🚀 go-pugleaf

Bill,


Actually, we aren't too far apart.

>> >2.  As a set of time-tested tools that are usually the best way to
>> >express yourself clearly.
>>
>>
>> I agree with your rejection of #1; however, I think #2 is mostly myth.
>> If I can correct an error, it seems apparent that I knew clearly what
>> was intended.  Nongrammatical is not a matter of clarity so much as it
>> is a matter of convention, middle to upper class convention at that.
>
>You may be able to "correct" an error, but many readers who are less
>patient than you will not bother to try to understand what a writer
>meant by some ungrammatical usage.

I use this explanation when I explain to students why they need to
tighten up phrasing even though with effort(sometimes) I could figure
it out.  I also tell them they have to earn the right to be
interpreted as closely as we do Joyce et al.

 Perhaps, worse yet, such
>ungrammatical usage could label writers as ignorant or less
competent.

When I point this out, I do so with the onus on the judgment of the
one labeling; i also point out that being grammatical doesn't get one
in, it just eliminates one way of keeping one out.  I try to be very
up fromt about what is 'real' and what is mere convention and what is
class.

>Yes, it is a matter of convention, and it is by and large a symptom of
>hegemonic control over language by the middle to upper class, but--I
>think we do our students a tremendous disservice if they leave our
>classrooms unable to communicate effectively using the grammatical
>conventions current in the languages of power today. Does that mean we
>should participate in producing conforming "organizational men"? No.
>But understanding language conventions seems an important
>preliminary step in effective criticism.

So, I think the difference is not in what I teach, but in the tone of
voice, and in the claims I make and don't make, and maybe even more in
the claims i explode for the students, even while pandering to the
conventions.

claire
vva@mace.cc.purdue.edu