Response through the Intentional Arc: Merleau-Ponty, Dreyfus and Second Language Acquisition

Language, when considered as part of the lived experience of human beings, fails to be reduced to mere representation. In line with non-representationalist understandings of the mind and knowledge-how centered understandings of knowledge, purposiveness in skill acquisition and second language acquisition may be understood through Dreyfus’s skillful coping, based in Merleau-Ponty’s intentional arc and maximal grip. Such an approach to second language acquisition decentralizes rule-based representationalist understandings of the process, such as universal grammar, and instead sees language and communication as responsive, dynamic and dyadic

Laggard Clusters as Slow Learners, Emerging Clusters as Locus of Knowledge Cohesion (and Exclusion): A Comparative Study in the Wine Industry

This paper adopts sociometric analysis to explore the process of knowledge acquisition and diffusion in clusters of firms. By comparing the knowledge systems of two clusters selected for being at different stages of their development path, this study shows that the knowledge system of the laggard clusterbis weak, highly disconnected and vulnerable, while in the case of the emerging, dynamic cluster, the knowledge system is characterized by a more connected yet uneven knowledge acquisition and distribution process. These differences are then interpreted considering the heterogeneity of firm knowledge bases across and within clusters and the impact of this latter variable on the degree of intra- and extra-cluster connectivity is explored.Clusters, Firm Knowledge Base, Knowledge Systems, Social Network Analysis

Children's acquisition of science terms: simple exposure is insufficient

The ability of school children (N = 233) to acquire new scientific vocabulary was examined. Children from two age groups (M = 4;8 and M = 6;5) were introduced to previously unknown words in an educational video. Word knowledge was assessed through accuracy and latency for production and comprehension over a nine month period. A draw and write task assessed acquisition of domain knowledge. Word learning was poorer than has previously been reported in the literature, and subject to influences of word type (domain-specificity) and word class. The results indicate that the acquisition of scientific terms is a complex process moderated by lexical, semantic and pragmatic factors

Restructuring and simplifying rule bases.

Rule bases are commonly acquired, by expert and/or knowledge engineer, in a form which is well suited for acquisition purposes. When the knowledge base is executed, however, a different structure may be required. Moreover, since human experts normally do not provide the knowledge in compact chunks, rule bases often suffer from redundancy. This may considerably harm efficiency. In this paper a procedure is examined to transform rules that are specified in the knowledge acquisition process into an efficient rule base by way of decision tables. This transformation algorithms allows the generation of a minimal rule representation of the knowledge, and verification and optimization of rule bases and other specification (e.g. legal texts, procedural descriptions, ...). The proposed procedures are fully supported by the PROLOGA tool.

Knowledge acquisition for the internationalization of the smaller firm: content and sources

Internationalization process research emphasizes accumulated experience and networks as sources of knowledge for internationalization. Our understanding, however, as to what this knowledge is in practice for smaller firms, the challenges they face in acquiring it, and how they address those challenges is limited. Integrating organizational learning concepts with our theoretical understanding of the small firm internationalization process, we develop a new framework for understanding knowledge acquisition processes, which are examined with a case study of 10 Scottish internationalizing firms. We find smaller firms may not have relevant experience or useful networks, and rely on sources rarely recognised before. Firms used recruitment, government advisors and consultants to acquire indirect experience. Recruitment is a source of market and technological knowledge and government advisors and consultants a source of internationalization knowledge. Accessing internal information is important for firms that have internationalized. Our integrated theoretical framework identifies knowledge content and sources that are critical for internationalization, but that may be absent