Language Diversity in FYW

Vershawn Ashanti Young’s 2010 article, “Should Writers Use They Own English?” is an extended answer to the question the title poses. Yes, it says, entirely written in Young’s own English–Black vernacular. The piece, which takes on Stanley Fish’s three part “Opinionator” series in the New York Times on “What Should Colleges Teach?”, effectively argues for a more open-minded view of linguistic diversity particularly as it relates to our students and their writing–in doing so we might also make some headway in reducing prejudice and racism on a societal level.

“Dominant [or standard] language ideology,” Young explains, is based on the belief that there is a standard set of rules that “all writers and speakers of English must conform to in order to communicate effectively.” This form of ideology is also okay with writers/speakers using their own language, but only at home. In other words, dominant language ideologues say, keep that language where it came from.

Young makes a case for teaching language descriptively (as opposed to prescriptively, which he accuses Fish of doing). “People be mo plurallingual than we wanna recognize. What we need to do is enlarge our perspective about what good writin is and how good writin can look at work, at home, and at school” (112).

Young introduces the term “code meshing,” which he uses in place of “code switching,” because he argues the latter term gets used incorrectly to mean translating or changing from one dialect into another. “Code meshing is the new code switching; it’s multidialectalism and pluralingualism in one speech act, in one paper” (114).

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Notes from Teaching Community Discussion of Young’s article:

How do we unteach ourselves, when we’ve been trained to “correct” language that’s not Standard American English (SAE)?
Try to catch our thinking and intervene as it is happening
Recognize that this is a construct, that it’s arbitrary
Remember that there are grammatical things we each choose to let go of
Sr G shared the book, The Five Clocks by Martin Joos. The fifth clock is the most formal English, while we usually speak more informally (1st or 2nd clock).
Refers to 5th clock as “frozen” and students discuss when they’re required to use “frozen stuff.”
Discussed hegemonic and non-hegemonic language and that there is a power structure involved in what langauge goes into which category.
Where does our discussion of linguistic diversity fit in with preparing students for the “real world”?
Do students know when it is appropriate to use certain phrases and when it is not?
Young would probably argue that there is a cultural shift that needs to start somewhere.
Is freshman English “defensive English”? (In the sense of defensive driving…).
How can we teach students to survive other instructors who insist on SAE as it is currently defined.
Let our students know that the conversation is taking place.
Writing studies conferences (CCCC and Computers and Writing) have provided a lot of hopeful stories about opening people’s minds to ideas of linguistic diversity.
ESL students and whether or not we want to change their writing. Must the ESL student know the rules before they can break them?
What do we do when we get our first essay submissions?
Students are encouraged by individual conferences.
Have students read their writing out loud.
Let students know they are reading and writing all of the time.
Writing exposes students and makes them feel vulnerable. Be sensitive to this.

We also briefly discussed the textbook, Speaking of Writing. A rep from Broadview will be at our next Teaching Community meeting. The book includes unique activities for practicing the writing process. A lot of the book is written in dialogue form with the characters actually talking about writing, accessible, not complicated (why should it be?)