"at" at the end of a where phrase

[Baker, John]

        I see some difficulties with this approach.  First, I question whether it is at all practical.  I take it as axiomatic that some writing is better than others (e.g., that Mark Twain's dialect writings are better than the instructions to Form 1040); that it is advantageous to be able to write well; and that education can, at least potentially, improve writing skills (I put aside for now the pedagogical question, already raised, of how this can be done).  It is probably impossible for writing teachers to avoid teaching their own dialects.

        Second, the implications are by no means clear.  I suppose that the hoped-for result is that the powerful will become aware of the discriminatory effects of their views and will moderate them.  However, if the effect is simply to de-emphasize training in writing standard English, then the lot of the powerless will only get worse.  Conversely, if Scott's approach is widely accepted, the effect could be the opposite:  All might seek to use standard English, the language of the powerful, and would therefore denigrate nonstandard dialects.

John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Sadowsky [mailto:lists at SPANISHTRANSLATOR.ORG]
Sent: Sunday, December 07, 2003 10:38 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "at" at the end of a where phrase


On 12/7/2003 01:09 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote the following:

>But you're confusing writing with speaking again.  I agree that a certain
>"standard" should be taught in writing, if only to give kids an equal
>chance in higher education and the job market.

This still implicitly promotes the idea that there are certain lects that
are better than others -- those used by the highly educated vs. those used
by the relatively ignorant, those used by people worthy of gainful
employment vs. those used by vagrants, bums and good-for-nothings, and so on.

Why not just make explicit the underpinnings of all this: power.  The
so-called "standard" varieties of a language are those used by the
powerful, and the powerful can and will discriminate against you if you
don't adapt to their way of doing things -- in language use, dress, mores
and any other significant aspect of social interaction.

This approach not only gets a heck of a lot closer to the essence of the
matter, it also shifts the burden of justifying indecency to the indecent
-- instead of the speaker having to justify his "bad taste" or "ignorance"
in using the linguistic system he happens to have in his head, those who
would discriminate on this basis are left having to justify their
discriminatory behavior.

Cheers,
Scott


_____________________________________________________________
Scott Sadowsky · sadowsky at spanishtranslator.org
http://www.spanishtranslator.org
_____________________________________________________________
"Since the multitude is ever fickle, full of lawless desires, irrational
passions and violence, there is no other way to keep them in order but by
the fear and terror of the invisible world, on which account our ancestors
seem to me to have acted judiciously, when they contrived to bring into the
popular belief these notions of the gods, and of the infernal regions."
  -- Polybius