In Charles Bazerman's book The Languages of Edison's Light, he dedicates a chapter to “Patents as Speech Acts and Legal Objects.” He uses this part of his book to provide some historical context around the importance of protecting ideas and “transforming them into intellectual property.” To do this, Bazerman goes into great detail to explain patent genre, the history of how early patent law was developed and more specifically he uses the early patents of Thomas Edison as case studies in his analysis.
To more closely analyze the patent genre, Bazerman suggests that it is necessary to “understand in greater depth the relationship between the concrete description and the abstract claim” of a patent. He further emphasizes the importance of approaching this analysis from the perspective of the patent being considered a speech act. He then outlines some concerns about speech-act theory in the context of analyzing a patent application. He describes the first issue as being related to “the importance of local circumstances in the identification, interpretation and realization of speech acts” and gives examples of how language can mean different things to different people, depending on their perspective, background and personal experience. Another issue Bazerman raises is the difficulty is impact of the multiplicity of meaning behind a word. He explains that depending on intention and intonation words can have a different interpretation. The final point that I found to be relevant from this chapter was Bazerman’s idea that it can be very difficult to apply speech-act theory “to long, complex written documents.” In considering Bazerman’s work and its applicability to my Preliminary Analysis, I do think that there are elements that can be applied. In particular, I believe it could be very valuable for me to “look to behaviors in highly regularized or institutional settings that help enforce recognizable and socially agreed upon characters to particular moments.” Just as “the patent process consists of a highly developed set of typified practices”, I know that the same is true among the marine scientists. I know from working alongside the aquarists that I intend to interview that there is a language and unique form of communication that they use among them. Conducting my analysis from this perspective will help me to more accurately interpret word meaning and context in their responses. I think that as I conduct my analysis I will need to think about the challenges that Bazerman raised about applying such an analysis to complex written language. This will be especially important as I refine my references and consider scientific journals as a means of input. In my last post, I included a number of questions that I intended to ask in my interviews that I believe are still relevant. I have included again here for easy reference:
4 Comments
Sarah Nicolson
2/11/2018 10:51:43 pm
Collin - I really enjoyed your descriptions of what you found most important in Bazermans chapter, as well as the included quotes for support. Interesting point how there is unique language and communication differences between discourses. I also agree that there is a lot of advice from this chapter that could be useful in the final project. I am excited to see your questioned answered in your interview!
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Matt Carrano
2/12/2018 10:10:29 am
Collin I liked how you gave a nice overview of the article. Also, you provided some important quotes to take away from the article to really get an understanding of the concepts Bazerman used. I liked how you tie this back to your preliminary analysis by seeing how marine bio uses certain language and communication skills that are different from others. I thought your questions were great and were very relevant to what we are leaning. These should really provide good feedback from who ever you are going to interview for your preliminary analysis.
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Brian Hendrickson
2/14/2018 12:09:33 pm
I agree that you do a nice job of linking Bazerman to your own study. I especially like that you're thinking about how contextual factors influence writing. It's particularly interesting to think about that in terms of a particular group's or organization's dynamics. Any of of the questions you're asking above could open up into so many directions. Maybe you want to narrow down to one direction, and then branch out from there? What's your root question that ties them all together?
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Mashhor alshrieef
2/20/2018 09:47:26 am
i totally agree with Sarah and professor Hendrickson you did a pretty good job explain what you found most important in Bazermans
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AuthorHi! I am Collin Barker and I am a Marine Biology Major at Roger Williams University, an avid reader and fish keeper. To learn more about me check out my About page. Archives
May 2018
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