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 He was criticised for using moves that were outdated.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.