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In his plenary address to the 61st Annual Literacy Research Association Conference (December, 2011) entitled Breaking the Chains: Switchin' and Meshin' in Real Time,  Juan C. Guerra uses a blended form of Chicano English:

 

Para cuando llegamos a la high school, [...] we began to blend the two languages en una forma desconocida, in a way that surprised our parents y a nuestros maestros. En casa y en la comunidad, we artfully switched and meshed codes, borrowing from either language lo que mejor nos sevia para ser entendidos.

Authors have long used code-meshing (without calling it such) in fiction by creating a written approximation of dialects or vernacular language; this type of language is often used in dialogue in order to make characters seem more colorful or authentic. More recently, authors have explored using home or community languages more broadly throughout their work, while language rights scholars have experimented with non-fiction pieces and academic articles that mesh the language of their community with edited academic English. The Internet's global reach and the greater ease of self-publishing in recent decades has also brought World English varieties to new audiences. 
 
On this page, find samples from authors who integrate vernacular language in narrative and descriptive passages or mesh it with edited academic English in scholarly pieces, as well as World English varieties used in narrative writing. You can also link to a list of selected works that utilize code-meshing or World English varieties.

 

 

 

 

 

Sapphire narrates her novel  Push (1996) in the urban African-American voice of the lead character, Precious:

 

I am walking down the hall from homeroom to first period maff. Why they put some shit like maff first period I do not know. Maybe to gone 'n get it over with. I actually don't mind maff as much as I thought I would. I jus' fall in Mr. Wicher's class sit down.

Geneval Smitherman meshes African American Vernacular English and Standard Edited Academic English in her essay, "Soul 'n Style":

 

Now teachers in general, but English teachers in particular, got to take some of this weight, cause they bees steady intimidatin kids bout they "incorrect English." Yet this superimposition of a polite usage norm has nothin to do with linguistic versatility, variety of expression, and the “power of the rap,” but everythin to do with the goal of cultural and linguistic eradication by making what one seventeenth century grammarian called the “depraved language of common people” and by extension, the common people themselves, conform to the dominant (white, middle class) ethic of the new Aristocracy.

Language Variety in Published Works

Ken Saro-Wiwa wrote his novel  Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten English (1985) in his native Nigerian English:

 

My heart begin to cut. Plenty. Join army? For what? So I am now a soza. No. No. I cannot be soza. Soza for what? Ehn? I begin to shout, No. No. The man with fine shirt was looking at me. The policeman was coming to me. Is he coming to take me to be soza? The poliecman was coming. my heart was cutting, beating like drum. Tam tum. Tam tum tum.

In her chapter,  "No Kinda Sense" from The Skin That We Speak: Thoughts Lanugage and Culture in the Classrom, Lisa Delpit uses Ebonics to write about the Ebonics/Standard Language conflict:

 

The even deeper secret was that those of use who had acquired the "standard dialect" still loved and used aspects of Ebonics all the time. When we are with our own, we revel in the rhythms and cadences of connection, in the "sho nuf"s and "what go roun' comes roun' "s, and in the "ain't nothin' like the real thing"s.

In an interview with Jamal Cooks, San Francisco State professor of education, journalist Tomas Palermo writes:

 

Teachers frequently encounter him on panels with titles like “The Expanding Canon: Teaching Multicultural Literature in High School.” But the dude is also hella down to earth. He was in some pretty successful “true-school” era hip-hop recording groups. . . . Meet the man who made it his passion to change the public education game, one class at a time.

 

 

Lee A. Tonouchi uses his native Hawaiian Pidgin English variety in the scholarly article, "Da State of Pidgin Address" (2004):

 

In da real world get planny Pidgin prejudice, ah. Dey, da ubiquitous dey, dey is everywea brah; dey say dat da perception is dat da standard english talker is going automatically be perceive fo' be mo' intelligent than da Pidgin talker regardless wot dey talking, jus from HOW dey talking. Get studies dat show dis kine speech biases and discriminations, but I no need really look da studies, cuz I can see dis happening insai my classrooms.

 

 

Toni Cade Bambara uses African American Vernacular English in her short story,  "The Lesson" (1972): 

 

Miss Moore was her name. The only woman on the block with no first name. And she was black as hell, cept for her feet, which were fish-white and spooky. And she was always planning these boring-ass things for us to do, us being my cousin, mostly, who lived on the block cause we all moved North the same time and to the same apartment then spread out gradual to breathe.

Donald McCrary, author of “Represent, Representin’, and Representation: The Efficacy of Hybrid Texts in College Writing, draws on African American English:

 

Hold up. I know what you gonna say. Talkin’ that black English is okay at home and with your friends, but don’t be speakin’ that foolishness in school or at the j-o-b. And don’t be tellin’ no students they can speak that mess either. You want people (read: white) to think they ignorant? Right. Right. I hear you. But let’s be real. America loves itself some black English. Half the announcers on ESPN speak it, and I’m talking about the white dudes, too. Americans know more black English than they like to admit. Black English is intelligible and intelligent, and just because somebody tells you different, don’t necessarily make it so. And that’s what I want the academy to understand. My students don’t speak no broken English. They speak a legitimate dialect that conveys legitimate meanings.

 

from "Represent, Representin', Representation: The Efficacy of Hybrid Texts in the Writing Classroom" - a scholarly article by Donald McCrary

Professor Kermit Campbell uses multiple dialects to compose the book Getting’ Our Groove On: Rhetoric, Language, and Literacy for the Hip Hop Generation (2006):

 

Middle class aspirations and an academic career have rubbed off on me, fo sho, but all hell or texas gotta freeze over befo you see me copping out on a genuine respect and love for my native tongue. . . . That’s from the heart, you know. But don’t expect a lot of folks to feel me.

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