#commonplace#1984
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pixiethinkss.bsky.social
What is Literacy (an excerpt) by
James Paul Gee share.google/kEt9xwx2qIVt...
1 What Is Literacy? James Paul Gee It is a piece of folk wisdom that part of what linguists do is define words.Ir over a decade as a linguist, however, no one, until now, has asked me to define a word. So my first try: what does ""literacy" mean? It won't surprise you tha we have to define some other words first. So let me begin by giving a technica, meaning to an old term which, unfortunately, already has a variety of other meanings. The term is *'discourse." I will use the word as a count term ("a dis: course,"" "discourses,"' "many discourses"'), not as a mass term ("discourse," "much discourse"). By *a discourse" I will mean: a socially accepted association among ways of using language, of thinking and of acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or "social network." Think of discourse as an "identity kit which comes complete with the appro- priate costume and instructions on how to act and talk so as to take on a par- ticular role that others will recognize. Let me give an example: Being "trained" as a linguist meant that I learned to speak, think and act like a linguist, and to recognize others when they do so. Now actually matters are not that simple: the larger discourse of linguistics contains many subdiscourses, different socially accepted ways of being a linguist. But the master discourse is not just the sum of its parts, it is something also over and above them. Every act of speaking writing and behaving a linguist does as a linguist is meaningful only against the background of the whole social institution of linguistics, and that institution is made up of concrete things like people, books and buildings; abstract things like bodies of knowledge, values, norms and beliefs; mixtures of concrete and abstract things like universities, journals and publishers; as well as a shared history and shared stories. Some other examples of discourses: being an Amer- ican or a Russian, being a man or a woman, being a member … James Paul Gee 2 member of a sewing circle, a club, a street gang, a lunchtime social gathering, or a regular at a local watering hole, There are a number of important points that one can make about discourses none of which, for some reason, are very popular to Americans, though they seem to be commonplace in European social theory (Belsey 1980; Eagleton 1983; Jameson 1981; Macdonell 1986; Thompson 1984): 1. Discourses are inherently "ideological." They crucially involve a set of values and viewpoints in terms of which one must speak and act, at least while being in the discourse; otherwise one doesn't count as being in it 2, Discourses are resistant to internal criticism and self-scrutiny since utter- ing viewpoints that seriously undermine them defines one as being outside them. The discourse itself defines what counts as acceptable criticism. Of course, one can criticize a particular discourse from the viewpoint of an- other one (e.g., psychology criticizing linguistics). But what one cannot do is stand outside all discourse and criticize any one or all of them-that would be like trying to repair a jet in flight by stepping outside it. 3. Discourse-defined positions from which to speak and behave are not, how- ever, just defined internal to a discourse, but also as standpoints taken up by the discourse in its relation to other, ultimately opposing, discourses, The discourse of managers in an industry is partly defined as a set of views, norms and standpoints defined by their opposition to analogous points in the discourse of workers (Macdonel1 1986: 1-7). The discoursc we identify with being a feminist is radically changed if all male dis- courses disappear 4. Any discourse concerns itself with certain objects and puts forward certain concepts, viewpoints and values at the expense of others. In doing so it will marginalize viewpoints and yalues central to other discourses (Macdonell 1986: 1-7). In fact, a discourse can call for one to accept values in conflict wi… What Is Literacy? 3 ciples. This can conflict to a degree with a discourse about morality thar appears to be more often associated with women than men in terms of which "wrong" is seen as the disruption of social networks, and *right" as the repair of those networks (Gilligan 1982). Or, to take another example, the discourse of literary criticism was a standard route to success as a pro- fessor of literature. Since it conflicted less with the other discourses of white, middle class men than it did with those of women, men were em- powered by it. Women were not, as they were often at cross-purposes when engaging in it, Let us call discourses that lead to social goods in a society *dominant discourses"' and let us refer to those groups that have the fewest conflicts when using them as *dominant groups."' Obviously these are both matters of degree and change to a certain extent in different contexts. It is sometimes helpful to say that it is not individuals who speak and act, but rather historically and socially defined discourses speak to each other through individuals. The individual instantiates, gives body to, a discourse every time he acts or speaks and thus carries it, and ultimately changes it, through time. Americans tend to be very focused on the individual, and thus often miss the fact that the individual is simply the meeting point of many, sometimes conflicting, socially and historically defined discourses. The crucial question is: how does one come by the discourses that he con- trols? And here it is necessary, before answering the question, to make an im- portant distinction, a distinction that does not exist in non-technical parlance. but one which is important to a linguist: a distinction between *acquisition" and "lcarning' (Krashen 1982, 1985; Krashen & Terrell 1983). I will distinguish these two as follows: Acquisition is a process of acquiring something subconsciously by exposure to models and a process of trial and error, without a process of forma… James Paul Gee 8 thus honor this practice effect directly and build on it, rather than leave it as a surreptitious and indirect by-product of teaching-learning. 4. Learning should lead to the ability for all children-mainstream and non-mainstream-to critique their primary discourses and secondary dis- courses, including dominant secondary discourses. This requires exposing children to a variety of alternative primary discourses and secondary ones (not necessarily so that they acquire them, but so that they learn about them). It also requires realizing explicitly that this is what good teaching and learning is good at. We rarely realize that this is where we fail main- stream children just as much as non-mainstream ones 5. We must take seriously that no matter how good our schools become, both as environments where acquisition can go on (so involving meaningful and functional settings) and where learning can go on, the non-mainstream child will always have more conflicts in using and thus mastering domi- nant_secondary_ discourses, since they conflict more seriously with his primary discourse and community-based secondary ones. This is precisely what it means (by my definitions above) to be "non-mainstream."'This does not mean we should give up. It also does not mean merely that research and intervention efforts must have sensitivity to these conflicts built into them, though it certainly does mean this. It also requires, I believe, that we must also stress research and intervention efforts that facilitate the development of wider and more humane concepts of mastery and its connections to gatekeeping. We must remember that conflicts, while they do very often detract from standard sorts of full mastery, can give rise to new sorts of mastery. This is commonplace in the realm of art. We must make it com- monplace in society at large. References Belsey, C. 1980. Critical Practice. London: Methuen, Cook-Gumperz, J., ed. 1986. The Social Construction of Literacy. Cambridge…
December 8, 2025 at 5:33 PM
roughwriters.bsky.social
might as well be living in a prequel to 1984. expect cruise missile attacks to be a commonplace event in a couple decades, to keep the people scared
November 24, 2025 at 8:48 PM
fisher-studio.com
Other dangerous concepts from Orwell’s 1984 that are commonplace in the USA every day:

- Doublespeak
- Memory hole

Of course to some degree this was ever the case, but today it’s just like the novel
August 13, 2025 at 2:32 PM
digitanuki.bsky.social
It's a riot. Wildest part is it came out in 1984, *decades* before this type of thing became commonplace in film.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjlI...
Buckaroo Banzai: Evil Pure and Simple...!
YouTube video by Zahh Man
www.youtube.com
June 13, 2025 at 1:16 AM
chrissteller.bsky.social
Yes! Thank you! I also mined ... what was it, some newspaper ... oh yeah the "Star Tribune"
newspaper ad Star Tribune Sun, Mar 15, 1992 • Page 84 Exhibitions ANN HAMILTON/DAVID IRELAND Opens March 22 Hamilton mixes commonplace materials such as wax, cold type, and bread dough in unusual juxtapositions that create absorbing sensory environments. Ireland takes an archaeological approach, seeking to bring to light hidden aspects of the sites where he works. Collaborating for the first time, these Ann Hamilton artists wil create an installation incorporating several tons of flour that transforms Untitled (The Body Object Series) 13 1984 two of the museum's galleries. Today at 1 pm BOX LUNCH: HAMILTON. IRELAND. AND CHOREOGRAPHER DOUGLAS DUNN Galleries A and B A conversation about art and process with these three artists in residence. Free with gallery admission. Please bring your own lunch. Walker Art Center Closed Monday. Free Thursday and the first Saturday of every month. 375.7622 TOD: 375-7585 newspaper item with photo of table with flour on it and chairs too Critic's choice / Art What can you make with 55,000 pounds of white flour, two library tables and matching chairs? Art, of course. But only with the addition of an industrial auger, a case of dead flowers, an audio tape and lamilton and David Ireland have made art at Walker Art Center "neir Installation comones to sunoss or a chapel wit the inousty of a factory operating in slow motion as the auger moves flour from one gallery to another. Odd as it sounds, there's something haunting and quite wonderful about this mysterious ode to Minneapolis" history as Mill City. The museum on Vineland Place is open Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Sundays 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; closed Mondays. Adult admission $3. Through July 5. - Mary Abbe Star Tribune › Fri, Jun 12, 1992 > Page:| On-site artmaking breaks all rules By Chris Waddington No matter that art always changes, exhibitions are assembled in predict- with objects; the curator scribbles a checklist; the museum's registrar buys insurance, members of the in-stallation crew measure doorways, and eventually reporters get a sneak Ann Hamilton and David Ireland broke Rilwnetwes lneetmeenineire based artists didn't arrive at Walker Art Center last week with finished work. Instead, they brought international reputations, a knowiedge of lo-cal history, fioor plans and a shared desire to use fiour - the white gold room-sized sculptural installations. le don't know what will happer d Walker curator Liz Armstror before the artists arrived. "The galler- ies will become both a studio and a laboratory where we can watch art seing made. The truth is that the current wave of site-specific installa- the art world. It's the latest expres-sion of the artistic desire... to break down the barriere between art and Because their art is made on the spot and rarely completed till just before the exhibition opens, treland and Hamilton confound the usual museum processes. "It's hard to produce catalogs and press releases for work-in-progress." aid curator Peter Boswel, who is rganizin the show with Armstrong uch woi nformation in different forms, howev-br. While Ireland and Hamilton are at he Walker, school groups, volun-ners, local artists and museum staff. ers will get to meet the pair and see heir work evolve. "In a normal show, the artist is here for a day or two. Installations take t gives viewers a personal staki omystities the creative process ar For both artists, involving others in their work is a practical and philo-sophical consideration, Hamilton's in-ARTISTS Continued on page 9F Staft Photo/ Tom Sweeney David Ireland and Ann Hamilton didn't bring their sculptures to the Walker — they'll be doing them there, in separate installations continuation Artists/ They bring out poetry in everyday things
May 30, 2025 at 5:39 PM
fabiochiusi.bsky.social
1984 is here and nobody cares

Live facial recognition cameras may become ‘commonplace’ as police use soars

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
May 26, 2025 at 6:28 AM
iaincoleman.bsky.social
Incubus, a 1984 Marillion song about an actress's jilted lover destroying her career by publishing her nude photos, with lots of lyrical imagery of developing film in a darkroom. Nowadays leaked nudes are commonplace, and photos are digital. Technologically and socially obsolete. Still a banger tho.
astoldbynai.blacksky.app nai THEE People's Princess 🦋 @astoldbynai.blacksky.app · May 1
4. What song lyric didn’t age well?
May 1, 2025 at 4:29 PM
artificialbodies.net
This goes beyond ‘1984’.

Very scary. Glad that Kate Crawford wrote about it.
IN 2025, IT will be commonplace to talk with a personal Al agent that knows your schedule, your circle of friends, the places you go. This will be sold as a convenience equivalent to having a personal, unpaid assistant. These anthropomorphic agents are designed to support and charm us so that we fold them into every part of our lives, giving them deep access to our thoughts and actions. With voice-enabled interaction, that intimacy will feel even closer.
February 21, 2025 at 4:07 AM
maicbay.bsky.social
If I were to choose a single line to summarize my work in the social sciences, it would be this: "[...] and by paying to the
most commonplace activities of daily life the attention usually accorded extraordinary events, seek to learn about them as phenomena in their own right” (Garfinkel, 1984: 1).
February 7, 2025 at 8:55 AM
stlbw.bsky.social
"Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power." #commonplace#1984
February 5, 2025 at 6:48 PM
skeiser.bsky.social
Herschel Walker, the ultimate New Jersey General
Donald Trump shaking Herschel Walker's hand in front of a New Jersey Generals logo flag. Photo circa 1984-85 of New Jersey Generals owner Donald J. Trump (left) shaking hands with Generals running back Herschel Walker, who is wearing a sweet red and black Adidas track suit. The Generals logo (five stars surrounding two gold leaves with the word "Generals" in a font that is not unlike the one Sean Baker uses in his title sequences) is behind them, as well as a TV hanging on the wall as if it were in a high school classroom broadcasting Channel One. The Generals were supposed to be the class of the United States Football League, signing Walker after his Heisman Trophy-winning junior year in 1982, decade before such things were commonplace. Walker and the Generals had a modicum of success, especially after Trump (re-)bought the team in 1984 and brought in such NFL talent as Gary Barbaro and Brian Sipe, as well as singing 1984 Heisman winner Doug Flutie. Trump's strongarming of most of the league's fellow owners into (justifiably) suing the NFL and (inadvisably) moving the league's schedule to the fall eventually doomed what was an awesome league that was much closer to the NFL in terms of quality and success than modern minor leagues (including the XFLs, the second USFL, and both UFLs) were even to this USFL.
November 4, 2024 at 5:45 AM
pcbryan.bsky.social
Civil forfeiture has existed for a very long time, but became much more commonplace in 1984 with Comprehensive Crime Control Act that allowed departments to seize money that might be used in criminal activity (the bill was sponsored by Strom Thurmond and signed by Ronald Reagan). #RebelRidge #HATM
November 4, 2024 at 1:10 AM
mayamedia.bsky.social
“Biden is the Leonid Brezhnev of a declining American empire. He wants to hold on to office despite his evident incapacity. Each time he opens his mouth his unfitness for office is proven again.”
MEE MIDDLE EAST EYE OPINION 1984 TO 2024: 'Biden is the mad king of America's decaying empire' OPINION BY JOE GILL 6,180 likes middleeasteye "In 1984 the Cold War between the USA and the USSR had reached a new nadir, with a brutal proxy war being fought in Afghanistan, and the last of the Stalin-era Soviet leaders, Konstantin Chernenko, taking his place on the podium of the Kremlin. No one looking at the grim state of the world at that time would have guessed that within a few months a new Soviet leader would emerge to begin the process of thawing international relations and gradually wind down a 40-year cold war between the two superpower camps. Within five years the Soviet bloc would have collapsed, the Berlin Wall fell and the West could declare that freedom and democracy had triumphed. [Today] we can see a West where the ghost of fascism has returned across Europe and in America - this time slickly televisual, like a ghoulish reality TV show; meanwhile the ageing president of the US refuses to give way to a new generation, while waging a genocidal war in the Middle East and caught in a quagmire in Ukraine. Biden is the Leonid Brezhnev of a declining American empire. He wants to hold on to office despite his evident incapacity. Each time he opens his mouth his unfitness for office is proven again. The game is up. The emperor has no clothes. The mantra that the West is the best was commonplace in 1984 but the American dream has long lost its sheen. And yet we do appear to be at a historical inflection point. Whether in America, France, Iran or elsewhere, a change in leadership could be the only hope for a new chance for peace
July 15, 2024 at 5:16 PM