Education and morality

There is currently a trial going on which is getting a fair bit of coverage in the Herald – about a neurosurgeon (Suresh Surendranath Nair) standing trial against allegations of the murder of a prostitute who overdosed on cocaine while she was engaged for services in his apartment in November 2009 (see e.g. this report from today). The stories are horrifying to read, and I think the thing that disturbs me most is the cool way in which the events of the evening are described: as if engaging a number of prostitutes is pretty run of the mill, but the use of large amounts of cocaine is a bit dodgy and the fact that the woman died is really problematic.

Sure, the guy is blamed for failing to recognise the lethal symptoms of cocaine overdose (and especially as he has medical training), as that's what he's on trial for really, but where is the recognition that ordering prostitutes to your apartment, encouraging them to take huge amounts of drugs, and paying them extra to dispense with STD/contraceptive protection demonstrates moral depravity? Of course newspapers are supposed to provide 'objective' reports and avoid passing explicit judgement on people, but in reality this ideal of objectivity is not always upheld. I've seen it in, for example, a report of a housefire in Wyong in 2005 in which a number of children from the same family died. There were some subtle (and not so subtle) expressions of judgement of the adults in the family involved, e.g. these descriptions of Wayne Shepherd, the boyfriend of Lisa Forde, the children's mother:

"Mr Shepherd - who was outside the house yesterday drinking a long-neck as reporters milled around - said Ms Forde had gone to check the children when the fight ended."

"Mr Shepherd, who said he had served two years' jail after being convicted on drugs charges, said Ms Forde had children by four men, two of whom were in jail."

In this case, the details about the Mr Shepherd and the children's fathers' are quite irrelevant to the fact that their house caught on fire and the children were killed. They are presented as observations or 'factual' information, but since they are most likely irrelevant to the occurrence of the fire, the function of their inclusion is to guide the reader to lay blame on the mother, Ms Forde, by suggesting a link between her choices in men and her ability to care for her children properly and preserve their lives.

But back to the original story... Being a neurosurgeon, Nair is a highly educated person insofar as he has completed one or more degrees of tertiary education. Once upon a time, universities were an institution of the church, following on from the monastic traditions of learned enquiry. Going to university didn't just involve learning knowledge and skills for vocational application, but it also (in theory) prepared students to think constructively about the world and develop at least some degree of moral awareness. Macquarie University's Vice Chancellor, Steven Schwartz, has written a number of blog posts touching on the role of universities in delivering holistic education rather than vocational training, e.g. these posts on idealism, practical wisdom (also this one). I don't agree with everything Schwartz says (for example, in another post, it's clear that he thinks most people are fundamentally good) or does, but I'm glad that, at least in his public persona, his view of the university includes more than just vocational training.

As a Christian, I know that good morality (or righteousness) is the fruit that grows out of salvation in Jesus Christ, through the internal work of the Holy Spirit and through knowledge of God's word, the Bible. It's not something that secular institutions can bring about in and of themselves. But I think there is a role for Christians working within secular education to help people to think constructively about the world and eternity, and point them to the one who is Lord over every idea, every molecule, every cell, every language, every people group: Jesus (Matthew 28:18). This is something I think we all agreed on at Cite in the week just gone. More reflections from Cite to come in the near future. I have resolved to update this blog more often in the year to come!

Long time no blog

Wow, I am shocked to discover that my last post was in August! On second thoughts, it's not that surprising. I have been burning the candle at both ends all session, but I'm about to finish up at UOW (tomorrow) and then I'm off to Cite (find out more here and here) on Saturday and then I'm unemployed for a little while and plan to do a bit more blogging from then on.

So stay tuned!

Speaking with confidence

I'm currently teaching a course in spoken English for academic purposes. It has been really interesting and rewarding to watch how the students (who are all from non-English speaking backgrounds) develop in confidence, even just in the last 5 weeks since semester began. Every 2 weeks they have to record themselves reflecting on some feature of spoken discourse they've heard around them (or sometimes it might be on a set topic) and then upload it to the online class discussion forum.

In one of the tutorials recently, after getting a bit frustrated with their lack of verbal participation in class, I asked them if they felt more comfortable uploading their recording to the class forum than speaking in class, and they all said yes! It seems that speaking to a faceless, anonymous audience (from within the comfort of their own home) is less confronting for them than speaking in front of classmates in class.

As well as the recorded 'discourse diary', on the in-between weeks they also have to comment on two of their classmates' recordings from the previous week. This is also interesting, as they seem to be very happy to both encourage and critique their classmates in this mode, which I never see them doing in class.

I have been greatly encouraged to see the way they interact with each other online, and actually there is quite a good friendly atmosphere in class when I give them interaction activities to do in groups. It's only when I ask a general question of the whole class that most of the students feel uncomfortable being the one to speak. I hope they will be less reticent as the semester progresses. I realise it is a cultural difference as many of them are from China, where the teacher talks and the students listen, and if the teacher wants you to say something they will ask you directly. Hopefully we can come to an understanding by the end of semester.

Notes on a haircut

I always enjoy it when I'm in a situation where specialized and everyday discourse come into contact, seeing how the people involved negotiate the interaction so that they can make themselves understood.
For example, a few weeks ago I had a hairdresser appointment (Ed: I actually started writing a blog on it that week but my iPhone went cactus shortly after so I lost all the notes I had made). It was interesting because it was late on a Friday afternoon, just before closing time, and I was the only customer so all 3 staff members were talking to me and discussing my haircut.
In order to explain what I wanted or didn't want done to my hair, I used my own non-technical terms such as 'foof it up' and 'not like a curtain on my head'. They found my attempts to explain hairstyles amusing, but were able to understand what I meant and then used my terms for the rest of the procedure.
In service encounters like hairdressing appointments the domain of experience is quite everyday as far as the customer is concerned - their hair and its appearance. So modifying your use of technical terms when operating at the interface between experts and laypeople is a really useful thing to do.

Love like this

There is a passage from the Bible that is frequently used at weddings – anyone who has been to a church wedding is highly likely to have heard it even if they don't normally read the Bible or go to church. It's from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, and it goes like this:

⁴Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 ESV)

I was reflecting on the meaning of the passage and it occurred to me that it is an immensely challenging passage. That got me thinking about whether I would want to have it read at my wedding (if the opportunity arises), because I thought it would be a bit like holding a magnifying glass up to your relationship at that most public moment of a declaration and promise of love. It's saying 'this is what love is (or should be) – can you do that?'. But I wonder if people just like the sound of it and feel as if that kind of love is 'the way things are', or that it will happen magically once they are pronounced husband and wife.

How many people could actually say that in their relationships (especially with their spouses/partners) they are always patient and kind, never envious or boastful, arrogant or rude? How many people could say they never insist on getting their own way, or are never irritable or resentful? Rejoicing in wrongdoing, i.e. pointing out the other's faults or mistakes in a kind of pointscoring competition seems to be a socially acceptable way of conducting a relationship (just look at Hollywood depictions of relationships). The fact that many people separate and get divorced shows that not everyone is able to bear, believe, hope and endure all things.

The title of this blog is intended in its clausal sense, as imperative mood 'Love like this!' rather than in its phrasal sense '(a) love [like this] (is...)', and I think that's the tone of the passage too: not merely a description of love, but an exhortation to love like this, with Jesus Christ as the perfect example of love like this.

Moving, just keep moving

It's been a very long time between blogs! I have struggled to keep up with the pace of my new job and so have been a bit snowed under with lecture preparation and marking. Now semester has finished and there's just a bit of collating to do for final grades.

I'm also moving again this week. I have really enjoyed living in the current place but it's great to have the opportunity to move in with a new friend and be able to save a bit on rent. Thankfully some of my things are still in boxes from before (since my current place is furnished) so it's just a matter of moving the boxes as they are. As well as packing up my things here, I have also recently been going through the nostalgic process of packing up and clearing out the family home I lived in for 22 years. There were a lot of memories to sort through and it was sometimes hard to decide what is worth keeping and what is not. I think I have become better at throwing things out (I have always been a hoarder!), and as I have cleared out and thrown out and packed things away, I have found myself thinking about what's really necessary and what is extraneous or unhelpful. Vague thoughts of future overseas work also enter my head and make me wonder what I would take with me.

I want to be able to live simply wherever I am, unencumbered by extra, unnecessary possessions (and not obsessed with accumulating them), but somehow I still find it hard to part with nick-nacks that each have a story to tell – the framed photos of friends and family, the miniature painted china houses my aunt brought me back from Greece, the sequined beanie frog prince that was a gift from a girlfriend for my 16^th birthday. And all those books...

Jesus constantly challenged his followers to exchange their treasures on earth for treasures in heaven (Luke 12:33 and Matt 19:21) and to be on their guard against seeing their value in their possessions (Luke 12:15) and it seems that members of the early church were characterised by their willingness to sell their possessions and give to those in need (Acts 2:45). Earlier, the writer of Ecclesiastes pondered a similar question, e.g. Ecclesiastes 5:11 (see Ecclesiates 5:8-20 for more on this theme):

¹¹ As goods increase,
so do those who consume them.
And what benefit are they to the owner
except to feast his eyes on them?

I think his conclusion in 5:19 is helpful in thinking about having balance between the enjoyment of possessions with contentment, and the recognition of where they come from (and hence that they can be taken away at any time) and the fact that they are not really necessary to life and unfulfilling in themselves:

¹⁹ Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work—this is a gift of God.

Mijn hovercraft zit vol palingen (My hovercraft is full of eels)

I was investigating some Dutch language information websites this evening, and I came across this rather interesting one, Omniglot, which among other things provides some 'useful Dutch phrases'. The phrase 'my hovercraft is full of eels' was given in this list. It made me wonder (with tongue firmly in cheek) what kind of a place the Netherlands must be if that is a useful phrase. Certainly hovercrafts must be fairly common, and eels plentiful in the places where hovercrafts are used. And it must be the sort of place where you could say this to someone and they would be filled with sympathy. And perhaps there is also some well-known traditional Dutch method of ridding hovercrafts and other vessels from the slimy creatures which the addressee would immediately set to work to effect, to help you rid your hovercraft of eels. Well, at least I know I'll be well prepared for that contingency next time I visit the Netherlands!

Learning from the source

This week I have been lecturing on using evidence in academic writing – using sources, referencing, quoting, paraphrasing, etc – and how it's not good enough just to quote someone second hand. You actually need to go back to the original source and see that the middle man has conveyed the meaning of the source text accurately. Otherwise it's like Chinese whispers and you never know what convoluted rubbish you could end up with!

I was reminded of Paul's exhortation to Timothy (2 Tim 2:2) to entrust the gospel of Christ to reliable men who would be able to continue to faithfully teach others – passing the baton on, but ensuring it's always the same baton and doesn't get switched for something else in the middle of the race. We need to keep going back to the source – the Word of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ – so that we never just assume we know what it's about and then pass on a twisted or faulty message.

Around the same time I heard that message from 2 Timothy (preached by the faithful Richard Chin at St Michaels Wollongong), I read Amos 2:4-5, where God pronounces judgement on Judah because they have forgotten God's law and have been led astray by their lies, which presumably have resulted from just that same problem – the Word of God was no longer being taught faithfully, people weren't going back to the source but were hearing distortions and allowing them to continue.

So Paul exhorted Timothy to 'preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching (2 Tim 4:2). And we need to always go back to the source to test what we hear or read against the original source.

“Sainting” and “sanctifying”

I saw a 'news' segment on Mary McKillop a few days ago. They were talking about some letters that Mary McKillop had written during her life, and it was apparently newsworthy that the letters revealed how human she was. Well, she was human, after all. The fact that she is to be declared a saint later this year means precisely that she was human, otherwise there would be no need for her to be sainted. I find the whole 'sainting' (canonisation) thing quite strange. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the noun 'saint' derives from the Latin sanctus, meaning 'holy'. Sanctus itself is derived from the verb, sancire, meaning 'to consecrate'. The related English verb, sanctify, derives from the Latin santificare (holy + make), meaning 'to make holy/righteous/pure'. The Dictionary also tells us that the usage of 'saint' as a verb, meaning "to enroll (someone) among the saints", dates only from the late 14^th century.

Those who are called saints in the Bible don't do anything particularly special – no miracles supposedly performed by them after death – but are simply Christians, who have heard, understood and been changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. They become saints not through a process of 'sainting', decided by humans based on what they are supposed to have done after they died, but by a process of sanctification by God while they are still alive. Once they have died it's too late. Furthermore, sanctification is not based on what people do, but based on God's mercy and their faith in His promises to make them righteous.

When Jesus prayed to God before his crucifixion, he said "Sanctify them [the ones whom God had chosen] in the truth; your word is truth... for their sake I consecrate myself, that they may also be sanctified in truth" (John 17: 17, 19). Sanctification gives new life to those who turn from sin to serve God, as Paul says in the first letter to the Corinthians, "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?... But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." (1 Cor 6: 9, 11). And the writer to the Hebrews tells them (us) that it is by the will of God that "we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Hebrews 10: 10). So Christians are already saints in life, and will continue to be saints for eternity!

Some 'saints' I know.

A linguistic approach to history

To the historian equipped with the proper tools, it is suggested, any text or artefact can figure forth the thought-world and possibly even the world of emotional investment and praxis of its time and place of production. Not that any given text can alone call up the whole world of its origin or that any given set of texts can reveal its world completely. But in principle, it seems to hold that we today possess the tools to probe texts in ways only dimly perceived or, if perceived, not fully utilized by earlier intellectual or other historians. And these tools, it is suggested, are generally linguistic in nature. (White, 1987:187)

The above quotation is taken from the work of a scholar not of linguistics, but of historiography and intellectual history. It is from Hayden White's The Context in the Text: Method and Ideology in Intellectual History. The potential of a text or artefact to 'figure forth the thought-world... of its time and place of production' (White, 1987:187) is a point of departure that is common to both historians and linguists. White is sympathetic to the ideas of linguistics and discourse analysis, advocating a 'semiological' approach to text as the most productive approach to questions concerned with meaning production and the meaning systems by which the meanings in a text are produced.

'Semiological', in White's sense, means 'the tradition of cultural analysis that builds upon the theory of language as a sign (rather than a word) system, after the manner of Saussure, Jakobsson, and Benveniste' (White, 1987:191). One of the schools of linguistics that has developed out of the theories of Saussure and Jakobson, among others, is systemic functional linguistics (SFL). It provides considerable explanatory power for the whole range of linguistic phenomena, from intonation in speech (at the level of phonology) to syndromes of meaning (at the level of semantics) and beyond to the patterns of cultural tendencies. What I have argued in my recent work from my PhD research is that indeed we do have 'the tools to probe texts' to reveal how they 'figure forth the thought-world' of their time and place of production, and that the tools and concepts offered by SFL are ideal for this kind of job.

I'm hoping to post here, over the next little while, some of my thoughts on how linguistic tools can be used in historical enquiry, and particularly the study of media history.

References:

White, H. (1987). The Context in the Text: Method and Ideology in Intellectual History. In The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation, 185--213. Baltimore & London: The John Hopkins University Press.

Dawkins and evaluation

No, I didn't make a typo in the title - it's not supposed to read 'Dawkins and evolution'!

A fellow Australian Christian academic, Ross McKenzie, has recently written a blog post in which he speculates on whether Richard Dawkins might have 'softened' in his stance towards Christians, based on some reviews of Dawkins' recent book (The Greatest Show on Earth). What strikes me as interesting is the recurring theme of comment on Dawkins' strong criticism of those who choose to believe in a creative God. I know Dawkins' writing is generally considered 'popular science', rather than academic scientific discourse, but even so it does seem rather inappropriate to be so blatantly evaluative in his references to certain groups of people.

I would love to do some appraisal analysis of his writing and see what kinds of appraisal show up the most, and towards whom (see Martin & White 2005 for more on Appraisal). Because I'm interested in his evaluations of people and groups of people, I would look at the linguistics resources used to express judgement, whether social esteem (based on a code the violation of which results in criticism from others) or social saction (based on moral/legal codes the violation of which leads to condemnation) (see e.g. White 2004). Perhaps there will be positive or negative appraisal of people's capacity (especially their mental abilities), normality, or tenacity (parameters of social esteem). Perhaps it will be expressions of positive or negative social sanction about people's propriety or honesty.

References
Martin, J. R., & White, P. (2005). The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. Basingstoke & New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Different values, stylistically speaking

The other night I did something I hadn’t done before – I watched an episode of ‘So you think you can dance Australia’. I know nothing about dance and can’t really do it myself, but, I bet like other non-dancers who watch it, I sort of catch the dancing vibe and feel like doing little jigs in the living room after getting caught up in it. It’s quite refreshing how generally encouraging the judges are (although still encouraging an unhealthy self-absorption), compared to other programs that run on a similar model.

There was a guy on there who was older than most of the other contestants – 31 I think – who had been out of the dancing scene for a while. He was criticised for using moves that were outdated. The moves that he imagined would be appropriate to use in a dancing audition and give him a chance of getting through to the next round were not valued as highly by the judges. His repertoire of dance moves was fairly restricted so these particular moves held a different value for him than for the judges, who had been continually exposed to new moves and combinations of moves in all kinds of different dance genres. The moves he used in his audition were identified by the judges as moves you learn as part of training in a particular genre and then move beyond as you continue to train and learn more complex moves. They were expecting dancing at a level of sophistication and development that he didn’t produce because he didn’t understand what the judges would value in a routine.

A similar lesson is going to be one of the central concepts I’ll be teaching my students this semester in the ‘effective written communication’ course. Most of us use a range of styles and genres and language in the course of our lives, and each of these styles may be valued in its appropriate context. Academic writing is a particular kind of written communication that is unlike everyday communication in a number of ways. One of the most important ways is the value it holds in the academic context. In order to ‘impress the judges’ in an academic context, you need to know what patterns of language use are highly valued in the context and how to use them appropriately. Like dancing, it takes reflection, training from those who have mastered it, and practice.

“Your call is important to us...”

Since I moved to Wollongong earlier this week, I have been running the gauntlet of 'change of address' processes with a number of companies and organisations who, for one reason or another, have my address details. This has been surprisingly painless, as they all had either toll free or 13- (local call) numbers and relatively simple procedures for entering the changes into their databases. Unsurprisingly, I have put up with a range of hold music/hold advertising and had to choose the correct option from the 4, 6 or umpteen options available in the automated call directing system. But I think these systems have been developed to a much more user friendly standard than they used to be. For instance, you usually get told how many options they are going to offer you so you can anticipate and use your powers of deduction to work out which of the options your problem fits into. And then I normally got to speak to a real person in the end, all of whom I was able to understand without any problems and who were generally friendly and helpful, and once I had 'proved my identity' they were able to change my details for me quite simply.

The funniest experience was when I went to the bank to register my change of address. Upon entry to the building I was met by a rather intense fellow with a clipboard who wrote down my name and some code presumably corresponding to my enquiry. He directed me to sit down and wait for a consultant to become available. Then I sat there for about 15 minutes waiting with a few other bored-looking people. As I waited I observed the man who had greeted me and pondered the nature of his job. It appeared that his whole job was to wander around in the bank greeting people who came in, writing things in his clipboard, guiding people to cubicles where bank staff attended to their query, and generally trying to maintain an appearance of busyness and importance. I found it all quite amusing. Good on them, I guess, for trying to make the 'bank experience' a personal one by employing someone to be a 'greeter'. But really, I would have been quite happy to just take a number and wait my turn like I did at Medicare!

My life in boxes

For three weeks I've been gradually clearing out and packing up the material accumulations of 29 and a half years in preparation for the move to Wollongong, which will happen on Monday 25^th January. It has been an exhausting but strangely enjoyable activity in a 'trip down memory lane' kind of way. I found many things I was surprised that I had kept: speeches I made in primary school and high school, meticulously handwritten out on tiny 'palm cards'; a diary I kept very sporadically (a total of about 5 entries!) between the ages of about 10 and 12; school assignments I must have been particularly proud of; a 'time capsule' scrapbook my high school friend and I wrote along with our sisters when we were about 13 or 14; a heap of train tickets dated from the mid nineties to the early noughties; a collection of coasters from various pubs visited between the ages of about 18 and 20; and many other things that have already blurred into a mass of forgettable articles. I've kept some of the things that I thought might interest me in the future as evidence of what things I had thought about in my earlier years and what my writing style had been like (ever the linguaphile!), but with the rest of the paper matter I filled two yellow-lidded recycling bins!

Now I have a large number of boxes stacked up in the lounge room, marked according to how soon I'm likely to need them. I'm moving into a furnished 2 bedroom granny flat so a lot of it I won't need while I'm living there. Those boxes are marked 'STAY', and they'll hang around at my family home until I move into more permanent, unfurnished accommodation. Some are marked 'GO LATER', which means I'll bring them after the initial move if I find I need what's in them: extra bits of crockery. The rest are marked 'GO' – things like towels and sheets, food, clothes, cleaning stuff, decorative items to make the place feel like home, and of course the mix master and baking tins!

I'm looking forward to unpacking and putting things where I want them in the new place, and making it my own. It's a whole new adventure!

A 'language of the heart'?

Here is an interesting blog post written by a Linguistics colleague. What is a 'language of the heart'? Is it important to be able to read the Bible in the 'language of the heart'? Certainly, it's important to be able to read (or hear) it in a language you can understand. The language of the Bible (whatever that may be) will then speak to your heart through the work of the Holy Spirit (cf. Ezekiel 2:1-3, 1 Corinthians 2:6-16).

The year past and the year to come

Well, I know it's already the 3^rd of January, but better late than never to think through the year that has been (2009) and think ahead to 2010 – the beginning of a new decade brings many new beginnings for me. In February I will begin a new job at the University of Wollongong, lecturing in English Language and Linguistics at the Language Centre. Initially it will be for 6 months, but may become longer, God willing. So that will involve moving to Wollongong (for the uninitiated, that's about 1.5 hrs drive south of Sydney), finding a new church, getting to know a new city, making new friends, somehow trying to keep in touch with family and friends in Sydney, and getting my head around a different university, its administrative systems and the curriculum I will be teaching.
The final year of the 'noughties' (BTW, what will this current decade be called?) was a very full and busy year, and I was able to witness God's work in my life in many ways. I give thanks for many things, including:

• Being able to complete my thesis on time, and the encouragement and support of friends during the writing up stage
  
• The blessing of an office on campus for the final 12 months of my PhD, and a friendly and supportive office-mate
  
• The encouragement and support of my supervisors and colleagues at uni
  
• Continued fellowship with the Lighthouse Forum at Macquarie Uni, and the work God did on campus through all the Christian groups throughout the year
  
• God's provision of everything I needed throughout all the lean and stressful times, especially the provision of work after my scholarship expired at a time when work appointments at uni were very hard to come by
  
• Safe travel to China twice, and the helpful experiences I had there at the conference and job interview
  
• Safe travel to Canberra for the inaugural Cite conference, and the great encouragement and inspiration it was to meet with other Christian academics there
  
• Safe travel to Victoria at Christmas to spend time with family
  
• Opportunities to make new friends in a number of contexts, and opportunities to share the good news about Jesus with various people
  
• The generosity of my family

I'm really thankful for this new job also, because not only will it be helpful financially (boring pragmatic reason), but it is also a really good opportunity for me to develop skills in lecturing and convening university courses. And it's a good time for me to move away from home and branch out a bit too. Wollongong is a very pleasant city, from what I've seen of it, and it's not so far from Sydney!