New words

I've had a term of coping with new terminology, and words that I think I know then find that they mean something else in this academic context, or something more than I had understood. This week's words were intersubjectivity, locutionary and illocutionary and perlocutionary, which have to do with Searle's speech act theory and I read them in Ethnographic Research: A Reader, in a chapter on 'Distributed cognition in an airline cockpit' by Hutchins and Klausen. By the time I got to asking husband about a synedoche, which wasn't in his dictionary either, both of us were all jargonised out. I mean, that we'd had too much jargon. So when a couple of days later I found this poem in the introduction to 'Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography' editors Clifford & Marcus, it really spoke to me. The editors prefix it with

"Finally, as an Invocation, we offer the following verses composed in mock despair by our first editorial reader, Jane Kepp, dictionary in hand."

The Hermeneut's Dilemma, or, A Jargon Poem

Twas prelapsarian, and the hermeneut
Sat huddled with his faithful trope,
Sunk in thaumasmus, idly strumming his lute,
Lost in subversion with nary a hope.

Then with heartfelt apoplanesis he cried,
O come, interlocutor, give me your ear!
In my pathopoeia, I've slandered and lied;
Now of my grim project this discourse you'll hear.

I've dappled in vile phenomenological rites,
And joined in a secret synecdoche,
Squandered my received knowledge in bibulous nights,
And embraced epistemological heresy.

O, but now my metonymy is too great to bear!
This ecphonesis has become too deictic to hide!
I've lost all the poesis I once held so dear . . .
And, with typical hypotyposia, he died.

Assignments thick and fast

Us students on the MRes had to get another essay in last week. It was on either:

• ethnography - rationales for

or

• discourse analysis: compare and contrast two types

Well, yeuch! I don't like essays and compare and contrast essays are even more difficult to structure because I can see a 2 by 2 matrix in them (that's the business side of me-MBA students get heaps of 2*2 matrixes).

So I chose the "Critically assess the rationales for ethnographic or qualitative research option". Qualitative methods tutor (QMT), who's been very sympathetic to my writing struggles, said that this option was a linear structure, and certainly I found it comparatively easy to produce, though I haven't got feedback yet.

Now, this week there's another TMA due in. This one is for the business model, and is quite fun in that it relates to real research. It has to be a proposal for research, with a long discussion of the ethical and political issues of doing it. Fellow student (FS) and I have been comparing notes. FS said late this afternoon that she was getting bogged down in the practicalities, which she would because she's been a real practising and successful manager, and I have been getting bogged down in the ethical issues.

I came home thinking I could type up my work this evening, but by the time I'd fed teenagers before they went out babysitting or socialising, and dealt with answering personal email, and Christmas cards, dear old husband was back from keep fit and needed feeding too. And now, look at the time - nearly 10 o'clock and wine time. Too late to type.

Essays & qualitative research

I'm still struggling to write essays, but was cheered by an exercise in the Doctoral Training Workshop this week. Writing Tutor (WT) gave us a set of six short excerpts of writing to criticise. These included one on science, one on stats, one on discourse analysis and one on object modelling complete with diagram. At last here was something that I recognised, something from my computing experience. However, no one else in the room had any understanding of the topic, whereas some knew and had experience of aspects of qualitative research such as discourse analysis. Earnest student (ES) enthused how easy it was to read the discourse analysis, and student in wheelchair (SiC) said that it seemed to be written in every day language! "Ah! - Not", thought I. And must have said it aloud because ES at the far end of the room, caught my eye and looked amused.

Anyhow, it gave me the opportunity to explain to WT that if everyone else in the room had had to start learning about objects, draw models and use them within two months of starting the course, in the way that I've had to learn about qualitative methods and write essays, then they would be struggling and be as despondent as much as I am.

Friendly student (FS) pointed out that eventually I would be able to write essays whereas she will never be able to (and doesn't want to) create object models.