Blog Post #6: Standard & Non-Standard English

In Laura Greenfield’s piece, “The Standard English Fairytale”, she discusses the way that the academic world in particular has been exclusively belonging to those who write and speak in “standard English.” While she doesn’t flat out define this term, she mentions that standard English is “the languages of white people collectively [and] … necessary for participation in mainstream society.” (Greenfield 46) This is very problematic and very racist to people of color whose ways of speaking English are like a different language, since they grew up hearing their version of English and have to learn a new English in order to be accepted as an intelligent and competent person in the mainstream world. In particular, Greenfield discusses the language of African Americans (Ebonics) and the Hawaiian Creole English. Both are varieties of Standard English, but are much different than what’s typically expected in a classroom setting. 

Greenfield’s piece is not the only time that this matter has been discussed. In the book Bad Ideas About Writing, there are a series of essays about the myths on what makes a good writer or what makes writing good. One of the essays in particular is titled “African American English is Not Good English.” Jennifer M. Cunningham, the writer, goes into similar points that Greenfield does, discussing how the expectations of intellectual students in the United States is “standard English.” Cunningham also talks much more about the linguistic background of non-standard English languages. Looking at the linguistic backgrounds of Standard English and African American English, “we need to understand and explain African American Language and Standard American English as different languages, each with its own set of grammatical, phonological, and morphological rules (even though they share a lexicon or vocabulary).” (Cunningham 91)

In college, I’ve found that a real struggle as being a writing-centered student is that each professor is different. I rarely have two professors in a semester that have the same expectations of each student when it comes to writing assignments. Understandably, the classes of WSC 001 and 002 are the basic college writing courses that all students are required to take, so the rules of writing are a little more strict in classes like that. However, I’ve gone from professors who take points off of my paper for using contractions and professors who have a six page document outlining their their rules for writing papers to professors who just care about students writing a paper with a thesis. I highly prefer professors like this; too many rules about writing makes writing too much of a chore. However, we still have a long way to go until “casual” writing is accepted in the world of academia. 

Works Cited

Greenfield, Laura. “The ‘Standard English’ Fairy Tale”. Writing Centers and the New Racism: A Call for Sustainable Dialogue and Change. Edited by Laura Greenfield and Karen Rowan. 1st Edition ed. Utah State University Press, 2011. 

Cunningham, Jennifer M. “African English is Not Good English”. Bad Ideas About Writing. Edited by Cheryl E. Ball and Drew M. Loewe. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, WV. 2017