Blog 8 - Margery Kempe and Authorship

How can a person be the author of a book when he or she is entirely illiterate?

Is generating the idea a more important factor than the writing itself in determining one's authorship of a book?

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The author argues that for one to gain influence in the discourse in the society, he or she has to translate personal opinions into the dominant literature by employing dialogism. While dialogism is an effective way of prescribing a certain way of interpretation of the text intended by the author for the audience, it is not the only way of writing that a writer can make an impact to the discourse in the society.

An important form of writing would be the argumentative essays, where writers present sound, logical arguments and relevant evidence to convince their audience to take their position. While dialogism relies more on emotional approach, the argumentative form appeals almost entirely to objective reasoning. Given that in the modern society, the argumentative form is most widely used in essays, articles, research papers, and non-fictional books, it would be reasonable to conjecture that this form is as practical as, or even more useful than, dialogism when one's primary purpose is to participate meaningfully in the societal discourse.

Wong Kin