Friday, July 7, 2006

Lauer, "Composition Studies: Dappled Discpline"

Lauer, Janice. "Composition Studies: Dappled Discipline." Rhetoric Review 3.1 (1984): 20-28.

Lauer deals with the disciplinary of composition studies in this piece. She is particularly concerned with qualities of the discipline that should inform the planning of graduate programs in composition studies. Briefly she acknowledges pioneers of the field who, in the 1960s, balanced teaching responsibilities with the problems of how best to pursue training (of themselves and others). This led to deeper investigations of the nature of writing and, as well, how best to teach it. Lauer notes that not only did these early scholars in composition studies seek answers to early theoretical questions about teaching, they also too risks in venturing into other disciplinary areas to inform their questions. Lauer goes on to explain that the interdisciplinary theoretical influences were complemented by an early commitment to multimodality in methods (ranging from linguistic and hermeneutical work to empirical studies and so on). Compositionists recognized early on the value in a wide range of methods to get at answers to the persistent questions that concerned them.

To account for the stages of the field's development, Lauer relied on Habermas's levels for consensus: everyday communication, warrant-testing, warrant-establishing, self-reflection on the nature, function, and purpose of knowledge itself (^apply this to C&W). Notably, two audiences also enter into consideration: 1.) the epistemic court of experts and 2.) the general population. She adds a third audience: teachers of writing who are not informed about scholarship and who do not contribute to it. Lauer contends that one problem with the emergence of the field is that arguments are made to the wrong audiences (textbooks contribute to this problem) (24).

Lauer calls multimodality a "mixed blessing" (25). It tends to be unkind for newcomers, requiring them to become acquainted with a wide range of methods and theoretical orientations. Modes also recruit interested specialists which leads, in turn, to "narrower and narrower circles" (25). [Close to Fulkerson's concern.] Multimodality does, however, "cultivate a fruitful reciprocity among modes. On the other hand, it becomes very difficult to keep fresh with work in other fields. Returning the questions of disciplinarity and training to graduate programs, Lauer notes Winterowd's contention that "English studies as a whole are responsible for literacy." (27).

"At its deepest level, a discipline has a special set of phenomena to study, a characteristic mode or modes of inquiry, its own history of development, its theoretical ancestors and assumptions, its evolving body of knowledge, and its own epistemic courts by which knowledge gains that status" (20). ^Consider matching these criteria up with Phelps in "Domain of Composition."

"From the start, then, this field has been marked by its multimodality and use of starting points from a variety of disciplines, all marshaled to investigate a unique set of pressing problems" (22).

"Composition studies suffers from this problem which is exacerbated by some of its journals which, for historical reasons, have build readerships too diverse to warrant argumentative exchange at the cutting edge of the field" (24). ^This applies to listservs, too, no?

"The field sustains itself through a lifeline connected to the composition classroom where many of its problems for research are generated and to which its theory returns for implementation and testing" (28).

Terms: "epistemic court" (22), "presuppositions of consensus" (23), tone of composition studies (27), bibliographic starting points (20)

Related sources:

Habermas, "Theories of Truth," trans. Richard Grabau.

Kinneavy, James. A Theory of Discourse. New York: Norton, 1980.

Young, Becker, and Pike. Rhetoric: Discovery and Change. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970.

Posted by Derek Mueller at July 7, 2006 8:02 PM to Writing Technologies