Greetings Everyone!
I have been following conversations and enjoying them as I busily reviewed dissertations and
module submissions for an exam borad meeting - today. Phew! Report written to I can eek a few
minutes to respond! First of all - thank you Brian 1) for your invaluable observations about the
need to ensure that language makes thoughts accessible and 2) for comments about my work.
Pip - I agree with Brian - I value the wisdom and pervading peacefulness of your postings ... Such
an 'Oh yes - that's spot on!' feeling just as I had when I read your message today and more than
that I feel stimulated to think around/about what you are saying (just as I did - and thanks too,
Keith, when I read your emails). Perhaps the greatest influence recently on the list for me has
come from Mohsen's postings because I have felt empowered to express thoughts and emotions
too powerful and too intricately interlaced for narrative pose. Ah! forgotten joys of writing poetry!
Yaakub influenced me too - and let's not overlook the value of something that brings us up short
and shouts NO!!!! as our values engage and reject it. Yaakub has helped me to value my identity.
So where does that bring me to? An observation that sometimes influence is denied although it is
certainly present. I can't remember who it was who ran the series of experiements where people
were planted in a discussion group and deliberately argued the opposite of what was manifestly
true - so those in the group who felt outnumbered felt duty bound to express the opposite view to
what they knew to be true - Ashe? Sometimes language is obscure and obscuring because it
reflects 'muddied thought' and sometimes it is an attempt to seem clever and erudite or a kind of
in-group language with its own jargon that knowingly and deliberately excludes the out-group:
Sometimes on a discussion list members are not responded to because they are considered to be
outside the in-group and while they might be in contact off list with individuals the list leaders
shun their comments and the leader followers - mindful of their precarious position - may too.
Discussion lists are social constructions with their own agreed normas and behaviours aren't they?
So while I agree that contributors should be mindful about their audience and bear in mind that
altering their language might attract more responses or at least more 'engaging' responses there
is more to eliciting responses than a change in language - there's a question of patronage too ...
If the perceived leaders in a group endorse the value of a contribution to discussion it is more
likely to be engaged with by others. Sometimes the quite obviously valuable is ignored because
the 'wrong' person has expressed it - I guess you could call this effect 'The Galileo Syndrome'?
Wow! That's enough from me - time to say another 'Thank You' for the conversations on line here
and get ready to offer my comments to the Exam Board, which I am very much looking forward to!
It's such a delight to be able endorse the value of well conducted research and I am just hopeful
that I'll pursuade 'the powers that be' to assist students to make their submissions multi-media.
Warm regards to Everyone,
Sarah
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