English writing Homework
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100WWallaceStandardWrittenEnglish2-2011.pptStandardized English
David Foster Wallace
- Novelist
- Professor at Pomona College
Wallace’s thesis
- “Issues of tradition vs. egalitarianism in U.S. English are at root political issues and can be effectively addressed only in what this article hereby terms a ‘Democratic Spirit” (41).
anti-SNOOT-iness
“the issues surrounding ‘correctness’ in contemporary American [grammar] usage are both vexed and highly charged and the fundamental questions they involve are ones whose answers have to be ‘worked out’ instead of simply found” (42).
anti-SNOOT-iness
- “Rarely do we ask ourselves who decides what gets in The Dictionary or what words or spellings or pronunciations get deemed ‘substandard’ or ‘incorrect’” (43).
Two schools of thought on grammar
- Prescriptivists
- Descriptivists
Prescriptivism
- The prescriptivists want one set of rules that we agree are the “correct” rules of grammar.
Descriptivists
- They believe that their cataloging of word usage is a “value-free” and “neutral” scientific process.
- Further, they believe there is a universal law of grammar “wired” into humans and that this (and not stylistic choices) is what’s important.
Rejoinder to the Philosophical Descriptivists
- “From the fact that linguistic communication is not strictly dependent on usage and grammar, it does not necessarily follow that the traditional rules of usage and grammar are nothing but ‘inconsequential decorations’” (49).
Lanham on style:
- “Poetry and prose do differ, as we’ll see, but not in a fundamental dichotomous way…’Style’ usually means the game and play part of the message, but sometimes the competitive or the playful part of the message really is the message and so style becomes content” (7)
Why does grammar matter?
- “When I say or write something, there are actually a whole lot of different things I am communicating. The propositional content (the actual information I’m trying to convey) is only one part of it” (50).
Proposition
- A declarative sentence that affirms or denies a state or condition in reality.
- A declarative sentence that has a subject, verb, a predicate (a term that designates a property or relation) and ends with a period.
- A sentence whose purpose is to explain the relationship between the subject and predicate.
There are many ways to say the same thing.
- “I was attacked by a bear.”
- “Goddamn bear tried to kill me.”
- “That ursine juggernaut bethought to sup upon my person” (50).
- “Sally - your writing could use some polish.”
- Sally - your grammar usage made your paper difficult to read.”
- Sally – have you ever heard of a style manual?”
Why does grammar matter?
- “People really do ‘judge’ one another according to their use of language” (50).
Why does grammar matter?
- “’Correct’ English usage is, as a practical matter, a function of whom you’re talking to and how you want that person to respond” (50).
Discourse communities
- “Whether we’re conscious of it or not, most of us are fluent in more than one major English dialect and in a large number of subdialects and are probably at least passable in countless others” (51).
Discourse communities
- “many of these non-SWE dialects have their own highly developed and internally consistent grammars”
For example….lolcats
Discourse communities
- Midwesterners: “I’m such a jackass; I can’t find my car!”
- West Coasters: “Whoa dude, like, where is my car?”
Discourse communities
- “Could I see the salt, please.”
[Translation: “Please pass the salt.”]
Discourse communities
- “It is Mankind’s responsibility to steward the Earth.”
[Translation: “It is the responsibility of all humans….”]
Discourse communities
- “the little A+ SNOOTlet is actually in the same dialectal position as the class’s ‘slow’ kid who can’t learn to stop using ain’t or bringed. One is punished in class, the other on the playground, but both are deficient in the same linguistic skill – the ability to move between various dialects” (53).
And why might grammatical flexibility be important?
Standard Written English
- “SWE is the dialect of the American elite…it was invented, codified, and promulgated by Privileged WASP Males and is perpetuated as ‘Standard’ by same” (53).
Standard Written English
- “both students and SWE are better served if the teacher makes his [or her] premises explicit and his [or her] argument overt, presenting himself as an advocate of SWE’s utility rather than as a prophet of its innate superiority” (53).
Standard Written English
- In other words, SWE is a style the primary function of which is to perpetuate the perceived superiority of those who use it.
- It also can be, and is, employed by marginal cultures to challenge this claim.
