It occurred to me as I was reading Kells that, yes, we should encourage “Students [to] bring not only their language(s) and discourses but the cultural ecologies of their own experience to their writing” (207)...but have I ever done this myself? When I read these articles, I think about them from the point of view of the teacher wanting to know what to do in her classroom. But I don't know why it's taken me this long to realize that I am the student, right now: in all of the writing that I do for all of the classes that I take, do I ever make a conscious effort to employ MY language, or does everything I write come out sounding like washed-out pseudo- (or, more graciously, apprentice-) academese that fits like ugly old shirts I've kept since high school (cuz they're stretched out in all the right places) and wear with a resigned shrug whenever I don't know what else is appropriate? Would I ever stick my neck out on a final paper, for instance, and write something that sounds like Chloe, rather than something that sounds like Chloe-sounding-as-much-like-everyone-else-as-she-can-get? The obnoxious truth is, probably not. Not even on a paper about linguistic diversity, which is the cruelest of ironies...I would probably write that linguistic diversity paper in the exact same linguistically un-diverse voice I've used for every other paper I've ever written, just like I've spent all semester blogging about trans/multi[lingualism/culturalism] in the same damn clinical mono-everything voice that has come to feel safe and legitimating, somehow.
The even-more-obnoxious truth is, I don't actually know what Chloe (minus academese) sounds like on paper. Kells asks, “Where and how do our students claim citizenship? How do they enact what they know and who they are?” (207), and I'm haunted by that because * I am the student! * and I'm afraid that the way that I enact who I am on paper is a very constructed, inauthentic (that just sent shivers down everyone’s spine, including mine—sorry—) process that is the result of years and years in The Academy.
(Note: I'm not interested in playing the blame game. I'm not making claims that I've been brainwashed by anyone or anything. I take full responsibility for the performative attitude I adopt whenever I try to write like a background-less perfect-English machine. And I'll also note that standardization of academic language is certainly not only the US's problem. I have vivid memories of my third grade teacher in France holding up my notebook in front of the whole class and condescendingly asking everyone, “Qui peut montrer a Chloe comment ecrire un sept?” (Who can show Chloe how we write our sevens?) because I hadn't put the little strike-through bar on the diagonal part. A standardized seven! In third grade! I'd gotten the math answer right, I just hadn't written the number the way everyone else did, and I got called out publicly for it. It was a traumatizing experience for a shy little bookworm whose American education had entirely failed her on the European way of writing numbers (now I'm blaming a little). Obviously, that experience was the tip of the Chloe-meets-standardized-French iceberg...)
Point is: can a girl who, right now, as a student, can't really remember her “own” language ever really help her future students write in theirs? How do I encourage a practice that I myself don't practice?
Chloe, I think you just won the "most depressing post" award. In all seriousness though, I really enjoyed reading this.
ReplyDeleteAnd for my own two cents, I have a similar story about being taught numbers, albeit mine took place in Chicago after I had already been taught my numbers in Poland. I was publicly ridiculed for making my 1's the "computer" way instead of just a straight line. You'd think they'd find more important things to focus on, n'est ce pas?
I disagree with Aleks: I don't find to be the winner of the "most depressing post" award at all (though I totally see where you're coming from, Aleks, and I love awarding things to other things!). I think it's honest, realistic, and *gasp* authentic. It's fascinating to me that you're not even sure what the heck "Chloe" sounds like... maybe if you'd had a super awesome Composition instructor who came at her/his class with a more translingual approach, you would be better prepared to write as yourself... or at least have a clue of what that self entails as you later squash it to write "linguistic diversity" papers and the like.
ReplyDeleteOn the same token, however, look at where you are now: an English PhD student who has the "luxury" to think about these things. Would you be where you are today if you hadn't succumbed to that lemming-esque/academese user? Are we "getting upset" over how our lives/Englishes/writings have turned out just for the sake of it? Your English, or perhaps your control of Englishes, is at the top of its game... congrats!
Your last question hits home for me because, well, yeah, I am trying to practice what I preach in terms of using my "own" language for part of the paper for this course (which you will all get to experience Thursday evening). I have to be honest: it is the most difficult writing I've ever done for a graduate course. All semester long I've been telling my English 1111 students to "take risks" with their writing (Wallace did!), and some have embraced it, some have stuck to their comfortable academese (they aren't my most interesting papers, but I'm not grading on how interesting they are, right?); now I want to include some cliche about great risk, great reward... but really, I only feel the potential for negative things because taking risks in writing feels like I'm about to jump out of a plane. And I have a fear of falling.
Okay, maybe I am being a little dramatic, but taking risks/using your "own" English is a strange sensation. Then again, I'm not sure I can say what English I am using to write the more "Kristi" part of my essay--it's still some construction of Englishes based on who/what/when/why... maybe it just feels more "my own" because it's a style I don't normally use in "academic" papers.
I think I am talking in circles, so I am going to quit now. I really enjoyed reading this, too!