I'm sorry I got behind this week while I had some extra work in my other class. Interestingly, as I was absorbed in all things Aristotle, the Cindy Selfe article quotes a portion of his definition of rhetoric in the conclusion. When she says, "all available means" in relation to communicating and persuasion she's borrowing directly from Aristotle, which I thought was pretty cool.
So I am guilty - of a print written language bias. I started to become aware of this when earlier in the semester we read that when writing instruction enters a native area, it undermines their oral language. Selfe really brought this bias I have to full consciousness and I'm guilty of thinking people that can't write have less intelligence and other terrible things.
This bias goes deep. I'm trained as a print reporter and we love to hate broadcast journalists. We're taught to not depend on any audio recording device. Your pencil is your best friend. I've been working with an elderly woman on and off the past five years getting down her life story. At first I used a digital recording device but had a lot of trouble with it. I ended up abandoning it.
I've always disliked the sound of my voice and hated hearing it recorded when I was a kid. Also, I'm tone deaf and sing like Cameron Diaz's character in a karoke bar in the movie My Best Friend's Wedding. Perhaps to compensate for this I reverted to the world of text - my best friend - my default mode. Although I gotta tell you that the reading demands of graduate school have definately challenged my abilities in this area.
So I'm ripe for a change. I'm really to listen while someone else talks. Can David Sedaris read our "reading assignments" to us? It would be a lot more fun.
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2 comments:
I am so with you on this post. First, as a former print reporter myself I feel the shared hatred bred into us for broadcasters. Poor broadcasters. Second, I want to hire David Sedaris to read everything in my life - the TV news, my shopping list, directions in my car. He is hysterical.
I really like the point you bring up about the trustworthiness of print and writing. It seems more permanent than sound but really, when you think of it, it is also more easily manipulated. In some ways, sound is really closer to the truth, right? A person's voice is sort of the "real" them in a way. I mean it somehow represents the essence of a person, I think. Maybe we are uncomfortable with sound and issues of voice precisely because they are hard to nail down and to explain.
I chuckle at the thought of Sidaris reading our assignments.... I'm sure they would sound sarcastic...
I think we are probably all a little print biased, no? How could we not be?
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