<p>This dissertation is a study of the discourse on children’s ability to control their body movements – the rhetoric of motorics (motor control). It takes an interest in the different practices that need to be dealt with if you would like to construct a description of bodiliness in a factual way, and it is particularly concerned with the practice of transforming observations of children’s bodiliness into literary inscriptions of motor control as well as the discursive actions that make these inscriptions credible and relevant. The study departures from a constructivist perspective and the aim of the thesis is to study how statements about motor control are possible, understandable, made relevant, and used in practice – dimensions that are believed to be connected.</p><p>The data are gathered from settings that either keep or produce descriptions of children’s bodiliness. That includes journals on physical education, manuals for motorical tests, professional literatures that deal with subjects like motor control, medical records from school health care and professional statements from a child rehabilitation center. Using discourse analysis this data is studied in terms of interpretative repertoires, modalities, categorizations, representations and realities.</p><p>At first focus is on the mobilization of actors and the practice of translating body knowledge into something relevant and important. After that theories and practices of observing motor control are highlighted by studying the laboratory settings, inscription devices and the professional vision of the observers. The study then moves on to the activities where the inscriptions constructed in the laboratories are mobilized to construct facts. Here the attention is placed on the practices of writing medical records and how statements about motor control are used in these types of text. Finally a reflexive move is made by comparing the rhetoric of motor control with the rhetoric used to convince the reader of this dissertation. </p>

This dissertation is a study of the discourse on children’s ability to control their body movements – the rhetoric of motorics (motor control). It takes an interest in the different practices that need to be dealt with if you would like to construct a description of bodiliness in a factual way, and it is particularly concerned with the practice of transforming observations of children’s bodiliness into literary inscriptions of motor control as well as the discursive actions that make these inscriptions credible and relevant. The study departures from a constructivist perspective and the aim of the thesis is to study how statements about motor control are possible, understandable, made relevant, and used in practice – dimensions that are believed to be connected. The data are gathered from settings that either keep or produce descriptions of children’s bodiliness. That includes journals on physical education, manuals for motorical tests, professional literatures that deal with subjects like motor control, medical records from school health care and professional statements from a child rehabilitation center. Using discourse analysis this data is studied in terms of interpretative repertoires, modalities, categorizations, representations and realities. At first focus is on the mobilization of actors and the practice of translating body knowledge into something relevant and important. After that theories and practices of observing motor control are highlighted by studying the laboratory settings, inscription devices and the professional vision of the observers. The study then moves on to the activities where the inscriptions constructed in the laboratories are mobilized to construct facts. Here the attention is placed on the practices of writing medical records and how statements about motor control are used in these types of text. Finally a reflexive move is made by comparing the rhetoric of motor control with the rhetoric used to convince the reader of this dissertation.