Something literary for a change, but, I’m afraid, still on the iBurst tip. I compare the discourse of Cybersmart’s boss with that of iBurst’s new boss. When I discuss the iBurst CEO’s discourse, I focus on an opening paragraph in one response he’s written to me at MyBroadBand, and I focus only on one aspect, the ethos of the discourse.
There are some other stuff going on in that paragraph – ignorance or lying – but that is connected to other paragraphs, which I’ll look at in due course.
I post it at MyBB because that’s a primary audience. It’s also a non-literary audience, so I’ve used crude analogies to explain ethos.
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This Carting Life
July 19th, 2009 @10:12 #
Real world discourse analysis -- love it. Rustum, you're a hero. Very impressed by the Cybersmart boss, BTW.
July 20th, 2009 @12:44 #
I read your discourse analysis with interest. But when Laurie says "Jan is one of our first successful graduates from our payit forward program which trains those who previously did not have opportunity , he then has to pay this opportunity forward. Jan’s previous job was washing cars in pretoria, which may account for is inability to spell exposure", he is absolutely trying to squash his customer - provoke all sorts of complex South African guilt mechanisms in Tony, the complainant. Laurie just plays the game of one-upping his customer on a whole different, more subtle and more evolved level than Jannie. As someone who worked in retail for a long while, I know that to retain some sense of sanity, the retail worker needs to bolster himself at the expense of a complaining customer. It is the only way equilibrium is a approached in a very uneven system.
I think you are partaking in a bit of ego and ethos yourself - a little bit of squeeze-the-evidence-to-fit-the-argument - though, by suggesting that Laurie's response is egoless. Of course I am being self-reflexive and egotistical in this response.
Why would anyone want to write or respond without ego? Surely rhetoric - the convincing transmission of personal understanding and values - is the basis of illuminating communication. You want to make your point clear, as do Laurie, Tony and Jannie. You and Laurie, I suggest, are in better command of your rhetoric.
July 21st, 2009 @01:04 #
Lord, I only see this now.
Yes, Louis, absolutely correct. But I think I stretch the point for the sake of emphasis, rather than to fit the argument. Laurie downplays the presence of his ego; he is in control of his rhetoric. Absolutely.
And yes, my posts are far from ego-less in the sense that I talk about it wrt Laurie; it is filled with ego, but some hidden - in-jokes only I know; in-jokes for literary types (not in this particular post). I slipped from talking about ethos in its rhetorical sense to connecting it to ego in its generic sense.
An abrupt transition but, I was aware that from ethos to ego rhetorical intricacies will make it too technical. As it stands, that post proved already trying to some people. One asked me whether I could say it in shorter paragraphs. My response was: Laurie's response shows he is not a pr--k. The absence of pr--kness seems to permeate Cybersmart's business philosophy.
As to the guilt trigger, I think Laurie pulls it in response to the blogger's racism: "some African guy... can't even spell 'exposure'", and to set up the clincher: The only mistake Jan made was that he struggled to spell 'exposure'.
One more long post sometime tomorrow, then I'll rest... a bit.
Thanks Helen. Cat aka Couscous seems to be doing fine: eating, drinking and stinking up the shower cubicle. Thanks for all wrt kitty care. I tweeted a thanks to Ben to pass on to you when he was passing those very decorous photographs from Mouille Point around. But he was obviously so taken with shots of PR not in a lacy bra, that he must have missed it.