Identity and Discourses

A little housekeeping duty to catch us up: define the meaning of identity and discourses.

Within this blog the term identity is defined as who a person is from the mixture of the basic personality traits one has when born along with how they are shaped by life experiences as well as within the variety of discourses we inhabit.

Discourses is used to mean any group, whether one person or a multiple, of which we are a part, whether chosen (for example being a graduate student, or if you decide to marry, you become a spouse or if you decide to not marry you may be single or have a partner) or not chosen (a child - usually - has no choice as to the family they live with or you cannot vote in the US if you are under 18). I believe that within different discourses individuals tend to not only show different aspects of their personality, but for some they will speak differently or even act differently. How a person interacts with their parental unit (mother, father, guardian) is normally different than with their lover and may, depending on age and interests, be yet again different with friends, co-workers, teachers, you get the picture.

For a more in depth discussion of discourses as used to inform identity in both language usage and social usage, see Michele Knobel's 1994 book Everyday Literacies published by Peter Lang (see chapter 2) . Michele has a blog with Colin Lankshear called

everydayliteracies.

New Life

Creating a new life is more time consuming than I thought it would be. The warnings, creating "things" (do I really need "things" in SL? What's up with creating things in SL? I'd need a place to keep them - so then a job, purchase land, things, etc.. I have enough of that in FL (First Life).), learning the rules of how to live, wah, wah, wah. I can't believe that this is how children feel when they are first learning (well, you do need personal awareness, so let's say that my avatar has the awareness of a 10 year old - frustration when I'm trying to move on and seemingly can't or shouldn't). When can I really live??? Surprisingly I no longer think about how I look or that my name is not my own. I deliberatly chose to be anonymous in SL to enable me to try all kinds of things within SL. AFTER I learn all the rules. AFTER I become proficent with the intertextuality required to "live" in SL. Regarding my anonymity in SL, Alessandra Talamo and Beatrice Ligorio stated in their paper Strategic Identities in Cyberspace, "In most cyberspace environments, depending on their nature, users can remain anonymous or they can be immediately recognized." (110) Since I have chosen anonymity, I will be interested to see if that affects my actions or thoughts or even my pesonal intertextuality. Work cited: Alessandra Talamo, Beatrice Ligorio. CyberPsychology & Behavior. February 1, 2001, 4(1): 109-122. doi:10.1089/10949310151088479.

That Sucking Sound You Hear

That sucking sound you hear is four hours of time spent on Second Life. Gone. And I'm frustrated learning to fly, because I feel like I can do it, but I can't find the ampersandpercentnumbersigns target to land on. I'm not sure what kind of literacy THAT is, but I suppose it will make sense in the long run. Actually, getting started in SL so far has been fairly painless. We'll see how it goes once I'm let out of the training grounds and start having actual interactions with others. So far I don't feel like I've accomplished anything special. Maybe that's just me.

Go

Choices. Too many too fast. What's your name? Hair color? Eye shape? I like the way I look, thank you, but now creating has begun with no seeming end in sight. Time. How much time will this take? Do I have that kind of time?