easy communications one page
Stance Praxis
This praxis asks you to listen and read about a controversial topic and to reflect on your own stance on the issues related to identity, the sound of talk, and conversation style. Here is how you should proceed.
1) Listen and read. Listen to and read the following three pieces on the sound of young women’s voices. As you read and listen, feel free to take notes that help you answer the questions below.
- From Upspeak to Vocal Fry: Are we Policing Young Women’s Voices? http://www.npr.org/2015/07/23/425608745/from-upspeak-to-vocal-fry-are-we-policing-young-womens-voices (Links to an external site.)
- Naomi Wolf
- A response to Naomi Wolf
https://debuk.wordpress.com/2015/07/26/a-response-to-naomi-wolf/ (Links to an external site.)
2) Note 3 Research Findings cited in these articles that you find most interesting and compelling for thinking about the sound of talk, conversation style, and identities.
3) Note 3 Comments (not research findings, but opinions and viewpoints from speakers, writers, or others being quoted in the readings) from the three pieces that you find most annoying, offensive, or inflammatory for thinking about identity, conversational style, and the sound of talk.
4) Take a stand: Are we policing young women’s voices? Are people policing how men and people of other ages sound? Are there any aspects of your voice that you feel are frequently criticized or under attack? What are the identity implications of these criticisms and evaluations?
Your entire response should be 1-2 pages double-spaced. (Longer is fine, but if you are under a page, you should probably write more for question No. 4). The first two questions (No. 2 & No. 3) can be answered using bullet points (you don’t need to make paragraphs), but your stance on the issue of policing young woman’s voices and its implication for identity needs to be discussed in greater detail, NOT in bullet points.