Dear Author: Please Include Me
In March, Frankly, Mr Shankly posted on "Should Theologians write clearly?" (21st and 23rd March). As is the way in blogland, it provoked some brief and interesting discussion. (Someone suggested to me that the average blog-life of a topic is two to three days. Although, even that long may be generous.)
I'd like to lengthen the blog-life of this topic. Yes, I'm climbing onto a soapbox.
My soapbox text is a colourful and provocative essay by the translator, author and former ABC broadcaster, Robert Dessaix. The essay is titled, "Showing Your Colours", and it's in a collection of his called (and so forth). A quirky title.
As the time at which I'm typing this is late, well past clear-thinking time, rather than build my own argument, here are a few slabs from Dessaix's essay:
I'd like to lengthen the blog-life of this topic. Yes, I'm climbing onto a soapbox.
My soapbox text is a colourful and provocative essay by the translator, author and former ABC broadcaster, Robert Dessaix. The essay is titled, "Showing Your Colours", and it's in a collection of his called (and so forth). A quirky title.
As the time at which I'm typing this is late, well past clear-thinking time, rather than build my own argument, here are a few slabs from Dessaix's essay:
...you need to be very aware of what kinds of signals various common stylistic devices send. At one end of the scale there are ways of writing and talking which totally empower the writer, granting him or her total authority, virtually nullifying the audience (p. 123).Dessaix calls this the excluding end of the scale: it excludes or minimally considers the audience.
At the other end of this scale, the including end, as I would call it, there are ways of writing which appear to give the audience all the power. Normally, of course, we write and talk somewhere in between (p. 123).Can you elaborate, Robert?
At the excluding end of the scale, the writer appears to be saying: 'I know the truth, and you don't. In fact, you probably won't grasp it even when I tell you what it is.'...The including voice, by way of contrast, is a power-sharing voice. You're likely to hear it saying: 'Here are some of the questions lots of us are asking ourselves at the moment and some of the answers people have come up with' (pp. 123-4).Dessaix claims that excluding writing is, among other things, unemotional, impersonal, uses verbs in the passive voice, and latinate nouns (e.g. 'residence' rather than 'house'). The including voice, he suggests, is more emotional and personal, uses stronger verbs that are in the active voice, and uses concrete nouns.
To put it another way, the excluding voice says: 'I'm now going to eat my dinner. Watch me.'...The including voice, according to this analogy, says...'Let's go shopping, shall we? Let's go and buy something together, then come home, cook it and eat it.' (pp. 124-5)