[Xmca-l] Re: Analysis of Gender in early xmca discourse

[Alfredo Jornet Gil]

Annalisa, Huw,

As someone that has moved from one country (Spain) to another (Norway), then lived a while in another (Australia), and yet a couple more years somewhere else (Canada), having in the way changed kindergarten, school, neighbourhood, hair dresser, office colleagues... I know how closely humour/irony and membership are connected. You really don't need to move across countries to know that, just try to follow any English conversation between professional/training pilots, or a chat between orange pickers in Valencia talking Spanish or Catalan (no matter what country they are from) while lunch during a work day, to realise that you have no clue what they are talking about even though they seem to be talking (and laughing) in a language (English, Spanish, Catalan) you think you know.  

When I read Huw's post, I had to do a search for almost every word he used, including hogging, humping, and I am still wondering whether  "SHUF" might refer to a command in programming that generates "random permutations"  (that's what I found online!). I did not know these words in English, and so I had to look for them. Even more embarrassing is the fact that, even though I know every word, I have not yet got what the squirrel story is about, or how it relates to the thread it was posted on... Not that the story is nonsense, but only that I do not (yet) belong to whatever history (chains of reference, whatever you'd like to call it) has brought it up as a sense-full story/joke/turn, etc. 

The thing is that humour seems to be tightly connected to the sort of abbreviation that Vygotsky described with regard to inner speech. As people get along well together, just as the 3 boys in Larry's post do, there is lesser need for articulation, things can be shortened, they can simply be suggested by a word, a gesture. As Vygotsky notes, "When the thoughts and consciousness of the interlocutors are one, the role of speech in the achievement of flawless understanding is reduced to a minimum." I love humour, and irony (not sarcasm, as Huw notes), and I believe they are vital for a healthy humanity and, again as Huw notes, to a healthy list. Through humour we can address challenges and paradoxes in ways that articulation and explicit talk simply cannot. Yet, if it is right that humour rests upon this competence of abbreviating, of not needing to say the unsaid to make it said, then there always is the risk that someone else won't hear the same and, worst, feel excluded, ridiculed, etc... I think those are occasions for articulating rather than for more abbreviation. I think that such occasions are important because, otherwise, we may loose highly interesting discussions on the historical and genetic account of the problem (what Annalisa and Larry have been asking for, what Huw probably is missing and asking for too) and how such an account may be different and more productive than protocolary statements of the sort of those exposed in the video Annalisa has shared.

With all due respect, 
Alfredo

PS: you can see in how much I do articulate how much of an outsider I feel/am, and how much work it takes for us to participate. I hope to be able to abbreviate a bit more at some point...




________________________________________
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu>
Sent: 28 October 2016 05:24
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Analysis of Gender in early xmca discourse

Thank you for the explanation.


Why not address Huw? Why me?


________________________________
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of David H Kirshner <dkirsh@lsu.edu>
Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2016 9:18 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Analysis of Gender in early xmca discourse

Surely, Annalisa, a symbol of intimidation, rather than intimidation, itself.
David