bricolage....

In response to Li's question....sort of....

Li's Blog

Currently, I find myself still troubled by and attempting to negotiate my position on an issue that was brought up in the previous class: whether or not that one example of spoken word or free verse should be accepted as "academic writing." And in thinking this through, two of the questions that Rhonda has posted comes to mind: is writing in text symbols an acceptable linguistic form for scholarly work and information professionals?; how does your reaction position you from a young person's perspective, and where do you fit within the normative social narrative on new media?

I believe that both of these questions will be recurring themes that I will need to address throughout this course. From a standpoint of an academic, I can easily argue that the writing example shown, and all that are similar to it, cannot and should not be accepted as academic writing. Simply, it does not conform to, and in fact, openly challenges the traditional form of academic English writing by its form and the author's choice of words. For if we begin to accept and legitimize this type of writing, where do we draw the line? Will this trigger a slippery slope towards a completely illiterate society?

On the other hand, being a punk rocker, I can easily identify with the use of bricolage, not to mention the clear challenge authority and institutions. In this particular case, bricolage functions thusly: by creating new forms/words and purposefully "bastardizing" the language, in essence, the writer is creating new meanings for the words he chooses to use.

Moreover, it can also be argued that the English language, and any language for that matter, is continually in flux. A quick look at the etymology of countless English words display a different original spelling than that which we recognize and accept as being correct today (ex. the word "sir" originated from "sire" and "syre"). So, who is to say that the way this author chose to spell his words is not akin to Chaucer's methodology or rationale back in the day?

So I remain conflicted, but I do believe that normative social narratives, for the most part, suck ass anyways!!! :)

Peace!

R