PostNYCcCC

About a month ago we discussed and defined several terms that I—at least—used as synonyms without understanding each terms nuanced meaning prior to our discussion. The terms were acculturate, appropriate, cultural dissemination, co-opt, and assimilation. In this week’s reading, we get another term that belongs to a group of terms I am worried that I do not use technically and lump together. In fact, I am pretty sure I have used these terms inappropriately in conversation but was found to be more intelligent in the particular situation because of my in-appropriation—one of those “I never thought of it like that” responses or mistakes I will always take credit for (my ethos is a delicate rhetorical flower). The term I refer to comes from the Lyons article. He gets the term—interpretive communities—from Stanley Fish. The term reminds me of discourse communities, affinity groups, and communities of practice.

Definitions I have found online and otherwise
Discourse community= a ‘discourse community’ is a
group of people who share certain language-using practices” (Bizzell).

Affinity groups=Learners constitute an “affinity group," that is, a group that is bonded primarily through shared endeavors, goals, and practices and not shared race, gender, nation, ethnicity, or culture (Gee).

Interpretive Community=social groups and institutions whose discursive formations, rules of intelligibility, worldviews and meaning-making laws limit the sense we can make of any object—a poem, a gesture, a fish (Lyons 93).

Communities of Practice=The concept of a community of practice (often abbreviated as CoP) refers to the process of social learning that occurs when people who have a common interest in some subject or problem collaborate over an extended period to share ideas, find solutions, and build innovations (Wiki).

What I read as a major difference or categorization possibility with these terms is that some are captive or they are not by choice—interpretive communities and possible discourse communities. Affinity Groups and Communities of practice, rather, involve participation and choice. I am not sure how to distinguish between terms within these categories, however.

To bookend this first topic, I return to the discussion we had a few months ago distinguishing terms. I am uncomfortable with Flynn’s language that distinguishes transculturation events. She claims to be summarizing Lyons and Pratt so maybe my problem is with their conceptualizations. Anyway, she writes, “Minorities select and invent from the dominant culture, and the dominant culture, in turn, appropriates the marginalized group’s cultural forms” (116). Specifically, I dislike how she uses a term—appropriation—that has permissions attached to it with terms—select and invent—that do not have permissions denoted. What is Flynn getting at here? Is it implied that minorities culturally disseminate from the dominant culture?

Another issue I have with Flynn involves the notion of outbursts (“a moment when the often latent conflicts among faculty and among students, between students and faculty, or within individuals bubble to the surface, erupting in class discussions, small-group work, office hour conversations…an outburst is a response to a conflict that expresses a person’s orientation to that conflict and to the social and political conditions that underlie it” (xi). I am not sure I fully understand the concept because writing an argument is an outburst. Discussion is always an outburst. I am not sure how her example of dealing “with the pervasive conservatism of many Michigan Tech students” (117) is an example of an outburst. The student, judging by Flynn’s description appears to be following directions. Is it an outburst because Flynn’s lens conflicts with it? If we consider Bizzell’s adding to the term power relations them does Flynn’s example qualify as an outburst because the dominant group—Flynn and the class—disagree with the minority—the student?

Stephen Dilks is arrogant. I dislike his superior tone—“Thus she has a good go at complicating received understandings of ‘the other,’ recovering it for use as a triadic term…” (162). In defense of Starke-Meyerring’s arguments and offense to Dilks who says, “This reductiveness and hostility, of course, is produced by a media-dominated culture that is hugely invested in monculturalism, monolingualism, monopolitics, and monoeconomics” (163), I add “of course, it is not just the media that does this but is the schools and the way in which multiculturalism is perceived and taught in the academy.”