Assertiveness vs. Deference

I believe that my field, shows both assertiveness and deference. I am currently majoring in AYA Integrated Language Arts. When being a teacher you need to show assertiveness by being the one that occupys a position of leadership. When teaching content knowledge its also important to highlight the main issues and not drag on about stuff that is not useful to students. Teaching can also show deference. Teachers show deference when they are teaching knowledge because they are informing students of what they should know. Therefore I think that my career field demonstrates both assertiveness and deference which is useful to have.

career field

My career field is very assertive. My major is interpersonal communications with a focus of promotions and sales. I want to go into pharmaceutical sales and/or selling medical equipment. I will have to be direct and aggressive in my language and communication if I want to make money and excel at my job. I have to do this because I want to stand out more then my competitors and let them (doctors/nurses/buyers) know that I know what I am talking about to get them to buy what I am selling. So overall yes I will have to be very assertive and aggressive.

Response for Wednesday: Assertive or Deferent?

After reading Laib's chapter on assertiveness and deference, think about it in relation to your career field. Is your field generally more assertive in its use of language and communication, or does it prefer an indirect, deferent style? Or, does it use a mix of both? Why? How is this assertive or deferent style useful for your field?

Remember to post by Wednesday morning, and respond to at least one peer's post.

Also remember there will be a post due Monday--check your syllabus for the details on the readings. I'll have that prompt up by Tuesday night.

--ejfleitz

Klass Response

In the this reading the author goes into great depth to make sure that we can comprehend the message. The main point being that she is trying to get use to the medical discourse community. Tho the mother is not the main character it looks at her to get a better picture of what the girl is going thru. To get a better understanding of the discourse community Klass and her mother ask many questions to become apart of this community. This also looks at the possibillity that learn a new language may change her personality. I agree and disagree with that, yea it may have a little effect on your life because you learn something new, but for the most part it doesnt have a great effect.

Response for Klass

She uses these two characters, one being inside and one outside, so that people could understand her more if that makes sense. More than likely we are on her mother's end of the spectrum because most people aren't med students or know a lot of medical jargon. The use of Mr. Eponym is to show just how extreme things can be abbreviated and difficult can be to understand in the medical field.

It's almost like she, the main character, starts out more like her mother but eventually makes the eventual and natural transition to Mr. Eponym's side since they are working in the same field.

If she had just used characters from the medical field where none of the abbreviations or new names for things (ie: to box out is to die), then readers who had no insight to medical jargon would be totally lost and confused. Even without the outside characters, she sometimes explains what some things means.

klass response

The use of these two characters is to help move Klass’ story along. It betters a story when using examples. Sometimes when telling a story and you think no one is following you throw in an example that almost everyone could relate to and begin to understand. Klass uses his mother as an example of being an outsider who would never understand the jargon of doctors. This proves that she too, like him in the beginning, is out of the loop and doesn’t understand. On the other hand, Mr. E knew a lot of the terminology and jargon, but forced it and wasn’t using it on a good basis. He overly used it. Klass talks of characters from both inside and outside the medical community to show a more dramatic point to his story. The people on the inside understand the jargon and if he only spoke of them it would be as if he only spoke the language, not joined (understood) conversations. He includes in and outside characters letting the audience know that he truly does understand the jargon and can be included in conversation.

Klass Article

By having the mother in the article, Klass was able to give some insight into the medical discourse community. If the article was just with characters from the inside of medical discourse community (only with Mr.Eponym) then Klass would have limited his audience of readers who could understand the article. Klass’s mother was a way to “dumb down” the medical jargon and make it understandable to those not in the medical field. The ready could defiantly relate to the mother and thereby have a closer connection to the article.

Klass Response

In Klass's article, she uses the experience of her mother, an outsider, and Mr. Eponym, a newbie insider, to help those outside of her discource community understand it. For example, when using medical jargon to her mother, her mother lets her know that she is not a member of the community. In the same essence, Mr. Eponym, someone who is a beginner is not expected to know it perfectly. It is important to have limitations on the discource community to ensure its exclusiveness and those characters illustrate that point.

Klass Response

I feel that the two separate characters are effective examples of two different perspectives from the world of medical jargon. For instance, Mr. Eponym likes to use the multinamed disease syndromes and show off this capability to use this jargon. This kind of speech when used inside or outside the medical community can give different reactions depending on who the listener is and I feel that is important for both sides of the discourse community.

mondays post

well how many of you read a biology book or chemistry book, if you do not know what dna is or stand for or if you do not know what an atom is then you are pretty much lost, likewise in this reading both people are used so that we as the reader could understand exaclty what the author was talking about. how many of us have been to the hospital and you have heard different phrases or acronyms being used? i am fortunate for the most part because i work in the hospital and although i do not know what all the acronyms mean there are some things i do understand, such as SOB and NG tube which our author mentioned in the article. Both persons are needed in this article because most of us can relate to the mother and because this article is so easy to follow. those are my thoughts.

In "Learning the Language," the author sets up the story for audiences of different discourse communities: those in the medical field and those who are not. I think it's important for the author to understand the audience so that unneccessary help in de-coding the medical terminology is not used. If the audience was just for doctors and those familiar with medical jargon, they would be offended by someone in the discourse community over-simplifying. For this article, however, it was appropriate to include the mom, who broadened the audience of readers to include those unfamilar with the medical terms.