Read the Room!: Navigating Social Contexts and Written Texts
This chapter is a collaboration between a professor (Sarah Seeley) and two former students (Kelly Xu and Matthew Chen). We begin with a discussion of a key concept: the discourse community. In doing so, we illustrate why it is necessary to examine the social side of communication. This is an invitation for readers to think about the fact that academic communication practices are structured in ways that are actually quite similar to the more familiar communication practices they use on a daily basis. We offer readers a framework for understanding how the social assumptions associated with familiar communicative contexts may be useful in understanding new or unfamiliar contexts. We use the social media platform TikTok as an extended example as we explore the various criteria that define a discourse community. Xu and Chen then offer examples of how people become competent communicators within the context of new new-to-them scientific discourse communities. They cover topics including learning a “hidden” lexicon, building confidence and independence, and navigating tacit power hierarchies. These experiences reinforce the fact that effective communication requires contextual awareness and that understanding social norms is essential for developing that awareness.
Copyright © 2022 Sarah Seely, Kelly Nu, Matthew Chenn Melzer
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