Discursive tuning: The case of digital environments

Abstract

This paper introduces discursive tuning as a new commognitive notion for analyzing how students engage with a digital environment and react to unexpected responses they receive from it. Discursive tuning provides a theoretical tool for describing changes in students’ discourse in response to commognitive conflicts arising during their activity with the digital environment. We discuss the notion’s analytical capacity through some episodes from a study in which upper secondary students interact with the dynagraph of the function f(x)= 1/x. Our analysis identifies specific cases of discursive tuning that occur when students attempt to include into their discourse narratives that are consistent with the behavior of the dynagraph or with canonical mathematical discourse. These cases illustrate how discursive tuning provides insight into how students can resolve commognitive conflicts in productive ways.