Mostly through the use of lexical cohesion which links the sentences together through the fact that they contain words that are semantically
related, e.g. “king” and “queen” or “Seminoles” and “Indian”. Furthermore, the focus of this task is about the enactment of
connecting or disconnecting things; the relevance or irrelevance of things.
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g. Sign systems and knowledge
We use language to build up or privilege or denigrate various sign systems communicational systems and different ways of
knowing the world.
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There exist numerous sign systems, such as languages e.g., English, Indonesian, Spanish. There are also many
different varieties of any language e.g., the language of chemists, the language of poets, the language of gang members. There are
communicative systems which are not language e.g., images, equations, graphs. Furthermore, we humans are always making
knowledge and belief claims within these systems. Different sign systems represent different views of knowledge and belief, different
ways of knowing the world. We can make certain sign systems and certain forms of knowledge and belief relevant or privileged or not in
given situations, that is, to build privilege or prestige to one sign system or knowledge claim over another. The enactment also acts as
an exercise for power maintenance to allow illegitimate intimacy, and
58
Gee, 2005, op. cit., p. 13.
59
Gee, 2011, op. cit., p. 135.
even dominance, over those participates within the discourse.
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For example, we talk and act so velvety like the language of a poetbecause
it is considered as a more beautiful way to express art. The criterion this task brings: The use of distinct kinds of language and represents a
distinctive way of knowing the world , e.g. “host plants” used by the
non- scientific in contrast with “Passiflora vines” used by biologist.
Furthermore, the focus of this task is about the enactment of privileges or de-privileges of certain sign systems e.g., English vs. Indonesian,
language of the poet vs. everyday language, words vs. images, words vs. graphs or different ways of knowing and believing or claims to
knowledge and belief.
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These seven building tasks in a piece of data can be uncovered by using discourse analysis method by James Paul Gee. Hypotheses can
be retrieved from a small piece of data with the confirmation on referencing to more collections of data from a much larger corpus.
Below is an example of data comes from a project in which a university professor, Sarah, wanted to work with middle-school
teachers, one of them is called Karen.
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1 Last year, Susan Washington, who is our curriculum coordinator here had
a call from Sarah at Woodson. 2
And called me and said: 3
“We have a person from Woodson who‟s in the History Department
60
van Dijk, 2008, op. cit., p. 54.
61
Gee, 2005, op. cit., p. 13.
62
Gee, 2005, op. cit., pp. 13-19
4 And she‟s interested in doing some research into black history in New
Derby 5
And she would like to get involved with the school 6
And here‟s her number 7
Give her a call” 8
And I
DID
call her 9
And
WE BOTH
expected to be around for the Summer Institute at Woodson
10 I
DID
participate in it 11
But
SARAH
wasn‟t able to do
THAT
Not all building tasks will be apparent readily in all pieces of data, we can always propose the questions from the seven points above.
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Below are the building tasks of the data above.
Significance
Karen and Sarah treated this event as significant by making clear contrast of their involvement in the project. Karen portrays herself as
responsible and as someone who did what she was told to do by saying “I DID call her” instead of just “I called her”. In defense, Karen
expresses a contrast between her own behavior and Sarah with “But SARAH
wasn‟t able to do THAT”.
Activity
Karen‟s activity here is positioning herself in a certain way in front of the group and for the project to come and positioning Sarah in
63
Gee, 2011, op. cit., p. 15.
another way. By using “I DID…”, “But SARAH wasn‟t able to do THAT
”, Karen sets herself up as a “do-er” and Sarah as not a “do-er”.
Identities
Karen identity as a responsible “do-er” can also be seen from “Give her a call” which implies that she is considered as the teacher
with the most expertise to deal with a university professor, Sarah.
Relationships
Karen is enacting a distance, but not particularly deferential relationship to Sarah. The bit where the “do-er” and not a “do-er”
accomplishes this alongside with “a person from Woodson who‟s in the History Department”.
Politics
Karen‟s and Sarah‟s reputation as responsible, trustworthy people as a social good are at stake here as they “argue” over the
responsibility on educating schoolchildren. It can be seen from the excerpt that the decision to call Karen in order to get to her class was a
breach of protocol.
Connections
Karen renders her attendance and Sarah‟s lack of it connected and relevant to each other with “I DID…”, “WE BOTH expected…”, and
“But SARAH wasn‟t able to do THAT”.
Sign systems and knowledge
This short excerpt is the beginning of a long struggle enacted in and through language as to whether teacher knowledge or university
professor knowledge in regard to history, teaching history, classrooms, children, and the community is to be privileged with “a person from
Woodson” and “interested in doing some research into black history in New Derby.”
4. The Principal Construction Elements of News
