Re: CCCC Sessions--reply

[bobbie silk <bsilk@keller.clarke.edu>]

I agree with Lynne that most of the same ideas expressed by jargon can be
expressed with a more common clarity for the wider audience that CCCC
attracts. Of course, when every member of the audience shares the same
jargon or vocabulary as the presenter, then that specialized vocabulary
can act as shorthand for complex concepts. Otherwise, such a vocabulary
merely acts to exclude. 

Some years ago I presented a paper at a multi-disciplinary colloquium at a
university near where I lived.  The colloquium was a consideration of the
plays of the British playwright Caryl Chruchill, and it included a
production of one of the plays, discussion of dramatic technique and
interpretation (by actors & directors), as well as papers by us English
department types.  Among the presenters were graduate students in that
university's English department--and they were eager to exercise their
expertise in front of their professors.  

After the last paper had been presented, the audience (largely drama
students) sat dumb for a few moments--and then burst into frustrated,
angry, questioning.  People in drama are used to expressing their
emotions.  Oh boy, are they.  They are used to being raked over the coals
and raking others over the coals after a performance.  They feel no fear.

They complained bitterly about what they perceived to be exclusionary
language and theorist name-dropping.  Finally, the panel chair (an English
department faculty member at the school)--in defense of his graduate
students--scolded the audience, telling them they should rise to the
intellectual level of the work being presented instead of demanding that
the papers be "intellectually gutted"  and lowered to their level of
understanding.  I prayed that no one in the audience had a stash of
over-ripe fruit to throw at us.

Golly, I was glad I had actually quoted from the play and had mentioned
Hegel and Irigary only once each.

I learned a lot from that presentation: audience, audience, audience.  Oh,
and when you're sensitive to (or at least seem sensitive to) a mixed
audience, they're much nicer to you at the reception following the
presentation.  At the very least, you can expect to drink the punch
instead of wearing it. 

  --Bobbie

On Thu, 20 Mar 1997, Lynne Belcher wrote:

> Though I agree that we shouldn't create a kind of reverse 
> snobbery about those who have extensive vocabularies, I can't 
> ever remember the meanings of certain words like hegemony and 
> hermeneutics.  Listening to someone read a paper that is full 
> of such lexical choices can be very difficult, especially if 
> the information contained in such a paper is new and complex.
> 
> One session I attended featured both a reader of such a paper 
> (the sense of which I never did quite get) and a practical 
> presenter who used overhead transparencies and straight-
> forward language.  It was much easier to follow the ideas of 
> the person who used clear language and a clear structure than 
> it was to follow the ideas that were read from a paper which 
> included lots of jargan as well as complex ideas. 
> 
> In making choices about what sessions to attend from among 
> the hundreds offered, I try to choose sessions that I think I 
> can learn something from without having to struggle to make 
> sense of what someone is trying to say. 
> 
> Lynne
> lrbelcher@saumag.edu 
> 
>