Blog Entry 3

Positioning

Positioning is an element in critical literacy where the participants in the text are giving roles. For example, I had done a critical review on an interesting article about a girl with disability was rejected by a private school for disable student because of the insufficient of facilities and then I listed down the participant in the text; the girl (Scarlett Finney), the girl’s parent (Scott and Bernadette Finney) and The school (Baulkham Hills private school). After that, I look for further evidence in the text to find the interpretation for each participant and I like to show Scarlett’s position in the text; she is describe in the text as a prominent child with bright future ahead despite her disabilities. Positioning also giving roles to the reader as well such as I managed described the reader playing a role of a judge in the article which I’d done earlier and the writer’s purpose of giving a role of a judge to the reader is mainly to persuade to gain get huge sympathy to the girl’s cause.

Linguistic perspective

For this topic, I defined linguistic perspective as a combination of signs which is different in term of meaning for a specific group of people only as it had being generally being constructed sociologically. The role of linguistic approach to literacy is to show how a text works and how to use the knowledge to become critical reader. This topic also enabled the reader to distinguished the global or key elements from the view of linguistics perspectives in the text and the criteria of the aspects in the text itself which are remained constant such as the text can be about something (field), they position reader interpersonally (tenor), they vary in degree of abstraction (mode), they must have some overall shape (genre) and the unchangeable overt or covert ideological position (ideology). All of these aspects are hidden in the text; which I can describe the reader as if he/she is an archeologist at the archeological quest seeking for valuable hidden treasures (linguistic perspective) in the labyrinth of words and sentences.

Speech and speakers

Kress (1994) stated that the experience of language is the experience of texts which he defined as the ability to utilize and understand language reflects the ways how texts shaped us mainly as human, mainly in term of building our self-identity, attitudes towards others people and general knowledge about the world. He also uses the term of ‘discourse’ to explain more on how texts shape identity of people and Kress described discourse as ways of speaking or writing which it promoted a particular view of the world in the way it should. The usage of language can also shaped our assumption as different people in different setting should behave and an excellence example is the behavior towards men and women in the way of both gender should or shouldn’t behave. There are texts that were ‘constructs’ and ‘positions’ for a specific group of people which also Kress referred as ‘ideal reader’, the ideal reader is a person is most likely to agree or persuaded by the view of the world promoted by a text. Finally, the topic teaches us a valuable lesson in changing the way we usually looked at ourselves and also other people alike as there the need to become aware in how a certain texts position us and also to read critically at texts which constructed the world we taken for granted them as natural.

Reference:

Kress, G (1994). Chapter 2 ‘Speech and speakers: the formation of the individual in discourse and genre’. In Linguistics processes and in sociocultural practice. Melbourne: Deakin University Press, Page 33-37 and page 48-49.

Blog Entry 2

Perspective is one of ten areas of critical literacy which I outlined in introduction topic in my past blog entry. The significant of studying perspective that’s it showed the writer’s stance or viewpoint, let me to put in more simpler words; that’s everybody look at different ‘windows’ to view on something or matters. The word ‘windows’ itself which I used to represent the perspective because everyone has it own preference or the tendency to choose favorite point of views which suited them. Perspective can be either positive or negative, or maybe both of them in which it often fall somewhere a continuum (scale) represented below.

Condemn………………………………………………………………commend

The second writing practice which I’d examine an interesting article on the problem of bully among schoolchildren base on ten areas of critical literacy but for this blog I only emphasize on the perspective part. Firstly, I will outlined the words used by the writer in order to give the reader better understanding on the perspective of the writer. The usage of word in article such as “sadistic” and “who get a big kick of hurting people” to refer the bullies which fall on condemn (or negative) continuum above. I realized it is very difficult to determine the perspective as we need to develop the ability to ‘interrogate’ the text thoroughly.

Language, perspective and ideology

A topic presented by my classmates a few weeks ago if I not mistaken, this topic revealed how language, perspective and ideology affected the writer’s preference to construct their writing. First of all, I shall explain what are language, perspective and ideology; language is a systematic communication between people, perspective is a stance or point of view and ideology is a system of belief or attitude in particular group of people. What really understand about the topic is that’s writer’s language, perspective and ideology determines the scope of the writing he/she produces. For example, if the writer is Malay and he/she want to write an article in a Malay newspaper, he/she will prefer to write in language, perspective and ideology that will fit the preference of the Malay.

Texts and Textualities

For this topic, I’ll discover that’s not every words can be used in any types of text because every words has its dissimilarities between it such as in term of meaning and also usage within the text, and this can be illustrated as the signifiers (words) have multiple signifieds (meaning) associated with it. The chapter about Texts and Textualities also included the connotations and denotations meaning of words in text, connotation is defined as a meaning or connection implied for a group of people or individual. Whereas, denotation can be define as words or expressions that be associated to something in a real possible world. I like to use ‘gold’ as an excellent to explain both this concept, in connotation the meaning of gold which agree by many people; is ‘a precious yellowish metal, highly malleable and ductile, and free from liability to rust’ (Macquarie Dictionary). Whereas, in denotation refer gold as a symbol of wealth and high-status.