Conversations of Thought
There are written and read conversations taking place this very moment. The written conversation is one that happens between me (ongoing thought- conversation) and what is written onto paper. The read conversation takes place when a person, other than me, picks up what I’ve written and reads it. Thought-conversation is going on in my writing to you today; there are some going on in collegiate assembly halls, and in the conscious minds of many. However, I cannot—nor can you at the moment—read (make believe you’re not reading this right now---oops, I’ve just Ong’ed you) or hear most of these arguments, debates, agreements, disagreements, assertions that carry on. If that is true we are fine for the moment. Granted, one is standing adjacent to and overhearing an English seminar that is discussing and synthesizing the views and works of a range of the most influential modern theorists of the humanities and social sciences. This confined seminar (audience) is expected to interact with, value, debate, and/ or construct opinions for or against a text—thus leading some to new thought-conversational thought processes. This, however, excludes the standby-audience member, the reader-listener, as an active participant of the dominant- authoritative discourse from that seminar. Hence, the author’s (the professor) methodology creates a specific, yet unrestrained, “aimed-towards them” discourse and not for the standby reader-listener. “His” audience (who says that an audience is his anyway?) will have to later “write”, “talk” and “think” about texts.
This notion does not stand alone—paradoxically speaking of the standby reader-listener who is standing alone and adjacent to the seminar. These “standby” reader-listeners aren’t “intentionally” or even, in this case, “fictionally” given the right to speak in this confined pre-registered, fore-planned discourse. Likewise, they aren’t fictionally thought of as potential readers.
With this analogy, I find confluence in central arguments made by Ong, Bartholomae and Foucault that are worth mentioning. I am not disputing the rhetoric of these three great thinkers/ readers. I am simply attempting to “define a position of privilege, a position that sets [me] against a ‘common’ discourse…” working “self-consciously, critically, against not only the ‘common’ code but [my] own” (Bartholomae 644). However, for now, I am suggesting that a reader doesn’t “have to play the role in which the author has cast him” (Ong 60), but that there is more to it.
I decided to explore the effect that a white male audience has on the tone of a writer who primarily caters to a non-white audience when the speaker, subject, and context remain the same. I questioned how audience and purpose affect a text’s structure and content and found that by changing the audience, I was forced to go into descriptive detail to explain the oppression imposed upon African Americans to white men. By writing a speech, Toni Morrison’s serious and passionate tone towards both race and gender equity are not erased. I refer to the audience as “you” and bring up that they’re in a position of power to force a separation between Toni, an African American woman, and the audience, white men, because the point is not to establish a
In Katherine Anne Ackley’s book, “Perspectives on Contemporary Issues: Seventh Edition”, chapter one instructed the reader how to read critically. Reading critically is defined as the process of making a rhetorical analysis, or examination, of a piece of work. First, a reader must read a piece of work to understand it, then they must be able to assess, or criticize, it. To do so, the reader should examine the author’s position, and the evidence provided to support that position. They should also be able to discern between logical and illogical pieces of evidence. Reading critically can be used to write summaries, critiques, arguments, synthesis’, and research papers.
Throughout “Argument as Conversation,” Stuart Greene demonstrates the concept of supporting an argument through the use of varying conversations to encourage writers to research and support their own personal opinions. Greene begins by expressing that to take a stand on one argument it is necessary to extensive research on all aspects having to do with a topic. Greene also communicates that reading acts as one of the most important things a writer can do. While stating this Greene explains that the research conducted must contain counterarguments, context, and objections to the idea at hand. This research could be done in the form of a conversation. For example, listening to an argument and adding personal input, while receiving criticism
How would you define your position as an audience member (resistant, neutral, etc.)? With your own position in mind, what kind of audience do you think the author is trying to reach? Please provide an example to support your answer.
In George Steiner’s “The Uncommon Reader” he explains, “Reading, here, is no haphazard, unpremeditated motion. It is a courteous, almost a courtly encounter, between a private person and one of those ‘high guests” (189). It’s the deliberate devourment of the ideas of such a “high guest,” or in this case, an author with variant experiences from our own, which serve to highlight our own self-realization. Steiner’s conception of an encounter, however, can be defined as anything which serves to compel an observer and bring forth his own ideas into new form, and can also be described through an indication of where a concept is actually happening. In the end, the environment is as important (if not more important, depending on the circumstance) as what is being studied. In Charles Baudelaire’s “To a Passerby,” he provides a glimpse at this analysis, through his documentation of a woman he had never met
David Foster Wallace, author of the essay “Authority and American Usage*,” praises and advocates for “good” writers who have a strong rhetorical ability, which he defines as “the persuasive use of language to influence the thoughts and actions of an audience” (Wallace 628). To have a strong rhetorical ability, an author needs to be aware of whom their audience is, in order to present their information in a way that will be influential on their audience. Wallace recognizes that an author who applies a strong rhetorical ability will be able to connect with the audience so that they respond “not just to [their] utterance but also to [them]” (Wallace 641). An author needs to take into consideration not just content, syntax and grammatical structure (their “utterance”) but also how their character will be perceived by their audience. A positive tone will make the author seem more pleasant and relatable, whereas a negative tone connotes arrogance and pretentiousness. That is why it is crucial for an author to recognize that an audience will respond to “them” and not just their “utterance,” as an author’s appearance to their readers can also shape how impactful their writing is.
To unpack this we need to look at how literary precedents express the relationship between player and character—creator and creation—and the extent to which a creator and the society in which s/he lives prescribes the creation’s role. We also need to investigate how one’s role—and concomitantly, one’s creator and one’s society—limit our opportunities, or to put it in other terms, our personal plotlines and narrative possibi...
According to Dr. Bean’s class syllabus, the primary goal for this course is to, “help you develop the literacy skills you’ll need during your academic career”. In other words, this class was designed to teach students to write like professionals in an academic discourse community. Through several writing and research assignments, we acted as researchers on a quest to examine “how discourse—written, spoken, and digital—is shaped by social practice”. Although I felt I was a decent enough writer, I had doubts that I could accomplish such a tall order of directives. In the end, I found that I could do it, and I did it rather well, thus giving me the boost I needed to continue to move forward on my dream of obtaining a college degree.
In the process of compiling the literary works I intended to include in this project, I began to notice a common thread that connected the works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry that I generally choose to read. That common tie that binds these books together is that they all seem to center, in one form or another, around the theme of oppression. Perhaps this is because I have some deep psychological need to diffuse the power struggles I experience within myself by gleaning insight from the pages of someone else’s experience. Or, perhaps it is merely because I have a predisposition to “root for the underdog”. Regardless of the reason, be it simple or complex, almost everything I read seems to engage a “David and Goliath” scenario.
That is, none have based their presentation on standing before their audience and “read[ing] their papers from a written manuscript,” (Gould, 38) as Gould critically describes some presenters doing. However, that is not to say that this technique of extemporaneous speech has been executed flawlessly at each seminar I have attended. Yet, even the most poorly executed extemporaneous speech I have so far observed holds more benefit than the subject of Gould’s criticism. The clear difference in appropriateness of technique—that is, between reading a densely written piece or speaking to an audience in a relatively colloquial manner—places significantly more effectiveness in a poorly executed edition of the latter than even a well accomplished exemplar of the former; a stance that Gould, as well, supports in his writing. A ready and practical example of this is much of this assignment. Read as a text, it is quite manageable. However, spoken to a seminar room full of people fighting to stave off a “post-prandial nap,” (Schatz, 14), it would be terribly ineffective, and likely result in more ready realization of said
This analysis will examine an interaction ritual between two colleagues using a qualitative approach. This meaningless interaction is an example of how conversations build the foundation for a social bond, producing and reproducing the epistemology around social interactions in everyday life. The interaction between two people actively produces social interactions through a process of internalisation, which is socially constructed. The social construction of the rules around interaction rituals forms the basis for common sense knowledge. In turn, a sense of social structure is created in which members perceive the world as a naturalistic entity independent of perception. For this interaction is it appropriate to use
Critical thinking is a significant and essential topic in recent education. The strategy of critical thinking skills helps identify areas in one's courses as the suitable place to highlight, expand and use some problems in exams that test students' critical thinking skills.
VAN DIJK, TEUN A. “18 Critical Discourse Analysis”. discourses.org. Website Teun A. van Dijk. 20 December 2011.
In today’s society, Technology is the main player in the way we communicate. Cell phones and social media made the communication easier for people to contact each other. It extends time less to connect between long distance friends. Also, it helps people to spread and enlarge circle of friendships around the world. However, people are losing the way of face-to-face conversation. Sherry Turkle is an expert on culture and therapy, mobile technology, social networking, and sociable robotics argued in her article “the flight from conversation” how using technology can affect our behavior in conversation.
In their essay, ‘The Intentional Fallacy’ (1946), William K. Wimsatt Jr. and Monroe C. Beardsley, two of the most eminent figures of the New Criticism school of thought of Literary Criticism, argue that the ‘intention’ of the author is not a necessary factor in the reading of a text.