A Discursive Approach to Skillful Activity

Abstract

We propose a discursive approach for exploring how practitioners intelligently respond and create a sense of coherence in their linguistic practice. A discursive approach to skillful activity is able to account for the role of meaning making in conversation, address how communication constructs the context in which skillful activity originates, and recognize the co-created flavor of skillful practice. We offer an account of skillful linguistic performance that turns on practitioners acting with sensibility by paying close attention to the reflexive relationships among: (a) moral-aesthetic commitments; (b) conversational abilities in the form of utterances, methods, and techniques; (c) practical reasoning and the process of invention; and (d) context. We conclude by exploring the implications of a discursive approach for meaning making, identity construction, and managing the tensions emerging from different traditions or communities of practice.

Working With Differences in Everyday Interactions through Anticipational Fluidity: A Hermeneutic Perspective

“…Our theoretical framing is consistent with perspectives on skilful practice that highlight relationality and connectedness between participants (e.g. Barge & Little, 2008).…”

Pivotal leadership and the art of conversation

“…As I began to develop this concept, pivotal leadership involved (1) an ability to turn quickly from one conversation to another, to change course and direction rapidly from within the flow of activity while constantly moving and (2) an ability to be simultaneously at the center and the periphery of activity. For academic leaders who desire to maintain a dialogical position in their practice (Barge and Little, 2002, 2008), the latter is a particularly tricky position to co-create with others as you are a pivotal character in the organization, contributing to the development and success of the organization, a pivot point that others might use as a reference point. But organizational growth and development is not contingent solely on the conversations you co-create with others.…”

An Exchange of Letters: What Can a Specifically Social Constructionist Perspective Bring to Bear on What Must Be One of the Most Studied Subjects in Human History?

“…There is a growing body of work in leadership that recognizes leadership is a highly contextualized and situated activity that is more about making wise choices in the moment than following a fixed a priori script. The idea of situated judgment goes by a variety of names, such as wisdom-inaction (Raelin, 2007), phronesis (Grint, 2007), and acting with sensibility (Barge & Little, 2008). What ties these approaches together is the notion that situations are unique, emergent, and reflexive-Your actions help construct the very situation to which you must respond.…”