Sunday, November 18, 2012

Reading Response (Gee)

In his article, "Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction," James Paul Gee introduces the term Discourse (with capital D) in which "what is important is not language, but saying-doing-being-valuing-believing combinations" (484). From his point of view, discourse is just "connected stretches of language that make sense" (484).
Unlike others authors like Swales and Porter who focus their attention of interpreting discourse communities in a sense of membership, Gee consider Discourse as people's identity, specially when he talks about our "primary Discourse"(845).
Reading this piece I was able to analyze my current situation living in a different country, speaking a different language and doing different activities. I realized that I'm constantly apprenticing social practices but I haven't mastered this Discourse. For me it's a "mushfake Discourse".

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