[Xmca-l] Re: Ruqaiya Hasan

[HENRY SHONERD]

Gente,
I think David has it right about hope, though I hadn’t connected it with freedom until now. The power of distributed cognition. To be explicit: You two blokes have chosen to engage each other (and me!) with respect in this thread. It would have been a shame otherwise, like a fight in Lindquist’s bar. Go macho and you lose a LOT of potential. That’s pessimism at work. However such respect comes with a price: I have to understand what you both say. Most of it, yes. Some of it, I don’t quite get. Greg, I think, expresses the same concern. I hope that what I do understand does justice to what David and Greg have to say. I am convinced that listening is more important than talking. So talking means recognizing what others have to say. I am on Greg’s turf here. 

In my humble opinion, the example of the borrowing from Korean into Chinese is priceless, ought to be in the book on a theory of grammar for us Vygotskians. Such examples, I think are the “artful” side of linguistics that Greg evokes. Good teachers give good examples. I think Greg has it right that about art and science, which calls to mind qualitative and quantitative research paradigms (choice, as per Ruquaiya, as per David on “paradigmatic”). I am sure that both approaches are essential for robust, credible theory and research. Like that tower in Italy I lean, massively, to qualitative. My problems with that issue got me into massive trouble during my dissertation defense. I didn’t graduate with distinction. So great was the trauma that until lately I have not felt myself worthy of engaging in a chat such as this. No kidding. 

Two more things: 1) Metalinguistic awareness (cf. Greg) was what I was referring to when I talked about the need to talk about talk, even though there is a tension between talk about talk and the need to get on with the dialog. 2) David beat me to the punch in his comment about Paul’s links to Haitian television. That’s okay. David left out the commercial.

Henry



> On Jul 2, 2015, at 3:46 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Greg:
> 
> Ruqaiya did a lot of work on describing context as a system (and not simply
> as "structure", which is the way it is described in Lucy and Gaskins). Her
> work is based on Malinowski's distinction between context of situation and
> context of culture, where the relationship between situation and culture is
> seen as analogous to the relationship between a text and a language. I
> think the key point in Ruqaiya's concept (as always) is choice--we choose
> things from the material environment for semanticization, and only those
> things chosen for our volitional semantics are rightly referred to as
> context. But of course any time you have choice, you necessarily have
> hierarchy (as Bernstein points out, speakers of elaborated code are all
> speakers of restricted code, but not vice versa).
> 
> My sister-in-law is visiting from China, and I have just noticed that I
> refer to her by her name, and she refers to me using the intricate system
> of family names that Chinese uses--i.e. as her older sister's husband. When
> I asked my wife about this, she said I was doing it correctly--Chinese uses
> relational titles to refer to older and more powerful members of the family
> and given names can only be used to address people who are younger and less
> powerful. You can see from this that BOTH systems are essentially
> individuating, but they individuate in different ways: one relationally and
> grammatically and the other absolutely and lexically.
> 
> The other thing I learned (this time from my brother in law) is that,
> thanks to Korean TV programmes, Chinese has a lot of loan words from Korean
> these days. Most amusing is "O-ba", a corruption of "O-ppa", a mildly
> flirtatious term that young girls use to address somewhat older men they
> would like to date on Korean TV. It is based on the relational term for a
> younger sister's older brother, which in Korea absolutely cannot be used by
> a male. But in China blokes use it the way that blacks use "brother"! This
> is undoubtedly a mistranslation--they assume that "O-ppa" is simply the
> Korean equivalent of "da ge" or "xiong", which certainly can be used that
> way.
> 
> So we choose from text in much the same way we choose from context: not
> exactly freely, but in ways that in the long run will make us a little more
> free. (Maybe that's where hope comes from, Henry?)
> 
> David Kellogg
> 
> 
> PS: Paul's videos from Haiti were a real eye opener--one announcer doesn't
> just speak French but actually speaks Parisian French, and the Parisian
> intonation contours are not entirely absent in the Kreyo either. On the
> other hand, you can see that Kreyo is developing its own orthography!
> 
> Paul's views on black biology remind me a little of what Japanese scholars
> are always trying to claim...e.g. that Japanese-itude is due to having a
> small intestine that is--supposedly--four feet longer than normal, hence
> altered digestion, altered diet, altered culture, etc.
> 
> In this view, culture is essentially determined, and determined from the
> inside outwards. I think I prefer the outside inwards idea that cultures
> are made up of millions and billions of choices. But of course if you
> accept this idea, you can't really turn around and then say that only the
> forty-five minute interaction is meaningful!
> 
> dk
> 
> 
> On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 8:22 AM, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> David,
>> Yes, what you say makes very good sense to me.
>> 
>> But perhaps I'm not making as much sense to me, so let me clarify a few
>> things to myself if no one else.
>> 
>> This will involve some back tracking, a little back pedaling (I wanted to
>> spell that "peddling" but caught myself - but perhaps there is truth there
>> too! Ah, words!), and maybe some back stroking (just because it is 100+
>> degrees here and has been so for the last two weeks!).
>> 
>> First, the back peddling
>> So I probably shouldn't have mentioned the bit about too easily fitting
>> data into a theory. I said that with this other author (Van Kleeck) in mind
>> and without good knowledge of Hasan's (and even Bernstein's) work. Even as
>> I wrote it, I was already thinking that it probably isn't apropos for their
>> work. So my apologies for throwing in that red herring. My sense is that
>> Hasan's work is extremely theoretically rigorous and I really didn't mean
>> to suggest that it was otherwise (even though I did suggest this).
>> 
>> Next, the back tracking:
>> 
>> Two ideas that I need to revisit: methods for studying contexts, and
>> whether or not there are other ways to get to cognition - other than
>> schooling.
>> 
>> First, with regard to the methods for studying contexts of talk and such,
>> yes, it is true, this is not an easy thing to study. Contexts are entailed
>> by talk itself and thus are not presupposable. The result is that measuring
>> them can be difficult. As much art as science.
>> 
>> And yet, as we go through our daily lives, with some not infrequent
>> exceptions, we generally do very well at figuring out what kinds of
>> contexts we are "in" in any given moment (whether an argument (heated or
>> not), a discussion, a practical joke, or a thought experiment). So then,
>> the question becomes, if we can do it (well enough to "get along" as
>> Wittgenstein says), then why can't someone studying context do it?
>> 
>> Linguistic anthropologists and sociolinguists have come up with an answer,
>> and it generally falls under the name of "contextualization." This points
>> to the process by which contexts are indicated (cf. Gumperz'
>> "contextualization cues"). Studying contextualization involves a theory of
>> "enough-ness" - that is to say, that there is enough pointing to a given
>> context being the most salient that one can reasonably conclude that it is
>> likely to be the context that is constraining and enabling participants'
>> acts-in-context. (Michael Silverstein's classic piece on contextualization
>> - "The Indeterminacy of Contextualization: When is enough enough?" - lays
>> out this approach - I have a copy in case anyone is interested - just email
>> me).
>> 
>> What this method lacks in big numbers data, it makes up for in
>> meaningfulness. I think this is where the large corpus research is lacking.
>> Large corpus research can show the distribution of different words or
>> collections of words or grammatical features or whatever and how these
>> correlate with other easily quantifiable features (e.g., income or wealth
>> or education or some combination of whatever proxy you would use for
>> indicating those persons who are "low-income" - and even here you'll get
>> some who aren't what they seem to be...). But in counting distributions,
>> you quickly lose meaningfulness. If you are going to do a count of the
>> distribution of a given word, e.g. "this" in a massive corpus, it is highly
>> unlikely that you will be able to document each instance of usage and what
>> it means in that context, much less what that context means! Or, to put it
>> more positively, what large corpus research lacks in meaningfulness, it
>> makes up for in representativeness (i.e., we know that the data are highly
>> representative of the population which they claim to represent, even if we
>> don't really know what they "mean" for the users).
>> 
>> What I'm saying here is a rather old story that everyone has heard before
>> and probably in clearer terms than what I have introduced somewhat ad hoc
>> (representativeness? really?) so I don't want to belabor the point. But I
>> thought it worth mentioning that I happen to err on the side of being
>> willing to sacrifice representativeness for meaningfulness (perhaps a
>> result of a sense of disenchantment with my late capitalist context? or my
>> whiteness? cf. Paul's emails). I'll choose the scale of a forty five minute
>> interaction over the scale of 45 million interactions any day. As a result,
>> I'm willing to lose some of the representativeness. You might say, I prefer
>> the artfulness of analyzing talk over the science of it. But that's just
>> me. And a caution, the big money is in the representativeness.
>> 
>> Second, regarding whether or not there are other ways, other than
>> schooling, to get to the types of capacities that everyone cares about
>> ("cognition" as some describe it), what I am suggesting is simply that
>> schooling might not be the only way to get to something like "scientific
>> concepts." [please note that my point was not the Piagetian point that
>> these capacities naturally unfold in time but rather that it may be the
>> case that there are other ways of getting there - more Durkheim, and I like
>> to think, Vygotsky, than Piaget]. I would call these cultural alternatives
>> to schooling that nonetheless accomplish complex capacities.
>> 
>> Thinking about this in terms of "scientific concepts" is a bit more radical
>> of a way of thinking about the argument than what I had in mind, but I'll
>> leave that as a potential to be developed (and maybe others have already
>> made this case?). What I was thinking about were skills like
>> meta-linguistic awareness (again I'm more engaged here with the Van Kleeck
>> article than I am with Hasan or Bernstein; there is a long tradition in
>> CHAT of finding other cultural ways of doing things that were thought to be
>> the result of schooling - I have Lave and Wenger in mind here but there are
>> many others). For example, there are types of talk that can provoke certain
>> forms of metalinguistic awareness. Teasing is a cultural practice in which
>> one's words are not what they denote. This can provoke a substantial
>> reorganization of the child's understanding of what language IS as an
>> object. If the child encounters this cultural practice enough (and has the
>> minimal developments in discursive abilities to be able to grasp the sense
>> of teasing - no, Piaget is not dead!), then one will realize that the word
>> is not the thing. This is perhaps a more minimal form of metalinguistic
>> awareness, but it is nonetheless an important accomplishment that can
>> ground other more complex language usage abilities. And it isn't in
>> schooling. So perhaps I should have said that I was simply suggesting that
>> schooling isn't the ONLY way to get to these capacities.
>> 
>> As for my readings of Marx, perhaps the point here is that we run in
>> different circles (you in the authentic and genuine Marxist circles, me in
>> the bourgeois Marxist circles!). (circles = contexts?).
>> 
>> Or, perhaps, we just draw our circles differently. I had imagined drawing
>> the Marxian circle a bit larger than the Marxist circle, and in the former
>> I had included the likes of Paul Willis whose book Learning to Labour is,
>> in part, an argument about why there has not yet been a revolution. The
>> answer he offers is that working class culture has certain limitations that
>> keep them from penetrating the dominant ideology. Along these lines I
>> thought that the whole false consciousness, in all its variants - from Marx
>> on down, was essentially a way of answering the question "why no
>> revolution?" and perhaps it would be too strong to say that it does this by
>> laying it at the feet of the proletariat, but it at least seems the case
>> that the failings of the proletariat have something to do with our
>> collective failure to realize the revolutionary transformations called for
>> in Communism. [and yes, there is a robust history by Marxian (again, larger
>> category) historian scholars who have tried to explain why so many union
>> members voted for Reagan in the 80's. For another take on this, consider
>> the book What's the Matter with Kansas? - a popular classic seeking to
>> invoke false consciousness as the reason why so many poor and working class
>> people in middle america vote Republican. But maybe this is a pastime of
>> American Marxians? Again, different circles, whether lived or drawn...].
>> 
>> And with regard to Marx's view of the worker, I don't have my Marx-Engels
>> reader with me but I seem to recall a number of places in the Economic and
>> Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 in the sections on alienated/estranged
>> labor where Marx suggests that the worker is essentially reduced to an
>> animal - alienated from his species being. I understand that there are
>> different ways to read this and imagine that you read it quite differently,
>> but the words (or something to that effect) are there.
>> 
>> But again, I fear that this may be a bit too much red herring for me as
>> well. Not where I'm writing right now so I fear I'm not up to the task of
>> extended discussion on the topic.
>> 
>> Enough?
>> 
>> Now on to the back-stroking.. (if only I could find a body of water in this
>> drought blighted land...).
>> 
>> -greg
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Wed, Jul 1, 2015 at 2:34 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> Greg:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Consider the following two expressions. They are not made up.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> b) Brother Barack
>>> 
>>> 
>>> a) President Obama
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Toennies would say that the first reflects a Gemeinschaft orientation,
>>> because :
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 1. It suggests MECHANICAL unity—all of us are units of an identical type
>>> (“brothers”).
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 2. It suggests OUTWARDLY IMPOSED solidarity (“Me against my brother, but
>> me
>>> and my brother against my cousin, and me, my brother and my cousin
>> against
>>> the world.”)
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 3. It suggests that “WE” is more important than “I”; the rules of the
>>> collective over-rule the choices of the individual, and WHAT you are (a
>>> brother) is more important than WHO you are.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> In contrast, the second reflects a Gesellschaft orientation because:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 1. It suggests an ORGANIC unity—a president is not a vice-president or
>>> supreme court justice, or a senator, or a voter, and is not
>> interchangeable
>>> with any of them.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 2. It suggests an INWARDLY-ESTABLISHED interdependence. A president is
>> not
>>> the president because of some outside threat but instead is an individual
>>> function that depends on the functioning of the others inside society.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 3. It suggests that INDIVIDUAL capacities are more important to this
>>> hierarchy than common shared capabilities: the president is a unique
>>> individual, not a brother like any other.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> The first, Gemeinschaft, orientation is an orientation towards a
>> particular
>>> code.  Ruqaiya makes some falsifiable predictions about this code
>>> orientation:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 1.  There will be a much higher frequency of exophoric reference (“this”
>>> and “that” rather than common nouns). This is implicit in forms of
>>> cooperation that people in a Gemeinschaft use—they are more likely to be
>>> doing the same things with the same objects at the same time.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 2. There will be a simpler structure in nominal groups (Deictics like
>> “the”
>>> and “a” rather than epithets and classifiers like “splendid” and
>>> “electric”). This is implicit in the outwardly imposed solidarity,
>> because
>>> common understandings of common objects imposed by common boundaries do
>> not
>>> need to be articulated.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 3. There will be an implicatory hierarchy. That is, “Brother Barack” will
>>> have a narrower and more restricted use than “President Obama”.  This is
>>> implicit in the fact that a) uses a given name while b) uses a family
>> name.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Demonstrative examples, by definition, demonstrate some of the hypotheses
>>> we want to test. So for example “Brother” is more exophoric in its
>>> reference than “President”:  “Brother” is, as Vygotsky reminds us, a
>>> factual relationship rather than one which depends on an abstract
>>> definition. So its meaning lies in everyday contact with similar brothers
>>> rather than a verbal hierarchy. Similarly, “Brother Barack” has a simpler
>>> structure than “President Obama”—the first consists of two morphemes
>>> (“Brother” and “Barack”), while the second consists of at least three
>>> (‘preside” “!ent”, and “Obama”), and possibly four (“pre~”).  And of
>> course
>>> “Brother” does not refer to a legalistic hierarchy of concepts while
>>> “President” does.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Nevertheless, all these predictions are falsifiable. Yes, they are
>>> statements that are made on the basis of a theory (like Vygotsky’s
>>> experiments, Ruqaiya’s research was always theory driven). Yes, the
>>> demonstrative examples are chosen to demonstrate them (like Vygotsky’s
>>> examples, Ruqaiya’s tend to be cherry-picked with the theory in mind). So
>>> far this is no different from the articles by Lucy and Gaskins and
>>> Kockelmann that you sent me—the former is based on a theory-driven
>>> experiment and the latter a cherry-picked example.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> We don’t have to stay with theory-driven statements and cherry-picked
>>> examples. We can take a large amount of data and a willing graduate
>>> student, code the data and find out whether each one is true or false,
>> and
>>> in fact that’s exactly what Ruqaiya did.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> I don’t think the same thing is true of this statement, from your last
>>> post:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> “...(B)eware of putting too much about the way people speak into the
>>> people themselves. It is more often the case that the contexts that
>> people
>>> habitually encounter call forth certain ways of speaking.”
>>> 
>>> 
>>> How would we be able to falsify that a particular way of speaking was
>>> called forth by a context? How could we verify that it was some ideal
>>> essence of the person himself?
>>> 
>>> 
>>> I guess I feel the same way when you say that it is problematic to
>> imagine
>>> that “these ways of speaking limit how (working class people) could
>>> possibly speak/think.” I agree that it’s problematic, but not for the
>> same
>>> reason that you do. It’s problematic because it implies that there is
>> some
>>> infinite potential for speaking and thinking that has nothing to do with
>>> the way we actually do think and speak. It’s problematic for me because
>> it
>>> seems to suggest that there is some other way of finding out how someone
>>> could possibly speak than by the way they speak. What?
>>> 
>>> 
>>> You say: “It seems a bit too much to argue that pedagogy can actually
>> shape
>>> consciousness.”
>>> 
>>> 
>>> That is, of course, precisely the argument that Vygotsky makes in Chapter
>>> Six of Thinking and Speech. I think it’s actually quite difficult to find
>>> people in the teaching profession that do not subscribe to this argument
>> in
>>> one form or another.The argument you are making, that is, that
>>> consciousness cannot be shaped by teaching and learning, was eventually
>>> abandoned by even its most ardent defender, Jean Piaget.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> But let us say that you and Piaget are right, and that human
>> consciousness
>>> is essentially inert to the process of teaching and learning. No, let us
>> go
>>> further—let’s say that you and Piaget are right, and that human
>>> consciousness is essentially inert to the way people speak. What exactly
>> is
>>> this consciousness you speak of,  which cannot be shaped by either class
>> or
>>> by classrooms or even by language? How might it be accessible?  Certainly
>>> the ways that consciousness is accessed in the articles you sent me are
>>> crucially dependent on the use of language, both to access consciousness
>>> and to assess it.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> I’m afraid I think there is a much simpler explanation for your unease
>> with
>>> Bernstein. As you surmise, he’s "Marxian". And as you write:
>>> 
>>> “Julie Lindquist takes up, among other things, the Marxian notion that
>>> working class people don't think counterfactually.”
>>> 
>>> 
>>> This statement assumes that such a Marxian notion exists to be taken up.
>>> After a life time spent amongst Marxians of almost every stripe, I can
>> tell
>>> you that I have never heard this idea put out to be taken up by any of
>>> them. In fact, I find it pretty hard to understand how any Marxian could
>>> hold this view, since one of the basic tenets of Marxism is that working
>>> class people are uniquely capable of socialist consciousness, and of
>> course
>>> socialist consciousness was counterfactual, even during the twelve years
>> I
>>> lived in China (the Chinese government in the 1980s did not argue that
>>> China was a developed socialist society and in fact explicitly said that
>>> there would be at least a hundred years of pre-socialist development
>> before
>>> we could speak of true socialism).
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Similarly:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> “People on the left see it as evidence of the malicious effects of
>>> capitalism  (that) working class people have a degraded consciousness and
>>> that is why they are working class (i.e., because of their degraded
>>> consciousness, they can't realize the nature of their oppression and/or
>> how
>>> to rise up against their oppressor, or, most commonly, they don't vote in
>>> their interests - with the Democratic party).”
>>> 
>>> 
>>> This assumes that when working class people rise up against their
>>> oppressors—e.g. when they do not vote for the Democratic Party—they
>> somehow
>>> cease to be working class. I have never heard any leftist articulate any
>>> such point of view, and I am fairly sure that it does not exist. Like the
>>> previous statement, it is a "demonstrative" which contains an assumption
>>> which is demonstrably incompatible with Marxism, namely that
>> consciousness
>>> determines being rather than the other way around.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Similarly:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> “Karl Marx ‘saw’ in the working class a degraded and almost sub-human
>>> consciousness.”
>>> 
>>> 
>>> This assumes that Marx considered workers not fully human. I have read a
>>> great deal of Marx’s work (that is what I was doing when I was working in
>>> South Chicago—I did frequent bars after work, but South Shore was a black
>>> working class neighborhood then, and although people did consider me
>> weird
>>> for being red, they considered me a lot weirder for being white). I have
>>> never seen anything in Marx's work that suggests that he believed workers
>>> to be subhuman. And, once again, it is very hard to square with Marx’s
>>> belief that only the working class has both the social power and the
>>> interests to organize society in a rational and truly human way.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Of course, this assumes that "interests" and "consciousness" can be
>>> causally related. Perhaps that's where you disagree?
>>> 
>>> 
>>> David Kellogg
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 3:48 AM, Dr. Paul C. Mocombe <
>>> pmocombe@mocombeian.com
>>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Henry... i would love to continue the thread.  If you all have time, I
>>>> would like you all to listen to this brief talk to get a better
>>>> understanding of how I view Obama and white supremacy...
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>> https://m.soundcloud.com/blockreportradio/ezili-danto-speaks-on-haitian-political-history
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Sent on a Sprint Samsung Galaxy Note® II
>>>> 
>>>> <div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: HENRY SHONERD <
>>>> hshonerd@gmail.com> </div><div>Date:07/01/2015  1:34 PM  (GMT-05:00)
>>>> </div><div>To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <
>>> xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>>>> </div><div>Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Ruqaiya Hasan </div><div>
>>>> </div>David, Greg, Paul, Carol, Larry, et. al.,
>>>> I am having difficulty staying up with this thread, partly because I
>> need
>>>> time to digest the posts, partly because the proffered readings take
>> time
>>>> to digest. But I would encourage you all to keep the thread from going
>>> off
>>>> line. Please let it die out where we can all be present.
>>>> 
>>>> I find it helpful to think of dialog as a negotiation. And it seems to
>> me
>>>> that much of what is happening with this thread is just that. Also,
>> from
>>>> looking at a link to Greg’s work, it is also about recognition.
>>>> Accordingly, the negotiation for recognition of points of view,
>> meanings
>>> of
>>>> words, data, and probably much else, is very metalinguistic: talking
>>> about
>>>> what we are talking about. I think there is a tension here between
>>> wanting
>>>> to make language transparent, that is language that doesn’t call
>>> attention
>>>> to itself, and recognizing that for communication to happen at all,
>> there
>>>> has to be SOME attention to conversational repair, making language an
>>>> explicit object during conversation. That can come off as effete
>>>> intellectualism. At the very least, it takes time.
>>>> 
>>>> But, I don’t think that that tension is present just in working-class
>>>> bars. Many CHATters mays think this thread has gone on too long, that
>> the
>>>> juice has been squeezed out of it. The question, also I think, often
>>> boils
>>>> down to whether the repair is imposed on the speaker/writer  or the
>>>> speaker/writergets to repair their own talk. Face is a big deal for all
>>> of
>>>> us, which is why I think the recogntition/negotiation issue is always
>> “on
>>>> stage” (Vygotsky’s term) in dialog. My involvement in this thread is
>> data
>>>> for me: I took issue with David’s construal of Obama’s Charleson church
>>>> speech as “heartless”; Paul and David responded with vigor and rigor. I
>>>> lost a bit of face and cut my losses by (I think) wisely choosing not
>> to
>>>> take another turn in response. But I want to, I hope, gain a little
>> face
>>>> back by doing some self-repair right now in this dialog: I had not
>> really
>>>> listened to Obama’s eulogy, just sound bites. Mea culpa, but, like I
>>> said,
>>>> I am trying hard to keep up.I don’t think this is false humility. I
>> have
>>>> plenty to be humble about. But I want respect and my self-repair, I
>> hope,
>>>> helps just a little bit to establish my credibility as a serious and
>>>> credible member of this community. This is important to me.
>>>> 
>>>> This chat isn’t a working class bar, but it’s still all about working.
>>> (Or
>>>> playing, but play is serious stuff.) A researcher interested in using
>>>> Ruqaiya’s thinking to look at language in the real world would (and
>>> will, I
>>>> hope) do the kind of large-scale data collection and analysis that
>> David
>>>> argues for. Still, I find that the ideas (as I understand them, and I
>>>> realize that it’s pretty much my own fault if I don't) are already
>> useful
>>>> to me in understanding and negotiating the world, all of it. I don’t
>>> always
>>>> know immediately when a theory is useful in this way, but I stick with
>>> this
>>>> chat, well, for the same reason those guys (and they are mostly guys
>>>> probably) kept going back to that bar in Chicago. Well, maybe not for
>>>> exactly the same reasons. I’m not drinking right now. But some of you
>> may
>>>> be. Or something else. Funny that the ethnography was written by a
>> woman
>>>> (Lindquist). Hmmm….
>>>> Henry
>>>> 
>>>>> On Jul 1, 2015, at 9:29 AM, Lplarry <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Greg
>>>>> Your questioning the assumption that pedagogy "does" or "does not"
>>>> transform consciousness contrasted with the configuration that it is
>> our
>>>> interactional habitual turn taking within particular situations
>>> (contexts)
>>>>> IS a question I want to highlight.
>>>>> What do we bring to the "fore" in the concept "there/fore".
>>>>> 
>>>>> We could focus on the "there"
>>>>> We could focus on the interval "/" between the "there" and the "fore"
>>>>> We could focus on the "fore"
>>>>> 
>>>>> Is where we "focus" habitual within places of situated practices
>>>>> 
>>>>> Or
>>>>> 
>>>>> Is where we "focus" emerge within pedogogy/bildung that "trans/forms"
>>>> consciousness and in THIS shift in consciousness our places of habitual
>>>> practicing changes??
>>>>> 
>>>>> I just ordered Lindquist's .
>>>>> 
>>>>> I will pause here, but draw attention to the root/stem of the word
>>>> "focus" is "hearth/home"
>>>>> 
>>>>> So where our focus abides is where we abide.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Does pedagogy "trans" form "focus" and there/fore carry us to another
>>>> "home"?
>>>>> Does "bildung" carry or "trans" form FOCUS?
>>>>> 
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: "Greg Thompson" <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
>>>>> Sent: ‎2015-‎06-‎30 10:58 PM
>>>>> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Ruqaiya Hasan
>>>>> 
>>>>> David,
>>>>> This is helpful for me and my very substantial naivete about Hassan
>> and
>>>>> Bernstein. I'm going to have to do some tracking down of these
>> sources
>>>> (you
>>>>> wouldn't by any chance have PDF's that you could share with me
>>> offline?),
>>>>> but I fear that I'm still not understanding the demonstratives that
>> you
>>>>> offered. In the 10, 11, 12 example that you provided from Hasan, what
>>> is
>>>>> the point with regard to elaborated or restricted? (or whatever
>>> dimension
>>>>> she sees as relevant? or if no dimensions are relevant, then what
>> would
>>>>> Hasan have to say about these three examples and what they have to
>> say
>>>>> about anything? I'm still a little lost. I warned you that I'm
>> slow!).
>>>>> 
>>>>> Also, I thought I might summarize my concern with an example, also
>> from
>>>> the
>>>>> south side of Chicago - but the other south side - the white one.
>> (and
>>>> yes,
>>>>> I'm raising some questions about the relevant community we would
>> assign
>>>> to
>>>>> the code - I suspect that the south side Chicago codes that you speak
>>> of
>>>> is
>>>>> probably closer to the code spoken in Mississippi than to the south
>>> side
>>>>> Chicago code described below).
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>> http://www.amazon.com/Place-Stand-Persuasion-Working-Class-Sociolinguistics/dp/0195140389
>>>>> In a wonderful ethnography of a white working class bar on the South
>>> Side
>>>>> of Chicago conducted while she was working as a bartender, Julie
>>>> Lindquist
>>>>> takes up, among other things, the Marxian notion that working class
>>>> people
>>>>> don't think counterfactually (and yes, I'm entirely sincere when I
>> say
>>>> that
>>>>> this is a wonderful ethnography - fantastically thick description
>> with
>>>> long
>>>>> chunks of transcripts of actual conversations at the bar - very
>> nicely
>>>>> done). In her book, she presents a number of examples of arguments
>> that
>>>>> broke out in the bar in which people appear to refuse to think
>>>>> counterfactually.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Unfortunately, in the material included in the book, she misses an
>>>> example
>>>>> in which the patrons do, in fact, employ counterfactuals.
>>>>> 
>>>>> So that is caution #1 when doing this kind of work, there is a
>> tendency
>>>> to
>>>>> miss examples that don't conform to one's theory. This can of course
>>>> happen
>>>>> in many different ways and typically for non-nefarious reasons.
>>>>> 
>>>>> But there is another, perhaps more serious, concern here. It may, in
>>>> fact,
>>>>> be the case that you do see fewer counterfactuals in working class
>>> bars.
>>>>> Where this gets troubling is when this gets extended to the
>>> consciousness
>>>>> of "those" people. People on the political left and right both have a
>>>> kind
>>>>> of fascination with this kind of thinking. People on the left see it
>> as
>>>>> evidence of the malicious effects of capitalism - working class
>> people
>>>> have
>>>>> a degraded consciousness and that is why they are working class
>> (i.e.,
>>>>> because of their degraded consciousness, they can't realize the
>> nature
>>> of
>>>>> their oppression and/or how to rise up against their oppressor, or,
>>> most
>>>>> commonly, they don't vote in their interests - with the Democratic
>>>> party).
>>>>> People on the right see it as evidence that capitalist meritocracy
>>> works
>>>> -
>>>>> working class people have a degraded consciousness and that is why
>> they
>>>> are
>>>>> working class. And perhaps it is telling that both Adam Smith and
>> Karl
>>>> Marx
>>>>> "saw" in the working class a degraded and almost sub-human
>>> consciousness.
>>>>> Of course, it is likely that Marx got much of this insight from Adam
>>>> Smith
>>>>> who pointed out that this was a real problem of capitalism and the
>>> reason
>>>>> why capitalist nations need universal education (and despite the
>>>> crassness
>>>>> of his descriptions of working class people, Smith truly believed
>> that
>>>> the
>>>>> "ignorance" and "stupidity" of the person working in the pin factory
>>> was
>>>>> the result of the nature of the work itself, not due to any inherent
>>>>> properties of the working man himself - so his position was actually
>>> much
>>>>> closer to Marx's position than to the Republican position today).
>>>>> 
>>>>> My concern, then, is that this isn't so much a matter as the
>>>> consciousness
>>>>> of a people as it is the practical stuff of the interactions that are
>>> to
>>>> be
>>>>> had there. If you are at all familiar with the feeling of a white
>>> working
>>>>> class bar on the south side of Chicago, then you will appreciate the
>>> fact
>>>>> that that there are things that one does and there are things that
>> one
>>>>> doesn't do when in such a place. One thing that one (generally)
>> doesn't
>>>> do
>>>>> is to speak "like an academic". You're likely to get your ass kicked
>> if
>>>> you
>>>>> talk that way. So then you, as a speaker in a working class bar, have
>>> to
>>>>> choose (David, I like your idea of "volitional", but would imagine
>>>>> different timescales of volitionalality, e.g., having multiple
>>>> repertoires
>>>>> and being able to choose among them in the moment vs. choosing to
>> learn
>>>> or
>>>>> take on a different repertoire over a longer course of time). So, in
>>> the
>>>>> bar, do you choose to risk appearing like an effete impudent
>>> intellectual
>>>>> snob (David, I assume you recognize these words, and yes, these white
>>>>> working class folks are largely Republican - Reagan-ites), or do you
>>> take
>>>>> up the pose of the self-respecting white working class man who "tells
>>> it
>>>>> like it is" (not how it "might be"!)?
>>>>> 
>>>>> The point is simply to beware of putting too much about the way
>> people
>>>>> speak into the people themselves. It is more often the case that the
>>>>> contexts that people habitually encounter call forth certain ways of
>>>>> speaking. But to say that these ways of speaking limit how they could
>>>>> possibly speak/think, that seems a bit problematic for me.
>>>>> 
>>>>> And, without having read the pieces that you sent along David, the
>>> title
>>>> of
>>>>> the book from which the Cloran piece is taken (Pedagogy and the
>> Shaping
>>>> of
>>>>> Consciousness) leaves me very anxious about precisely this point. It
>>>> seems
>>>>> a bit too much to argue that pedagogy can actually shape
>> consciousness.
>>>> But
>>>>> I may well be reading too much into the title. Any further insights
>>> here
>>>>> would be much appreciated.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Best,
>>>>> greg
>>>>> 
>>>>> p.s., David, perhaps you have been in this very situation?
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 6:10 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com
>>> 
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Yes, I was trying to keep it short.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> The key text is:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Hasan, R. (1973). Code, Register, and Social Dialect. In Bernstein,
>> B.
>>>>>> (ed.) Class, Codes and Control, Vol. 2: Applied Studies towards a
>>>> Sociology
>>>>>> of Language. London: Routledge Kegan Paul.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Also:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Halliday, M.A.K. (1972). Towards a Sociological Semantics. In
>>> Collected
>>>>>> Works of M.A.K. Halliday, vol. 3, London: Continuum, pp. 323-354.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> The examples I gave were made up especially for you. I am not a
>> native
>>>>>> speaker of South Chicago English, but I remember thinking that "be"
>>>>>> insertion is sometimes a sign of counteractuality (as in "They be
>>>> sayin" as
>>>>>> opposed to "they said" or "they say"), and so a sign of the
>>> conditional.
>>>>>> That is, where North Chicago and Loop English will use "if" and then
>>> the
>>>>>> future tense to express conditionality ("If you get that dirty, I'll
>>>> smack
>>>>>> you") South Chicago English uses the more direct form, the
>> conjuntion
>>>>>> "and", and then "be" insertion to suggest the conditional ("Get that
>>>> dirty
>>>>>> and I be hit yo up side yo face").  But I don't really know; this is
>>>> one of
>>>>>> those situations where we need an authentic speaker and not just a
>>>> genuine
>>>>>> one.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Here are Hasan's examples (also made up).
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> (10) If you climb up that wall you may hurt yourself.
>>>>>> (11) You climb up that wall and I'll take a stick to you.
>>>>>> (12) If you climb up that wall you may ruin your nice new shirt. (p.
>>> 69,
>>>>>> but that's in my Chinese copy).
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Ruqaiya's point is that (10) and (12) differ in meaning but the
>>>> difference
>>>>>> doesn't cover the whole clause complex but only the result of the
>>>>>> condition, whereas in (10) and (11) it covers the whole complex,
>>>> including
>>>>>> the way that the condition is worded: this suggests--but of course
>> it
>>>>>> doesn't prove--a more general, more genetic causation, rather than a
>>>> merely
>>>>>> functional one.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I don't think any examples--Ruqaiya's or my own--are meant to be
>>>> anything
>>>>>> more than demonstrative, Greg. In order to see real evidence, we
>> need
>>>> very
>>>>>> large data bases and some way of looking at significant wordings.
>> This
>>>> was
>>>>>> done by Ruqaiya's student:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Cloran, C. (1999) Contexts for learning. In Christie, F. (Ed)
>> Pedagogy
>>>> and
>>>>>> the shaping of consciousness: Linguistic and social processes.
>> London:
>>>>>> Continuum, pp. 31-65.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> She compares categories like "action", "commentary", "observation",
>>>>>> "reflection", "report", "account", "generalization", "plan",
>>>> "prediction",
>>>>>> "conjecture" and "recount' (storytelling). The big differences came
>> in
>>>>>> "generalization" (elaborated code +) and "action" (restricted code
>> +),
>>>> and
>>>>>> the differences were statistically highly significant (Mann Whitney
>>>> test).
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> David Kellogg
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Wed, Jul 1, 2015 at 8:24 AM, Greg Thompson <
>>>> greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> David,
>>>>>>> Thanks for this elaboration (!) of Hasan, Bernstein, and a bit of
>>>>>> Halliday.
>>>>>>> Very dense and lots for me to learn. I'm absorbing it as best I
>>> can...
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Two clarification that might help me in my understanding:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 1. Are your a) and b) actual recorded examples of talk? I found the
>>> use
>>>>>> of
>>>>>>> the habitual be to feel a bit out of place (unless the point was
>> that
>>>> the
>>>>>>> parent was going to repeatedly (habitually) be hitting the child
>>> upside
>>>>>>> their face).
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 2. If these are actual examples of talk, could you help me make
>> more
>>>>>> direct
>>>>>>> links between what Bernstein/Hasan have to say about these examples
>>> and
>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> examples themselves? I think I'm getting the point about code vs.
>>>> dialect
>>>>>>> vs. register but I'm confused about the specific analysis you offer
>>>> when
>>>>>>> you write:
>>>>>>> "Accordingly, in a restricted coding orientation, like b), the
>>>>>> orientation
>>>>>>> is to sameness, to objective rules that bind us together in
>> communal
>>>>>>> solidarity, and therefore not towards individual choices.In an
>>>> elaborated
>>>>>>> coding orientation, like a), the orientation is to difference, to
>>>>>>> individual motivation, and towards interdependence."
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> There is a leap here (perhaps justified) between the examples as I
>>> read
>>>>>>> them and the claims about orientation and as a result I wasn't
>> clear
>>>> how
>>>>>>> these features were manifest in the examples.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Sorry for being so restricted in my reading, and many thanks for
>> your
>>>>>>> multiple elaborations!
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> -greg
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 3:44 PM, David Kellogg <
>> dkellogg60@gmail.com
>>>> 
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Everybody:
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> First of all, I appreciate--nay, I share--every moment of Paul's
>>> rage.
>>>>>>> And
>>>>>>>> even some of his incoherence, although I suspect some of it is due
>>> to
>>>>>> his
>>>>>>>> use of a hand-held device. I really should have explained my
>>> comments
>>>>>> on
>>>>>>>> Obama's speech much better. Yes, Henry--I did think it was stupid
>>> and
>>>>>>>> heartless. It was stupid in its lack of logic (God makes things
>>> worse
>>>>>> so
>>>>>>>> that we'll make them better) and its lack of irony (we don't
>> deserve
>>>>>>>> "grace" but God gives it to us anyway--out of the barrel of a
>>> racist's
>>>>>>>> gun). It was heartless in its emphasis on healing (forgiveness is
>>> not
>>>>>>> only
>>>>>>>> an impossible but an impudent demand, because the only people who
>>> have
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>>> right to forgive the killer are dead; what the survivors now need
>> is
>>>>>>> called
>>>>>>>> "justice").
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Secondly, I'm really in awe of Greg's exegeses on Bernstein and
>>> Hymes,
>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>>> I don't think it at all beside the point. I am re-reading
>> Ruqaiya's
>>>>>>>> Collected Works right now, and there is a lot there, all of it
>>>>>> relevant.
>>>>>>>> But I want to extract only two points--Ruqaiya's careful
>> distinction
>>>>>>>> between dialect, register and code, and her rejection of the
>>>>>> distinction
>>>>>>>> between competence and performance.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Consider the following pair of sentences, spoken to two six year
>>> olds:
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> a) If you get your new shirt dirty,you'll be sorry.
>>>>>>>> b) Get dat dirty an I be hit you up side yo face.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> The difference in dialect extends right down from the meaning (the
>>>>>>>> semantics), to the wording (the lexicogrammar), to the phonology
>>> (the
>>>>>>>> "sounding"). It is also, contrary to what people think, mostly
>>>>>>> volitional:
>>>>>>>> you can choose to lose your dialect, and many people do. You can
>>> also
>>>>>>>> choose to acquire a new one, and when Paul complains about the
>>>>>>>> inauthenticity of Obama's dialect he is pointing to the fact that
>> it
>>>> is
>>>>>>>> voluntary (although I should point out that while Obama was indeed
>>>>>> raised
>>>>>>>> in a white family, he was also raised in a state where whites
>> were a
>>>>>>>> minority). Unlike Paul, I believe the voluntary quality of a
>> dialect
>>>>>> is a
>>>>>>>> guarantee of its genuineness (that is, its meaningfulness to the
>>>> user),
>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>>> I am not a big fan of authenticity (since I am mostly a second
>>>> language
>>>>>>>> user myself). Authentic dialects have an essentially conventional,
>>>>>>>> meaningless relationship to the people who are born into them;
>>> genuine
>>>>>>>> dialects have a relationship of choice (whether the user is born
>>> into
>>>>>> the
>>>>>>>> dialect and chooses to retain it or the user has to learn it
>>>>>> deliberately
>>>>>>>> as an act of identity), and for that reason they are more
>> meaningful
>>>>>>>> (because for Ruqaiya meaning is always paradigmatic; it implies
>> you
>>>>>> could
>>>>>>>> have done or said something else but you didn't). Either way, a
>>>> dialect
>>>>>>> is
>>>>>>>> a distinction of the user, and not of the use.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> The difference in register is much more slight; it does not
>> include
>>>> the
>>>>>>>> phonology but it certainly does include the wording. Labov would
>>>>>>>> concentrate on the non-standard use of the copula (and a lot of
>> his
>>>>>>>> argument on the complexity of AAVE has to do with the complex
>> rules
>>>> for
>>>>>>>> copula insertion and deletion). Halliday would concentrate on
>> other
>>>>>>> factors
>>>>>>>> which are less formal: In one case, the newness of the shirt is
>>>>>> specified
>>>>>>>> while in the other it is left exotropic (that is, in the here and
>>> now
>>>>>>>> rather than encoded eternally in the language). In one case, the
>>>>>>>> consequence is left somewhat vague: it is quite possible, although
>>>>>>>> unlikely, that the six year old will not interpret the utterance
>> as
>>> a
>>>>>>>> threat, while in the second it is much more specific and concrete.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> But the difference in code orientation is very clear, and my wife,
>>> who
>>>>>>> grew
>>>>>>>> up with the Chinese equivalent of b) in her ears, recognized it
>>>>>>>> immediately. Bernstein derived coding orientation from the ideas
>> of
>>>>>>>> Toennies, and in particular his distinction between Gemeinschaft
>>>>>>>> (community, solidarity, mechanical unity) and Gesellschaft
>> (society,
>>>>>>>> interdependence, organic unity). In a Gemeinschaft, the emphasis
>> is
>>> on
>>>>>>> what
>>>>>>>> you are not who you are, and in a Gesellschaft the emphasis is on
>>> your
>>>>>>>> ineffability and irreplacabitlity. Accordingly, in a restricted
>>> coding
>>>>>>>> orientation, like b), the orientation is to sameness, to objective
>>>>>> rules
>>>>>>>> that bind us together in communal solidarity, and therefore not
>>>> towards
>>>>>>>> individual choices.In an elaborated coding orientation, like a),
>> the
>>>>>>>> orientation is to difference, to individual motivation, and
>> towards
>>>>>>>> interdependence. Unlike dialect, it's not a difference in the way
>> it
>>>>>>> sounds
>>>>>>>> and it's not restricted to the user: you could easily create
>>>> elaborated
>>>>>>>> coding orientations in South Chicago English, and people do.
>> Unlike
>>>>>>>> register, it's not a difference in the way things are worded and
>> it
>>> is
>>>>>>> not
>>>>>>>> at all a function of particular uses of language. Coding
>> orientation
>>>>>> is a
>>>>>>>> pattern of meaning--it's an instance of what Ruqaiya calls
>> semantic
>>>>>>>> variability, and it is related causally to class.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Hymes accepts Chomsky's distinction between competence and
>>>>>>> performance--in
>>>>>>>> fact, he multiplied it times four, because his construct of
>>>>>>> "communicative
>>>>>>>> competence" actually includes four categories: whether or not
>>>> something
>>>>>>> is
>>>>>>>> linguistically permissible, whether or not it is
>> sociolinguistically
>>>>>>>> appropriate, whether or not it is psycholinguistically feasible,
>> and
>>>>>>>> whether or not it is pragmatically done. But for Ruqaiya, such
>>>>>>> dichotomies
>>>>>>>> are dualisms--they imply an ideal competence divorced and actually
>>> not
>>>>>>>> available for marriage to material performances: we can never
>> really
>>>>>>> know,
>>>>>>>> for example, in an instance of grammatical, sociolinguistic,
>>>>>>>> psycholinguistic or pragmatic failure, whether the underlying
>>>>>> competence
>>>>>>> is
>>>>>>>> there or not. For Ruqaiya, the only bifurcation--and it is a
>> highly
>>>>>>>> transient, ever-shifting one--is between the potential and the
>>>>>> performed.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> David Kellogg
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> On Wed, Jul 1, 2015 at 5:06 AM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com
>>> 
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Greg,
>>>>>>>>> I ‘m waiting on David too! And I would love your question as to
>>>>>> whether
>>>>>>>>> Ruqaiya answers your conjecture:
>>>>>>>>>> “...the efficacy of deployment of a code/style may not be a
>>>>>> property
>>>>>>> of
>>>>>>>>> the code/style or of the speaker but rather of the combination of
>>>>>>>>> code/style, speaker, and context.”
>>>>>>>>> I especially like that this issue is raised in the context of an
>>>>>> actual
>>>>>>>>> use of code shifting in the public eye. I suspect that Ruqaiya
>>> would
>>>>>>>> like a
>>>>>>>>> theory of grammar that can take on just such a language usage
>>> event.
>>>>>>>>> Henry
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> On Jun 30, 2015, at 9:54 AM, greg.a.thompson@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> Henry, this raises a question that is similar to the one that
>>> Hymes
>>>>>>>>> raises with regard to Bernstein, namely, what is the effect of
>> the
>>>>>> use
>>>>>>>> of a
>>>>>>>>> given code/style?
>>>>>>>>>> Hymes' concern is that Bernstein assumes that a code is a thing
>>>>>> that
>>>>>>>> has
>>>>>>>>> properties all by itself, outside of the contexts of use.
>>>>>>>>>> As for obamas eulogy, my sense from listening to the audio was
>>> that
>>>>>>> it
>>>>>>>>> was VERY well received by the audience. Maybe someone has
>> evidence
>>> to
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>>>> contrary?
>>>>>>>>>> But this would make an important point that the efficacy of
>>>>>>> deployment
>>>>>>>>> of a code/style may not be a property of the code/style or of the
>>>>>>> speaker
>>>>>>>>> but rather of the combination of code/style, speaker, and
>> context.
>>>>>>>>>> Is this ground that is covered by Hasan?
>>>>>>>>>> David?
>>>>>>>>>> (And I wouldn't want to take away from that discussion but this
>>>>>>> should
>>>>>>>>> help provide more clarity with regard to what exactly she was up
>>> to).
>>>>>>>>>> Greg
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> On Jun 30, 2015, at 12:25 AM, HENRY SHONERD <
>> hshonerd@gmail.com>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> Ouch! Paul blew my cover. And President Obama’s as well.
>>>>>> Apparently,
>>>>>>>>> he’s not the code shifter I thought he was and my ear is just not
>>>>>> good
>>>>>>>>> enough to hear it. Maybe I didn’t want to hear. I have been so
>>>>>>>> disappointed
>>>>>>>>> with what is happening with our political “leadership” in this
>>>>>>> country, I
>>>>>>>>> didn’t want to believe the president’s eulogy was one more
>> charade.
>>>>>>> Maybe
>>>>>>>>> the amazing Supreme Court decisions last week put me in a state
>> of
>>>>>>>> euphoria
>>>>>>>>> and I just didn’t want to come down. But, is there no middle
>> ground
>>>>>>> where
>>>>>>>>> Obama is at least seen to be trying, in good faith, to connect
>> with
>>>>>>> those
>>>>>>>>> who ARE adequate representatives of African American English
>>>>>>> Vernacular?
>>>>>>>>> One might say that Obama learned AAEV as a second dialect and
>> will
>>>>>>> always
>>>>>>>>> have a “foreign accent” in it. I am wondering how the audience in
>>>>>> that
>>>>>>>> AME
>>>>>>>>> church in Charleston, especially those who have truly lived the
>>>>>> “black
>>>>>>>>> prophetic tradition", felt about Obama’s attempts at code
>> shifting.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> I hope this post is seen more as an attempt to move the
>>> discussion
>>>>>>> of
>>>>>>>>> issues dear to Ruqaiya, especially code, than as a pol
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> [The entire original message is not included.]
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
>> Assistant Professor
>> Department of Anthropology
>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
>> Brigham Young University
>> Provo, UT 84602
>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
>>