The Discourse of the Center

Not that specifically, not yet. I just read the Olson book recently. But I do always focus on an equivalent distinction: familiar/unfamiliar, grammar/meaning, or some kind of "translation" from one "language" to another, one which is necessarily more "meta."

They generally try to interpret the assignment as being as close to their existing habits as possible; and I keep trying to cut them off at the pass. In the end, they have to do something they haven't done before, and the different elements of their linguistic competency (e.g., their understanding of the meaning of words and their tacit knowledge of grammar) get pulled apart and must get pieced together again. The idea is that they demonstrate for themselves that language always takes on meaning in a disciplinary space. The results, of course, are mixed.