No One Has a Right to His Own Language

Author(s): Allen N. Smith

Source: College Composition and Communication, Vol. 27, No. 2 (May, 1976), pp. 155-159
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English
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NWo One J-as a Right to His Own Language

ALLEN N. SMITH

ALTHOUGH I CONSIDER MYSELF a humanist

the creation of a straw man-i.e., the de-

in the intellectual sphere and a liberal

in most social and political matters, I

"standard American English" that should

bate over whether there is or is not a

cannot swallow the official pronouncement of the Conference on College Composition and Communication that "Stu-

be the goal of composition teachers to

inculcate. Many of those who advocate
students' right to their own language argue, correctly, I think, that there is no

dents Have a Right to Their Own Language." The very statement is a contradiction. No one has a right to "their
own" language. Language, by defini-

such standard, that it is mythical. To

me, this is obvious. No body of men,
and no computer, can survey, analyze

tion, is common to all who use or attempt to use it, and the use of language
is not an individual but a social act, particularly when the individual takes the

and synthesize the speaking and writing

habits of some 200 million delightfully

varied American citizens, and if they

could, the result hardly would be what

trouble to set his words down on

any English teacher would want to

teach. Nor is there any textbook or

paper. Writing is not a form of self-ex-

pression, and anyone who teaches that

grammar which does in fact offer the

definitive and comprehensive standard

it is is doomed to failure from the start.

One of the great battles which takes

place at the outset of every freshman
comp course is to convince each stu-

to apply in each and every individual

choice of expression.

The second complication arises when

we pay homage to the vocational needs
of our students. The argument runs that

dent that there is an audience out there

and that he or she must write for that

audience at every step of the develop-

"every student has a right to his own lan-

ment: mechanically, grammatically, logically, and aesthetically.

If the resolution adopted by the

CCCC Executive Committee in 1973

meant only that we should respect our

students as individuals and recognize

their infinitely varied family and social

backgrounds and that our role as teachers demands constant courtesy in both

the classroom and the conference, so

guage," but if he wants to get a job better than that of his parents and peers,
he had better at some point, for purely

practical reasons, learn to speak and

write in a manner acceptable to those

who guard the entry points to passage-

ways to upward mobility. This leads

to such contradictions as that which oc-

curred in a frustrating regional confer-

ence of CCCC which I attended recent-

few teachers would deny it that it would

hardly have been worth the committee's

ly on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, an

area fraught with local dialects. The con-

seems to go much deeper. The resolution

apparently involves a question about the
end product of our service: what should
we be teaching and for what purpose?

thoughtful statement by Robert Hogan,

trouble to pass it. But the question

The question is muddled further by

ference opened with an amusing and

Executive Secretary of NCTE, who ad-

vocated students' right to their own language. His keynote address was followed
immediately by a panel which concerned

155

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156

COLLEGE COMPOSITION AND COMMUNICATION

itself with "How and When Do We

Change the Student from His Own Dialect to Standard English?" The strange
thing was that no one appeared to recog-

nize that the panel's goal was at cross

purposes with the basic thrust of the
opening address. If a student has a right

to his own language, we have no right

to change it at any point, and if we sug-

gest helping him change it solely for

the practical purpose of getting and
holding a job, we are advocating the

cheapest form of hypocrisy and the most

difficult sleight of hand act in the history
of language, the development of a dual
language for use at home and at work.
It is true that success often is correlated

with high vocabulary although which is

the cause and which is the effect or what

the relationship is is confusing, but if

any English teacher were content to

teach language skills used by the aver-

age bank president or airline pilot it

would be a dereliction of duty. So long

as English teachers catch themselves on

the horns of the dilemma between as-

serting the right of students to their own

language on the one hand and the need

to teach them some mythical standard of
good English on the other for employment purposes, they will continue to spin
in the circles which were so obvious at

the above-mentioned English conference, which I suspect was representative

of similar debates across the nation. But

if we simply deny both premises, things

may get better: students do not have a
right to their own language, and teachers do not have a primary duty to teach
them how to get better jobs. This eliminates the conflict between the two, but

it leaves us with the question of what

it is that we should be doing.

Teachers, by definition, are custodians

of the past. No matter how often we

embrace the idea of "relevance" or "ac-

countability" in education, our particular

role in any society is to gather and dis-

seminate the standards and values of the

past for the coming generation in our

respective chosen fields. This is true of

science teachers, legal scholars, arts-

and-crafts teachers, golf instructors, or

any other teachers. All research is history, of course, and all teaching is based
on research. Now, some teachers-accountants for example-do train students
for a particular vocation (still using the

standards and knowledge of the past),

but other teachers, including those in the

so-called "general education" fields, are

much too general to offer a particular

vocational advancement. Try as we may,
we are never going to convince a state
legislator or a parent of a student that
the general-education requirements have
an overriding practical value. The value
is indirect, both to the individual student
and to society. I cannot guarantee that

he will be happier or wealthier if he

learns to speak and write "well." He may

make far more in a job which does not
require high language skills, and he may

be much better off in speaking in his

own "dialect." But his education at my

hands will offer him a slim, shortlived

chance to escape from his own limited
time and place in this present world to
a mythical world composed of some of

the biggest and most exciting ideas

which have come down to us from the

past. At my hands, he may learn to read

more deeply and to write more effectively because of what he reads. Other
sources will give him the flesh and blood

of his own lifetime. My job is to give

him range, even though I can never re-

create that range in its own flesh and

blood terms, try as I will. For certain
jobs, this range will be useful, even if
only as a status symbol. For many others,

it may be a social or psychological impediment, as it has been for me in certain circumstances. Off the job, this same
intellectual curiosity may or may not be
useful to the individual. However, I feel
certain that if it proves too expensive or

time-consuming, the individual will

quickly discard it after graduation. I

offer him only a choice, which admitted-

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NO ONE HAS A RIGHT TO HIS OWN LANGUAGE

157

ly few of my students make permanently.

for example, do we teach students to

should be given the choice, and our

write well if there is no present standard

of American English to go by and if we
deny students a right to self-expression?

But every student in a civilized society

solons decree that it should be roughly

between their eighteenth and twenty-

second years (except for veterans, of

course). I might debate the particular
value of specializing in that age group,

but I cannot forsake the idea of intro-

ducing every individual in our society

to history and logic and literature regardless of the outcome.
Now of what benefit is this all to so-

ciety? The short-term benefits are debatable. The present, apparently widespread dissatisfaction with jobs in factories and offices undoubtedly is due in

part to the higher volume of higher edu-

cation at present. And the acquisition

by the telephone companies and the

automobile manufacturers of a coterie of

well-educated specialists and humanists

in place of individuals with natural drive

and mechanical aptitudes may have a

We teach (or I teach anyway) by offering students examples of the best

writing from the past (best because it

has survived to our time) coupled with

the pragmatic test of trying to please a
present-day audience (their teacher and
their fellow students). I teach mechanics
by showing students that repeated spelling errors deny their thoughts a chance
to be understood without interruption.

I teach clarity by showing them the

glazed eyes of their fellow students when

they attempt to read an incomprehensible essay in class. I teach the value of
concrete writing by showing them how

the glaze gradually evaporates when

they drive home their main point with

a vivid illustration. I teach organization
by showing them how an audience follows their argument only when there are

lot to do with their relative wastefulness

clear benchmarks and divisions within it.

and inefficiency. But, on the whole, a

But in order to develop the skills which

will work in the classroom, in their own
time, they must discover the basic prin-

society produces only so much excellence

in a single generation, far more, sta-

tistically, in a period of ten or twenty

generations or more. To gradually forsake the heritage of the past (the best

of the past) would certainly limit our

enjoyment to the relatively smaller number of works of high quality in the single

generation, and it would probably reduce the excellence of contemporary

ciples which work in the literature of

the past. And, therefore, we read a good

deal in my writing class, and I try to

analyze the techniques or principles employed by these readings. And they are

free to use some of these principles in

their own work. Some of these same

principles are presented abstractly or

works through the loss of the examples

concretely in textbooks. But I have never

further reduce the enjoyment of contemporary excellence by failing to pro-

which grips the hearts and minds of most

of the past. And it certainly would

duce a trained audience for them. I can-

not say our society definitely would be

less affluent if we gave up all but voca-

tional training, but it would become

poorer nevertheless. This is the only

claim we can make for insisting that our

students become "educated" in a general

sense.

These are fine words, but how then do

we teach the values of the past? How,

found a successful English textbook

of my students. Nor have any of the

twenty other freshman comp teachers in

my own school. The reason is that even
the best textbook is too fragmentary and

too disjointed. It does not dwell on the

great expression of a great idea for a long

enough period to capture the imagination

of a student. I think a textbook may serve

as a teacher's guide or principle of organization for his course, but it probably

never should be put into the student's

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158

COLLEGE COMPOSITION AND COMMUNICATION

hands. Rather, let the teacher himself

create a course which leads students

through these principles, using works of

sufficient substance to have a chance to

catch the minds of students. Why not

then use a good anthology? I am less opposed to this, except that most anthologies
also are fragmented, either a catch-all for

all sorts of ideas or a book organized ac-

of being "new." I cannot teach this, but,

paradoxically, some of the best examples
of the old are so strange to modern students that they sometimes seem strik-

ingly "new" to them, and they sometimes catch on from this. Often, they

don't.

And this brings me to the last and

cording to textbook principles rather

greatest question of motivation. Why do

students write? Obviously they do so to

a writing course according to certain

write well? They write well because they

the course. You can teach a writing

high quality reading and imitate it

than by content. It is better to organize

major content themes which run through

course about almost any subject under

the sun, but you have to have a subject.

get a grade or a credit. Why do they

come to the class with a heavy load of

(which I have nothing to do with) or

lates the whole purpose of writing,

because they learn to care enough about

ideas to learn the craft of writing well
for the sake of expressing those ideas.
Nothing can make a student care about
his work or polish it or even carefully

tellectual biography of Confucius or

passion, passion so strong that the student even is willing to control it artfully

a way interesting to others. It should

not have a right to their own language;

been suffered through and mastered.

Thus, I teach writing by using exam-

effects on whatever audience they may

You can't teach students to write about

nothing. Nor can you teach them to

write about themselves, because this viowhich is to tell others something. I cannot tell a student that his personal expressions in a diary or journal are good,
bad, or indifferent. But I can tell him
that he has failed to produce a good in-

Lord Bertrand Russell. The hardest thing

in the world is to write about yourself in
come last, long after freshman comp has

ples of the past, examples ranging from

the Bible to James Reston's latest column

in the New York Times but always examples outside the student's own personal experience. And these examples do
not represent standards, because there
are no absolute standards in either the

present or the past, only examples that

have survived for the same reasons that

some student essays survive in the classroom, because they are more interesting
to an audience than others. The stan-

dard is success or excellence, and suc-

cess or excellence can never be reduced

to a set of absolute principles. There is

an element of chance and an element

of imagination in each attempt. This is

what makes writing relevant in the sense

edit it, unless he is proud enough of

what he has learned to want to get it
across, not to emasculate it. The only
motivation to good writing I know is

to achieve his effects.

What have I said here? Students do

they only have a right to learn a language which will produce the proper

speak or write to. There is no correct

standard of American English (beyond

a certain number of completely negative

rules), but there are certain techniques
of tightness, clarity, precision, specificity,

and logic which can be borrowed from

the best surviving examples of the past

and which may on occasion work in

something the student is writing for a

test audience in his classroom. We cannot defend our vocation on a short-term

vocational basis because the values to

both the individual and society are too

debatable. We may be able to defend

English as a vital part of a so-called

general education in an affluent society

which has enough time and money to

permit some members of each genera-

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NO ONE HAS A RIGHT TO HIS OWN LANGUAGE

tion to acquire the knowledge and tech-

159

we do it. We do not teach dialects which

niques created laboriously over cen-

fail to bring one group together with

pride in the fact that they are custodians

jobs. We teach English as it has come

down to us over many centuries of

turies of trial and error.

Teachers must realize and take some

and purveyors of the past. They must

accept the fact that other people-stu-

another. We do not teach people to get

thought and effort. If we don't do this, I

can guarantee you that we won't last

dents and society in general-are not so

long teaching dialectology or vocational

There always is a healthy war between

the past and the present and it goes on

way to ward off the natural indifference

concerned with the past as they are.

in my classroom every day. I see the

looks of longing between boys and girls

skills. In a crisis, you have to throw

your best pitch, and I know the only

and resentment and boredom of students

in required English is to capture their

in my classroom (and cast a few my-

imaginations. When I have that in hand,

tennis rackets and shorts to class. I know

senteeism, grade complaints, or cries of

"relevance." Until I have their imagination, they are going to complain about
something because no one willingly sits
on a hard chair on a sunny day because

self). I see the students who bring their

that some cut classes to sign up for employer interviews at the placement service. That's understandable, and I do try
to understand my students, even those
who speak in a different dialect than my

own. But my (professional) interest is

different than their everyday interests.

My job is to struggle to engage their

minds in something more sweeping,

though less concrete, than money or sex.

I try to teach them the techniques which

will give them range, give them the

ability to read the record of the past and

the ability to write to express to others

what they have learned. I hope no one

believes I am being too theoretical or

idealistic about this or that I am ignoring

the pressures of students or parents or
legislators for something relevant. I am

saying, as a totally practical measure,

that we cannot survive or do what we

have been trained to do by denying that

I no longer have to worry about ab-

I am polite to him or because of some

job he plans to take in the distant future.

In advocating that we should teach from
the past, I am surprisingly arguing that
we should deal with the most immediate
here and now: the here and now of a

classroom which is exciting rather than

dull. This is what I owe my students. I
refuse to willingly bore them, and I re-

fuse to teach them according to their

own natural inclinations or interests. I

take on the more difficult task of trying

to acquaint them with that specialized,
abstract, dated world of the past because
that's where the greatest proportion of
human genius resides.
Salisbury State College
Salisbury, MD

THE GEORGE ORWELL AWARD

The NCTE Committee on Public Doublespeak invites nominations for its George
Orwell Award presented annually at the NCTE convention to the author(s) or editor(s) or producer(s) of a print or non-print work (excluding textbooks) appearing
between September 1 and August 31 of the current year, which most effectively
treats the subject of public doublespeak. Nominations should include complete bibliographic information and a statement of justification for consideration. Deadline: Sep-

tember 15. Submit nominations to: Professor D. G. Kehl, Department of English,

Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, 85281.

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