In keeping with autonomous, fraternal models of community, analyses of language use commonly assume that principles of cooperation and shared understanding are normally in effect. Descriptions of interactions between people in conversation, classrooms, medical and bureaucratic settings, readily take it for granted that the situation is governed by a single set of rules or norms shared by all participants. The analysis focuses then on how those rules produce or fail to produce an orderly, coherent exchange. Models involving games and moves are often used to describe interactions. Despite whatever conflicts or systematic social differences might be in play, it is assumed that all participants are engaged in the same game and that the game is the same for all players. Often it is. But of course it often is not, as, for example, when speakers are from different classes or cultures, or one party is exercising authority and another is submitting to it or questioning it. Last year one of my children moved to a new elementary school that had more open classrooms and more flexible curricula than the conventional school he started out in. A few days into the term, we asked him what it was like at the new school. “Well,” he said, “theyre a lot nicer, and they have a lot less rules. But know why they're nicer?” “Why?” I asked. “So you'll obey all the rules they dont have,” he replied. This is a very coherent analysis with considerable elegance and explanatory power, but probably not the one his teacher would have given.
When linguistic (or literate) interaction is described in terms of orderliness, games, moves, or scripts, usually only legitimate moves are actually named as part of the system, where legitimacy is defined from the point of view of the party in authority--regardless of what other parties might see themselves as doing. Teacher-pupil language, for example, tends to be described almost entirely from the point of view of the teacher and teaching, not from the point of view of pupils and pupiling (the word doesn’t even exist, though the thing certainly does). If a classroom is analyzed as a social world unified and homogenized with respect to the teacher, whatever students do other than what the teacher specifies is invisible or anomalous to the analysis. This can be true in practice as well. On several occasions my fourth grader, the one busy obeying all the rules they didn’t have, was given writing assignments that took the form of answering a series of questions to build up a paragraph. These questions often asked him to identify with the interests of those in power over him--parents, teachers, doctors, public authorities. He invariably sought ways to resist or subvert these assignments. One assignment, for instance, calle
What kind of invention would help you? How would it help you? Why would you need it? What would it look like? Would other people be able to use it also? What would be an invention to help your teacher? What would be an invention to help your parents?d for imagining “a helpful invention.” The students were asked to write single-sentence responses to the following questions:
In my opinion Pratt's theory can be described as whoever is in the authoritarian position, has the power to except and acknowledge subordinate voices. This is very apparent in the media, which we view everyday of our lives. If you flip on the television, you'll see a million different stories about fires and robberies and floods, but are these stories actually helping the public directly? It's not to say that being informed about a string of robberies in a neighborhood one lives in isn't necessary, but it's not helping to advance person to person relations or a need to promote acceptance of sexual preference. If you watch carefully, you'll notice that 80% of the stories that make it on the air are all for shock value, and in turn make you want to do something about what you just saw. But if the proprietor of a network only airs what he/she wants to air, then the only issues getting solved are those that the administrator deems acceptable. If a network is biased on issues (Fox), then other issues, say for example the public wants to have solved, won't be even glanced at due to subordinates having little power against 'authoritarian power" (the voice that authorities have).This is asinine because the millions of people who are subjected to carefully chosen subjects everyday, are only convinced that what the TV is showing, is what needs to be done.
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