Biodata of conference presenters: Empowering and Disenfranchising Features

Abstract

Members of a discourse community who have attained status perpetuate their dominance by using language as both product and process (Mumby & Stohl, 1991) The biodata of paper presenters for conferences, like most other genres of texts is socially embedded and serves a social function. This research sets out to investigate whether presenters are aware as to how, through creative dovetailing of their biodata, they can empower themselves in the eyes of both conference organizers and participants. Discursive practices based first on a categorization of local and international presenters and later on a recategorization of novice and experienced paper presenters are discussed. To validate the findings ten raters who are also experienced converners of conferences were asked to choose five categories that are most beneficial to conference organizers as well as participants and to rank them in ascending order. They selected the following categories: publication of books, articles, presentation of papers, research interests and academic qualifications.
Collectively, the raters selected features which many of the experienced presenters had also prioritized. This verification exercise appears to confirm the hypothesis that experienced presenters use this discourse practice, i. e. the biodata; to enhance their position in relation to those who are not enabling themselves to achieve higher prominence. Pedagogical applications of these findings are discussed.