Reaction to “Should Writers Use They Own English”
Young’s style of writing and use of code meshing made it really enjoyable to read his work and understand his points. His work was easy to comprehend because he didn’t use any big words when writing. He stuck to the form of dialect that everyone can understand and didn’t follow all the rules of the dominant standard of writing. I had never thought about how we only abide by one form and style of English when writing and never felt the need to challenge the dominant standard. We have so many different forms of language to communicate with others like texting or talking with friends and still only use the dominant standard when writing. Young’s work made me realize that I have been writing in the dominant style my whole life and never decided to question the one form of writing.
I think that his point of teaching “how language functions within and and from various cultural perspectives” (Young 3) is so important because it will assist in decreasing prejudice. By being exposed to different types of combined dialects, people will be less likely to think that a certain dialect is unusual, which will stop people from being prejudiced. In addition, Young also emphasizes how we should be more open to diversity in language because nobody is going to be perfect in writing dominant standard.
It’s really interesting how the author’s invention of code meshing explains how their isn’t one correct way to communicate. We listen to music and still understand what the artists are saying. We text our friends abbreviations on the phone and they still can comprehend our texts. So, by utilizing code meshing, we can incorporate these everyday forms of communications into one dialect when writing. The dominant style of writing is a way for English teachers to grade our papers. All of the students write to please the teacher but don’t write how they would ACTUALLY communicate.
It is so unusual to read pieces like Young’s writing because we were taught since elementary school to never use the “I, we, you, they” pronouns in a formal paragraph. However, we use these words on a daily basis. The example of Grassley’s sudden dig at Obama is important because he could have used dominant standard of writing which would have used less words in his tweet. Instead he used text abbreviation and everyday words that he would actually use in order to insult Obama about sightseeing in Paris. Young’s work forced me to question the writing rules I was taught when I was younger, and further realize that there is more than one way to write.
