When is it okay to say "hella"?!
Is it okay to write in your own dialect/discourse? This is what we discussed in class, and this brought up a lot of questions. When is it okay to write in our own discourse? Why do people code switch to sound a certain way due to certain circumstances? Well one of the ways we code switch is when we write academic papers. We would never write like that when we talk to our family or close friends. We only talk like that because we were taught to write like that for 13 years, so it only feel right or normal for us to keep our papers very academic even if we were told to do so in class. During that one exercise when we were told to write in our own discourse/dialect, I honestly had trouble with that because it didn't feel right to be to be dropping the words "hella, OMG, and LOL" in there that would only make my paper seem like a joke and it wouldn't really fit into the classroom environment. Many of use use slang or short abbreviations to send messages to each other that way we can express our feelings or make a long word short like an acronym. 
SRTOL is here to let students write in their own dialect, but even then we are still expected to write in a certain way or else our grade will go down. Each professor grades differently and this is based on their taste in writing and how they want the paper to be formatted it's kind of bias at the same time. If everyone wrote in their own discourse there would be way too many dialects and it would cause confusion and only make the class very disordered. yes, it will make the class very disordered, but it will allow the students to full express what they want to say and maybe make the write feel more comfortable writing the paper. In my case, I had trouble doing so, this may be because I was taught to write in a certain way once I entered schooling. It was expected of me to write in a way where grammar, sentence structure, paragraphs, forma,t and vocabulary meant a lot in a paper. I do agree that students should be allowed to write in their own discourse, but only for certain assignments. If it is a research paper they should really keep it very academic or else the readers will not take the paper seriously. It will also be hard to understand what the writer is trying to put across, because not everyone knows all the dialects that each person has to bring in a classroom. There should be a standard dialect for certain assignments to make it easier for the students and graders.
Your post was very interesting. I have a lot of the same similar thoughts. I also had trouble with writing in my own way because I was taught to write a certain way. I felt uncomfortable when writing my own way because I felt like I wouldn't be taken seriously.
ReplyDelete