Annotated Bibliography

Summarizing scholarly resources on language diversity

Anzaldúa, Gloria. “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.” Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1987. Print.

In this personal narrative, Anzaldúa describes the linguistic prejudice and oppression she has experienced. Through her experiences, Anzaldúa demonstrates how identity is intrinsically tied to language, and that when a language is abused or oppressed those who use the language are oppressed and abused. Anzaldúa identifies with eight different languages and code meshes throughout the narrative, such as when discussing the origins of Chicano Spanish: "Change, evolución, enriquecimiento de palabras nuevas por invención o adopción have created variants of Chicano Spanish, un nuevo lenguaje"(439). She states, “Until I am free to write bilingually and to switch codes without having always to translate, while I still have to speak English or Spanish when I would rather speak Spanglish, and as long as I have to accommodate the English speakers rather than having them accommodate me, my tongue will be illegitimate”(445). While her language and many others are still alienated, she believes that these languages will persevere.

Canagarajah, Suresh. “Codemeshing in Academic Writing: Identifying Teachable Strategies of Translanguaging.” Modern Language Journal 95.3 (2011): 401–417. EBSCOhost. Web. 8 Nov. 2013.

Studies on translanguaging of multilingual students have turned their attention to teachable strategies in classrooms. This study is based on the assumption that it is possible to learn from students’ translanguaging strategies while developing their proficiency through a dialogical pedagogy. Based on a classroom ethnography, this article describes the translanguaging strategies of a Saudi Arabian undergraduate student in her essay writing. Her strategies are classified through thematic coding of multiple forms of data: drafts of essay, journals, classroom assignments, peer review, stimulated recall, and member check. The strategies are of 4 types: recontextualization strategies, voice strategies, interactional strategies, and textualization strategies. The study describes how the feedback of the instructor and peers can help students question their choices, think critically about diverse options, assess the effectiveness of their choices, and develop metacognitive awareness. (Author abstract)

Canagarajah, Suresh. “Writing to Learn and Learning to Write by Shuttling Between Languages.” Learning-to-Write and Writing-to-Learn in an Additional Language. Ed. Rosa M. Manchón. Philadelphia: John Benjamin’s Publishing Co., 2011. 111-132. Print.

Canagarajah discusses the challenges and possibilities that multilingual writers encounter and explores how multilingual students “can become sensitive to the ways in which writing shapes their thinking and knowledge representation” as they switch and mesh language codes – shuttling between language – depending on their purpose and audience (111). Problematizing the assumption that knowledge precedes writing, Canagarajah argues for a more layered view: that knowledge is rhetorical, deriving from “the interpretative play of linguistic, textual, and rhetorical” factors that are socially and culturally situated (112). Through analysis of a case study of an advanced Sri Lankan academic's writing, the author explores how the layers of language, genre, and ideology impact both the writing and the reader. In his discussion, Canagarajah (himself a multilingual, Sri Lankan-born academic) considers the pedagogical implications of this study and encourages an “orientation that would do justice to the resources and strengths of multilingual writers” (127).

Canagarajah, Suresh. "The Place of World Englishes in Composition: Pluralization Continued." College Composition and Communication 57:4 (2006): 586-617. Print.

Following in the footsteps of Horner and Trimbur's lnadmark essay "English Only and U.S. College Composition," Canagarajah contests the "monolingualist assumptions" still prevalent in composition classes, and presents code meshing as a strategy that can blend World Englishes with Standard Written English, moving towards pluralization in academic writing and developing a pedagogical space for "multilingual competence" (586). He points out that there are privileged varieties of English wherever English is a primary language, coining the term Metropolitan Englishes to describe these forms, which are "spoken by the communities that traditionally claimed ownership over the language in England, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand" (588). Citing demographic statistics, Canagarajah shows how the varieties of English spoken by multilinguals are quickly and vastly overtaking Metropolitan Englishes. The fact that, by 2050, multilingual users of English are predicted to outpace 'native' speakers by 30 million encourages us to reconsider the distinction between privileged and non-privileged varieties of English. Contemporary media, politics, and global businesses are broadcasting all varieties of English to an ever-increasing swath of the planet, further blending forms and pluralizing the English language.

Crystal, David. The Fight for English: How Language Pundits Ate, Shot, and Left. New York: Oxford (2006). Print.

In this book, Crystal provides the linguist’s perspective on the development of a standard in the English language, and the development of prescriptive attitudes towards grammar. Conversational in tone, the book traces the origins of English from monasteries, early authors, grammarians, courtiers, and others to present-day. Likewise, Crystal identifies the development of negative stereotypes of regional speech, as starting with a popular publishing genre in the 16th century. In these ‘jest books,’ he writes, “regional speech came to be associated with a set of demeaning social values” (54). Using similar examples, Crystal illustrates the historical roots of current attitudes towards language, and asserts that arguments for prescriptive grammar and “proper English” based on “how things used to be” are misinformed. Crystal also explains the role of institutions, such as BBC and Oxford English Dictionary, in defining a standard and shaping attitudes towards usage. In place of prescriptivism, Crystal advocates for “appropriateness” in language—using the language form specific to one’s audience and purpose. Crystal closes with a discussion of grammar’s place in education, and what the future might hold.

Delpit, Lisa. “No Kinda Sense.” The Skin That We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom. Ed. Lisa Delpit and Joanne Kilgour Dowdy. New York: The New Press, 2002. 33-48. Print.

In this chapter, Delpit reflects on her daughter’s acquisition of Black English upon transfer to a predominantly black school. Delpit examines her reaction to her daughter’s language use, finding that she feels the “eyes of ‘the other’ negatively assessing” her daughter, based on the way her daughter speaks (38). In light of this, she forgives herself for her “perhaps overly emotional reaction” and “painful ambivalence” towards Black English, and attributes her reaction to “a mother’s protective instinct” (38). Her daughter’s facility with code-switching leads Delpit to question why her daughter quickly masters a language that is not her home language, when so many Black English speakers have struggled to acquire school English. Delpit argues that acquisition occurs from associating the learned language with all that is “self-affirming,” “esteem-building,” and “fun.” Similarly, she draws on Krashen’s concept of an “affective filter” to explain disparate acquisition rates of language. She closes with a critique of current school practices and details alternatives she has observed and practiced.

Dowdy, Joanne Kilgour. "Ovuh Dyuh." The Skin That We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom. Ed. Lisa Delpit and Joanne Kilgour Dowdy. New York: The New Press, 2002. 3-15. Print.

Growing up in the British colony of Trinidad, Dowdy was taught by her mother to look and sound the part of the proper middle-class young lady. This included speaking and writing in British English, “embracing the creed of colonization” (5). She traces the moment when she became aware of the tension between ‘the Queen’s English’ and the English of her childhood peers: during a game of street cricket, she was teased for intoning "over there" rather than vernacular Trinidadian English “ovuh dyuh” to describe where the ball had gone (6). Dowdy uses the metaphor of an actor wearing a mask to describe the way in which using British English allowed her to succeed in Trinidadian school and middle-class society, but caused her to feel that she had been “rendered voiceless” (12). She explains how, like many colonized peoples, she felt forced to “experience life in two languages” (11), with her home language disallowed in public life. In her opinion, the “war will be won” (13) when Trinidadians – and all other linguistically marginalized individuals - are able to use their own vernacular language without a stigma of inferiority.

Elbow, Peter. "Vernacular Eloquence: What Speech Can Bring to Writing.” A New Culture of Vernacular Literacy on the Horizon. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. 363-390. Print.

Discussing the culture of proper literacy, Elbow examines the “single standard of correctness for writing” in our current culture (363). For those committed to the standard, it appears “things are falling apart,” but our current culture of proper literacy is simply changing (363). Elbow suggests we are moving toward a culture where all forms of spoken English will be taken seriously in public. As Elbow explains, there is a constant struggle between standardization and divergence, and time and space play to the side of divergence, allowing different varieties to emerge. For instance, as time passes over the years, language changes for people even in the same community. When people in one community move to another, their language often deviates from that of their original community. Embracing divergence in consideration for a new culture without a single standard for writing, Elbow envisions three stages of change for vernacular language: 1) Mainstream Vernacular Language is accepted for serious writing, 2) Teachers and academics will begin to accept Mainstream White Vernacular Language, and 3) Non-Mainstream and stigmatized versions of English will be accepted for all serious writing.

In our current culture of proper literacy, as Elbow explains, we are required to learn correct writing before we learn to write well. In his vision of the vernacular literacy culture, Elbow maintains you can “write whatever you want and however you want.” He observes that writing teachers may have trouble giving feedback on style, surface features, spelling, grammar, and punctuation. As teachers, rather than trying to police the standard version of English as we have done in the past, Elbow suggests we embrace vernacular literacy differences and the impending changes in linguistic culture.

Gilyard, Keith. "Eradicationism, Pluralism, and Bidialectalism." Voices of the Self: A Study of Language Competence. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991. 70 – 74. Print.

Gilyard presents the differing views of language instruction as eradicationism, pluralism, and bidialectalism, views which he states are “expressed in institutional policy, and/or the actions of individual teachers” (70) ) Eradicationists are extremists, believing that all forms of language within the walls of schools need to be eradicated except for Standard English. With this view in mind, Gilyard provides the example of Jonothan Kozol, a teacher terminated for introducing cultural literature that proved to inspire the children, yet defy the teachings of Standard English in the eyes of school authorities. Gilyard takes the stance that eradication is wrong without question and “has never actually worked” (72). Pluralists would have Standard English taught, but they want to see our schools and our society embrace language differences, allowing for a more level playing ground in the field of language education. Gilyard suggests the bidialectalist falls somewhere between a pluralist and an eradicationist perspective. The bidialectalists “postulate that Black English is equal to Standard English but not quite equal enough” (74). Gilyard supports the perspective of the pluralist, citing it as “correct and is the only one in this day and age to which the majority of Black children are likely to subscribe” (74).

Gilyard, Keith. "Conclusion." Voices of the Self: A Study of Language Competence. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991. 160 - 165. Print.

In this concluding chapter, Gilyard shares his own struggles with the conflict of culture and education. With the desire to be successful in life, he found himself having to choose between his street persona and his school persona. He was torn between the directive of the education system (from the eradicationist perspective) and his cultural identity. To be successful as a student, he was encouraged to reject his black heritage. Gilyard provides the example of Richard Rodriguez who struggled with his own language identity and suggests his struggles were similar to Rodriguez’s because of the cultural challenges they were faced with. Gilyard tells us Rodriguez’s book reveals torment and pain over his choice to abandon his heritage, a decision Rodriguez justifies in the pursuit of the American dream. Although Gilyard argues, this could have been prevented, Rodriguez saw it necessary as part of the assimilation “into the culture of the mainstream America” (160). Gilyard then asks if “cultural loss” should be a “desired aim of public education,” quickly answering with a stern “no” expressing that “eradication of one tongue is not a prerequisite to the learning of a second” (160). Gilyard cites John Edgar Wideman with related perspectives. Similar to Rodriguez, Wideman rejected his heritage in pursuit of a better life. In concluding, Gilyard calls for educators’ attention to “the importance of cultural and linguistic pluralism in educational settings” (163) and advocates for multiculturalism education. Believing there is a need for educators to embrace the cultural differences students bring to class, he argues for change. He suggests a good place to begin might be with the “current practices that justify eradicationist attempts aimed against African-American identity and the language variety in which that identity is most clearly realized” (165).

Heath, Shirley Brice. “Why No Official Tongue?” Reading Culture: Contexts for Reading and Writing. Ed. Diana George and John Trimbur. 4th ed. New York: Longman, 2001. 178-189. Print.

In this chapter, Heath offers a perspective on the Founding Fathers’ attitudes towards language variety during the post-colonial period of the U.S., arguing that their closely held values of freedom and equality for all and their distaste for monarchical design-making led them away from choosing an official language and towards preserving language variety (for example, of German and French immigrants who lived in enclaves among the formerly British Americans.) Heath also surveys key figures in the ‘official language’ debate at the time, including Noah Webster, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams while she writes from the point of view that those in power during the early national period saw language as a pragmatic tool rather than an ideological symbol. She debunks the common view "that an American language standard is part of the heritage of the Founding Fathers and is somehow mystically bound up with patriotism and nationalism" (188).

Horner, Bruce, Min-Zhan Lu, Jacqueline Jones Royster, and John Trimbur.“Language Difference in Writing: Toward a Translingual Approach.” College English 73.3 (Jan. 2011): 299-317.

In this opinion piece, the authors consider writing in the American classroom in light of global usage of English. Globally, people tend to be multilingual, and even in the U.S., speakers and writers of English often know other languages and multiple Englishes as well. The problem, as they put it, is that the traditional approach to writing in the U.S. is to overlook the validity of other varieties of English and exclude them from consideration, promoting Standard English solely, as though meaning would be impossible to communicate without a strict, uniform standard of language. The authors respond with a “call for a new paradigm: a translingual approach” (299). This approach, akin to code-meshing, views language differences as resources on which writers and speakers can draw and should learn to handle with deftness and creativity, the products of which readers can appreciate with a little patience and open-mindedness. The authors address how the promotion of “myths of unchanging, universal standards for language,” in a reality where speakers and writers continually remake and reinvent their own fluid language, is ultimately used “to exclude voices and perspectives at odds with those in power” (301). A monolingual, Standard-English-only approach then uses language “as a proxy to discriminate on the basis of race, citizenship status, and ethnicity” (305). The authors reject the lukewarm efforts of code-switching, which goes only as far as giving lip-service to language validity and then considers only certain places or situations to be appropriate for the actual use of language varieties apart from Standard English. The authors end with a Q&A section addressing issues sure to come up when a teacher first hears about a multilingual approach to writing, including such topics as multilingual requirements, translingual resources of supposedly monolingual students, the place of standards, and the definition of error (which they suggest should be narrowed to mean actual mistakes in writing, not the employment of unexpected usage/spelling/punctuation/meaning).

Howard, Rebecca Moore. “The Great Wall of African American Vernacular English in the American College Classroom.” JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory 16.2 (1996): 265-83. Print.

In this piece, Howard discusses the differences between what she sees as three options a teacher has in responding to a student who uses non-standard English, namely eradicationism, pluralism, and code-switching/bidialectalism. She agrees with Gilyard and explains that code-switching, the approach used most often, is little removed from pure eradicationism because in such a pedagogy “only the standard counts, because non-standard varieties are inferior” (266); the issue is one of agency – who decides the language a student may use. She then considers the implications and the results of treating African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) as inferior, as American institutions so consistently do, and illustrates with a startling anecdote from a class she taught on AAVE in which European-American and even most African-American students refused to actually speak in AAVE in the classroom because of the stigma attached to it. She insists that in the case of AAVE – which is consistently thought of as a crude form of English instead of the complex pidgin of West African languages with English that it really is – it is the people and their culture, not the language, who are being dismissed, with extremely negative effects on those students who speak it. She ends the article by considering her own right to speak on the topic of AAVE, not being an AAVE speaker herself, and ultimately vouching for its study being a necessary part of understanding American culture as a whole, and furthermore she concludes with a final urge for teachers of writing to consider the specific expectations of their specific teaching situations and then in whatever degree they can implement a pluralistic approach for the benefit of all their students.

Jones, Rachel. "What's Wrong With Black English." Language Awareness: Essays for College Writers. Ed. Paul Eschholz, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark. 5th ed. NY: St. Martin's P, 1995. 349-51. Print.

Jones' essay, first published in the "My Turn" column of Newsweek magazine in 1982, examines the place of African American English (AAE) in the U.S. today. In this piece, written when Jones was twenty-one years old, the author presents herself as an example of an educated young African American who has "full command of standard English" as well as AAE and has chosen to make standard English her norm because she believes it is an inherently higher, more correct form of the language. Citing personal anecdotes of circumstances in which her use of standard English caused her to be ostracized in the African American community or perceived as white until she was seen in person, Jones writes from the stance that black English is nothing but a "colorful, grammar-to-the-wind patois" (349). She expresses concern that young blacks, seeking to compensate for a loss of cultural heritage, view AAE as integral to their identity and Standard English as "socially unacceptable." While Jones seeks to explain "what's wrong with Black English," her essay is also an implicit accusation of the racism that lies behind this language debate.

Lippi-Green, Rosina. “The Standard Language Myth.” English with an Accent: Language Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States. London: Routledge, 1997. 53-62. Print.

The purpose of Lippi-Green’s “The Standard Language Myth” is to critically examine definitions of standard language in order to demonstrate that the idea of a standard can really “only be understood as an abstraction” (53). By examining how dictionaries define standard English and how they determine word pronunciations, she demonstrates that in the United States, power is “tied inextricably to education and literacy” (61). Lippi-Green also wants to consider how the assumptions and ideas people have regarding a standard perpetuates the myth. Because those in power have deeply ingrained “the standard/non-standard dichotomy,” the standard language myth persists.

MacNeil, Robert, and William Cran. “The Language Wars." Do You Speak American? Westminster: Doubleday, 2004. 9-29. Print.

This chapter discusses the struggle with standardizing American language. The authors describe for us the difference between prescriptivists, who have the desire for our language to follow “strict rules” (9), and those on the opposite end of the spectrum called descriptivists, who are comfortable with the notion that our language guidelines should be based on how we “actually speak and write” (9). The authors present diametrically opposed views on language. Some examples portray the prescriptivist view that the educated and elite should not only establish strict language guidelines but govern them as well. In blatant opposition, other examples share the descriptivist perspective that people want to write how they speak. As a result, the written word is evolving and progressively less formal than ever before. Now with the use of the computer, descriptivists have access to electronic data. They can "track patterns of English usage and catalogue them for use as reference material"(25). The current debate over prescription versus description is framed through the lens of starkly opposing opinions held by two language scholars: the essayist and theater critic John Simon, a staunch prescriptivist, and Jesse Sheidlower, editor of the Oxford English Dictionary and an advocate of the descriptivist approach. A number of specific situational and cultural factors have driven the pace of language change in America. To the authors' point, the challenge continues to be in finding the common ground for standardization of the American language.

MacNeil, Robert, and William Cran. "Toward a Standard: Putting the ‘R’ in ‘American.’" Do You Speak American? New York: Harcourt, Inc. 2005. 49-66. Print.

In this chapter, MacNeil and Cran discuss “the most characteristic sound in American English…the postvocalic ‘r’, the r which follows vowels” (49). MacNeil and Cran report that ‘r’-less speech was once considered prestigious in the U.S. However, after World War II, the preferred pronunciation flipped and “people were careful to pronounce their ‘r’s” (51). The authors feel that this amounted to a “nascent American standard” which was justified by its use in broadcasting (53). MacNeil and Cran report that the language described as Standard is marked by an absence of regional features (54) and offer a retelling of the emergence of Midland speech as the standard. MacNeil and Cran follow-up with a survey of attitudes towards the standard and of concerns regarding correct or non-correct usage. The chapter cites interviews with linguists, sociologists, writing resource center administrators, newspaper copy editors, and the president of the Society for the Preservation of the English Language and Literature. MacNeil and Cran encounter sentiments ranging from appreciation to preservation and anxiety; they find that what is considered “standard” has changed over time.

McCrary, Donald. "Represent, Representin', Representation; The Efficacy of Hybrid Texts in the Writing Classroom." Journal of Basic Writing 24.2 (2005): 72-90. Print.

The article explores the use of hybrid linguistic texts in the writing classroom, both as articles of study and possible models of composition. Standard English linguistic supremacy prevents many students from using their full range of linguistic knowledge. The inclusion of hybrid texts in the writing classroom might help students, in particular working class and non-white students, to establish a linguistic and cultural connection between the beliefs and practices of the academy and those of their home communities. In addition to analyzing hybrid discourse from a popular urban magazine, a newspaper article, a scholarly article, and a literary non-fiction, the article analyzes several student responses to hybrid literacy narratives and several student literacy autobiographies that use hybrid discourse. The article argues that students' reading and writing of hybrid texts might increase their awareness of language and eradicate the negative consequences of standard English supremacy. (Author's abstract)

Philip, M. Nourbese. “The Absence of Writing or How I Almost Became a Spy.” Rotten English: A Literary Anthology. Ed. Dohra Ahmad. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2007. Print.

In this piece, Philip attempts to analyze and understand the role of language from the perspective of a colonial writer. Philip reflects on the image-creating capacity of the artist, and the function of the i-mage in society as altering society’s self-perception and collective consciousness. She relates this to the destruction by colonialism of “the crossover from i-mage to expression” for Africans. This rupture confines expression to a language that is “experientially foreign… etymologically hostile and expressive of the non-being of the African” (487). Philip refers to this foreign-language experience with English as entering “another consciousness” but concludes that “English in its broadest spectrum must be made to do the job” (492). Reflecting on how other authors and her own writings resolve or fail to resolve issues of language use and the i-mage, Philip explains that she continues to search for her “mother tongue” and reacquire the “power to create in one’s own i-mage” as a way to re-create history and myth and “integrate that most painful of experiences—loss of our history and our word” (501).

Redd, Teresa M, and Karen Schuster Webb. “What Are the Distinctive Features of AAE?” A Teacher’s Introduction to African American English: What a Writing Teacher Should Know. Urbana: NCTE, 2005. 19-52. Print.

This chapter details unique characteristics of African American English (AAE) that not only distinguish it from Standard English, but also show its contributions to the English language. Teachers in the fields of English or any language arts are the targeted audience of this chapter. The authors believe the gravity of this subject will benefit the reader in their field of teaching. They “explore some of the distinctive features of AAE’s vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, and rhetoric, especially those that may surface in a student’s writing” (20). The authors maintain that speakers of AAE have influenced Standard English by providing “new pronunciations, new meanings, and sometimes new spellings" (51). Their grammar is “more streamlined…on the other hand, more context dependent and more ‘verbally’ complex” (51). According to the authors, AAE speakers “have developed rhetorical strategies that are interactive and narrative, direct and indirect, musical and visual” (51). According to Redd and Webb, although these unique characteristics often appear in today’s academic writing of AAE speakers, it is still not encouraged as a recognizable language. They believe our academic world needs to embrace and nurture AAE, acknowledging it as a viable contribution to the history of the English language and the success of many people known and unknown.

Rodriguez, Richard. “School and Home: Public and Private Identity.” Identities: Readings from Contemporary Culture. Ed. Ann Raimes. Geneva, IL: Houghton, 1996. 361-364. Print.

Rodriguez, a son of Mexican American immigrants, writes about his experience entering the American school system with minimal knowledge of English and struggling to assimilate to the culture and language of US society. He argues against bilingual instruction of ESL or minority students on the grounds that assimilation is necessary in order to achieve a public identity. He claims that “it is not possible for a child—any child—ever to use his family’s language in school” (362) because one’s private and public lives must be separated in order for one to achieve social integration and success and to participate fully in society. He sees bilingualism in schools as a way of avoiding assimilation and those who support it as “romanticiz[ing] public separateness and […] trivializ[ing] the dilemma of the socially disadvantaged” (363). He does acknowledge a loss in terms of what one gives up from a private individuality, made up of one’s home culture and family connections, to achieve the public individuality of assimilation, but he also claims that the gains made available from giving up allegiance to one’s home culture outweighs the loss incurred – as he states, “Once I learned public language, it would never again be easy for me to hear intimate family voices. More and more of my day was spent hearing words” (363-4). He argues that all minority students should face this “inevitable pain” of childhood and embrace an American public identity (363).

Smitherman, Geneva. "African American English: So Good It's Bad." Word from the Mother: Language and African Americans. NY: Routledge, 2006. 1-19. Print.

Smitherman describes the historical and sociolinguistic roots of the African American language: a language of resistance born of slavery and “forged in the crucible of enslavement” (3). She also provides a brief history of early research into the African American Language (from the 1920’s through the 1970’s) and summarizes the landmark court cases in Ann Arbor, Michigan and Oakland, California (1979 and 1996, respectively). These two cases thrust the language-inclusion debate into the public consciousness, and Smitherman’s point in discussing them is to show a progression towards language rights over the nearly twenty years they span. Smitherman makes the case that AAVE should be considered a language rather than a dialect, providing examples of ways that the language has lexical, grammatical, and rhetorical elements that are unique and different from Standard English: aspects that “push the linguistic envelope” (4). She also emphasizes throughout the chapter the importance of African American language as a cultural entity that provides “generational continuity” (3) and binds those who use it by virtue of community, not race.

Tan, Amy. “Mother Tongue.” Dreams and Inward Journeys: A Rhetoric and Reader for Writers. Ed. Marjorie Ford and Jon Ford. 7th ed. New York: Longman-Pearson, 2010. 34-44. Print.

In a play on words, the title of Tan’s essay refers not only to the concept of a mother tongue (or native language), but also specifically to the language spoken by Tan’s mother, whose English was strongly shaped by her native Chinese. Tan begins her essay by describing the moment in which she became aware of the conflict inherent between the two language communities of which she is a part – the Asian American immigrant community and the ‘scholarly’ writers’ community. This realization occurred when she was giving one of her frequent presentations about her writing and her mother was in the audience for the first time. Through the lens of this incident, Tan reflects on the limitations that American society imposed upon her mother as a result of her form of English, which Tan describes now as “vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery” (505), but often thought of as ‘broken’ or ‘limited’ during her childhood and teenage years. Tan also reflects on the struggles she herself had for many years as a fledgling writer; she was repeatedly discouraged by teachers and publishers until she decided to stop trying to build “wittily crafted sentences” (509) and instead began to embrace and express all the Englishes she has within her.

Tonouchi, Lee A. “Da State of Pidgin Address.” College English 67.1 (2004): 75-82. Print.

Tonouchi’s article, completely written in Hawaiian Pidgin, resists the belief that Pidgin inhibits learning and communication. On the contrary, he believes that it is the negative feelings and shame that many Pidgin users experience that perpetuates the misconception that Pidgin users are less intelligent, less successful, or inferior in any other way. Tonouchi illustrates this belief by examining Pidgin speakers in his classroom. Through his examination, Tonouchi constructs a poem built on what students think they “No Can.” Tonouchi uses the poem as a tool to educate those in and out of his classroom about language and Pidgin English. He feels that by teaching about and using Pidgin in his writing, he is “challenging da hegemony of English” (79).

Trimbur, John. “Linguistic Memory and the Politics of U.S. English.” College English 68.6 (July 2006): 575-588. Print.

This article designs to “trace the postcolonial politics of language in the United States” and then “suggest how the linguistic memory that emerges from decolonization and nation building continues, often in unsuspected ways, to influence the language policy of the modern U.S. university and U.S. college composition” (575). Trimbur argues that a covert national language policy existed in the postcolonial U.S. He explores how language was assigned to the private domain as a result of the Founding Fathers’ neutrality, and how a policy of “English mainly” emerged as a result (577). Using postcolonial theory and Joseph Roach’s theory of surrogation, Trimbur attributes the “ritualized forgetting” of the United States’ multilingual past to an “Anglo-American linguistic dyad” and the insertion of an Anglo-Saxon surrogate (579). Trimbur supports these observations with an analysis of the legacies of Benjamin Franklin and Noah Webster. He concludes with a consideration of the “relentless monolingualism of American linguistic culture,” and the primacy of English in education, particularly writing education in the U.S.(584).

Trudgill, Peter. “Standard English: What It Isn’t.” Standard English: The Widening Debate. Eds. Tony Bex and Richard J. Watts. London: Routledge, 1999. 117-128. Print.

Peter Trudgill of the University of Lausanne “attempt[s] a characterisation of Standard English…[,] a characterisation rather than a strict definition – language varieties do not readily lend themselves to definitions as such” (117). He begins by describing a standardized language as one variety out of many in a particular language that has gone through stages of determination, codification, and stabilization. As he attempts to thus characterize Standard English, he gives reasoning, examples, and explanations to describe why it is not a language, an accent, a style, or a register but instead is a dialect. He argues that most languages have a broad selection of styles (levels of formality) to choose from that are sometimes mistaken for non-standard usages but do not stray from what he identifies as a few “grammatical idiosyncracies” that make up Standard English, namely such things as the third-person present-tense “s,” lack of multiple negation, and irregular forms of “be” that other dialects do not always feature (125). Trudgill primarily addresses oral use of English as variable but considers Standard English to be the “unassailable” dialect of written English (127).

Young, Vershawn Ashanti. "Linguistic Double Consciousness." Other People's English: Code-Meshing, Code-Switching, and African American Literacy. N.Y.: Teachers College Press, 2013. 55-65.

Young admonishes teachers for promoting language discrimination (albeit unintentionally) when they teach African American students to code-switch. While code-switching was initially considered a positive step towards language inclusion because it at least acknowledges that students bring a home and community language with them to the classroom, it nevertheless represents a unidirectional path of assimilation with Standard English as the goal, encouraging “segregated uses of students’ Englishes” (60). Young argues that, while the code-switching approach may seem to be a way to help students navigate language prejudice, it in fact causes them to internalize this prejudice, mirroring the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine of the Jim Crow laws. Drawing on W.E.B. DuBois’ use of the term ‘double-consciousness’ and Smitherman’s phrase ‘linguistic push-pull,’ he makes the point that code-switching creates in young African Americans an uncomfortable psychological tugging towards the ‘mainstream’ of edited academic English and away from the culture and community to which they belong. Young advocates instead the practice of code-meshing as a way to relieve African American students of the intellectual and emotional burdens that the duality of code-switching brings, advocating code-meshing as an approach that is reflective of actual linguistic practice in the U.S. today, and citing President and Mrs. Obama as examples.

Other bibliographies of works about language diversity:

Rebecca Moore Howard: Writing Matters

National Council of Teachers of English: Students' Right to Their Own Language Policy Statement Annotated Bibilography

Connor, Ulla. Intercultural Rhetoric in The Writing Classroom. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2011. Print.

While many language scholars use the terms contrastive rhetoric, cross-cultural rhetoric, and intercultural rhetoric interchangeably, Connor makes the case in this book that intercultural rhetoric is the most appropriate term for “the study of written discourse between and among individuals with different cultural backgrounds” (2). In the Introduction, Connor describes the course of her own studies, which led her from simply contrasting and comparing the language of those engaged in intercultural discourse to considering the broader social mores and cultural practices and beliefs that shape written communication. Laying out the major influences that have shaped the field of intercultural rhetoric, she ties them to the primary goals of the book: to examine what can be retained of the traditional cross-cultural approach; to consider what is necessary in new approaches; and to envision a “new theory of intercultural rhetoric” (6). Of primary significance to those interested in promoting language diversity and inclusivity in the writing classroom, Connor presents a view of intercultural communication as a multi-directional act of negotiation and accommodation between interlocutors (speakers/writers), not as a process of assimilation towards an accepted norm, even as she emphasizes ‘the need to teach English learners the tools of appropriate discourse for a variety of situations” (7).

WRITTEN ENGLISHES

Diversity and Inclusivity

in the Writing Classroom