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Hi Keith, I might have been trying to do too much too quickly. <snip>I’m not sure I follow all the distinctions you make, so, my comments in reply could go off-target.<snip> Boy, do I understand that feeling. Mainly I was intrigued and wanted to stir that pot, because of how language might be able to both build and destroy communities. Your post about ways of conceptualizing actor, action, and the object of those actions reminded me of a speech Obama gave in 2009 that both took the agent out, and put the agent in, so that what he hoped would be a more unified community wouldn't be undermined at the outset. He states: <snip>“Short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity… we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election… difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day…”<snip> It's so masterful in terms of the use of passive and active voice. Unfortunately, the Republicans had decided that their mission was to make sure Obama was unsuccessful (I wish I could sight the Washington Post here, but I read it too long ago.) So, there's a lot language can't do in the face of _______- you fill in the blank. Back to your post: <snip>Taking the ACTOR out of a situation is certainly one of the consequences of ergative structures. Equally though, the ergative takes the RE-actor out of the situation. Off line, Ken provided me with insights into missing aspects of my windy piece on ergative/accusative languages. One point he made, that I find has value here, is the potential misuses of the ergative. That is, when we take the agent out of the discussion then there is potential for misdirection of purpose, cover-up and even rhetorical denial. I heard a nice misdirect from a banking executive recently where he used the negative as a cover-up for the positive. What he said was something like this: “If I were to deny that the bank is in a bad position, then I would be telling a lie.” What he didn’t say was: “The bank has laundered millions of dollars from terrorist and criminal gangs.” So, yes, I take the point as well made that the ergative, in itself, is not the answer to all situations just as the active and/or the passive are not the answers to all situations. Rhetoric is our master until we master rhetoric.<snip> I think we are in agreement. <snip>Remember I listed multiple sources of the accusative structure: theological, legal, scientific and psychological. If I give an example we might be able to share more common ground. My example aims to include elements from what I saw I was aiming at, and what I see Susan aiming at (I could be wrong in both cases).<snip> First, I love your candor and hope I share it. I think that this forum does allow for musing and opportunities to consider and reconsider. <snip>TRIGGER WARNING – I am about to talk about racist and sexist stuff in technical ways that show NO respect for anyone’s feelings. Wendy is white. Billy is black They are both pre-schoolers – they are meeting for the first time. Wendy says to Billy “Hey, you’re black.” Bill says, in reply: “Hey, you’re white.” Wendy replies: “No I’m not, I’m mostly pink.” Billy punches her in the nose, making her nose bleed and he says, triumphantly: “Now you’re a bit red.” Wendy, in tears and disbelief cries: “Boys don’t hit girls.” Following my suggestion from the earlier post, the teacher might take an ergative/inquisitorial approach to this situation. Taking the inquisitorial approach, the teacher might establish that Wendy had never seen a black child before (Wendy’s context). Billy, on the other hand, may have been primed to respond to racist comments because his family is a minority family in the neighbourhood (Billy’s context). Subsequently, the teacher runs a learning exercise where she explains differing cultures, races and genders and the appropriate ways in which we address each other, and respond to each other. No one hits anyone, ever. Unless Wendy and Billy come to apprehend the new context which is something like “appropriate and inappropriate social relations”, then they will be left bewildered by a world in which Wendy wins because she is the immediate victim, and used her words, and Billy is the violent one, and long term victim, on his way to jail, because he can’t control his reactions in decentred ways. These strategies are used in everyday situations is schools. What I was trying to indicate, in my previous post, was that we can DESIGN language situations to exemplify such strategies. The more rhetorically useful, non-accusative strategies we have, the better off we are. Why, because at the moment, in English-based cultures, the accusative dominates. Ken suggested I needed to do research to justify this claim. He also highlighted that accusative approaches are totally required in many circumstances. I agree<snip.> I wonder here if we're not also talking about reflection and discussion before reaction, leading to crafting language in ways that keeps the heat down. Billy still needs at least a time out. It's separate and apart from language use and later discussion. On this I hold to my earlier perspective that victims need justice and perpetrators need to experience the consequences of bad behavior. But I still think that you offer an intriguing perspective in terms of how we engage in discussions that seek to understand the problem as a whole and prevent future bloody noses in particular. Language and how it is structured, it's grammar and syntax also seem to me to play a role. <snip>Hope this helps<snip> I'd say yes. I hope that what I wrote back is useful too. Susan ________________________________ From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Susan Hagan <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Thursday, 8 February 2018 9:39:55 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: On gendered experiences in life & careers Hello All, David I wanted to thank you for the implicit permission not to have to read the earlier thread. I apologize in advance for what I might have missed that will make this text part of the problem instead of a part of the discussion. I wouldn't be able to write otherwise. Keith, I'm intrigued by your "windy" contribution concerning accusative versus ergative language. Not only does it take the actor out of the situation, but for me, by doing so, it potentially changes the context under which we consider the problem. Aitchson (2012) points out that when words change their meanings in new contexts, children (and others as I recall) find the change easy to accept. I'd say that scales out in situations like these. If we stay within the context of good and bad we might not get far. But if we change the context to "the kettle boiled—what do we do with it now"... well I wonder. (To be clear, this is not to say that perpetrators should just be forgiven or ignored. It's a different part of the conversation that I'm not focused on because I think that what Vicky said is the main point.) But to finish Keith's post, I often wonder if a new pronoun is called for. Where I teach, the assumption is that a man wrote it. Maybe a gender neutral pronoun, would reinforce that, but maybe it would increase the potential for reflection. Vicky, I think that what Keith writes links to your welcome notes on both understanding and dismantling by "calling out the discrepancies in experiences, followed by reflecting on these differences, and then finally determining how those reflections will help us to move forward." Related to a pragmatic design example, one of those ways of calling out discrepancies in experience as well as reflecting and determining how to move forward that comes to mind for me is Lupton and Miller 's (1996) "White on Black on Grey" where the authors take a close look at examples of advertising from the 1960's to the mid '90's, focused on African Americans. One aspect of their argument that encourages me to reflect, relates to work that is done with the intention of addressing racism, but actually reinforces racist touch points. Specifically, good intentions still failed to change the context when Herb Lubalin, whose work I admire about as much as one can, shows an African American in white face for an Ebony ad in the New York Times (1968). It says, "some American advertisers are color-blind." I thought of it as sharp and thought provoking—something I love about Lubalin. But that example also shows that he's forgotten the discrepancies in experience. This clever use of "color" ignores that the man in white face is being made to contribute to something that hurt so many people—and still does. I saw the clever in the re-appropriated history. I failed to see that he hadn't really changed the context. Does that mean that we shouldn't use sarcasm to get a point across in situations of oppression? I honestly don't know. Perhaps we should be careful. When this kind of kettle is boiling, maybe reflection comes first? All the best, Susan Susan M. 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