I think both Rolfe & Katherine are right on about what the object of
at least a critical linguistic analysis is. It is our ways of
saying the world, "the very medium and essence" of our ways of
knowing both others and ourselves, and it can certainly disrupt
and challenge those ways of knowing. That makes the concern of
both Rolfe & Katherine an important one. Folks in a critically applied
linguists generally want to give the tools to others so that others
are NOT adrift and weaponless. I'd be interested in any
specific cases of offense that Rolfe & Katherine had in mind, though.
As for disruption, I'm obviously all for it, uncomfortable though
it may be. I'm somewhat provoked by these messages to wonder about
the power of language for significant social change. Without
an explicit critique, we can't do much to intervene. But should
the critique be directed at language use itself? Obviously, not
only, but as a window into meaning-making practices, language use
ain't all that bad.
>Rolfe Windward wrote:
>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.
Katherine writes:
>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.
....................
Judy Diamondstone diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu
Graduate School of Education Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place New Brunswick, NJ 08903
Eternity is in love with the productions of time. - W. Blake