"Grounding" for Intersubjectivity and Learning

Recently, a number of researchers within Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) have studied how discursive interaction unfolds between parent and child, as well as in the classroom (e.g. Matusov, 1996; Wells, 1996, Wertsch, 1985). Understanding such phenomena on the interpersonal plane is important given that the negotiation of intersubjective situation definitions is one of the vehicles of development (Wertsch, ibid). However, as Wells has pointed out: