there have been in the past a number of mails bordering on
>informality and on friendly self disclosure, thus crossing into more
>personal genre of speech and conjuring an image of a friendly community and
>"comfortable zone" of interaction. It brings to mind of Bakhtin's discussion
>on "The problem of speech genres", where he claimed, "An absolutely
>understood and completed sentence, if it is a sentence and not an utterance
>comprised of one sentence, cannot evoke a responsive reaction: it is
>comprehensible, but it is still not all."
>
>In articulating this, I am suggesting that perhaps, my identity as a
>observer (passive/inactive etc) participant in XMCA in the past (up till
>now) has only been that of a somewhat disengaged member, watching the
>"actions/interactions". This has been the case, in my short experience in
>XMCA, when reading most mails that were "comprehensible, ... complete".
>
>But, in noticing mails that borders on the affect, I'm almost ready to jump
>in response.... The same response is conjured too in
>reading mails which raised more questions rather than those with complete
>logically discussions.
>
>Relating this to identity and community of practice. Does this mean that
>identification necessitate affect (?)
Victoria, Since this question still preoccupies me, it was interesting to
see Bill's response to you that quoted me -- and to see my own rehashing of
Ann Freadman's text about -- well, about rehashing texts, in some sense...
Does identification necessitate or presuppose affect? Why is it that in the
x-list practices the pattern of participation remains stubbornly resistant
to any redistribution of KINDS of participants? How come more girls don't
play more often in the multilogues?
I think of affect as a sign of mimesis at work, and we tend to treat mimesis
as the primitive precondition for rational communication/ multilogue, rather
than as the intertwined and necessary twin of whatever we actually say. So
in Eva's elegant modelling of the discussion list, the activity system as a
whole got analyzed into several separate, cascading systems -- while that
picture is elucidating, it's also as Nate and others have pointed out
problematic.
Some thoughts before they're even half-baked: IF we can assume that mimesis
is at work in any communicative act -- both precondition for AND
simultaneous operant in whatever gets talked about (the dynamically
unfolding multilogue) THEN perhaps it may be the "missing part" (Luiz
Ernesto Merkle) of the ecosocial system that drives the dynamically
unfolding multi-logue. That which is missed/missing is a function of
mimesis, the unrecognizable twin of whatever issues-focused talk we do --
our search for MORE understanding than we already "have".... for the ever
elusive completion.
Things get pretty murky here for the analyst :)
What do you think?
Judith
>
Judith Diamondstone (732) 932-7496 Ext. 352
Graduate School of Education
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1183