29.573
Winter 2002
N. Artemeva
Activity theory
A theory that provides us with the framework for the investigation of
patterns of intellectual teamwork both in the workplace (e. g.,
Galegher, Kraut, & Egido, 1990; Engestrom, 1992; Engestrom & Middleton,
1996) and in the university classroom (e. g., Engestrom, 1990, 1987;
Salomon, 1993) is activity theory, based on ideas expressed by Vygotsky
(1986; 1978) and developed in a variety of studies (e. g., Engestrom,
1987; Leont’ev, 1981; Russell, 1997; Wertsch, 1991). The unit of
analysis within the framework of this theory includes both the
individuals within an activity and the individuals’ “culturally defined
environment” (Cole, 1981). AT provides a theoretical framework for
tracing the ways in which people change or stay the same, individually
and collectively, as they move within and among various culturally
defined environments.
The cultural-historical theory of activity originates with the group of
Russian psychologists led by Vygotsky. According to Vygotsky (1978, p.
40), human psychological function is best represented as a mediated
structure. From this base, Vygotsky's students, A. N. Leont'ev and A. R.
Luria, subsequently developed the set of ideas that came to be called
Activity Theory. According to Leont’ev (1981), a study of any activity
involves three levels of analysis: activities (distinguished on the
basis of their motive and the object they are oriented toward); actions
(distinguished on the basis of their goals); and operations
(distinguished on the basis of the conditions under which they are
carried out). The mediated structure of human activity is often
represented as a triad consisting of the subject, the object, and the
mediating artifact, a culturally constructed instrument that can be a
tool or a symbol system (Engestrom, 1987). This triad, often depicted as
a triangle, represents relationships among the subject (either an
individual or a group), who seeks to fulfill goals or motives through
actions (for an individual) or through activity (for a group), through
the use of mediating artifacts (tools, machines, concepts, theories,
genres, logical reasoning, signs, gestures).
Activity theory considers human behavior in terms of activity systems,
i.e., "goal-directed, historically situated, cooperative human
interactions, such as a child's attempt to reach an out-of-reach toy, a
job interview, a ‘date’, a social club, a classroom, a discipline, a
profession, an institution, a political movement, and so on" (Russell,
1995, p. 53). Objects within an activity system are not constructed
arbitrarily; rather, they are constructed under the influence of
"historically accumulated collective experience, fixated and embodied in
mediating artifacts" (Engestrom, 1990, p. 108). Further, activity does
not exist without a motive; there is always some need that impels the
activity. However, the subjects involved may not necessarily be able to
formulate this motive in explicit language. Activities that seem
"unmotivated" to an observer are not necessarily activities without a
motive; rather, the motives of such activities are subjectively or
objectively concealed (Leont'ev, 1981)
Engestrom (1987) expanded Leont'ev's basic mediational triangle to a
larger activity system, including Rules, Community and Division of Labor
as nodes of an expanded triangle. He suggested that the triadic
structure of the basic mediational triangle (person-artifact-task, or
subject-tool-object) should be extended to account for the socially
distributed and interactive nature of human activity.
Engestrom (1989) describes activity as being realized in the form of
individual goal-oriented actions. However, it cannot be reduced to the
sum of such actions. Actions are discrete, whereas an activity is a
system of collective practice based on its inner division of labour.
Different and often conflicting individual views on the motive and the
object are united within an activity system. Activity systems are
complex formations in which tensions, contradictions, disturbances, and
"local innovations are the rule and the engine of change" (Cole &
Engestrom, 1993, p. 8).
If we examine the principles of rhetorical genre studies from the
perspective of activity theory, we will see that genres for long-time
participants in a certain activity system (i. e., members of a certain
community of practice) become operationalized with time. However, for a
newcomer “the writing of such genres is an effort of deliberate,
goal-directed action, an effort which with growing familiarity with the
reading and writing practice of that activity system, will eventually
become operationalized [sic]” (Dias, 2000, p. 18). Adopting the activity
theory perspective in the research into learning trajectories in student
acquisition of domain-specific strategies (i. e., genres) allows us to
trace the development of students’ mastery of domain-specific genres
from action to operation within one activity system. The AT perspective
also illuminates the challenges that students have to deal with when
moving from one activity system to another.