these devices, and these complications are reflected in the use of language
and interactive strategies which promote the necessary kinds of disambiguating
computations.
From the
fishermen's standpoint, the disambiguation process is simply a means to an
end—a good catch, brought about by a good choice in setting the trawl—and the
determination of who is where (brought about by "binding" echo blips to boat
labels) is only relevant insofar as it promotes the end. Captain's leave the bridge and do not hear
conversations, radar echoes disappear off the display screen and their
identities lost or confused, and maneuvers or turns complicate the
identification of which boats are where.
These captains have told me that more information is available than can
be managed (and more than needs to be
managed, many will tell you—after all, a small amount of information generates
a reasonable decision choice, i.e., set where the majority of boats are setting
their trawls.) Nonetheless, they are
all aware that better decisions are possible, that managing information is key
to making better decisions, and that the use of new strategies and technologies
plays an important role in achieving this goal.
Following other
boats' actions, however, has a long tradition in fishing on this coast. As described previously, prior to the
invention of mobile trawling techniques, far water herring fishing was almost
exclusively conducted in fleets of purse seine boats. The search for where to cast the seine was conducted manually,
with a leaded string dropped from the bow of a row boat launched from the main,
open-deck boat. Under these conditions,
collective fishing was essential. For
both safety reasons and effectivity, collective fishing was an important
strategy. It remains true that boats
searching a large body of water can fish more effectively by sharing
information. But the particular form of
this cooperation is shaped by cultural convention, economic trends, ecological
conditions, technology and cognitive mechanisms for organizing information,
evaluating it, and acting upon it.
In the analysis
above, every attempt was made to prioritize the activity itself, in order to
preserve as much of the nature of the activity as possible in the description
of events. Below an attempt is made to
distill out examples from the segments of activity which instantiate a series
of propositions about the nature of distributed cognition in this setting.[6] For each example a general question is asked
about each action: "What are the precursors and consequents of the
action?" The notion here is that
actors' behaviors are organized, and that this organization is evidenced in the
use and creation of resources which
facilitate and constrain action in time (see Figure 58).
Resources are
seen in their most general sense, as "structures"—organized bits of material
whose order makes a difference to an interpreter. Examples of kinds of resources in this sense include speech,
instrument displays, configurations of neurons or brain structures (also known
as knowledge, memory, or experience), water currents, and fish schooling
behavior. "Interpreter," as used in
this definition, is obviously a more general entity than "knowledgeable agent"
(or even "human agent") since a configuration of sound patterns or neurons may
be meaningless to someone (or everyone), yet meaningful to some other
interpreter. Although we are most
interested here in interpretations made by human agents, and particularly those
made by fishermen situated in this socio-cultural context, such interpretations
are not isolated from those of the machines and biological devices which support
the activity and produce resources for fishermen's actions. An interpreter, then, is any entity which
can utilize structure—that is, which is sensitive to the difference embodied in
the structure and which can act on that difference. Finally, cognition can be defined as acts of interpretation.[7] Cognition in this sense is clearly not
limited to the machinations of brains, nor is it exclusively the private domain
of individual (or even human) experience.
Human
cognition, I claim, is a phenomenon evidenced in the long loops of information
exchange (and the retention or learning of this traffic) which takes place when
human interpreters are confronted with situations which require drawing upon
and creating resources in order to accomplish goals. There is no reason to presuppose that this process is optimally
constructed—it is much less a product of logical design than opportunistic
adaptation. That is, goals in human
activity do not seem to specify an invariant, deterministic, or causal chain of
planned actions for their accomplishment.
Rather, the activities in which human cognition are actually embedded
appear to entail much more diverse and "shallower" (i.e., less contingently
linked in long chains of dependencies but more numerous and multiply linked)
sets of coordinations between interpreters and resources.
"Coordinations"
in this sense describe the relationships between an interpreter and the
resources which make up a situation or context. These relationships can only be known through action—that is, the
consequences of an interpreter acting in some context—but coordinations can
(assuming stability in both interpreter and situation) subsequently describe
these relationships in terms of the potentials
for action. Human cognition then,
built as it is upon many such
coordinations for accomplishing goals, exhibits a wealth of properties which
the classical view of cognition is unable to predict or make sense of,
including: the mediation of reasoning processes by external resources,
collaborative processes in reasoning and planning, and the cultural and social
processes which organize each of these.
To repeat, in
the analysis given below a general question is explored regarding each
action—"What are the precursors and consequents of the action?"—in order to
describe the sets of coordinations between actors' and resources and how these
structure the course of the activity.
Of course, many of these resources are inaccessible to us, they are
private meanings or known relations to an individual whose effects are beyond
the range of my recordings—possibly even internal to the actor—as a means of
reasoning about the situation. But much
of this reasoning can in fact by adduced from the repetitive nature of acting
in these situations, and the many public resources produced in support of the
activity.
It is clear
from the transcripts—and even clearer when one is on board and unfamiliar with
using radar to "see in the dark" or sonar to "see fish" below the surface of
the water—that most of the information field that informs captains' actions is
shaped by on board instruments. These
instruments are resources which are essential components of interpretations
made by the captains. The forms of
these resources—the ways in which
they represent—are important contributors to interpretations made and actions
taken by captains.
As previously
discussed, the primary difference between the radar devices employed by the two
boats of this pair is the way they represent the time course of objects which
are reflecting radar back to the sending ship.
A Relative Motion (RM) radar (such as employed by A on Sydö),
displays this information in coordinates that are exclusively relative to the
radar's host boat—the host boat is always depicted in the middle of this
representational field, with all other boats in range displayed (to scale) as
blips positioned about the boat as they would look by taking a low resolution
picture from above. That is, the photo
would show the host boat in the middle and—assuming the photographer is
oriented in the same direction as the host boat—the boat's direction is given
by dropping a perpendicular line from the top center of the picture (see Figure
40). The time course displacement of an
echo on an RM radar screen is therefore never solely determined by the
properties of the represented boat's motions, but is the result of the combined
properties of the movements of the host and
the denoted boat in question. The "trace"
function of the display allows one to see a history of this representational
format as a continuous sequence of relative changes in position of the denoted
foreign boats.
The effects of
this format on the cognitive activity are evidenced in a number of places in
the transcripts. In [2], A is
able to immediately determine that B has dropped off the pace and the
course of the pack because A is in the middle of the pack (and the
middle of the representation of the pack he is looking at) and the angle and
distance to "d" (the echo on A's screen representing B's boat)
has changed. A can immediately
determine that his own and B's courses are diverging, and that B
is now further away than he previously was, by simply noticing the changes in
spatial arrangement which are quite salient.
In [8] and [10], A is able to give accurate interpretations to
the movement of boats. These
interpretations are apparently difficult for B to make, since A's
observations are made in response to B's questions.
There are
probably three parts to the explanation of this distribution of problem solving
abilities: (1) A probably has his radar set to a smaller scale, as he is
in the middle of traffic and requires this scale to react to the movements of
boats in the vicinity;[8]
(2) for any boat within radar range, the representation of it's movement on the
RM radar display will be perceptually salient as a change in spatial
arrangement due to the relative coordinate system employed; (3) the "trace"
left behind by the boats on A's display show an accumulation of net
differences in velocity between A's boat and a foreign boat. These traces show the history of differences
in velocity between A and other boats quite clearly.
A True Motion
(TM) radar in North Up display mode (such as was generally employed on board
Nordö), displays the reflected radar signal in a fashion which enhances
readings in terms of the absolute coordinates of latitude and longitude. First of all, the representation is generally
overlaid with coordinate lines for easy interpretation of target objects'
absolute positions on the surface of the earth. Secondly, the host boat's heading (represented by a radial which
originates from the host boat's location at the center of the screen and which
rotates to yield ship's heading with respect to North Up) subjugates
interpretation to the coordinate system of the super-imposed framework—viz.,
latitudes and longitudes. Finally,
cursor information (i.e., the identification of points of interest in the
representational field) includes text which describes absolute coordinates as
well as relative coordinates. As a
result, I claim, the true properties of each boat's motions relative to the
coordinate system of latitudes and longitudes (and therefore independent of
other objects in the representational field—including the host boat) are very
salient.
Throughout the
transcribed activity, B deals almost exclusively in absolute coordinates
in his communications. Most of these
communications do not appear to be of much use to A, in general, since
his orientation to the information field is mediated by representations which
are strictly relative to his own position.
Throughout the transcribed activity this works quite well, since A
is situated in the middle of the majority of the boats of interest. However, [3] and [11], make it clear that B's
resources provide him with a better vehicle for tracking the boats further
north and, via information management, the identities of other boats. This is probably due to four different
factors: (1) B's boat is
further north, so this area is more salient to his understanding of the
situation and also brings these boats into view on his display; (2) B's
radar has more range and better resolution, making these more distant boats
more salient to him than A; (3) having a broader lense on the entire
"playing field" B appears to be able to deduce the identities of some echoes by counting out those he has
already identified from the total set he knows to be in the vicinity; and (4)
being able to relate heard absolute
coordinates to visualized representations
of boats positions (possible on a TM but not a RM radar), probably accounts for
B's enhanced ability to keep track of information about which boats are
which.[9]
Finally, [16]
makes it clear that when A finally does switch radar scales (thus
erasing echo traces on the display) and turns his boat off the heretofore
constant southwest heading (thus rotating the orientation of his radar
display), the absolute coordinates of B's position, offered up by B,
become potentially useful to A as well.
A's uncertainty in this situation can be reasonably attributed to
the fact that much of his frame of reference for interpreting the situation has
been lost and he must struggle with a radically different representation now
displayed on his RM radar for making sense of local traffic on the water (see
Figures 51 through 54). Even here,
however, A employs the identification of V/P's echo to infer B's
location, choosing not to make use of B's report given in absolute
coordinates. (The echoes of pairs of
boats are generally noticeably larger, and since V/P is the only known
pair in radar range this echo's identity is carried by its appearance as a
larger echo.) A then employs the
(relative) reference frame of his local representational field to reorient
himself to the situation—his understanding of which he confirms with B
in terms which are strictly relative to the three objects in question, viz.
their own two ships and the drawing pair V/P.
However,
representational form alone does not account for all of the performance in
captains' uses of radar. These
representations must be grounded in the meaning of the situation, as known
through repeated experience with similar and contrasting contexts, in order to
inform interpretations and actions.
In at least two
places in this short transcript ([3] and [10]), B transposes the
directions "east" and "west" in his speech.
In fact, B did this quite regularly throughout my experience with
the pair. One day he remarked on this
tendency of his, and claimed that switching coasts always confuses him. These boats fish on both sides of the
peninsula of land that is Sweden, a practice for west coast fishermen which
began in earnest following the closing of the North Sea to herring fishing in
the 1970's. In the 1980's, lucrative
cod fishing in the Baltic sea called for these fishermen to spend a majority of
the year fishing east of Sweden. But
despite where the fishing waters lie, the daily or weekly routine has a common
form in the following sense: the boats leave from Sweden for fishing waters and
return to Sweden to land their fish, resupply, change crew, or travel home.
B's
remark about his tendency to transpose east/west directions in his speech
embodies the importance of this regularity for his reasoning (or at least
communicating) about direction. When
heading out to fishing waters, it would appear that direction is conceptualized
by departure from home. The problem
comes from the fact that the act of "heading out" entails steering the boat in
two different (opposite) cardinal directions depending on whether one is
fishing in the Baltic Sea (east of Sweden and thus heading east) or the
Kattegatt/Skagerack straits (west of Sweden and thus heading west). Apparently this use of "home" to orient B's
sense of east/west direction would be employed throughout a night's fishing
even though the boats generally turn in many circles in the process. One way to make sense of this is that "home"
is a reference point that never "disappears" from one's sense of direction and
is employed to construct cardinal directions in speech. This construction process is hindered by the
fact that "home" is sometimes east and sometimes west of the boats. This explanation supports the notion that
reasoning in this particular context is learned via a wide loop of embodied
practice. That is, knowing about the
situation (i.e., grounding it in ways that can be used for communication and
reasoning) is a product of the reinforcement from habits which faithfully (as
required for the task at hand) inform actions.[10]
In [11] A
(correctly) infers from the situation, and the practice of heading out to
fishing waters, that the boat Spartan is in the local vicinity. Although A holds the general belief
that Spartan is south of him (he voiced this belief at 47:00 and pointed out to
me—with a very general wave of his hand—that Spartan was one of the echoes
south of us at 55:23), he has no recent evidence to shore up this
understanding. In support of his
belief, A cites Spartan's heading, which he must have heard prior to the
beginning of my recording, or possibly over the scanner in a transmission that
my recording missed. The point is A
reasons from an early statement of Spartan's southerly heading, his own
heading, a tenuously held identification of echoes represented to the south
and the fact that the pack has not
splintered apart, and concludes that Spartan is somewhere in the vicinity. This reasoning is clearly based on very
limited information about Spartan, extensive experience with the forms of boat
maneuvers in this situation, a kind of "external memory" in the radar display
which allows a tenuous identification to persist (lacking any evidence to the
contrary), and A's own participation in this situation in the current
context.
The basis for
coordinating with other captains is heavily dependent upon sharing the contexts
in which interpretations are made.
Thus, not only is shared experience with the forms required, not only
does this experience generate (internal) resources for manipulating the
meanings of representations, but the situation in which the communicatory acts
are embedded must also be shared in order to achieve effective communication.
V/P's
response to A's inquiry in [1], is given in terms that can only be interpreted by someone who knows
the general location of the boat— We are
north of those banks a little bit....
This low-information phrase may be consciously employed to restrict the
number of listeners who can make sense of the message. Without knowing that V/P is among the
pack—something one is unlikely to ascertain without being among the pack
oneself—the "banks" referred to are highly ambiguous. On the other hand, A, B, and undoubtedly V/P
as well, all share similar representational media which afford intersubjectivity—in
this case, the navigator displays show the 15 fathom depth curves which are
representations of "banks," and therefore provide essential resources for
making sense of V/P's speech (see Figures 38 and 39).
In [8], B
inquires about the direction "he" is setting, and A responds that B
will meet "him" soon. The problem of
identifying which pair they are taking about is transparent (to A and B)
due to their shared history of discussing the apparent activity of V/P. No other boats have been discussed as
setting, so the referent of these pronouns can only be V/P, and there is no breakdown in communication
despite the potential ambiguity of last explicitly referring to V/P some
10 minutes earlier ([4] 49:33). Since
that time, however, there have been several references to "his" activities in
this anonymous sense ([5] 53:00, [6] 56:12).
Styrsö, the
boat "g" to our south, calls in [12] to inquire if we are the boat going southeast here. A does not know (or at least, has
displayed no evidence that he knows) precisely where Styrsö is. A responds in the negative, stating
that it must be another boat and reporting his southwest heading as evidence in
support of his understanding. A
goes on to infer both the location of Styrsö and the identity of the boat
Styrsö is meeting. One way to interpret
A's reasoning is in his use of the context to infer that Styrsö is one
of the two boats that are coming quite close to each other. This may be reinforced by the content of the
query, certainly the fact that the unidentified boat is going southeast
identifies "a," but the question itself also indicates a close encounter, of
which there is only one represented on A's radar display (see Figure
42).
Once the
decision has been made to set the trawl, B let's A know where he
is located in [16] by giving approximate absolute coordinates. He elaborates further, that he is right over
a wreck and must wait until he is safely clear of it (and probably until he
understands the direction of the current so as not to drift back over it),
before he puts the trawl in the water.
This information communicates his location, because A shares with
B the location of this wreck, represented by a special symbol on the
navigator display. At this point, A
can merely locate his navigator cursor over this symbol and read off the
heading and distance required to reach B from wherever he happens to be
(see Figure 55). These mediating
resources greatly simplify the task of navigating one's way to another boat's
location on the water, and it is only possible because the interlocutors share
these resources and the context for using them.
On board
instruments do more than simply present information to be passively comprehended
by an interpreter. The radar and
navigator are interactive tools with which a captain works to generate
understanding of the current situation, project the future situation, and lay
down a history of actions which may support further actions.
As previously
described, the TM radar on board Nordö has the capacity to trace boats by the
operator manually requesting line segments to be drawn to the current position
of displayed echoes from positions earlier marked by the captain for these same
echoes.
(This is a process I call "fixing" boats on the TM radar. See Figures 45 and 46.) These echoes then become formally "bound" by
the system, in the sense that future positions can be fixed (again, manually)
and a label for the boat can even be entered into the radar's memory.[11] Beginning in [14] it appears that B
has reached a near complete understanding of the identities of all of the
echoes, and it is likely that his TM radar has now bound these echoes such that
boats' identities can be retrieved from the system regardless of the complexity
of their movements. B's command
of the situation is amply demonstrated in [14] and [16], where he is able to
correct A and help him understand the identities of boats in the
vicinity.
Also described
previously, was the utility of mouse- or key-controlled cursors on both of
these types of radar, as well as on the navigators employed. The navigator, it will be recalled, adds a
world of relevant resources (depth curves, draw histories, wreck locations,
etc) to the local situation. In [1], A
employs the cursor on his navigator to identify the relative location of the
"banks" referred to by V/P.[12] In [2], A uses the fact that B's
echo no longer lies under his pre-positioned cursor to immediately detect that
their two boats are no longer in the same relation to each other.[13] In [5], B employs the cursor on his
TM radar screen to identify the distance to A, an act he performs in
conjunction with the publication of his intention to close this gap.
In [10], A
is able to reason about the direction of a boat on the basis of a simple
relationship regarding boats which are under power in a small area for an
extended amount of time. A and B
are trying to reach agreement over the identity of an echo ("c") that has been
brought up for discussion by A as a boat that is "coming back"—that is,
which appears to be going in the opposite direction of their own southwest
heading, northeast. A reasons
that the boat cannot be going west (B's proposal) because then the boat
would have "met" his own. In the terms
of the practice, if two boats under power are in a small area for an extended
amount of time, it is understood that they will "meet" (cross paths) if going
southwest and west, but pass if going southwest and northeast. Since A's RM radar trace shows the
extended history of "c" as a line parallel to their own heading (originating in
the southwest), it is obvious to him that the boat in question cannot be going
in the direction proposed by B, a direction which implies crossing
rather than parallel trajectories. This
conclusion by A is further validated by B's observation of how
far astern "c" is of A—a state brought about by parallel (and opposite
heading), rather than crossing, trajectories.
(See Figure 50 for a schematic construction of this reasoning process.)
Finally, the
representations of on board instruments must be coordinated with other forms for interacting with other interpreters. That is, the utility of instrument
representations is constrained by other resources which mediate performance.
Some of this
coordination is performed automatically, by the instruments themselves. For instance, the navigator and TM radar
both receive inputs from the GPS receiver in order to plot the host boat's
position on the display. However, A's
RM radar does not integrate satellite positioning and radar information. Throughout this analysis, this fact (in it's
entailments regarding the nature of different resources available to the
captains in the form of different radar displays) is employed to make sense of
the activity.[14] However, many of the manipulations of local
representations must surface in mutually interpretable language-use in order for
captains to coordinate their actions.
Below, I discuss how language-use as a discourse process in this context
works. Here I mean to simply draw
attention to some of the ways language structure integrates with other
representations and their manipulations in support of captain's actions and
interpretations.
In [8] A's
language takes on an almost schizoid quality due to the jumping back and forth
between the referential spaces of (1) the radar display, and (2) the surface of
the local water. Often, these two
spaces can be harmlessly conflated—after all, talk about echoes is "really"
about the boats that they stand for.
But it is also often the case that captains' frameworks for interpreting
speech acts become disjoint, such that the speaker's representations must be
explicitly flagged as relating to local phenomena in order to enhance the
talk's interpretability by interlocutors with access to different
representations. Nowhere is this
clearer than when a local representation is bad at its source, as in this
segment and [9] as well, when false echoes appear on the radar display. In these cases the referent of "there" by
speaker can shift wildly back and forth between radar display and boat position
on the water, as a consequence of the need to "repair" one's speech following
discovery of the false echo. This
effort proceeds fluidly without any real problem in interpretability.
In [9] the use
of skära ("to cut") provides an
interesting instance of how language form coordinates well with the
representations which inform interpretation and action. When used to refer to a time-course
relationship between two boats, the construction containing this verb takes a
modifier such as "together," "apart," or "from" and denotes a state of affairs
between the trajectories of the referenced boats. In this sense, the verb is used to construct sentences which are
entirely compatible with the plan view representations of radar displays.[15]
Another
noteworthy use of language in the communications between captains—which seems
to entail much more practice-based sharing of experience—is evidenced in talk
about the sonar displays which represent fish and the nature of the ocean
floor. This language takes forms such
as: "some dots" (indicating an unexceptional quantity of fish), "real dots"
(indicating good fish), "thin shadow" (indicating sparse fish), "blue," "no
color," or "no tightness" (indicating properties of the display which signify
low density fish), etc. An experiment
to try and probe the distribution of sharing of this language usage was
conducted and is the subject of Chapter 5.
Here it should be noted that the instruments' representations which
constitute the basis for evaluating the situation play an important role in
shaping the form and content of the language used for communicating it.
The captains of
our pair rely heavily upon each other for coming to understandings of the
situations which accommodate reasoning about what to do next. This process can be called the "negotiation
of understanding" since it emerges from on-line discourse and reasoning between
the two captains. It has already been
mentioned how the situations of the two boats of the pair present different constraints upon each captain
interpreting the shared situation on the water. These differences arise from different coordinate systems, scale
settings, and resolutions of the respective radars; different locations of the
boats on the surface of the water and with respect to other boats and fish;
different roles of the boats based upon who is carrying the trawl and who is
paying more attention to the various sources of information; and different
experience, habits or practices of the captains involved. What has not been discussed is what effects
these differences have upon the negotiation of understanding or the actual
joint construction of the situations
and actions taken in them.
There are many
instances where the establishment of shared understanding forms the basis for
further reasoning. Some examples were
reported above in the use of discourse context to bind the value of ambiguous
referents such as "he" and "him" when A and B are conversing
about the setting pair V/P in [5], [6], and [8].
Over the course
of the entire transcript, the establishment of echo identities can be seen as
an incremental process of generating a useful (ideally, complete) understanding
of what each pair is doing. As each
echo is given an identity, the problem is simplified by the reduction of
possibilities for the labelling of unknown echoes. On a finer time scale, perhaps during the course of a few turns
at speaking, one of the most fundamental bedrocks for further collaborative
reasoning by A and B is the mutual understanding of the echoes
representing each others boats. Conversations between A and B
which entail inferences or queries nearly always include the establishment or
reestablishment of where each other are located in the
representational field which they then proceed to discuss or reason about. In fact, the extent to which their discourse
employs the locations of each other, in order to ground the references to other
boats in their discourse, suggests the use of the two boats' locations as fundamental
axes in this reasoning process.
Thus, in [1] A
uses the location of B to refer to the "bank" and the setting pair (V/P). In [2], B makes use of the fact that A
has a boat directly astern to identify him on his radar screen. In each of these cases, the structure of the
situation is utilized to give useful information that simplifies the problem of
disambiguating the representational field.
That each others boats constantly enter into this reasoning problem can
not be accounted for solely by uncertainty about where the two boats are
located. For example, in [3] B
is explicitly interested in the identity of a boat which lies just off of the
imaginary line that can be drawn between himself and A. Likewise in [4], B is interested in
the identity of the boat just south of A. In [8], B appears to have lost track of which echo is V/P,
but A provides this information in his response that he expects B
to "meet him soon." B
immediately grasps the intended reference because there is only one boat that
is clearly on a collision course with him.
Finally in [16] A, having turned his boat and lost his bearings
on the representational field (due to the resultant rotation of his RM radar
screen), inquires about B's location viz-a-viz V/P (an identity he
can determine from echo shape) as a mechanism for reorienting himself to the
new display.
The forms of
communication are also constrained by such things as: the social relations
between captains, the conventions of sharing information between pairs and
sharing work between crews of a pair.
As mentioned previously, fishermen of this area are famous for what has
been called their "communistic" traditions of sharing authority,
responsibility, labor, and profits, and their general efforts to treat each
other as "equals." While this is
acknowledged to be an only partially realized (and realizable) state of
affairs, it does play a role in shaping the general fisherman ethos and
provides some specific constraints upon actions.
Between
captains of the pair, the fisherman ethos translates into maintaining a lot of
respect for each others points of view, and avoiding being aggressive about
ones own. I would argue that this is
played out in a style of discourse that minimizes the explicit planning of
actions by decree or formula, and emphasizes an ongoing discussion about the
situation which comes to a head as the constraints of time, what fish is being
seen, and what other boats are doing, all become real.
An example of
toning down a "command" for action is given in [2]. Here A, following what appears to be an interruption of
his own imperative to send B to a certain location of water, repairs his
speech to suggest that B lay
back behind the others (presumably to cover their bets in case the waters
further south do not look profitable).
The latter proposition leaves the imperative implicit in a collaborative
strategy and is, I would argue, interpreted to be less offensive. Similarly, in [1] A interrupts his
own direct expression of point of view—that they should be heading toward where
V/P are setting (south)—to confirm (i.e., point out) that V/P are
southwest of B (and by implication of the fact that B is so far
northwest of the pack, quite a bit southwest). Again, the imperative is more implicit in
the latter speech act as a kind of illocutionary force rather than a bald claim
about how they should proceed.
In [15], the
captains reach the understanding that they are now going to set the trawl. This decision is formally B's to
make, since it is his turn to set his trawl, i.e., he carries the trawl that is
being set and he takes on the social status of being the one "in charge" of
this draw. In fact, his decision to set
the trawl is presented as an option for discussion, and this is typical (to
greater and lesser extents) of all such decisions. In reality, this decision has largely already been made by the
ongoing discussion of evaluating what one is seeing, both in terms of fish and
monitoring the other boats. The
constraints of time, following a series of actions based upon these ongoing
evaluations, do not leave the captains with many alternatives in this case.
The social
constraints placed upon discourse are obviously not limited to the between-boat,
"private" conversations of the pair, but are also important factors in the form
of between-pair conversations. Since these conversations are public to all
pairs, they are highly uniform in their attention to conventional details. These details are not necessarily
consciously acted out schemes of communication, but rather appear to take on
general properties due to three kinds of constraints: (1) what is asked of one,
(2) what one knows, and (3) what one feels compelled, or wants, to say.
These three
kinds of constraints get acted out in what I came to realize were fairly
"stock" routines—well practiced, even canned, responses. But as with most of the cognitive activity
in this context, they do not instantiate a master plan of "cooperation" or
"deception." Rather, they are recipes
for resolving the conflicting issues at stake: baldly put, one cannot ask the
world of another unless one is in a position to reciprocate (and intends to do
so now and in the future), and one cannot lie through one's teeth if one
expects to get good information in the future.[16]
The way these
issues play out has a lot to do with how much a pair's captains depend upon the
other pairs. Our own pair had only weak
ties to the rest of the fleet, many of whom were from one large port and shared
a common identity which extended to land-based activities and institutions such
as kinship and religion. The captains
of our pair were much more in the category of "followers," as they themselves
acknowledged, and this is probably largely determined by the extent of one's
informational resources among the other pairs.
Although one captain of our pair insisted (when I asked) that
information was equally shared among all teams, others were much more forthright
about their distrust of some (unspecified) teams.
[13] exhibits
some of the properties of the discourse that takes place between pairs of the
fleet. Most often, this discourse
entails queries about where a boat is and what the captain is seeing for fish. In this case, the discussion is initiated
over the need to negotiate a passing maneuver.
The discussion turns however, as it inevitably always does, into probes
about each captain's intentions regarding not merely the current maneuver but
the state of each other's fishing operation.
In this case, this involves questions about the upcoming draw, including
discussion about what each knows about this particular area of water.
The revelation
that Spartan (call the captain Sp) is slowing down in [13], implies one
of two things: either (1) they are preparing to set their trawl, or (2) they
are slowing to "look" more carefully at the sonar returns which indicate fish
at their location and, at this time of night in this context, giving evidence
of their intention to set their trawl.
Styrsö's captain (call him St) makes his interest in this
behavior explicit by joking about how it's
not good enough to slow down over here.
Even though the two boats are quite close to each other (less than .5 nm
apart), St is commenting that the fish do not look very good where he
is. With this speech act St is
simultaneously joking about Sp's competence, flirting with the tabu
against disinformation, and perhaps also making a pun about the danger of being
casual (letting up the push)
regarding one's pursuit of business. Sp
responds that it is quite O.K. to be letting up where we are—continuing the play on their different locations and
differential business successes.
Finally, in a
more serious tone, the discussion turns to probes about intentions for the
upcoming draw. Spartan has been out in
front of the pack ("a") and has turned back to their current location on a
southeast course. St asks about
what was seen up ahead, but can infer from Spartan's backtracking that it
wasn't great, so his question is not entirely relevant. St proposes that the fish could be
south, but Sp downplays this option based on his experience there from
the previous night. This opinion is
appended with a common form of disclaimer, "you never know, it can change," or
"it can move," referring to the continually shifting location of the main
schools of herring. In fact, these 2
speech acts can be used to hide one's intentions, mislead others, and deny
responsibility for the quality of reports: fish that move a lot can never be
used as evidence against someone's report because the fish could be there at
the time of the report and then be gone at the time of verification.
Another general
speech act exhibited here is the stock phrase it is something, referring to the amount of fish seen. This line is also used as a kind of hedge on
the evaluation. If one is very negative
about the amount of fish one is seeing, there would be something to answer for
if one actually brings a decent quantity of fish (perhaps even the most for the
night) in to port on the next day. On
the other hand, if one were to overrate the fish seen, one faces embarrassing
consequences from other pairs which may come to fish the region or even from
one's own crew, whose expectations might become inflated. On board one's own ship, the same phrase is
often employed as a kind of "positive thinking" meant to keep spirits up in the
face of disappointing returns.
It is clear
that the management of information by the pair is distributed between the
captains of the pair, each in his respective local situation. A captain's job at the helm is long and
often tedious. Interruptions by trips
to the galley, TV watching, trips to the toilet, conversations with crew
members, fatigue, and other local circumstances all lead to information which
might have helped, slipping by unnoticed.
Yet, collectively the pair's knowledge is impressively resilient to
error and inattention, and is "generative" in the sense that its distribution
produces effects which are not possible by simply "sharing" knowledge.
In [8], it
appears that B has lost track of which echo is V/P, but A
is able to point out that this pair is on a collision course with B,
quickly disambiguating the situation for B. In [9], when B tells A where he thinks A is located (in absolute coordinates given by his
TM radar), A responds with a fix of his own position slightly to the
southeast of this. B then
concludes that his radar display was showing a false echo, something he may
have verified by changing scale or gain on the radar. (See Figure 56 for a reconstruction of this event.) In [10], B's mistaken description of
the course of a boat is corrected by A's reasoning (and local
representations) about the situation.
(See Figure 50 for a reconstruction of this event.)
In [11], A
returns to the bridge following a trip to the galley for a snack. While he was gone, he missed a conversation
on the public channel which B draws upon to inform A about the
locations of a few boats that are unaccounted for. B also brings up Spartan's location for discussion,
apparently having heard them (over his scanner) talk about how they were on the square [long/lat square] where
we were yesterday. A then
counters that Spartan had a heading similar to his own earlier on, which means
they should be in the vicinity now. B
then apparently hears for himself (on his scanner) that this is in fact the
case.
B comes
to the waypoint in [11] which he created upon hearing A's report of fish
earlier (see 52:16). My own data do not
show that B ever actually crosses
our own path (see Figure 57), which supports the notion that B is really
talking about crossing the same depth
curve of A's report. My
hypothesis is that he actually reaches a location northwest of where A
saw fish, due to the northeast/southwest orientation of depth curves here. The point is that B is able (whether
he does so in this instance or not) to employ A's observation in a
manner which doesn't simply duplicate his own observation but augments it: two observations along the same depth curve give convincing
evidence for the productivity of drawing the trawl along this line. This kind of inference cannot be made from
one observation alone.
[14] exhibits a
case, I believe, where the captains already share the same understanding
of the situation, but their communication of that understanding is hampered by
a speech error on A's part.
However, since understanding of the situation is now largely shared—in
the sense that collective understandings do not permit the propagation of
erroneous statements—the error is easily caught and rectified.
It has been
mentioned in several contexts that the conversation between captains of this
pair entails grounding the referents of speech in conceptual entities which
they share or are able to construct on-line in order to communicate with each
other. Much of this behavior exhibits
the notion of "taking the perspective of the other" in order to simplify the
problem of establishing shared meaning.
In [1], A
is trying to establish the location of the setting pair V/P. He was told by V/P that they are north of those banks which is not very
informative. A does know where B
is (relative to himself, as represented on his radar display) and he checks his
understanding of V/P's response with B by speaking of the
position of V/P relative to B. This is a kind of proposition that is quite
easy for B to respond to, since it represents the problem from his own
perspective. In [2], B uses A's
situation, and the information from his radar display (There's one right behind you?), to verify his understanding of A's
position. Later in this segment, A
proposes a course of action for B with speech which begins to frame the
problem from A's perspective (just
north of where we went this evening) but then shifts to reframe the speech
in terms of B's own perspective (or
you can lie back of the others, huh?).[17] In [3] and [10], B uses his and A's
locations to construct an imaginary line for referring to an unknown boat (who is north of you there, between you and
me, a little bit east/westward?).
In [4], B uses A's location to ask him about the identity
of an echo south of A which appears to be "still," suggesting it is the
pair V/P which was previously reported to be setting and is therefore of
great interest to the captains.
Other examples
of this kind of grounding the referents of speech (echoes on a speaker's radar
display) in the situation relative to the listener can be found in [9], [11],
[12], [14], and [16].
A's
reasoning about local traffic in [10] can only be accounted for by the fact
that his references to the boats in question project the situation from B's
perspective rather than his own. These
boats are clear of his own boat, and yet the discourse is couched in the
problematic of where these boats are headed and how one should maneuver to stay
clear of them. At the end of [10], B
performs the reverse operation in coming to agree with A's analysis of
"c's" heading. His statement, it looks that way, considering how far
astern he is, only makes sense using A's location as the point of
reference for describing the position of "c"—this boat is still out in front of
B. Likewise, in [8], A's
response to B's query about the location of V/P is, you are meeting him soon, aren't you? This reference appears to be immediately
understood by B. In fact, it is
hard to imagine a more direct mechanism for communicating the location of V/P
than the one exhibited in this exchange.
There is also a
much more basic sense in which "taking the perspective of the other" is at work
in the discourse. When one of the
captains reports upon the fish he is seeing on his sonar display, the intended
effect (and the observed effect) is that the report generates a set of shared
meanings about the state of affairs underneath the reporting captain's boat,
along with a set of expectations about actions to take on this
information. In this case the
"perspective-taking" is simply built into the choice of description actually
employed by the speaker. These
descriptions are not random, but rather (presumably) carry content which
enables the listener to "see" the described state of affairs from where he is situated. It may be that these descriptions are so
well-learned that consideration of the listener in one's speech is not
implicated. However, I suspect that the
sharing of content in this domain is patterned by a listener's experience with
who is speaking, and thus perspective-taking is a product of the shared
experience and shared situation by which words are given meanings. Chapter 5 represents an attempt to
investigate this hypothesis further.
Communication
serves more functions than simply to create multiple copies of a representation
of the situation. An under-appreciated
aspect of communication is the cognitive effects which are not captured by the
analytic notion of "representation"—these effects are not represented in the
content of the message nor directly in the semantic interpretation of the
message's meaning. Speech acts provide
an example of such a phenomenon—illocutionary forces are cognitive effects that
are not explicitly carried in the message or necessarily implicated in standard
meanings evoked by the message. Instead
they are effects which are generated by evaluations performed by the
interlocutors in the given discourse situation.
Certainly many
of these evaluations are based on experience or assumptions known to the
interlocutors at some level of consciousness, and therefore can be said to
entail "shared knowledge" of some kind. For instance, the illocutionary force of a speech act is
generally "expected" by the speaker and it is plausible to argue that
this expectation is somewhere represented in the speaker's mind if not the
message. Other cognitive effects of communication
appear to be strictly products of the discourse process and it is difficult to
claim that they are represented by the interlocutors at all—they appear to be consequents of the discourse rather than
material causes of it (although these effects then contribute to the discourse
in an ongoing cycle of causality).
In this final
section of the analysis, I examine several properties of the discourse which
appear to have effects upon individuals' behaviors which are not directly
attributable to the contents of what is said or known. In particular, captains' attention and
reasoning processes appear to be driven in many cases by the acts of speaking and listening rather
than the information that is carried in the speech. Furthermore, not all of this phenomenon can be explained by
"shared knowledge" which often does afford communication in the face of low
information content in speech.
We have seen
how local representations, provided by instruments on the bridge, are
fundamental to formulating an understanding of the situation which allows for
reasoning and planning possible courses of action. These instruments create such representations continuously, and yet they are only
attended to and evaluated intermittently. One factor which accounts for this pattern
of attending is the discourse itself—the act of engaging in the discourse
(responding or offering information) requires
that one attend to information that would otherwise go unnoticed.
In [2], A
is on the cellular phone to his wife when B's call is received,
directing his attention to his instruments and causing A to evaluate
what they are representing in the terms of his speech.
[3] provides an
interesting sequence of three exchanges which exhibit the way discourse directs
attention: (a) A opens the
discussion with a reference to his public conversation (in [1]) with V/P,
you heard he had set there, huh?
; (b) B responds with
information (heard on the scanner) that the boat Spartan has passed up the area
in which V/P are setting (because there was nothing to see); (c) This
leads A to check his sonar display because he believes Spartan is
directly south of him. The argument is
that the causal linkages between (a), (b), and (c) reside in the acts of
carrying on a specific kind of dialog as much as they reside in the contents of
the messages being communicated. In
(a), A does not believe that B missed his conversation with V/P,
rather he is probing B for information which may promote joint
decision-making about what to do. B
obliges, in (b), by informing A that Spartan passed the area up. This fact leads A, in (c), to attend
to the sonar display himself.
In [5], B
asks A if he understands which way V/P are drawing. It appears (see Figure 40, which was shot
almost 3 minutes later) that heretofore A has not had the
"trace" mode selected on his RM radar. If he did have it
selected A would probably have some information available that would
address B's question. Since 3
minutes later there is evidence that
the "trace" mode was only recently selected (see the short traces of
Figure 40) it is possible that B's question prompts A to turn
this mode on at this time.[18] Assuming this scenario is true, it is a case
where an inability to answer a question posed in the discourse leads to an
action which anticipates the usefulness of being able to answer this question
in the future.
The ongoing
dialog between the captains entails formulating and expressing held beliefs,
and submitting these for evaluation to both oneself and the listener. They are submitted to ones self because the
beliefs may be only inchoately held impressions, some in contradiction with
each other, which nonetheless are the basis for sophisticated reasoning
processes when brought together with other constraints provided by new
information.
Throughout much
of the transcribed activity, A holds the belief that the lead boat of
the pack (echo "a" on his radar display) is the boat Viking. However, this belief is not seriously
asserted nor challenged until [11]. A
returns to the bridge after a brief period away and states that this belief may
be wrong because he has been away and
has not been attending to the situation on the water. At this point, he marshals additional evidence from his own
memory (possibly something he heard earlier, before my recording began) that
Viking probably has a more northerly
course. The point is that these
contradictory (but simultaneously held) beliefs are not brought into
juxtaposition until this point in time, as a result of the discourse about the
situation, and possibly due to A's willingness to reexamine the
coherence of his beliefs due to his short absence from the scene.
Later in [11], B's
inquiry into the location of Milton, Spartan's companion boat, leads A
to reason about Spartan's location. A
has held the belief that Spartan is one of the boats south of him since at least
55:25 when he labelled the boats for me in a very general way, pointing to the
area south of us where two echoes were displayed to identify Spartan's
location. A received support for
this belief when, in [3], B reports that Spartan has just passed up the
waters in which V/P are setting (another echo south of A), citing
their overheard claim that there was
nothing to see. And yet now, in
[11], B maintains that Spartan is somewhere up north, this time citing
their overheard claim that they were on
the square [lat/long square] where we were last night. Whether B can be said to hold
contradictory beliefs in this case, or whether he is confused or has forgotten
or never fully understood the implications of his first citation, is not
clear. However, it is only the
juxtaposition of these data with A's own reasoning (i.e., arguing that
Spartan must be in the vicinity) which brings the ambiguity into focus for B. Seconds later, B hears independent
evidence over the scanner to corroborate A's view. The point is that such evidence often
abounds, but is only conclusive when a number of constraints are applied
simultaneously, as often results from the ongoing dialog.
In [9], B
raises for discussion two boats which appear to have come together and remained
together, a sure sign that they are a pair setting their trawl. Although A responds in agreement,[19]
the following discussion leads B to discover that he was seeing a double
echo next to A, which explains his observation as a false representation
of his display (see Figure 56).
Although this error was possibly discovered by the content of what A had to say (perhaps communicating his
position fix revealed that the echo B thought was A was in fact
not A), the discovery could only occur via actions which brought the issue
into focus. Those boats which appeared
to be setting required attention,
thus the query, the attempt to fix A's position, and the discovery of
the false echo.
Finally, in
[12], A is confronted with a situation which challenges his
understanding, giving him the opportunity to reevaluate some inconsistently
held beliefs in the face of new information.
When the boat Styrsö calls, it is—I have speculated—due to the situation
represented on A's radar display (in combination with the call itself)
which allows A to identify Styrsö's location. A then ventures that the unknown boat in question might be
Spartan, which turns out to be correct.
Although it is not possible to claim with certainty what leads A
to this proposal, it seems reasonable that since A believes (or has been
recently told) that Haken and Spartan are two other boats south of him (see
1:10:03, and 1:11:58), and since Haken and Styrsö belong to the same pair and
would not find themselves in this situation unaware of each others location,
the unknown boat could well be Spartan.
This hypothesis would also fit with A's voiced skepticism about
his belief that the identity of "a" (Spartan) is Viking (see 1:09:41). Again, the dialog appears to generate information
that is nowhere explicitly represented in the content of what is said (nor,
arguably, in what is believed). Rather
the dialog creates a context which leads individuals to examine beliefs and
reformulate the coherence of those propositions which are articulated and
published with other resources available to them.
Much of the
"planning" which takes place in this activity takes the form of evaluating the
current situation in the context of what is known, thus highlighting certain
features. By vocalizing these
evaluations, one publishes one's understanding of the situation at hand. However, publishing evaluations is not
simply an act of information dissemination.
Publishing an evaluation is an act which is intended—it represents only
one of many possible such evaluations—and interpretations of this particular act usually infer intentional
content. The speech is not only about something, but it is produced by a
speaker with the listener and their joint situation in mind. On the other hand, to the extent that the
situation itself is unclear, or that "what is known" is jointly constructed or
directed by the discourse processes themselves, it cannot be the case that
speakers' intentions entail a grand design for action. It should be clear that much of what the
captains "know" is in fact a product of collective reasoning over an extended
period of time. It also appears that
the generation of plans for action are constructed in the course of ongoing
evaluations about the situation at hand and the inferred possibilities which
they present.
In [1], A
is concerned about the setting pair V/P. A setting pair provides important evidence for the productivity
of the local fishing waters. A
suggests that they turn south (toward V/P), first explicitly (maybe we should take a more southerly
course) and then implicitly by means of evaluating the situation at hand in
terms of B's own perspective (if
he's setting now on those banks, he is southwest of you, huh?). In the process of coming to agree on the
location of V/P the two captains have put the possibility of setting
their own trawl in this area on the table for consideration. No explicit plan for action has been
formulated, but understanding the situation now entails the (collectively)
conscious possibility that the pair may want to set here. This intention appears to be behind A's
suggestion in [2] that B hang behind the pack in case this turns out to
be the most promising water.
In [3], A
asks B if he had heard that V/P has set. In fact, A is reminding B about the situation at hand and reopening this
topic for further discussion. B
informs A that Spartan decided to pass the area by. This is important information because,
unless V/P intend to draw to some other area where they know there is
good fish, the evidence provided by the setting pair (for the productivity of
these waters) is now neutralized by the explicit rejection of this area by
another boat. Again, the "plan" for
action materializes in the evaluations of the situation at hand. The same topic is discussed when A is
able to see for himself the fish V/P are setting on in [4]. A's evaluation here, that these are
not real dots, reinforces the
heretofore implicit decision to pass up this area and continue southwest with
the pack.
In [5], A's
rather enthusiastic report of fish (countering his report in [4]) leads B
to respond that I'm coming for [aiming
for] you, then we'll see. This is a
pretty strong commitment on B's part.
He apparently marks A's location on his navigator and later
reports on this spot, or at least this same depth of water further north
(1:09:25, see Figure 57). Both here (in
[5]) and later (in [8]), B raises the question of V/P's heading
for discussion. It appears that these
questions are meant not only to obtain from A a representation of the
pair's heading, but an evaluation of V/P's course of action. That is, B's questions are intended
to generate evaluations of V/P's actions—precisely where V/P are
headed is not only a matter of ambiguous representation on the radar, but is
also a matter of planning where A and B should be setting their
own trawl.[20]
In [10], the
captains' joint reasoning about the headings of boats in the vicinity generate
an appropriate course of action, in this case maneuvers to avoid the threat of
a collision. Again, the "plan" is
really just a description of what is known that is jointly constructed from
evaluations of the state of affairs in the given situation. The appropriate actions to take are
themselves embedded in this description—they do not exist as a separate set of
contingencies.
Finally, the
actual decision to set the trawl itself takes the form of an evaluation of the
situation by B in [15]. B
reports that Spartan is setting and begins something of a summary of the
situation, a proposal for setting the trawl based on evaluating what he is
seeing. At this point in the evening,
with no obvious alternatives within reach the decision has largely already been
made for them.
[1]The crew composition, it will be recalled, is usually based on a rotation such that one or two men are off each week. For a boat with only two captains, this poses a particular problem since with only one captain on board he is in charge of the helm for virtually the entire trip.
[2]This marginalization is due to a complex combination of factors, including those differences just mentioned. In general, the culture here has something of a "youth bias," where the energy of younger fishermen is viewed as essential to the success of a team and a fishing community. The older captains, however, hold the reigns of authority through experience, tradition, and wisdom about many of the business aspects of the enterprise.
[3]My tape had just begun rolling, so I have no record which would resolve the question of the origins of this belief in A.
[4]Although there is no way for me to know for certain what modes B has selected, in my experience on board Nordö, North Up and Lats/Longs On were generally the modes employed on the radar display during this kind of searching activity. Throughout this study I have referred to this setup as True Motion (TM) radar. B's continual use of absolute coordinates provides good evidence that these assumptions about the modes in use on Nordö are valid.
[5]When I inquired about possibly getting a picture of this record, I was told that, "unfortunately, the old man (C) failed to continue this effort when he was at the helm later in the evening."
[6]Here the reader is advised to refer to the above segment synopses first, then the original transcript, if additional context for the point being made is required. In the analysis which follows, "segments" from the transcripts are identified by their number being enclosed in square brackets. Thus Segment 5 is denoted "[5]".
[7]It should be noted that "symbols" in this framework are resources which, via interpreters, "stand for" other resources. Thus the linkage between symbolic functions and cognitive functions can be operationalized in this framework. It should also be noted in what follows that "interpretations" are taken to be "actions" of a certain kind. That is, in the general sense, an "interpretation" is an act of reasoning brought about by the effects of an interpreter's uses of structures which make a difference.
[8]A's radar was set to a scale of 3nm during this period. This gives him coverage of the waters 4nm straight ahead, and 3nm in the other three directions. The scale setting of B's radar cannot be known for certain, but it has a much larger range and better resolution in general.
[9]It should be added that although both Sydö and Nordö were equipped with scanners for listening in on other boats' conversations, the Nordö captains were much more adept at effectively employing it. This is probably accounted for by three different but not independent factors: (1) the scanner on board Nordö appeared to be of higher quality, (2) the captains of Nordö appeared to take more interest in this activity, and (3) the TM radar is much better suited for employing this information in a useful way.
[10]The fact that this pair had recently (5 weeks earlier) returned to the west coast from two months of pair-trawling in the Baltic may have amplified the effect on B at this time.
[11]I never saw this labelling actually performed, although it is possible that it was done—possibly even on this night. The "bound" echoes are automatically labelled by numerical sequence (i.e., "Boat 1", "Boat 2", etc.), and this may be enough (in conjunction with the boat trajectories or line segments themselves) to promote understanding of the identities without explicitly entering labels (e.g., "Spartan," "Sydö," etc.).
[12]The text field identifying the location of this cursor computes the relative heading and distance from the host boat to the position occupied by the cursor on the navigator's display (see Figure 38).
[13]On A's RM radar, simply leaving this cursor alone thus generates information (over time) about the course of actions. By moving the cursor back on top of B's echo, A again sets up the conditions for utilizing this resource again in the future. (For an example of this kind of "automatic computation," compare Figures 40 and 41.)
[14]Neither boat's radar is equipped to integrate digital sea chart information with radar, thus the need for a stand alone navigator to perform manipulations with this information.
[15]We have a similar usage of "cut" in American English, meaning to diverge sharply from or converge rapidly into a line, trajectory, or culturally organized region or entity. For example, "I cut into the second lane", "He cut back the other way." Interestingly, the following more abstract usages are also consistent with this general meaning: "They always cut class" and "No cutting the line."
[16]This description of the activity as heavily influenced by needing to resolve the conflicts of competition and cooperation should not lead one to believe that this issue determines the cognitive activity in this setting. In fact, the issue is very much subordinate to the much more immediate concerns of catching fish and the steps which need to be taken to accomplish this, as the majority of this analysis attempts to show.
[17]Even though the latter phrase can be interpreted to be frame of reference independent of B—i.e., "behind the others" is "behind the others" regardless of point of view—I claim (see above) that this rewording constitutes a speech act that carries illocutionary forces regarding A's designs for B. The argument here is that in reconfiguring his speech to more implicitly code the imperative in a framework of cooperative planning, A shifts to B's own perspective in his speech.
[18]The evidence for this speculation is better than it at first seems. The length of V/P's trace generated between point fix 1 and point fix 2 is proportionally the same (.63 nm in 5 1/3 minutes) as that generated between this event and point fix 1 (.3 nm in 2 2/3 minutes). Assuming that the boat speeds of V/P and Sydö are fixed throughout this period, then the turning on of the trace function took place in the general vicinity of the event under discussion here, at 53:00.
[19]This response by A can only be explained by his attention being directed to some other pair of boats which he thinks meet the description B offers. The most plausible pair of boats are "b" and "c" which have indeed come quite close to each other at this point.
[20]By the same token, it should be acknowledged that A's expressed lack of knowledge about V/P's activity may well encode the meta-message, "what they are doing does not concern us."