As an academic researcher, one needs to develop a new theory which is "path breaking". One needs to do disruptive research in a positively constructive manner.
How can one's contribution be seen to be 'meaningful'?
I was reading a semiotics paper and discovered a beautiful analogy used by Saussure in describing the relationships between words and their meaning.
Saussure talks about a "Chess" metaphor. In a game of chess, moving one piece on the board alters the relationship between all the other pieces on the board.
This metaphor can beautifully be applied to the role of meaningful research in any domain of knowledge. Our theory should be like a new move on the chess board of existing knowledge. Our move should influence the interrelationships between all other pieces of knowledge in the domain. This influence can be brought by challenging the underlying assumptions in the body of knowledge because the assumptions form the common thread that connects all the pieces together.
No comments:
Post a Comment