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booksomewenchSo far I owe: Lunacon update, The Darcys and the Bingleys review, and a Twilight thesis (this last will take the longest as I have a LOT to say. Heh. But rest assured, it's been read, much to the amusement/consternation of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shogunhb, ddrpolaris, and ladyscience who were in the car with me, my frequent expressions of disbelief, and the ever-present threat of the book being tossed out the car window).
What I felt moved to write about now, Dear Reader, is an article I read for my Teaching Module for Gender and Discourse on Thursday. First of all, this article is second in a series (of four!) replies to Emanuel Schegloff's 1988 paper, "Whose Text? Whose Context?" The main point of the article isn't important, suffice to say Schegloff was contrasting two modes of research: Conversational Analysis (CA) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). To this paper, Michael Billig wrote a response, showing what he considered to be errors in Schegloff's methodology. Obviously realizing that one day I'd be reading their journal, the editors at Discourse and Society thought it would be a super-awesome idea (AND IT IS) to get the original articles and then have Schegloff and Billig duke it out in several more articles, each a "reply to the reply." Rawk.
Ignoring what many people on my f-list may consider the foolishness of two scholars arguing passionately about several obscure and irrevelant-to-most-aspects-of-social life, I love reading academics get into bitter, knock-down-drag-out fights in the pages of scholarly journals. I'm eagerly awaiting my first scholarly argument (gower, I'm looking at you...), so I can say, "With all due respect, my esteemed colleague is quite clearly either insane or congenitally stupid. I mean...clearly." Part of my amusement does stem from the supposed pointlessness of the debate (on the one hand, I think that a great many of these debates due have value outside the academic sphere, on the other, I'm one of these guys [or will be soon], so of course I'm going to think it's important), but, really, I read it for the sheer vitriol. Sometimes I picture guys in tweed coats with leather patches on their elbows fighting for supremacy in a pig pen.
Man, that image never gets old.
This post, however, was born while I was reading Schegloff's first rejoinder, "Schegloff's texts' as Billig's data: A critical reply." Up until then, I had assumed that Schegloff was a regular academic, perhaps more inclined to melodrama than most, but CA is pretty much his baby, so I could understand a bit extra passion in his work. Then I read that rejoinder and realized that Schegloff had lost his goddamned mind. But don't just take my word for it; read for yourself. Remember folks, this is an article in a highly-respected academic journal:
*"...the readers who find the mode of discourse exemplified by Billig's piece are, I think, unlikely to want to undertake serious conversation-analytic work" (page 2)
* In response to Billig's quote, "He [Schegloff] uses the word 'vernacular' to describe the sort of ordinary language that the analyst must get beyond in the analysis," Schegloff says, "Ostensibly a mere neutral description, the observation conveys an implication of impropriety, of misleadingness, of untowardness....Readers should stay alert to the tacit and ungrounded critique imported into Billig's text by this practice, which issues in a blizzard of innuendo." (page 3)
*"One article of Billig's indictment (and 'indictment' is surely the right word)..." (page 3)
*In response to his assertion that CA can help find domestic violence triggers in conversations: "If this position is ideologically problematic for Billig or other CDA's, I will simply have to live with that--without apologies, I might add." (4)
*"Given these concerns (with which Billig may or may not be familiar....For those who actually do this work, [Billig's suggestion] is a hopeless prospect." (7)
*"...the chance is enhanced that [readers] with find what they find, and not what the author has stacked the deck in favor of finding..." (8, emphasis in the original)
*" 'Where did this assumption come from?' Where indeed?!?" (notes).
Yeah, Schegloff actually uses "?!?" in his article. For a minute, I thought I'd accidentally printed out someone's LJ. Even these snippets can't properly portray his monumental sense of self-righteousness at being unfairly persecuted. I mean, the entire article sinks under the weight of his entitlement issues. <3
Perhaps I shall invite him to next year's panel: You Are Not A Special Snowflake.
shogunhb, ddrpolaris, and ladyscience who were in the car with me, my frequent expressions of disbelief, and the ever-present threat of the book being tossed out the car window).What I felt moved to write about now, Dear Reader, is an article I read for my Teaching Module for Gender and Discourse on Thursday. First of all, this article is second in a series (of four!) replies to Emanuel Schegloff's 1988 paper, "Whose Text? Whose Context?" The main point of the article isn't important, suffice to say Schegloff was contrasting two modes of research: Conversational Analysis (CA) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). To this paper, Michael Billig wrote a response, showing what he considered to be errors in Schegloff's methodology. Obviously realizing that one day I'd be reading their journal, the editors at Discourse and Society thought it would be a super-awesome idea (AND IT IS) to get the original articles and then have Schegloff and Billig duke it out in several more articles, each a "reply to the reply." Rawk.
Ignoring what many people on my f-list may consider the foolishness of two scholars arguing passionately about several obscure and irrevelant-to-most-aspects-of-social life, I love reading academics get into bitter, knock-down-drag-out fights in the pages of scholarly journals. I'm eagerly awaiting my first scholarly argument (
gower, I'm looking at you...), so I can say, "With all due respect, my esteemed colleague is quite clearly either insane or congenitally stupid. I mean...clearly." Part of my amusement does stem from the supposed pointlessness of the debate (on the one hand, I think that a great many of these debates due have value outside the academic sphere, on the other, I'm one of these guys [or will be soon], so of course I'm going to think it's important), but, really, I read it for the sheer vitriol. Sometimes I picture guys in tweed coats with leather patches on their elbows fighting for supremacy in a pig pen. Man, that image never gets old.
This post, however, was born while I was reading Schegloff's first rejoinder, "Schegloff's texts' as Billig's data: A critical reply." Up until then, I had assumed that Schegloff was a regular academic, perhaps more inclined to melodrama than most, but CA is pretty much his baby, so I could understand a bit extra passion in his work. Then I read that rejoinder and realized that Schegloff had lost his goddamned mind. But don't just take my word for it; read for yourself. Remember folks, this is an article in a highly-respected academic journal:
*"...the readers who find the mode of discourse exemplified by Billig's piece are, I think, unlikely to want to undertake serious conversation-analytic work" (page 2)
* In response to Billig's quote, "He [Schegloff] uses the word 'vernacular' to describe the sort of ordinary language that the analyst must get beyond in the analysis," Schegloff says, "Ostensibly a mere neutral description, the observation conveys an implication of impropriety, of misleadingness, of untowardness....Readers should stay alert to the tacit and ungrounded critique imported into Billig's text by this practice, which issues in a blizzard of innuendo." (page 3)
*"One article of Billig's indictment (and 'indictment' is surely the right word)..." (page 3)
*In response to his assertion that CA can help find domestic violence triggers in conversations: "If this position is ideologically problematic for Billig or other CDA's, I will simply have to live with that--without apologies, I might add." (4)
*"Given these concerns (with which Billig may or may not be familiar....For those who actually do this work, [Billig's suggestion] is a hopeless prospect." (7)
*"...the chance is enhanced that [readers] with find what they find, and not what the author has stacked the deck in favor of finding..." (8, emphasis in the original)
*" 'Where did this assumption come from?' Where indeed?!?" (notes).
Yeah, Schegloff actually uses "?!?" in his article. For a minute, I thought I'd accidentally printed out someone's LJ. Even these snippets can't properly portray his monumental sense of self-righteousness at being unfairly persecuted. I mean, the entire article sinks under the weight of his entitlement issues. <3
Perhaps I shall invite him to next year's panel: You Are Not A Special Snowflake.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-24 11:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-24 12:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-24 03:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-24 02:59 pm (UTC)It was lovely to meet you on Sunday morning. I'm sorry the con was such a fiasco.
I enjoyed the folk I met, but I did spend most of the weekend making the face in my icon.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-24 05:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-24 09:03 pm (UTC)Oh yeah, and academic arguments are made of win. I don't really understand everything going on in this argument, but scientist ones are AWESOME when they start slamming each others' techniques.