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Students’ Right to Their Own Language (with bibliography)
This statement provides the resolution on language, affirming students’ right to “their own patterns and varieties of language — the dialects of their nurture or whatever dialects in which they find their own identity and style” that was first adopted in 1974. The statement also includes as explanation of research on dialects and usage that supports the resolution, and a bibliography that gives sources of some of the ideas presented in the background statement; besides offering those interested in the subject of language some suggested references for further reading. The publication of this controversial statement climaxed two years of work, by dedicated members of CCCC, toward a position statement on a major problem confronting teachers of composition and communication: how to respond to the variety in their students’ dialects.
Read the full statement, Students’ Right to Their Own Language (April 1974, reaffirmed November 2003, annotated bibliograhy added August 2006, reaffirmed November 2014)
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“Students’ Right to Their Own Language” and the Importance of Code-Meshing
daryl lynn dance is an assistant professor and director of the Writing Center at Hampton University. She writes about rhetoric, language, and pedagogy and has been published in College Language Association Journal and Nanzan Review of American Studies . Email: [email protected] .
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Daryl Lynn Dance; “Students’ Right to Their Own Language” and the Importance of Code-Meshing. American Speech 1 August 2023; 98 (3): 343–355. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-10887774
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Students' Right to Their Own Language": A Retrospective
1995, The English Journal
Related Papers
Jeremiah J Sims, PhD
Abstract In this paper I analyze what I argue are erroneous assumptions of scientific neutrality, especially with regard to the science of linguistics. That is to say, I will seek to deconstruct the notion that science is inherently neutral and replace this notion with one that accounts for specific ideological formations and the influence that they exact. Questions of ideology, though salient, are often overlooked in favor of a reliance on the veracity scientific inquiry. Thus, ideological predispositions often times go unchallenged, which is especially problematic when the subject group, in this case African Americans, are not the ones telling their own stories. In this paper I seek to uncover the ideological weight that informs the rhetoric surrounding African American Vernacular English. And, correspondingly, I will analyze the writings of important African American linguists to highlight what I believe to be the consequence of this pervasive ideological influence.
Kevin K. Gaines
College English 69.4
Carmen Kynard
In this article, I focus on the work of the Black Caucus (BC) of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). The Black Radical Tradition must be excavated here to relocate historical examinations of culture, rac(e)ism, political economy, and (literacy) education. In particular, I attempt to re-insert the work of Ernece Kelly and the legacy of NCTE’s policy, Students’ Rights To Their Own Languages (SRTOL), into a black radical paradigm for critical literacy and social justice. Black Power movements set the tenor and tone for our 21st century referents of “identity, difference, and recognition” and so I check the pulse of Black Power in composition studies via two concurrent platforms: 1) a protracted campaign for social justice and racial equality by African American scholars in and against NCTE as they formed their first Black Caucus, and; 2) a protracted campaign against racism in education where language rights carried the Black Power banners of self-determination, independence, and freedom from white rule. The work of Kelly and her black college students at the dawn of the BC, thus, offers us an important, historical lens into alternative, professional sites and spaces where the work of composition studies has occurred outside of the racially limited bounds of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC). If we see the work that Kelly was doing as building what Fisher calls Independent Black Institutions (IBIs), then we can see multiple, institutional sites in which the work of composition studies has been done and can continue to be done where race, literacy, and the experiences of students of color are central.
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Some Guidelines for Respecting Language Diversity in Writing
Writing across the curriculum.
UW students bring a rich variety of dialects and languages to the classroom, giving instructors who use writing in their classes a unique opportunity to build on students’ linguistic resources. Unfortunately, it is easy for instructors to value the language of some groups more than others. As instructors whose goal is for all students to be successful, we need to take care to respect the languages students bring with them to our classes.
Respecting language diversity impacts students’ success as writers and their feelings of well-being on campus. Our responses to student writing can inspire creative critical thinking or limit it. They can make a student feel like he or she belongs or seem to confirm a student’s sense of alienation. They can work to affirm or dismiss a student’s heritage and language. After all, writing even about the most distant topics can feel personal, closely linked to a student’s own identity.
So what might guide our approach to students’ diverse language resources? In 1974 members of the Conference on College Communication and Composition adopted a resolution entitled “Students’ Right to Their Own Language.”
We affirm the students’ right to their own patterns and varieties of language — the dialects of their nurture or whatever dialects in which they find their own identity and style. Language scholars long ago denied that the myth of a standard American dialect has any validity. The claim that any one dialect is unacceptable amounts to an attempt of one social group to exert its dominance over another. Such a claim leads to false advice for speakers and writers, and immoral advice for humans. A nation proud of its diverse heritage and its cultural and racial variety will preserve its heritage of dialects. We affirm strongly that teachers must have the experiences and training that will enable them to respect diversity and uphold the right of students to their own language.
For detailed recommendations see:
“Students’ Right to Their Own Language” College Composition and Communication 25, 1974.
The article is available through the following URL: <http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/righttoownlanguage>
Other recommended resources include:
Canagarajah, A. Suresh. “The Place of World Englishes in Composition: Pluralization Continued.” College Composition and Communication 57.4 (2006): 586–615. Print.
This article describes the changing global role of English(es) and argues for accepting and incorporating many varieties of English in formal, academic writing.
Canagarajah, A. Suresh. Critical Academic Writing and Multilingual Students . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002. Print.
This volume facilitates teacher self-reflection and enables readers to better understand the motivations and pedagogical implications—especially for multilingual writing—of a more openly pedagogical approach.
Horner, Bruce, Min-Zhan Lu, Jacqueline Jones Royster, and John Trimbur. “Language Difference in Writing: Toward a Translingual Approach.” College English 73.3 (2011): 303–321. Print.
The authors contend that a focus on linguistic homogeneity is at odds with actual language use today. They call for a translingual approach, which they define as seeing difference in language not as a barrier to overcome or as a problem to manage, but as a resource for producing meaning in writing, speaking, reading, and listening.
Smitherman, Geneva. Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America . Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977. Print.
This authoritative, engaging, and affirming book on the linguistic and rhetorical history of African American English is a must read both for those who speak African American English and those who are new to it.
Young, Vershawn, and Aja Martinez. Code-meshing as World English: Pedagogy, Policy, Performance . Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 2011. Print.
Editors Vershawn Ashanti Young and Aja Y. Martinez, along with a range of scholars from international and national literacy studies, English education, writing studies, sociolinguistics, and critical pedagogy, argue that all writers and speakers benefit when we demystify academic language and encourage students to explore the plurality of the English language in both unofficial and official spaces.
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This statement provides the resolution on language, affirming students' right to "their own patterns and varieties of language — the dialects of their nurture or whatever dialects in which they find their own identity and style" that was first adopted in 1974. The statement also includes as explanation of research on dialects and usage that […]
Students' Right to Their Own Language. Lisa Fink 03.19.15 Advocacy Diversity. In 1974 the Conference on College Composition and Communication first adopted a statement affirming students' right to "their own patterns and varieties of language—the dialects of their nurture or whatever dialects in which they find their own identity and ...
The statement reads, We affirm the students' right to their own patterns and varieties of language — the dialects of their nurture or whatever dialects in which they find their own identity and style. Language scholars long ago denied that the myth of a standard American dialect has any validity. The claim that any one dialect is ...
This essay examines a Brooklyn College-based research collective that placed African American languages and cultures at the center of the composition curriculum. Recov ering such pedagogies challenges the perception of the CCCC's 1974 "Students' Right to Their Own Language" resolution as a progressive theory divorced from the everyday
Students' Right to Their Own Language Conference on College Composition and Communication Explanation of Adoption (The following appeared as a Special Issue of CCC, Fall, 1974, Vol. XXV.) To Readers of CCC: This special issue of CCC includes the resolution on language adopted by members of CCCC in April 1974; the background statement explaining and supporting that
daryl lynn dance is an assistant professor and director of the Writing Center at Hampton University. She writes about rhetoric, language, and pedagogy and has been published in College Language Association Journal and Nanzan Review of American Studies.Email: [email protected].
Students' Right to Their Own Language collects perspectives from some of the field's most influential scholars to provide a foundation for understanding the historical and theoretical context informing the affirmation of all students' right to exist in their own languages. Co-published with the National Council for Teachers of English, this critical sourcebook archives decades of debate ...
PURPOSE. The intention for this project is to look at the historical roots of the Students' Right to Their Own Language (SRTOL) movement in the United States which "officially" began with the Conference on College Composition and Communication's (CCCC) 1974 Executive Statement. By investigating the historical, socio-political, and cultural ...
Students' Right to Their Own Language": A Retrospective
The implications of the Students' Right to Their Own Language resolution on classroom teaching and practices point to a continual need to reevaluate how communicative actions—linguistic diversities—of students are central aspects of the work within composition courses. This article revisits the historical significance and pedagogical value of the resolution in its critique of student ...
CCCC resolution on the students' right to their own language might say it's a reactionary point of view. Even racist. All us liberal educators, now turned hip and with-it, are full of more compas-sion (if not less condescension) for the young man looking for a way out of the ghetto. We want to change The Way Things Are. They want to eliminate our
I disagree with the following statement from "Students' Right to Their Own Language": "We affirm strongly that teachers must have the experiences and training that will enable them to respect diversity and uphold the right of students to their own language" (3). Teachers should not have to go through an immense amount of training. Get ...
the 1974 CCCC Students Right to Their Own Language (SRTOL) suggests, African American students - and all other students - have the right to write in the "dialects of their nurture" or "whatever" linguist patterns that students. bring with them into the classroom (CCCC, "Students Right" 25). Thus, it.
On Students' Right to Their Own Language. Shirley M. Ruble. Published 1 September 1975. Linguistics, Education. College English. This special issue of CCC includes the resolution on language adopted by members of CCCC in April 1974; the background statement explaining and supporting that resolution; and the bibliography that gives sources of ...
This article presents the author's critique of "Students' Right to Their Own Language" (SRTOL), a resolution affirming the legitimacy of dialect from the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). "Students' Right to Their Own Language" remains the official position statement of the guild of college compositionists on dialect difference, lionized to this day as a first principle of ...
Most U.S. colleges and universities expect students to improve their writing ability by taking first-year composition (FYC) courses. In such courses, non-native English (L2) writers with diverse…
Resolution. Resolved, that the National Council of Teachers of English affirm the students' right to their own language—to the dialect that expresses their family and community identity, the idiolect that expresses their unique personal identity; that NCTE affirm the responsibility of all teachers of English to assist all students in the ...
It be the way folks with some power perceive other people's language. Like the way some view, say, black English when used in school or at work. Black English dont make it own-self oppressed. It be negative views about other people usin they own language, like what Fish expressed in his NYT blog, that make it so.
In 1974 members of the Conference on College Communication and Composition adopted a resolution entitled "Students' Right to Their Own Language." We affirm the students' right to their own patterns and varieties of language — the dialects of their nurture or whatever dialects in which they find their own identity and style.
The "Students' Right to Their Own Language" states, "We have ignored, many of us, the distinction between speech and writing and have taught the language as though the talk in any. Chelsea T Should Students be Able to Use the Dialect They Choose? The Conference on College Composition and Communication discusses two very important and...
About This Book. Students' Right to Their Own Language collects perspectives from some of the field's most influential scholars to provide a foundation for understanding the historical and theoretical context informing the affirmation of all students' right to exist in their own languages. Co-published with the National Council for Teachers of ...
ENGL 101. ASSIGNMENT 7. Mr. Anastasia. In discussions of whether students should have the right to their own language, two controversial issues or questions in the article "Students' Right to Their Own Language" have been : "What should the schools do about the language habits of students who come from a wide variety of social, economic ...