It must be exhausting, being an advocate for prescriptive DA...I imagine that those who live in a world of how discourse should be instead of how it actually is feel either like Don Quixote or the Cassandra of Greek mythology. I certainly don't have the stamina for it...besides, I think descriptive DA makes more sense. Given that Bakhtin sees discourse as ongoing and unfixed anyway, I'm sure he'd scoff at the concept of placing value judgments on discourse.
In that spirit, I'd like to pose a question: Is this discourse progressive/productive? Why/why not? If you feel it is non-progressive, how wide does your lens have to get before you see it as progressive, or does your lens never get to that point?
Inquiring minds want to know...
3 comments:
But isn't our job as educators to foster (prescribe) a particular kind of discourse in the classroom? If not, say more...
I agree w/ you re: researchers should be interested in describing discourse, but as practitioners, well, maybe we need to move into prescriptive mode?
Ahhh...foster, yes. Prescribe? I say no. There is always a way to get where you want to go from where you are through the discursive process...especially if you are in control. Always much easier to affect change from the center than the margins. I just think that valuating speech acts from the get-go actually stifles the heteroglossia that we are trying to foster in the classroom. How can we perceive that the moonbat is a moonbat otherwise?
I am very interested in this conversation and hope to say more once I get over dr trena's comment that "educators should consider fostering/prescribing a particular kind of discourse in the classroom and that we might consider moving into prescriptive mode..." I need to read that comment a few more times and let my blood pressure return to normal before commenting further and responding to RTB's questions and the interesting story he linked us too... stay tuned...
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