Michael John Callahan
Dr. Chandler
ENG-3029-01
11 April 2012
Defining M: discourse analysis using the adult learners transcript
In the latest incarnation of this task, I have removed the Marxist approach—the idea of alienation no longer serves a purpose to this essay. My hope is that my reader will see this work as going beyond utility; that it is not merely showing something that could be within the transcript of M and Ch, but that it is also an examination of discourse analysis itself. With my deletion of the materialism of Marx, I will have to justify retaining the metaphysical castle that I have built with its bricks of Kantian design. And you my astute reader will ask: what do these battlements have to do with M, Ch and our reality? What in the transcript sings to you to create an epistemological construction? What is the nature of the practice of discourse analysis that lends to the creation of these castles? I hope to answer these questions in this short essay.
In my original analysis, I posited that M's movements through various understanding were facilitated by her professor. My arguments allowed me to make an intuitive connection to the role of the teacher in M's journey of understanding, and if you follow them through in your own imagination, our destinations might very well be the same. But, there is another path through these woods, and it must be traveled; it is a road that is as old as Athens, and this road speaks to the larger activity which I am practicing in this essay—discourse analysis. M and Ch's dialogue can also be read as dialectic, an indirect method of communicating knowledge. I will only offer proofs of this through analogy and thus avoiding the pitfalls of metaphysic for our oh-so-modern scholarship. Parallels can be drawn from Plato's Meno and the Symposium, almost all of Kierkegaard's works, as well as Biblical scripture to the transcript of M and Ch. In all of the instances (or at least the instance I have demonstrated in this essay) M does not know something and cannot call it to mind; Ch will then remind M of this truth or thing and then various debates about the validity of this will occur. We, as readers, are left to contemplate either the wonderful or the possible meaning of it all. I will enumerate an example of Ch's diction as congruent but not equal to Socrates. I will also show M's diction as being congruent to a historical counterpart in Socrates’ interlocutor Meno. While M and Ch aren't discussing anything on the scale of virtue, it is my hope that this demonstration will offer an empirical proof of two things: (1) to show Ch as teacher—bringing M from one state to another. (2) To illuminate discourse analysis as a form of indirect inquiry into the human condition, where the truth is never explicitly stated, but is left for us as readers to infer. But enough! Let us chase after this teacher or professor, this master of movement; the cause of going from untruth to truth. We will find it in whatever form it chooses: Ch, professor or otherwise.
I. The epistemological castle
The rules by which M is accustomed to living by are shaken in her math computer class. The proof of this statement is in M's use of word “trust” in line 4. She trusts herself but not computers when math is involved. Her reasoning for this untrust is “That I could do it,” (6) and that the use of a computer for mathematics is redundant—“I didn't think that I needed...” This conclusion is an error in reasoning, because they place experience only had over that of experience yet to have.
M's most immediate and willing memory of interaction with a computer is tactile[laptop1] ; they are a sensory experience: “I was willing to type” (8). Using a slightly modified Kantian theory of empirical knowledge—since I'm mixing the kool-aid—we can establish a linear model of M's two computer knowledge experiences:
M
“willing” “No”
“typing”(sensory-line 8)_________________”math”(analysis/representation-line 1/2)
1 2
The basis for assigning analysis/representation a higher numerical value is Kant's order of empirical knowledge (Kant). M's contact with the keyboard affects her senses, giving an immediate stimulus and placing the experience at a lower order of magnitude than M's math task, which while also one of experience, is of a higher order because of progression. M defines the tasks she must accomplish to achieve this progression of experience in line 9: “putting my information in there” and “trusting the computer to, you know, analyze it”. However, unlike the representations of letters on the screen in word processing—which she knew an A to be equal to an A—she is apprehensive about the representations her numerical data is to have in a machine she does not understand. After all, M has probably been raised to follow, or know Peano's idea of a natural arithmetic where an idea can be called a number that follows the follow scheme: 0, number, successor; and that also conforms to five propositions, the most important of which being 0 is a number and not the successor of any number. Does M know if computers also follow the rules of this theory? She has no idea. So 4 might not be 4 on a computer screen to her. M already knows how to interpret 4's and 3's and 2's. This is why in line 14 she says, “I didn't think it was necessary” and in line 17, “it made it more difficult[laptop2] ”.
So how to solve this little quandary? What M needs is a why; she needs to be aware of the theory behind the task. If we look in Excerpt Two-line 25, we find M finally achieving this progression of empirical knowledge through the application of theory in her next computer class: “it was a fun experience because the teacher was very good” ; “once we would meet in the classroom, and the other time we would meet in the computer lab”; “it was the actual hands on, how we would use it”. Now, if we look at the list of programs M experienced in this class: Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Project; M truly has come quite a distance since only being able to type. M has gained understanding in finding the answer to the why. M is satisfied—“very good”. If we look back to our typology of experience, we can see what the blockade was for M’s progression: “No”. To effectively use of all of the programs in the Office suite requires the complex organization of data sets, graphical representations of objects in space and time, aesthetic taste and more, I would say that M has surpassed a value of “2”. This movement was enabled with the application of a little theory from her professor, as she admits to be the reason. M understanding is now truly progressing, but in order for further progression, M must constantly redefine her rules to avoid negative responses that are antithetical to her understanding.
II. The other path
In the first line of the transcript, Ch asks an initial question: “So in 2002, you were word processing, typing papers. But in that math class you didn't want to use that math program[?]” M answers Ch with a resounding “No” in line 2, giving the indication to both Ch and us that she is in possession of the truth of the question Ch has asked. This instance in the transcript is the Socrates moment; Kierkegaard would call it “the occasion” (Kierkegaard 117). Ch is unsure of M's possession of the “truth” of her own answer, so Ch asks M to qualify her direct answer of “No” with the questions: “Do you remember why? What were your feelings about it, can you remember that?”(line 3). This challenge to M's possession of truth sends a shock through her mind; M's once solid idea of what it was that made her not want to use computers in a math class has moved to conditional: “ I guess thought that I couldn't do it...” (line 4). We now have two different viewpoints: the person who is questioning the person claiming to possess the truth, via questions of recollection and the person actually doing the recollecting. In order to accomplish their joint task of the search, it has required the shattering of M's construction of reality.
In the Meno, when Socrates asks Meno what virtue is, he answers Socrates with a large list of things of what virtue is. Just as Ch did to M, Socrates sends a shock to his mind, by challenging Meno's idea of virtue, saying that virtue must be “one thing, not many” Socrates accomplishes this with bees of all things—simultaneously challenging the truth value of Meno’s answer, and like Ch has done to M, restructuring his paradigm. Socrates’ desired end state is the same as Ch's: to find the answer to a question they do not know. The dialogue between the two men requires both men to engage each other to arrive at a conclusion to the initial question posed by Socrates, because Meno is thought he was in possession of truth but was actually not, thus he has untruth; Socrates knows he is in possession of untruth, but is in possession of truth, which Meno seeks. Their situation is one is a mutual one and, like M and Ch, cannot terminate until there is an exchange of those values. (Meno)
After Ch's executes a very Socratic elucidation of reasons from M on why she could have not wanted to use computers for math, she comes to a moment of clarity where she instructs M, changing the paradigm, and offering possibility. Just as Socrates reframed Meno's answer in terms of bees—to give Meno a better view of the precision needed with the matter—so does Ch give the words to M. This gives M the ability to articulate both her ideas and her problem in line 16:
The teacher says we're going to do the course this way, and you rather than learning the program they gave you, that was supposed to make it easier, and that's the course where they were going to teach you and support you to use it, you you did it your own way, and that isn't just you, that's fairly typical, so let's do some reflecting on, what were your motives, I understand the fear thing, but let's think about where the fear came from, what was it, the one you identified, about not thinking that it was going to represent what you really wanted, is a big one, that's big, but can you think of any of the other things, maybe about you, or your past experiences or
But Ch has not only given words;Ch has also given M the gift of irony. (I am using a Kierkegaardian/Existential definition of Socratic irony, where the she has made it possible for M to see the existence of other possible outcomes for her experiences.) In line 17, M says, “Maybe I didn't relate the computer to education in the right way, that I didn't think it was necessary.” While the questions of both condition and tone could still be raised in M's statement, she has brought the concept of education in a direct relation to computing as a result of the discourse with Ch; an idea that 17 lines before did not exist within D's immediate reality. It was through the recollective nature of the dialogue that M remembers this. It is important to state here that I am not advocating Platonic forms and innate knowledge. What I do posit is that the truth that M had learned in her MS Office class—that she could use computers for complex tasks—was forgotten and had turned to an untruth to her with the passage of time. Ch did not know of M's use of computers for complex tasks yet; this takes place later in the transcript, section 2. Therefore, Ch did not know M had successfully used computers for complex tasks, Ch just knew that computers were capable of assisting with the execution of educational tasks in that environment.
I would not posit that the practice of discourse analysis is an instance of Meno's paradox, but I think that discourse analysis is an exercise in intuitive knowledge. I would hypothesize, however, that the Excerpt 1 from the adult learners transcript is an example of Meno’s paradox. I believe this is why I found interaction with this transcript so troublesome. My first engagements with the text were as mirror, and it reflected back whatever critical approach I applied. While mimetic analysis is incredibly interesting, I think that predefined terms and concepts are a terminal exercise. I think that by looking at this dialogue as indirect, as dialectic, and letting M and Ch speak to me, retaining their subjectivity without me imposing one upon them has yielded a better result. However, perhaps I have done nothing but now indirectly criticized. Regardless, I would venture to say that it is ability for subjectivity of both the voices in the discourse and in the analysis to exist that is the beauty of discourse analysis.
III. Conclusion
If I have demonstrated anything in this essay, then it is perhaps the flexibility of my tools. One of the most problematic moments within textual interaction is the will of the text versus the will of the reader. I wonder who won.
Works Cited
Chandler, Sally. Adult Learners Transcript. Dr. Chandler. Web. 25 Mar. 2012. <https://sites.google.com/site/eng3029writingreseach/home/course-documents/AdultLearnerandNewLiteracies.docx?attredirects=0&d=1>.
Kant, Immanuel, Paul Guyer, and Allen W. Wood. Critique of Pure Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. Print.
Kierkegaard, Søren, David F. Swenson, Niels Thulstrup, and Howard Vincent Hong. Philosophical Fragments, Or, A Fragment of Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1962. Print.
Plato. Meno. Web. 09 Apr. 2012. <http://classics.mit.edu/plato/meno.html>
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