Critical Analysis
The core argument of this text is that spoken language is constructive and functional: that speakers are actively constructing their understanding of themselves as well as negotiating their positions with others. This runs counter to a structural, symbolic understanding of language: that conversation is a communication of ideas, and a presentation of pre-configured models that are then compared and integrated with one-another. The later is a “cognizing person” whose work is done primarily in their head, while the former is working with and through ideas in the social interaction itself; people “do” things when they talk and tell stories.
If discourse is an exchange of information, then in the best case, “it is a negotiation that includes a constant updating of such models” (218). This perspective carries with it negative implications; citing Ochs/Capps, the author indicates that this way of thinking about narrative privileges one “teller” and stories with high “tellibility”, tends to be detached from context and social engagement, and understands stories to have a causal order.
The alternative perspective, argued by the author, is that an analysis of spoken discourse focuses on form and content, and these are “heuristics in the effort to analyze how self and identity come to existence” (221). Conversations provide a view into “’identity negotiation’—or even better as ‘identity confrontations’” (221), where those speaking must manage their efforts: to “build and work one’s way through challenging circumstances” (221).
A discursive approach to understanding and considering narrative looks at rhetorical constructs and the way arguments are built and organized. The content of the conversation, such as attitudes, values and self-claims, are not fixed or given. They are “talk’s business, as partial and shifting devices” (222) deployed during discourse. Contradictions and ambiguous statements are not assessed against some sort of objective truth, and instead are viewed as evidence of a self being constructed in real-time. They “offer a way into examining how storytellers are bringing off and managing their social identities in context” (222).
Stories are tools for this performance, and give a speaker a way to make claims relevant. When a speaker puts themselves into the story, “the sequence of I-positions in the story-world are the means to bring off a claim with regard to ‘this is the way I want you to understand me’, here and now” (223). Narratives “always reveal the speaker’s identity” (223). When considered from the perspective of the speaker, the things they are saying are claims about who they are and how they want to be perceived, and how they perceive themselves; “narratives told in everyday interactions always lodge claims about the speaker’s sense of self, and in their attempts to convince and make these claims intelligible, speakers incorporate counter claims vis-à-vis what they think could constitute possible misunderstandings” (224).
Conversation is a continual process of negotiation and revision, and a medium through which one can constantly work to legitimize themselves. Language is a way for someone to indicate how they want to be understood and viewed, and analyzing this language provides clues as to identity in construction in real-time. Fundamentally, then, language is identity construction, and “assumes that developmental changes (such as learning or better understanding) emerge as individuals create and accomplish interactive tasks in everyday conversations” (225).
The author exemplifies the types of analytic language used during a discourse analysis: self-repairing, fending off, fashioning oneself, holding the floor, blocking interpretations or objections, self-monitoring how they are heard, and reflecting are all ways discourse analysts describe the active accomplishments of language. “Small stories” are artifacts that can be analyzed to understand when these types of language constructs are being used.
The spoken language of students, instructors, and hiring managers are all examples of this active construction of self, with each person presenting themselves and how they want to be viewed in relation to the discipline of design through their stories. In the small, these are all examples of individuals working to participate in the interviews I conducted with them. In the large, however, these make up the Big C conversation of studio education discourse. Patterns across these constructions paint a picture of the overall technology of studio: the way these actors all come together into one place. The place is heavy with identity-development. It is claimed, through printed marketing material, to be a place about visual skill acquisition. The people who spend time “in” the place, however, speak of it as a backdrop for the various entrepreneurial stories of self. Faculty construct the place as having the various infrastructure to support an enterprising student, and work to form that student as a vulnerable subject, and themselves as a mentor, a guide, a coach, and an advocate. They simultaneously argue themselves as one who is disappointed: someone with a historic sense of perspective from which to judge students today.
Students try on the language themselves, arguing that the time they spend in studio—the quantity of hours, the things they do, the artifacts they make—all are evidence of their own transformation into the label of a “real designer.”
When social interactions are viewed as places for identity work, self and group critique become ritualistic backdrops for this type of negotiation. Instructors and students speak of separating the work from themselves, but the work provokes conversations of themselves and the event of critique formalizes the need for those points of negotiation: they are places where identity-work is forced, and forced to be done in public. From a functionalist perspective of language, an argument to “separate oneself from their work” during a critique is largely impossible, and the pedagogy of constant, cyclical artifact making and critique demands a constant rearticulation and reformation of a student and instructor. “Designerly” traits provide a sketch of an end-game, and those traits are argued to be about self-sufficiency and entrepreneurial tendencies.