Re: acronym enquiry (SFL)/ genres, values & tensions

Katherine Goff (Katherine_Goff who-is-at together.cudenver.edu)
24 Aug 1996 16:06:37 GMT

Rolfe Windward writes:
I suspect Judy has her own concerns about the matter but I would say that
the two modes of expertise have rather dramatically different connotations.
In the case of the doctor, who I visit rarely, I can challenge his/her
opinion if I wish--my opinion may be challenged by expertise in return of
course (and I would hope a wise physician would do so if my opinion were
really foolish) but s/he can not silence my voice. In the case of the expert
linguist, the very medium and essence of my challenge--the voice that I use
every day--may, in principle at least, be technically condensed and thereby
sublimated.

I am not much further than the noun and verb vocabulary of understanding
language, but another difference I see between the doctor and the linguist is
that the doctor uses language to communicate about medicine and the health of
your body while the linguist uses language to communicate about language. I
would not want my doctor to use my body to demonstrate a priniciple of
medicine. It may benefit others, but would do violence to me. If a linguist
challenges the medium that I use to make meaning, I am adrift and weaponless.
The ground under me moves and I am uncertain how to understand the intent of
the linguist.

Somehow, I think it ties into Ken and Dewey's discussion :
I think that the 'taken-as-shared'
notion captures both the transaction component and the 'can't control'
issue, along with the personal/invention, social/convention roles way of
looking at it.

Katherine
****************************************************************
****************************************************************""Baby, we
can choose, you know, We ain't no amoeba." ---Bonnie Raitt & John Hiatt

Katherine E. Goff
District Elementary Technology Coordinator
Cotton Creek Elementary Computer Specialist
Katherine_Goff who-is-at together.cudenver.edu