‘Maybe she just hasn’t matured yet’: Politeness, gate-keeping and the maintenance of status quo in a community of practice

Abstract

Maybe she just hasn't matured yet': Politeness, gate-keeping and the maintenance of status quo in a community of practice Abstract: Politeness research has much to offer work that explores the complexities of gate-keeping in a community of practice. In this article I draw upon principles and terminology from politeness research to explore the tension that arises when members of a particular community of practice (a university field hockey team) who are morally opposed to homosexuality are confronted with the fact that some of their teammates are openly gay. This line of investigation relies upon a redefinition of politeness2: I define politeness2 as the moral compulsion to respect the boundaries around different levels of social structure, which include (but are not limited to) sets of attitudes, perspectives and priorities. In the hockey players' community of practice, two moral priorities are in conflict: an aversion to homosexuality on the one hand, and a desire for a friendly, socially inclusive club on the other. I investigate the various evaluative resources participants draw upon/produce in this community, which include evaluation schemes based upon the labels "rude" and "im/mature". I claim that the label "im/mature" -and concepts related to this label -function in this community as a means of concealing the conflict between the two moral priorities and maintaining a commitment to both.

Book review: David Peplow, Talk About Books: A Study of Reading Groups

“…Peplow uses a number of methods of analysis and conceptualisation to reach this conclusion; one approach is to view reading groups as operating as a COP, and this is used to illuminate the new social practices of talking about books. Although Wenger's foundational work on COPs is extensively quoted by Peplow, his conceptualisation of COP is closer to the newer, broader approach such as that illustrated by Clark (2013). Peplow argues that reading groups have a shared, habitual repertoire, characterised in this case by the repeated use of mimetic reading and direct reported discourse.…”

‘Gay, aren’t they?’ An ethnographic approach to compulsory heterosexuality

“…Emma's response attempts to reframe Speedo's experience to make it understandable to her. By calling it 'peer pressure', Emma can make sense of it ('I can understand that') because it fits within a framework that she and other teammates have formulated in which university students experiment with gay sex because they are insecure and have not yet matured(Clark 2013).…”