Carol and Craig,
I think asking students *not* to use colloquialisms can have very different effects depending on the student's level of exposure to formal written English (I'm not disagreeing at all with Craig's position here; I'm just wanting to bring in an additional factor). Students' notions of what counts as a colloquialism (and our notions too) require, at base, a recognition that something occurs quite frequently in speech but doesn't show up in print, at least in more formal writing. But that presupposes that the person making the decision has a large array of experiences with written texts to draw inferences from. I'm not saying people are consciously looking at text and thinking, "hmmm... haven't seen 'bogus' yet; put it on the possible colloquialism list," but rather that we develop expectations about text from dealing with text, and those expectations render a given usage more or less surprising. If I encounter "bogus" in a formal research article, it triggers a bit of surprise, and it's probably the recognition of that -- the "I hit a speed bump" feeling -- that makes me think it's colloquial. And those expectations can be genre-specific.
A number of my students in the past have had little experience with sustained reading of longer, more-formal nonfiction texts. They don't, therefore, have a good sense of what would count as a colloquialism. They can easily recognize situation-inappropriate word choices in other environments, of course, but that doesn't let them eye a phrase in an essay and decide whether it's likely to be colloquial or not. Telling those students to avoid colloquialisms, or asking them to gauge the effect of a deliberate use of colloquialism, is asking them to do something they don't have the knowledge/experience base for yet. You can, of course, go over a few example colloquialisms to raise awareness of what you're talking about, but getting a dynamic, flexible sense of what counts as a colloquialism just....takes a ton of reading, and a major sub-ton of that should be nonfiction. Otherwise, they're likely to scan formal writing for expressions they do find surprising and then salt those in in an attempt to be formal (which is why we can end up with "in which" as the faux-formal equivalent of "that").
-- Bill Spruiell
On Sep 13, 2011, at 12:24 PM, Hancock, Craig G wrote:
Carol,
These are some of the most profound questions of writing pedagogy, and I hesitate to offer anything like a hard and fast answer. I wrestle with it every day.
One of my mantras is and has been that “no one can write in someone else’s language.” What else does the student have to work with but the language they bring to the class? They have to trust that, at least as a starting point. It will grow, though. It has to grow. How do we intervene in ways that will help that happen?
What does “identity” really mean? It’s not just in the surface features of the language they bring, but in everything they have lived through, everything they have come to believe and value. Students have rarely been given permission to be confused, but confusion might be the most honest stance to take, as it is for some of our best writers. We have to be good listeners and ask the right kinds of questions (instead of offering our own answers too rapidly or quickly.)
Students have a right to be themselves, but those selves are very much in flux. They don’t have experience with the reflective practice of writing, of looking back at their own words and trying to find a clearer or more thoughtful or more coherent way of saying it. The activity of looking for the right word or the right phrasing is and ought to be bound up within the unfolding purposes of the text. Revising is not correcting.
To write well in an academic and public world requires taking your place respectfully in the ongoing conversation. It’s very hard to do.
Being more or less colloquial may not be a one size fits all prescription. If you asked Dave Barry not to be colloquial, you would lose Dave Barry. On the other hand, a colloquial George Will just wouldn’t be George Will. My own personality is informal, but I have learned to help people with different styles.
The short advice might be to ask students to be colloquial in some assignments. “Perhaps the proper measure of a writer’s talent is his skill in rendering everyday speech—when it is appropriate to his story—as well as his ability to tap, to exploit, the beauty, poetry and wisdom it contains” (Paule Marshall).
Ultimately, beauty, poetry, and wisdom are worthy goals. Writing formally is, at best, a means to an end.
Craig
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Carol Morrison
Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2011 9:20 AM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Colloquialisms/Slang/Dialect
Craig and others: Do you think students should avoid colloquialisms in their writing? I haven't instructed them to do so at this point, but I am wondering if "academic writing" should be free of colloquialisms and/or slang. As new words continue to enter the lexicon, it is sometimes difficult to make the distinction. Also, I don't want students to lose their identity in writing. This is a Freshman Comp. I class at the community college level.
Best-
Carol
--- On Tue, 9/13/11, Hancock, Craig G <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
From: Hancock, Craig G <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Subject: Re: Colloquialisms/Slang/Dialect
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tuesday, September 13, 2011, 9:01 AM
I think being colloquial doesn’t in and of itself make something wrong, but a colloquialism is often a very set expression, so it runs the risk also of seeming stale. “She’s sitting pretty.” “He’s a nut case.” “That pisses me off.” All those strike me as things I would say quite readily and easily, but might think twice about in writing.
They do have the effect of seeming relaxed and colorful and spontaneous and down-to-earth. Maybe “down-to-earth” was colloquial at one time.
Do you want to seem like Mark Twain or would you prefer William Buckley? Twain is colloquial; Buckley painstakingly avoids it.
Craig
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]]<mailto:[mailto:[log in to unmask]]> On Behalf Of Carol Morrison
Sent: Monday, September 12, 2011 6:31 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Colloquialisms/Slang/Dialect
Thank you, Bill! I looked up a few definitions of "colloquialism," but your explanation was much better.
Carol
--- On Mon, 9/12/11, Spruiell, William C <[log in to unmask]<[log in to unmask]" target="_blank">http:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
From: Spruiell, William C <[log in to unmask]<[log in to unmask]" target="_blank">http:[log in to unmask]>>
Subject: Re: Coloquialisms/Slang/Dialect
To: [log in to unmask]<[log in to unmask]" target="_blank">http:[log in to unmask]>
Date: Monday, September 12, 2011, 5:38 PM
Carol --
Dialects usually let you pin down a person's region of origin, ethnicity, or socioeconomic class. Slang lets you identify what social group they're identifying with, is frequently tied to age group, and can be very "volatile" over time. Colloquialisms, I think, are more generally defined on the basis of their "not sounding like the kind of thing you use in formal written English" and so can include a lot of different types of expressions.
For example, the "really" of "It was really impressive" strikes me as colloquial, but it's definitely not slang, and it's in probably the majority of AmE dialects. The use of "sick" to mean "impressively good," on the other hand, is slang, while modal-stacking ("might should" ) is a dialectal feature. But someone could refer to "sick" or "might should" as sounding colloquial, in a general sense.
I suspect that in traditional essay-marking, "coll." has frequently meant "sounds too informal, but is something I'd use in daily speech" while "dial." and "slang" have meant "sounds too informal, and is something other people say in daily speech."
--- Bill Spruiell
On Sep 12, 2011, at 3:19 PM, Carol Morrison wrote:
Dear ATEG Members:
Can someone explain and give examples of what a colloquialism is and how that differs from "slang" or "dialect" in speech and communication? One of my composition students wrote in her response paragraph regarding the various roles she is required to play the following: "As long as I communicate with my mother respectfully and refrain from the use of any colloquialisms, she’s fine."
Thank you.
Carol
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