The "Conversation of Mankind"

If I had to define Kenneth Bruffee's "human conversation," I'd have to extract a twofold answer.  Brufee's first sort of  human conversation is singular and self involved, "as it takes place within us" and "is what we call reflective thought" (639).  The second human conversation is exteriorized and "the external arena of direct social exchange with other people" (639).  It actually does not matter which sort of conversation comes first; one is clearly related to the other.  Human beings role play silently what they have experienced as social exchanges.  Bruffee recognizes that writing is a replication of that interior conversation made public.  Because human interior conversation is informed and influenced by social exchanges, writing similarly replicates exterior conversations of all sorts.  Bruffee announces that "Writing is a technologically displaced form of conversation" (641).  But is writing -- or written knowledge -- more reflective thought or more social talk?  Bruffee comments that "writing of all kinds is internalized social talk made public and social again" (641).  This seems to be a very important distinction with respect to how collaborative learning supports Bruffee's claims that writers (especially student or debutante writers) need a particular kind of social context for conversation or a community composed of identifiable, recognizable readers and writers.