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Entry 1: Marilyn M. Cooper, “The Ecology of Writing”

In her article, “The Ecology of Writing,” Marilyn M. Cooper proposes an ecological model of writing communities, a model that builds upon social-epistemic rhetoric and reacts against cognitive process theory. Cooper bases her ecological model on a number of other theories, including speech-act theory, and defines writing within her model as “an activity through which a person is continually engaged with a variety of socially constituted systems” (367). She does not cite explicitly any speech-act theorists, but does articulate a socially-centered model of writing that hinges upon the acts that writers make in relation to their readers and communities. She concludes her article with the following statement about the action-centered nature of her model: “Writing is one of the activities by which we locate ourselves in the enmeshed systems that make up the social world. It is not simply a way of thinking but more fundamentally a way of acting” (373, emphasis mine).

Cooper spends the first few pages of the article opposing the cognitive model which envisions writing as a mental process free from the influence of social interaction. She particularly opposes the way that cognitive models have influenced classroom practices, instructing the student as a “solitary writer” to imagine their audience and their purpose for writing mentally rather than learning concretely about their readers and goals through social practice (365-66). She argues that new pedagogical techniques are needed to combat the dominant view that writing is an internal, mental practice (367). While her ecological model builds upon contextual, social conceptions of writing, Cooper distinguishes her model from contextual models such as Kenneth Burke’s by underlining the “inherently dynamic” character of the ecological system (367-68). Further, she argues that “in contrast, an ecology of writing encompasses much more than the individual writer and her immediate context. An ecologist explores how writers interact to form systems” (368).

In terms of speech-act theory, Cooper continually underscores the way that writing is an action within a social system. The very systems that Cooper imagines are “made and remade by writers in the act of writing. It is in this sense that writing changes social reality” (368). Additionally, “the systems are concrete. … they are not postulated mental entities” (369). The very ideas, purposes, and goals for writing are not created by a solitary writer. Instead, writers generate ideas from “contact” and thus “ideas are also always continuations, as they arise within and modify particular fields of discourse” (369). In this way, we can envision the intentions and actions of speech-act theory within a constantly redefined and reconstituted system of social interaction among writers and readers. Without explicitly citing speech-act theorists, Cooper builds upon their conclusions to establish her ecological model of writing. She argues, “Textual forms, like language forms in general, are … revolutionary, instruments of new forms of action” (371).

In terms of pedagogy, Cooper confronts problems of audience, arguing for classroom practices that encourage students to confront their “readers as real social beings” because in “real” discourse communities writers “know their readers through real social encounters,” i.e. in academic discourse communities (372). Cooper suggests that writing teachers ought to structure their classrooms in such a way that student writers can practice the acts of social interaction that lead to the formulation of purpose in writing. She encourages students to interact with one another, and in this way teachers can “enable our students to see each other as real readers, not as stand-ins for a general audience” (372). As a result, students will learn how writing is an act within a web of social interactions.

Cooper acknowledges a major criticism of her model, namely that “the image the ecological model projects is again an ideal one.” The ecological model does not make the social forces and interactions among writers and readers any more evident and available for objective consideration than earlier social/contextual models of writing. Although Cooper’s model is limited in the same sense that other social models of rhetoric are limited, her suggestions for classrooms practices are promising. By encouraging students to interact with one another and thus communicate with “real” readers, Cooper’s model helps students see how writing is a purposeful, social act that constitutes the discourse communities in which students participate. Cooper’s ecological model of writing thus constructs an interactive, socially conscious view of writing that builds upon the more basic conceptions of utterance and intention in speech-act theory.

Marilyn M. Cooper, “The Ecology of Writing,” College English 48.4 (April 1986): 364-75.

Entry 2: Kim B. Lovejoy, “The Gricean Model: A Revising Rubric”

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Lovejoy opens her article with a statement about the recursive (rather than linear) nature of writing and revision, and cites several studies of student revision processes. She follows up on Nancy Sommers’ studies about student revision primarily focusing on word choice and sentence-level revisions rather than big picture modifications. Lovejoy summarizes earlier research as follows: “The consensus, then, is that students tend to make surface changes and ignore content or meaning changes. Their conception of revision parallels what we normally think of as editing. If we are to teach our students how to revise, we need to communicate to them what writers do when they revise” (9).

Lovejoy utilizes H.P. Grice’s theory of conversation to create a revising strategy for composition courses. She notes that Grice’s theory is based on speech-act theory, but he “modifies the system worked out by Austin and Searle and offers a more general approach to an understanding of language use” (10). Grice formulated the Cooperative Principle, which seeks to grasp the rules of conversational exchange. Grice describes four conversational maxims: quantity (speech should be as informative as the situation requires), quality (speech should be “true” and should not include claims based on inadequate evidence), relation (speech should be relevant to the person you’re addressing), and manner (speech should not confuse with lengthy, ambiguous, disordered, or obscure expressions) (10). Following earlier speech-act theorists, Grice focuses on the intentionality of language and the speech-acts that take place between author and reader.

Lovejoy argues that Grice’s model is especially useful for composition students because “it helps students to understand that writing, like speaking, is a cooperative effort” (12). When students understand that they are participating in a conversation with their reader, they will become more conscious of the clarity of their utterances. Lovejoy sees Grice’s model as a useful tool to help students envision “a center of gravity” for their writing; this center involves a dual focus on audience and a purposeful and focused thesis. Lovejoy offers a chart/heuristic that introduces students to Grice’s four maxims, illustrating the ineffective quality of writing that does not conform to the four goals (14). Lovejoy sees her rubric as particularly useful for students writing research papers because the Gricean rubric helps students decide what supporting information is valuable and what is unnecessary.

Lovejoy acknowledges that her Gricean rubric does not introduce students to new techniques or information, but she continues to argue for its clarity and simplicity: “The value of the Gricean model is not that it asks new questions relating to revision; its value is that it makes the standard questions clearer, more comprehensible, and more forceful by providing the student with an organizational scheme that does not sacrifice its heuristic power for simplicity” (15). At first, I was concerned that Lovejoy’s model would be too restrictive of student writing, but she does suggest that teachers can teach advanced students to flout the maxims in a purposeful and effective way (17).

Kim B. Lovejoy, “The Gricean Model: A Revising Rubric,” Journal of Teaching Writing 6.1 (Spring 1987): 9-18.

Entry 3: Reed Way Dasenbrock, “J.L. Austin and the Articulation of a New Rhetoric”

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In his article, Reed Way Dasenbrock utilizes speech-act theory to position himself within the scholarly debate about classical rhetoric, its failure to describe modern rhetorical contexts, and the resulting need for a so-called New Rhetoric. Dasenbrock argues that J.L. Austin’s speech-act theory provides the foundation needed to move modern rhetoric away from classical rhetoric’s “over-emphasis on persuasive discourse and figurative language” (292).

Dasenbrock provides a basic outline of Austin’s philosophy of language, showing that Austin argued against the traditional philosophical position that the sentence, or descriptive proposition, was the central unit and purpose of language (294). Instead, Austin argued that to speak was to act and not merely to describe. As Dasenbrock summarized it, Austin’s central argument was that “language is a mode of acting in the world, not of reflecting it” (297).

According to Dasenbrock, the legacy of Locke and Plato led to a view of language that categorized sentences as either persuasive or referential. In contrast, Austin demonstrated that “all discourse is multifunctional, oriented both towards its subject and its audience” (298). Dasenbrock describes how a Lockean view of language affects students’ writing. For example, students have difficulty writing transitions within their essays because it is difficult to link constantives (fact-statements) when it appears that these statements are merely descriptive and have no argumentative purpose. Dasenbrock teaches his students to write with the performance of language always in mind, which makes it easier for them to see how each sentence “does something instead of referring to something” (298). In addition, Dasenbrock undermines the Lockean view that language can state a fact in simple terms and instead teaches his students “about indirection and implication, showing how the ideal of a plain concise style may be a partial contradiction” (303).

While Dasenbrock talks explicitly about how to teach Austin’s speech-act theory to students, I think that his outlining of Austin’s philosophy and the historical precedents for rhetoric would be very useful for students to read. I plan to assign this article to students to help them see how speech-act theory and its view of language can make their writing more purposeful and well-organized.

Reed Way Dasenbrock, “J.L. Austin and the Articulation of a New Rhetoric,” College Composition and Communication 38.3 (Oct. 1987): 291-305.

Kalamazoo 2014: Session announcement

I have organized and the Kalamazoo ICMS programming committee has approved two special sessions under the theme, “Speech, Performance, and Authority in Later Medieval Literature,” for the 2014 Congress.

Speech, Performance, and Authority in Later Medieval Religious Literature I
“Who’s Taking Now? Dialogues in the Works of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe”
Therese Novotny, Marquette University

“Figuring out the Son’s Dede: Julian of Norwich and the Theology of Pun”
James Howard, Emory University

“The Last Words of Robert Henryson’s Fox”
Chad Schrock, Lee University

Speech, Performance and Authority in Later Medieval Religious Literature II
“Texting Yourself: Vernacular Confessional Texts and the Verbalization of Interiority”
Krista A. Murchison, University of Ottawa

“The Gast of Gy: Appropriation of a Personal Purgatory”
Deirdre Riley, Binghamton University

“Like an Empty Bubble: Demonic Saints, Illitterata, and Cura Mulierum from the Fourth Lateran Council to the Fifth Monarchy”
Stacie Vos, Yale Divinity School

CFP, Kalamazoo ICMS 2014

Speech, Performance, and Authority in Later Medieval Religious Literature
49^th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 8-11 May 2014

This session will explore the use of speech, voice, and dialogue in later medieval religious literature, including texts produced during the high and late Middle Ages (c. 1000-1500). The session will engage with current scholarly discourse from a number of disciplinary angles, including studies of the performativity and rhetoric of medieval religious texts as well as the study of the history of dialogue. The papers in the session will seek to expand upon J.L. Austin’s historic studies of performative speech and also to converse with newer criticism, such as Mary Hayes’s 2011 book, Divine Ventriloquism in Medieval English Literature: Power, Anxiety, and Subversion. Such scholarship on religious literature is burgeoning, as evidenced by the large audience for a similar session at the 2013 Congress, entitled “Voice, Dialogue, and Conversation in Later Medieval Religious Literature.” While limiting itself to religious literature in particular, the session will allow a number of scholars to engage with questions of voice and speech from various perspectives. Scholars of visionary literature may contribute by exploring God’s voice and the mystic’s authorial and visionary “I”. Because this session does not limit itself to the religious literature of a particular language, a paper might engage with the fascinating linguistic and theological question of whether or not God speaks in the vernacular or in Latin. Other presenters may explore the medieval Christian’s voice in prayer and his or her engagement in dialogue with the divine. Later medieval religious writings provide a nearly exclusive avenue through which the typically politically voiceless – namely the laity and women – are able to speak. By engaging with the question of voice, medieval literary scholars will gain the opportunity to enhance their engagement with the performative aspects of religious literature and address questions of listening, speaking, and conversing in the historically-significant genre of religious dialogue literature.

Submit proposals to Jenny C. Bledsoe at jcbleds@emory.edu by September 10, 2013.