Speak Right!

When I was young, I used to try to imitate the accents of the people around me, and my parents would quickly chime in, "Speak right!"  Even today this command is echoed in my mind as I hear it voiced toward my younger brother.  But what is correct speech? And who decides it?

This week in English 1101, we have been looking at what many would call, "improper" language.  We read Anzaldua's "How to Train a Wild Tongue," a bilingual narrative about her struggles with living on una frontera cultural. She gives her account in an unconventional way that both English and Spanish speakers would find difícil para entender a veces. Experimenting with her style of writing, I interchanged languages on the fish bone assignment...

We also looked at two other pieces written in an unusual way: Davis's "Foucault and Pencil" and Kincaid's "Girl." The first was a moment by moment account of reading a book and her resulting confusion and the second was a terse list of commands. I remember being struck by our professor's admiration for them, as they both seemed abrasively simple and unflattering.  Yet I played with this second technique too:

          Eat your broccoli.  Do your homework. Get good grades.  Drive Safe. Where are you going? Don't procrastinate. Exercise. Have fun. Sing. Sing quieter. Turn down the radio. Get all A's. Come here. Go there. No come back here. Take out the trash. Help your brother with his spelling words. Help him quieter. Do the dishes. You want to go where? Talk to your mother. Where? Talk to your father. Wait. Watch this movie with us. Clean the shower. Open the windows. Your homework done? Paint. Turn down the radio. Mop the kitchen. Turn down the radio more.

 

 

I've enjoyed playing with these different types of writing.  Although I wouldn't consider employing any one of them on a regular basis, I find it interesting that each one has a time and a place where it can be used to better explain a situation.  For example, one can see how someone might write using the latter style when frustrated by the incessant commands of an authoritative figure.  Using this approach, one can even emphasize the presence and recurring nature of certain demands. I laughed when I noticed that they used it in this car commercial... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOclC9bbeQU

 

Through Anzaldua's writing methodology of switching languages, we, as readers, are given a special glimpse at her internal battle for self identity between the two cultures.  These different manners of writing, although strange and perhaps "improper," help to voice their writer's perspective quite clearly.

 

So why do we quickly dismiss these as "wrong?" Certainly if one of these pieces would have been submitted for the writing test it would receive low scores, but why? Who decides what English is proper and improper? My best guess is that it is set by the educated and respected class of the day. Those to whom the younger generation looks up to.  I have been reading a book for one of my other classes which talks about the African American struggle for inclusion in America, post Emancipation. Many of them strove after education, hoping it would be the great equalizer.  In their petitions to the presidents at the time, Lincoln and Johnson, you can tell by their phraseology and allusions that they extensively studied the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and the Bible, the three documents that held authority across the board. When we want respect, we speak and write like the respected. This is seen in how we speak to professors, managers, or how we write applications for scholarships and jobs.  I may be wrong, but I think the successful and prosperous writers inadvertently decide the "rights and wrongs" for writing, simply based on what they did to become successful. We look up to them, and the way they do things quickly becomes our standard from which to judge "proper" and "improper."