Speaker: Suzie Wong Scollon

Title: "Calibrating Divergent Discourses in Convergent Geographies"

Abstract:

“Discourse” as defined by Blommaert “comprises all forms of meaningful semiotic activity seen in connection with social, cultural and historical patterns and their developments of use”. Values are at the heart of discourse and are embodied along with geographical features during the course of living in a particular place at a particular time. In the contemporary world formerly distinct geographies converge as people with different life experiences encounter each other in the same territory. 

In this talk I will illustrate the use of discourse, calibration and geography with two examples, the first from activist research conducted in Alaska from 1979–1984, the second in Hong Kong during the change of political sovereignty, 1996–1998. Our projects in Alaska had the goal of improving the access of Alaska Native people to the public educational, medical, legal and economic institutions from which they were being systematically excluded, largely on the basis of communicative technologies and practices, different means of dialogue. Divergent discourses we were embedded in and endeavored to calibrate comprised military security, oil pipeline development, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, native language research and services, national bilingual education legislation, and new high schools in rural villages.

Discourses of national sovereignty assume the construct of the Western European nation state to be universal. In Eastern European post-communist societies, discourses of transition assume a direction of change toward progress. In Hong Kong after 150 years of British occupation, Governor Chris Patten crafted a new discourse of colonial withdrawal articulated in terms of market economy, freedom of the individual, rule of law, and democratic participation. This extension of utilitarian discourse diverged from the discourse of utilitarian familism predominant in the population.

Only by calibrating divergent discourses can we comprehend and influence the geopolitical changes endemic to contemporary societies.

Biography:

Suzanne Wong Scollon has spent a lifetime calibrating divergent discourses in various geographies.  She was born and raised in Hawaii, with a grandmother who spoke a hodpodge of Cantonese, Hawaiian, English, Portuguese and Japanese and lost her citizenship after U.S. occupation by marrying an alien.  Drawn to ethnolinguistics by a professor who also taught Dell Hymes, she tied modes of dialogue and narration to core values and linguistic change in her doctoral dissertation.  With her partner Ron Scollon she has moved around the Pacific Rim, teaching and learning at universities in Hawaii, Alaska, Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong and China.  Books resulting from these travels include Linguistic Convergence: an Ethnography of Speaking at Fort Chipewyan, Alberta; Narrative, Literacy and Face in Interethnic Communication; Intercultural Communication, a Discourse Approach; Professional Communication in International Settings with Yuling Pan; Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World; and Nexus Analysis: ‘Discourse and the Emerging Internet, all with Ron Scollon.