<div dir="ltr"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">Hello again everyone,</font><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">Katherine (Katie) Peters wrote, "I think that it's important to see and study how communication technologies can divide communities as they bring them together" (email Feb 12, 2016). She goes on to describe her research findings: </font></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><br></font></div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">The software this organization chose to use both enabled the presence of distant members and constrained the (inter)actions they could accomplish, like joking, which people who were also meeting face-to-face could do. Furthermore, the possibilities for acting also affected how members could relate to each other. For this organization, technology not only shaped the process of meeting, but also subsequently shaped culture and meanings.</font></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><br></font></div></blockquote><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">Being interdisciplinary (to me) means not only working across/among different disciplines, it means making extrapolations that may not fit within the Kuhnian "normal science" conditions of EC (or any other methodology). For instance, Katie's example of software is analogous to my object of study (simultaneous interpreting); its the comparison between her site and mine where encodings become palpable to investigation at both levels of (static) structure and the emergent (temporal) cultural/social. What I (think I) did in my dissertation is to (as Tamar summarized Gerry's suggestion) "map out specific articulations of [a specific] time-related cultural and discursive node" (email attachment Feb 17, 2016). Think of the interpreter as "an app" -- all the 'lessons' of software now, e.g, "the materiality and fast-pacing of our current communication environment" (Tamar Feb 17) are foreshadowed by the demands and expectations put on interpreters to perform as an extension of the transmission technology with its amazing channel switching capacity.</font><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">I'm thankful to Wendy's invitation to debrief and don't necessarily see it as <i>needing</i> to be a separate process from wrapping up the e-seminar using Tamar's summary as the centripetal discursive point. Depending upon how reflexive we want to be, we could examine our own code, based upon a model (mentioned a few times), familiarity with how listservs function generally, and the biases/predispositions of EC-tuned examination. I mention this now because it is my intuition that only in coming to grips with our own unfoldings can we build authority in diagnosing temporal processes in motion for research subjects. From my perspective, the conversation over the course of the e-seminar keeps veering away from time to more static objects for analysis, but I recognize this is a highly-situated perspective! The point is that our own interaction also has the characteristics of which we discuss :)</font></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">Encoding and entextualization are similar concepts (per Wendy and picked up by Tamar) but I believe they refer to different temporal 'directions'? I have understood entextualization as a kind of container, a pre-packaging that gets reified through repetition, even sometimes despite variations. It is that which comes from 'before.' The relationship with agency is that those who comprehend and orient to the entextualizations popularized or hierarchize by the institutional context are most likely to achieve voice (Blommaert's 2004 definition), basically because they are playing the game on the game's terms. This structuration (Giddens, 1984) can have disastrous effects for anyone who fails or for any reason chooses not to play by those terms. Entextualization is more fluid and more ephemeral than encoding...it occurs on a range from intuitive practical consciousness to deliberate discursive consciousness (Giddens 1979).</font></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">{Geez, I'm really going out there!}</font></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">Tamar, I don't see the parallel in the logic of Hymes' choice of "communication" over "speaking" with elevating encoding over entextualization. What I see instead is encoding having a more future thrust, intentional or from sheer survival needs. Entextualization is (as a human activity). . . a bit conservative, casting backwards, a kind of support for the 'status quo.' Encoding can be more horizontal--seeking support laterally rather than on past-precedent. My words feel far from adequate, underlining Tamar's point that we "need...an analytic language that can encompass technological change." As I'm writing, I can imagine someone arguing that entextualization allows for contemporary reaching, too (rather than legacy reaching)....perhaps the real issue is that <i>here</i> is the point of contention: the contest between past and future playing out in present interactions. Again, Tamar said something similar: "the focus on encoding...locates...established codes, within an ongoing process in which socially meaningful forms and patterns are forever made and remade, forever in flux (a process of <i>semiosis</i> in semiotic parlance)." What's been missing from EC is that the codes have been treated as stand-alone objects with essentially impermeable boundaries. Finally (from a critical perspective), there's recognition that codes are not so singularly extant.</font></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">Also, I want to share with everyone this <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/interdisciplinarity-1.18295">special <i>Nature</i> issue on Interdisciplinarity</a>. The editorial states: "<span style="color:rgb(51,51,51)">Most scientists are aware of the term, and many will have used it. But how many are truly engaged in it? Done correctly, it is not mere multidisciplinary work — a collection of people tackling a problem using their specific skills — but a synthesis of different approaches into something unique."</span></font></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font color="#333333" face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">This is why I referenced Kuhn and normal science above. Like every intellectual in any era, we know we live in interesting times. But there are stakes now that eclipse all that have preceded us. These are extraordinary times. Many of you have extraordinary skills. To what ends are they being used? I deeply appreciate the steady application and development of craft. EC is an amazing tool and you are excellent practitioners. I am grateful to be a member of this list!</font></div><div><font color="#333333" face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font color="#333333" face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">best regards,</font></div><div><font color="#333333" face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">steph</font></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">References:</font></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div>
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<p><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">Blommaert, J. (2004). <span style="font-style:italic">Discourse: A critical introduction</span>. New York: Cambridge
University Press. </font></p>
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<p><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">Giddens, A. (1979). <span style="font-style:italic">Central problems in social theory: Action, structure, and
contradiction in social analysis</span>. Berkeley: University of California Press.</font></p><p><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">Giddens, A. (1984). <span style="font-style:italic">The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration</span>.
Berkeley: University of California Press. </font></p>
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</div></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">Peters, K. (2015). “Showing we’re a team”: Acting and relating in online/offline hybrid organizational meetings. In T. Milburn, Communicating user experience: Applying local strategies research to digital media design (pp. 63-86). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.<br></font></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><dd class="" style="margin:0px;padding:0px 3px 0px 0px;display:inline;color:rgb(51,51,51)">Nature Publishing Group.</dd><dd style="margin:0px;padding:0px 3px 0px 0px;display:inline;color:rgb(51,51,51)">(17 September 2015)</dd><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51)">. "Mind meld." </span><dd class="" style="margin:0px;padding:0px 3px 0px 0px;font-style:italic;display:inline;color:rgb(51,51,51)">Nature</dd><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51)"></span><dd class="" style="margin:0px;padding:0px 3px 0px 0px;font-weight:bold;display:inline;color:rgb(51,51,51)">525,</dd><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51)"> </span><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51)"></span><dd class="" style="margin:0px;padding:0px 3px 0px 0px;display:inline;color:rgb(51,51,51)">289–290.</dd></font></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><br></font><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><br></font><div><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><br></div></div></div></div>