You wrote:
>As for privileging multilogue, yes, I do, by regarding "making friends"
>aspects of the activity as supporting the "developing CHAT" aspects, rather
>than the other way around. Then I agree that these aspects may not be as
>easily separable as they may appear in the part of paper #1 where I present
>the three cascading triangles, or even in the subsequent more integrational
>part.
I do think the important point is that these aspects may not be separable,
even for the sake of analysis, or certainly not consistently so even for
analytical purposes. Part of the problem may be interactional style. Part of
the problem is the inevitably inequitable distribution of CHAT understanding
between newcomers and oldtimers and among oldtimers themselves. Sometimes
oldtimers on the list push past the inclination of the multiloguer to focus
on the building multilogical complex and (against inclination) 'lean over
backwards' to invite the new or tentative voice to say more. I rather like
those moments, which can't be legislated and are probably entailed anyway by
the general x-list ethic. There are also those moments when, in the wake of
an unfamiliar voice making a not obviously CHAT-related comment, there is no
response, or a response that embeds a mild scold or simply foregrounds some
bit of orthodoxy, and an erstwhile lurker fades back into oblivion on the
list. And I think we might agree that the vibrancy of CHAT grows out of its
engagement w/ the new....
So it is not simply in the speaker's use of personal story to
illuminate/explore/challenge some aspect of CHAT that narratives matter but
more accurately in the CHAT community's use of each contribution to
explore/test/exemplify (whatever) CHATting. There IS a tension here that we
all may feel from different and changing perspectives between, let's say,
intellectual excitement and moral engagement - ?
Judith
Judith Diamondstone (732) 932-7496 Ext. 352
Graduate School of Education
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1183