For this week

We are beginning to move towards the construction of meaning from the production of sounds to words to larger structures of thought expressed through language.

This brings us to discourse.
"Discourse" at its root means "a running about."
Consider moving to a new town. You don't know your way around. You find out where to get groceries, where to see a movie, where to shop for clothes. You meet people and learn the way to their homes and from them you learn about events and services you are interested in and so on. In time you "know the territory" and feel that you are at home in this new town. How did that happen? By "a running about." You became familiar with new territory by traversing across it and learning the particulars of the region. In the same way, a discourse traverses the territory of experiences, ideas, possibilities, and the realm of the imagination.
As we noticed last week, listening to Nicholas Petron tell about his grandfather, Rocco, the brief discourse traveled to certain events in time. In particular we noticed that 2 conspiratorial events were set up: the buying of hot dogs and the throwing of coal. This story, then, was a discourse across time, helping us to know the territory of a person (grandfather) and a culture (Italian immigrant family).

Listen to this story from The Moth. Alan Rabinowitz, "Man and Beast."


His is the 5th story down on the list.

Listen for the following issues:
1) Phonetics - use of sounds
2) Involvement -emotional, intellectual
3) Discourse - the coursing path of the narrative

Write up:
1) a phonetic transcription of a brief passage that has distinct sound values.
2) Describe a moment that involves you emotionally or intellectually and explain why.
3) map the path of the discourse. That is, outline the events that the speaker leads us through in the course of his speech.

Discuss: what is the terrain of this discourse? What are the Big Ideas that we become familiar with via this traverse across experience, idea, and emotion?