Entering A Discourse
Everyone’s careers, hobbies, and scenes they find themselves in could can be boiled down several different aspects of how they act. This includes what they say, how it’s said, how they present themselves, and all the while what they believe and value.
In terms of James Gee’s writing “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics”, all of those aspects combine to make up a Discourse. To be considered in a Discourse the person must understand exactly how to present themselves to other members in order to fit into the situation. Gee explains the important parts of fitting into these scenes as the “saying (writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing combinations” (6), or knowing what to say, how to say it, how to act, and what to hold as important in life.
But getting into a Discourse may be tricky because of the threat of being outed as a pretender or a poser while still figuring everything out. While inductees are still figuring out the nuances of their desired Discourse, they seem to fall within a gray area between being a card-carrying member and not even remotely being a part of it.
Amy Cuddy presented her ideas on how people should act while they are in this gray area in a Ted Talk that she did in 2012. She tells her audience to “fake it ’til you become it” (19:14). She suggests that faking it and acting like you are in a Discourse is the way to get the essential practice needed to pick up those little nuances that it entails, but another important piece of the puzzle is having a mentor in the subject to help the inductee learn from the mistakes they make.
The combination of those two aspects is what drives inductees through the gray area and into the Discourse.
To be considered completely in a certain Discourse, the inductee must fully understand the purpose of each cog in the inner-workings of whatever Discourse they aspire to be in. Gee explains it as follows:
“Someone can speak English, but not fluently. However, someone cannot engage in a Discourse in a less than fluent manner… the lack of fluency may very well mark you as a pretender” (9,10).
He makes it perfectly clear that for me to be in any said Discourse, I must be able to do, say, and act the right way in front of other members, unless I wish to face the possibility of being outed as a non-member. This is all fine and dandy if we don’t take into account the fact that within every single Discourse, there are people trying to become a part of it.
The world isn’t as cut-throat as Gee is making it out to be and in every Discourse there are inductees making mistakes. But if one mistake is what determined whether someone would continue on into a Discourse, the number of card-carrying members would decline sharply.
That being said, there is a gray area of sort of being in a Discourse, but not being completely fluent in it; this is the category in which inductees fall. The important aspect that those in the gray-area should keep in mind is body language.
As a social scientist, Cuddy has studied extensively on body language and has come to the conclusion the effects it has are staggering. She states that “We make sweeping judgements and inferences from body language” (2:04).
So inductees must act like they belong in the Discourse’s situations if they eventually want to be taken seriously. If they are timid and constantly fear making a mistake, they will learn nothing, but if they pretend they are not afraid of making a mistake, present themselves boldly, when they eventually make a mistake the leaders are more likely to forgive that mistake because of the drive they are showing and the potential they may see.
That being said, the gray area’s leniency can be tricky to figure out in different Discourses. For example, if an apprentice to the Discourse of college made a mistake, the elites of that society (i.e. the professors/upperclassmen) would be more forgiving than those who did the same in the Discourse of a biker gang.
While someone is in the gray area, he or she could be seen as a member, but would not be judged too harshly if a mistake was made because the elites understand that there is simply no way to know exactly what to do, say, act and believe unless given an opportunity to practice first.
This is where Cuddy’s idea of “fake it ’til you become it” (19:14) comes into play. When talking about her experience with college and graduate school, she said that she was so afraid of being outed as someone who didn’t belong that she called her mentor and said she was quitting. Instead of letting her quit, her mentor said:
“You’re going to stay, and… you’re going to fake it. You’re going to do every talk that you ever get asked to do. You’re just going to do it and do it and do it… until you have this moment where you say, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m doing it” (Cuddy 17:02).
I know that Cuddy is definitely correct in saying that doing something over and over again will eventually internalize those actions because of my experiences in sports such as ice hockey.
Last year playing goalie was my first year starting for my High School team. I realized midway through the season that I was making more saves or plays and then realizing that I couldn’t remember how I thought through those actions. I came to the conclusion that I had internalized most of the moves required by goalies in the many years that I have been playing.
I believe this is the true mark of someone’s mastery of a Discourse, and the only way to internalize the aspects required for it is through lots of practice.
Gee refers to the way we get this practice as apprenticeship, and it is very important for the inductee to understand the full cooperation between the different aspects of the Discourse. Without it, chances of entering that Discourse become more slim. He briefly describes his views on master-apprentice relationship when he talks about non-overt teaching of a Discourse:
When I say “teach” here, I mean “apprentice someone in a master-apprentice relationship in a social practice (Discourse) wherein you scaffold their growing ability to say, do, value, believe, and so forth, within that Discourse, through demonstrating your mastery and supporting theirs even when it barely exists (i.e., you make it look as if they can do what they really can’t do).” (Gee 11)
What he is saying here is that the master’s role in teaching a newcomer to a Discourse the ways of the trade is to support their mistakes if and when they make them, and to provide the apprentice with enough motivation so he or she believes that they, in fact, can become a part of that Discourse with enough effort.
Masters also have to provide the apprentice with an opportunity to learn not only by observing, but mostly by doing the things someone who is in the Discourse would do.
This relates back to Cuddy’s example of how her mentor helped her get through graduate school. She made Cuddy believe that she could make it even though she adamantly believed that she didn’t belong. In doing this, Cuddy’s mentor forced Cuddy to practice the skills required of graduate school students.
That alongside “supporting [her mastery] even when it barely exists” caused those skills to be internalized. Even though all of the heavy lifting was done by Cuddy, her mentor provided the essential motivation and push that Cuddy needed to stick with it.
Entering a Discourse is not a one person job; it requires not only the effort by the inductee, but also the support of the people already within the Discourse. Without encouragement, someone trying to enter a certain Discourse may start to think that their goals may be unattainable and quit before they embarrass themselves.
Without the support of the doctors who supervise residents, fresh out of med-school, those men and women would be thrusted into a world in which they may understand how to talk, diagnose and treat, but really don’t understand every aspect of being a doctor. They get the practice and the motivation they need from that and come out with the “M.D.” at the end of their name having a meaning.
