Finding proper words to express system(s) change(s) can be a challenge. One alternative could be diachrony. The Oxford English dictionary provides two definitions for diachronic, the first one most generally related to time. (The second is linguistic method)
diachronic ADJECTIVE
1. Lasting through time, or during the existing period. 1857–
- 1857 The two creations—the extinct and the extant—or rather the prochronic and the diachronic—here unite.
- P. H. Gosse, Creation 87
Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “diachronic (adj.), sense 1,” July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/3691792233.
A borrowing from Greek, combined with an English element.
- Etymons: Greek διά, χρόνος, ‑ic suffix.
- < Greek διά throughout, during + χρόνος time + ‑ic suffix
For completeness, prochronic relates “to a period before time began:”
If we prefer an American definition over the British, Merriam-Webster emphases “change”, citing French rather than Greek origins.
diachronic adjective
: of, relating to, or dealing with phenomena (as of language or culture) as they occur or change over a period of time
Etymology
borrowed from French diachronique, from diachronie DIACHRONY + –ique
Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “diachronic,” accessed April 10, 2024, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/diachronic.
From research into situated learning, a figure illustates the distinction between synchronic and diachonic .
A 1998 manuscript would seem to be related to a 1996 dissertation by Lynda D. Stone, that would be published as a book chapter in 2000 book Vygotskian Perspectives on Literacy Research: Constructing Meaning Through Collaborative Inquiry.
… methodologically we attempt to look at both the social practice of literacy learning and the moment-to-moment construction of that practice. As a consequence, we also use theoretical perspectives of such scholars as Bakhtin (1981), Bourdieu (1977; 1991), Foucault (1977), and Goffman (1959; 1961; 1974; 1981) to more richly understand social phenomena such as social identities, hybridity, and hierachies and power relations. in learning contexts. Thus, by integrating micro and macro analyses of learning environments, we are able to investigate the social, spatial, and temporal organizational dimensions of literacy learning practices, that is, diachronic and synchronic dimensions of activity (Gutierrez, 1993,1995; Stone,1996b). [p. 4, emphasis added]
[….]
… to understand better the relationship between literacy learning and its contexts, we examine the gestalt, or the whole practice and the history of those practices in situ. Practices are socially and culturally organized and, thus, encode a social and cultural history. Practice becomes a rich unit of analysis because practices are constituted over time by multiple activities that stretch and change. Accordingly, a focus on practice makes visible the social and cultural history of the practice, an understanding of what is being accomplished in the moment, as well as an understanding of the future goal or object of activity. In Figure 1 below, we illustrate the relationship between the history of actions and the face-to-face interactional sequences that constitute the historical nature of those actions:
Figure 1 portrays the interrelationship between the “regularized acts” of situated practices occurring in the moment and the history of actions that constitutes background meaning or source of mutual knowledge used for the social production of knowledge (Giddens, 1979).
Reference
Gutiérrez, Kris D., and Lynda D. Stone. 1998. “An Emerging Methodology for Cultural-Historical Perspectives on Literacy Learning: Synchronic and Diachronic Dimensions of Social Practice.” UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Synchronic-and-Diachronic-Dimensions-of-Social-Guti%C3%A9rrez-Stone/e43897e97ac7e064a9d92d0103bf8dec84301c86.
In brief. David Ing. 