Entering a Discourse
Introduction:
One’s identity is made up of many different roles. Some roles include being a parent, child, student, business owner, employee, etc. These roles James Paul Gee would describe as Discourses. In ”Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction” published in the Journal of Education, Gee writes that discourses are
“ ways of being in the world; they are forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances body positions, and clothes”(7).
A Discourse is not only a title but a way of living when in certain social spheres that requires the total mastery of the “saying(writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing combinations” that make up a Discourse (Gee, 6). Amy Cuddy, in her TED Talk, speaks about confidence and suggests that ones actions may change how one feels. Mastering a Discourse is difficult because one must have the right combination but to learn that combination one must first enter into an apprenticeship.
Apprenticeship
Apprenticeship is the main way one enters a Discourse. Gee writes that
“Discourses are not mastered by overt instruction…, but by enculturation (“apprenticeship”) into social practices through scaffolded and supported interaction with people who have already mastered the Discourse. “(7)
In an apprenticeship one is not being taught in a typical classroom setting but through being around and mimicking those who have already mastered a Discourse. To gain an apprenticeship in a Discourse one must have some knowledge of that Discourse and the right connections. These connections are gained through interactions in different Discourses.
Characterization of a Discourse
Everyone has at least one Discourse, this being an initial or Primary Discourse. A Primary Discourse is acquired “through our primary socialization early in life in the home and peer group.”(Gee 7) Therefore one way to enter a Discourse is to be born or raised into it. We then gain Secondary Discourses through “interactions with various non-home-based social institutions.”(Gee 8) Secondary Discourses are harder to master because many decide who they accept based on one’s past Discourses and apprenticeships. We see an example of this through Amy Cuddy’s experience after being in a car accident and trying to go to college and then being told it’s not going to work out. Her chances of making it in that Discourse decrease because she misses part of the apprenticeship. However she reacts by working harder and eventually through persistence she graduates college. We can infer from Cuddy’s example that she used what knowledge she had picked up along with what she knew she needed to do to make it in college. This fits well with Gee’s idea of mushfake which in this application means “partial acquisition coupled with meta-knowledge and strategies to make do.” (13) Mushfake opens up a new avenue of how one might enter a discourse.
Mushfaking
One can mushfake their way into a Discourse. Unlike what Gee says in his first theorem that “You are either in it or you’re not.”(9) I believe there is a grey area when entering a discourse. Mushfake fits into this grey area. One can be accepted by those in a Discourse by ‘faking it’ and using their knowledge of the Discourse to fit in. Amy Cuddy I believe supports this idea. She gives a strong argument that one can “fake it till you become it.”(19:14) One of her examples comes from her own life being a grad student and feeling like she doesn’t fit in. Then after time by “faking it” she actually becomes the person she was faking. She realizes this when a student of hers is in a similar situation of feeling like she wasn’t supposed to be there. Cuddy recounts that at that moment she realized two things
“One was that I realized, oh my gosh, I don’t feel like that anymore…. And the second was, she is supposed to be here! Like, she can fake it, she can become it.”(18:07)
If Cuddy is right that one can “fake it till they become it” then anyone if they try hard enough can gain entry into a Discourse. Some Discourses instead of being open to only the social elites could be open to all. However, entrance is only the first step to mastering a Discourse. While mushfake may allows one entrance into a Discourse one cannot gain full fluency in a Discourse through mushfake.
Becoming Fluent in a Discourse
Fluency requires one to master the superficial parts like gestures, glances, body positions, clothing, use of grammar and punctuation and the more intensive parts like values and beliefs (Gee 7).
According to Gee it seems that unless one grows up being groomed for a certain Discourse there is no chance of acquiring the “superficial features of language” later. He writes “the problem is that such ‘superficialities’ cannot be ‘picked up’ later, outside the full context of an early apprenticeship.”(12) The superficial features are important because they are the first test if one is apart of that Discourse. Gee goes on to note that they “are only fully mastered when everything else in the Discourse is mastered .”(Gee 11) Unlike Gee, I believe the superficial features are easier to master than the “values, beliefs” of a Discourse. Although the superficial features influence all other aspects of a Discourse.
There is a relationship between each part of a Discourse. One cannot practice only a part of a Discourse without using another part in the process. For example, Cuddy shows that by faking one’s body language, for example ‘power posing’, one’s brain changes affecting how one behaves (11:28–11:44). “So two minutes lead to these hormonal changes that configure your brain to basically be either assertive, confident, and comfortable, or really stress-reactive, and feeling sort of shut down.”(11:44)
Mushfake, as I described it earlier, partnered with meta knowledge allows people to be apart of a Discourse yet have the freedom to choose what they accept and reject in that Discourse. Gee argues that
“classroom instruction can lead to metaknowledge, to seeing how the Discourses you have already got relate to those you are attempting to acquire, and how ones you are trying to acquire relate to self and society.”(13)
Through the use of metaknowledge one is able to better use what is already known to fit new situations. This brings with it new perspectives that hopefully create change within a Discourse. I believe that this is the point Gee is making when he writes,
“Mushfake, resistance, and meta-knowledge: this seems to me like a good combination for successful students and successful social change.”(13)
I agree that it creates more successful students and people and hopefully they go on to share their knowledge, just as Cuddy did with her audience, with others.
Conclusion
Through apprenticeship and mushfake one can enter a Discourse. However, fluency in that discourse may never be reached. As Gee says “ true acquisition will rarely if ever happen.”(13) In other words in an apprenticeship the goal one is working towards may never be reached. Gee offers us another way in through mushfake. Allowing one to be apart of a Discourse without fully being in one. I believe mushfake is in some cases the easier of the two to enter a Discourse. Mushfake allows for more freedom in the choices one makes and the ideas one can have because there is no pressure to be fluent in the Discourse. While Gee presents us with both options I believe the stronger of the two is mushfake.
