Raby: Demystified

Hi Folks,
Apologies for not having Raby up prior to our first class this week- I had thought I had posted it but something misfired and it was saved as a draft. Instead of posting that original draft though I thought it might be more useful if I recapped some of what we covered in class, and address some areas of confusion I witnessed on the blogs in order to prepare us for class tomorrow.

With regards to class material Raby has 3 things that you should take away with you. The first is that there is this thing called discourse, (and discursive constructions) that is the way in which we use words to portray particular ideologies (remember that word?) and their meanings.

We said in class that Discourse= Language+Power.

The second is that Discourse has meaning- in short WORDS MATTER. Think about how this relates to Addy's story, or the slides on medical text book language.

Finally, Raby argues that there is a specific discourse around teenagers, their experiences, and their relationships. Most notably is the five stages of adolescence concept. I could see that some of you were trying to apply this to your own experience and I think that was a smart idea, it is easier to understand things when we can relate to them. We will cover this third piece more in depth tomorrow, so come with your questions. I think this may have been the area that more of you were trying to make sense of that might have gotten lost in the transition between Discourse as a large idea, and what it means with regards to teenagers. Hopefully through tomorrow's class that connection, and the application to your own experiences will become clearer.

Also- an image to get you thinking some more on the importance of discourse.