Re: Quacking, sharing, signs of involvement

Judy Diamondstone (diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu)
Fri, 19 Apr 1996 10:02:14 -0400

Robin, your observations are very wise and useful. I keep
troubling the meanings of things, perhaps more than is
helpful sometimes. I agree that discourses
are shared, although our particular orientations to them
are not. Perhaps I am too insistent on importing into
discourse more of the particularities of our orientations...
I don't know.

- Judy

At 09:08 PM 4/18/96 EDT, you wrote:
>Thanks, Judy, for your thoughts on the term "sharing". I guess for me
>the term doesn't have the connotations of sameness of experience;
>for me, it means more that there enough understanding in common that
>two or more people can create meaning together. For instance, if
>I'm talking to a group of academic psychologists, then I can make
>reference to a variety of experiences and sources that we are likely
>to have in common, and be understood. Mike's use of the term SRCD
>was an example; those of us who have in common (share) a certain
>professional identity know what this acronym stands for, and the
>fact that we know it and can appropriately use it and all that it
>represents in a particular professional circle is a marker of
>common discourse among those who share it. It is a level of shared
>commonality, and the sorts of conversations that I have with my
>friends who are also developmental psychologists are quite different
>from the conversations I have with my friends who are not, inasmuch
>as I make reference to different commonalities with these friends.
>Do we both live in Vernon, CT? Well, then we can talk about Buckland
>Hills Mall and the Panda Palace and the weather yesterday; this is
>not just idle small talk between strangers--this is a way of claiming
>membership in some meaningful reference group, a way of belonging.
>Are we both developmental psychologists? Well, then we can talk about
>SRCD,and gossip we've heard about this and that developmental
>researcher, and what it's like to live in a world that's run by
>soft money and publications. Again, such conversations serve to
>cement our sense of membership in a group larger than ourselves,
>and one of the defining characteristics of such membership is the
>ability to use the discourse correctly.
>
> Robin
>
>
>

Judy Diamondstone
Graduate School of Education
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08903

diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu
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