Stop Expecting People to Read Between the Leaves
The importance of understanding communication within and beyond discourse communities
Edited on 2/26/2021
1: Do you think this looks like blight or MV?
2: If it’s MV, quarantine it. But it could be blight. What’s the RH in your Milsbo?
1: It’s fine, about 70–75, but I just switched from leca to pon.
2: Oh, I wonder if it’s just acclimating. Hey, should I keiki this ax bud?
Unless you’re a houseplant person, you might not understand what the above exchange means. Although everything above is in English, it’s easy to feel like a different language is being spoken — and that’s because is is (in a sense). The above communication is an example of a regular exchange within a specific discourse community.
In other words:
1: Do you think this is a fungal infection or mosaic virus on my plant?
2: If it is mosaic virus, be sure to keep it somewhere away from the rest of your collection. How humid is it inside of your greenhouse style cabinet?
1: It’s fine, about 70–75% relative humidity, but I changed my substrate from clay pebbles to pumice, zeolites, lava rock and fertilizer.
2: Oh, I wonder if it’s just adjusting to the change in substrate. Hey, should I put some hormone growth paste on this dormant bud?
What is a discourse community? What I believe to be beautifully explained by Joan Cutting in her book Analysing the Language of Discourse Communities, they are “groups of individuals who have interacted frequently over time develop a pool of common knowledge about the group, its activities and the individuals within the group, and seem to develop an economical way of referring to things, persons, events and situations in their shared environment”.
But what happens when someone who isn’t part of the houseplant discourse community is trying to find out why their plant’s leaves are yellowing? How does the seasoned planty adjust their vernacular so that the novice will understand? How do we exchange information with people who are not part of our own discourse communities?
Let’s think about that. We are considered professionals within our own respective fields. As someone who works in higher education, you would think those within our field would be aware of how to communicate effectively, right? As educators, we are perceived to be the ones to teach the world how-to read, write, do math, understand science, and so-forth. People understand that our jobs are to teach others how to understand. But if you’ve ever given a presentation or stood at the front of the classroom, you know it’s not that easy.
Looking into our own field, Patricia A. Duff explains in her article “Language Socialization into Academic Discourse Communities” that academic discourse, “refers to forms of oral and written language and communication — genres, registers, graphics, linguistic structures, interactional patterns — that are privileged, expected, cultivated, conventionalized, or ritualized, and, therefore, usually evaluated by instructors, institutions, editors, and others in educational and professional contexts”. This includes STEM, humanities, administration -all faculty and staff. But, I know that if I, an English and education major, were to sit-in during a biological science meeting, I would be utterly lost. So, it is important that we also consider the discourse communities within our discourse community, because if we cannot understand one another, how will those outside of the professional world of academia understand us?
The way we communicate with our students and our community is critical to our success as educators.
I remember my the first day of algebra my freshman year of high school. I was 14-years-old and hardly eager to learn. Mr. Bribiescas stood at his podium before the class and told us that he was prepared for many of us not understand certain concepts that lied ahead of us that school year. He said that when it comes to learning something new, the subject being explained to you will either “click in your head” or it won’t. If it wasn’t clicking, there was no amount of times the same information could be repeated — it just won’t click. Mr. B said the only way to help us understand would be to present that piece of information in a different number of ways until it does click.
So, what are those different ways? Well, the initial consideration needs to be how we are communicating with our audience. We cannot simply say, “It’s important to germinate seeds before planting them in the substrate” and expect kindergartners will understand. While this information is accurate, no communication is occurring, because the kindergartners probably only understood the words important, seeds, before, and planting. James Paul Gee reminds us that, “when we speak or write we craft what we have to say to fit the situation or context in which we are communicating” in his Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method.
When thinking about how to better communicate with our audience, we should consider intertextuality. We can still tell the children, “It’s important to germinate seeds before planting them in the substrate” but we will have to explain the terms germinate and substrate to them. For example, we can tell them that when we germinate a seed, we are waking it up so the plant can start to come out of its shell -but before we wake it up, we need to put it in a nice comfy paper-towel “bed” with a little bit of water and then seal it in a plastic bag to keep it safe. Considering the stories that are read and told to children, the content they watch on television or YouTube, and the everyday activities they’ve learned, intertextuality allows us to introduce a new concept (germination) with subjects they are already familiar with.
We can use intertextuality to help us learn how to effectively communicate with our audiences.
So, now that we have figured out how to communicate within discourse communities, what do we want to share? As a public institution, community colleges have several audiences. We have our students, we have the local government, state and federal agencies, we have the community, the media — the list goes on and on. As administrators, we must be mindful of what we relay, how, and why.
Martha Stewart wrote, “by sharing your knowledge about your product or service with your customers, you create a deep connection what will help you learn how best to build and manage your business” in 2005’s The Martha Rules. This verbiage applies to certain discourse communities, but for us educators, we must share our assessment information with our community and students so that we develop a relationship that can guide on towards better curriculum and measurement standards.
Transparency is needed and is accessible on our websites. The assessment cycle is on-going and its results are published for anyone to access. However, we need to make this information readable for those we serve. This would require us to provide communications meant for our community and communications meant for those within our academic discourse community.
As I walk through the indoor foliage section of a nursery, I overhear another customer say that they’re looking for a galaxy monstera. The new employee looks confused, as there is no monstera variant called “galaxy”. I chime in asking if she means a Thai Constellation, she nods in agreement. Because we were in a common houseplant nursery, the employee apologized that they do not carry them and my fellow customer goes on her merry way. Intertextual context clues allowed me to understand this person’s attempt to participate in the houseplant discourse community, but we can’t expect everyone else to be able to read between the leaves.
