- Gee believes that Discourses are a combination of “saying- doing- being- valuing, believing”, opposed to just saying or writing. Even the correct dialect will seem forced if it’s coming out of the wrong person’s mouth. Fitting in and being accepted by a group requires the right clothes and opinions, not just the right jargon. Throughout my life, I’ve been in many situations in which not only my dialect but my actions have been scrutinized. One example in which my Discourse had to come across as very poised and interested was when I went to my grandparents’ house for Christmas dinner when I was younger. I wouldn’t talk until I was spoken to, but I pretended to follow every word of what was being said. I would wear a boring, solid colored shift dress, and properly mash my peas into sludge with the back of my fork during dinner. Of course, when I was little I’d never be caught in a shift dress outside of my stuffy grandparent’s house, but it helped me fit into my place setting every Christmas for years. Though I would barely speak three sentences each dinner, the other aspects of my Discourse helped me look the part of a proper granddaughter and attentive family member.
- Gee believes that the different Discourses put on by people can have conflict and tension between them. I have to agree because I have experienced this. The Discourse I use around my friends was different than the Discourse I used around my teachers in high school. I took quilting, and the teacher let us talk to our peers during class and choose our own seats. My friends took advantage of this, and would always try and catch me up on the latest gossip in the middle of class. I always felt uncomfortable with her lax rules anyway, so I certainly didn’t feel comfortable taking advantage of them. Since I was expected to find a happy medium between two Discourses, I don’t think I really fulfilled either. I talked more than I did in any other class, but I had a hard time listening and keeping up with my work for fear of getting in trouble. Gee actually predicted this. He says that tension and conflict can “at least, affect the fluency of a mastered Discourse on certain occasions of use.” Besides, I wasn’t able to multitask as well as them, and if I joined in on the conversation, my quilt would suffer and not be completed in time.
- Many of James Gee’s concepts and ideas about Discourse are displayed in June Jordan’s article. Jordan’s students did not like the way Alice Walker wrote The Color Purple. It seemed as though she wrote in the same way most of the students had developed their Primary Discourse. Her students were uncomfortable with the way it sounded written out. This is an example of conflict between Discourses. Gee states, “some degree of conflict and tension will almost always be present (between Discourses).” This is particularly true for these students, because they aren’t used to seeing their dialect written out. Jordan says, “White standards of English persist, supreme and unquestioned.” That’s why the students are actually more receptive to White English- it’s the only Discourse they’ve been exposed to in school writing before. Black English made sense to the students, but it didn’t necessarily fit the Discourse of school. In school, everything you read is grammatically correct, and it doesn’t accurately mimic the way anyone talks. So to see your primary Discourse written out, especially if that Discourse is Black English, would be really surprising to anyone.
