Composition Forum 51, Spring 2023
http://compositionforum.com/issue/51/

Attention to Language in Composition

Laura Aull

Abstract: Recent translingual, CLA, and sociocognitive scholarship call for increased attention to language and show enduring interest in language in composition. This article suggests these calls persist but don’t succeed because of composition’s limiting habitus: the norms and inertia propelled by U.S. linguistic miseducation and the field’s uneven attention to language. To date, composition has emphasized language ideologies or language itself, but not both together. To change habitus, we need consciousness-raising as well as alternative approaches in encounters with language. This article historicizes attention to language in composition in three traditions, then categorizes the main challenges to attention to language in the field, then offers two pedagogical interventions: (1) developing course language acknowledgements, and (2) analyzing diverse linguistic patterns. The article closes with conceptual shifts important for connecting social and linguistic knowledge.

Introduction

Recent composition scholarship calls for increased attention to language, a welcome trend in a field that “traditionally found ways to dissociate itself from language” (Matsuda Lure 478). Translingual scholars call for “more, not less, conscious and critical attention to how writers deploy diction, syntax, and style, as well as form, register, and media” (Horner et al. 304; emphasis theirs). Sociocognitive and sociocultural perspectives call for attention to the mediating power of linguistic, cultural, and substantive patterns (Mislevy and Durán). Critical language awareness (CLA) research stresses the “need for language-level study to play a more central role in writing education” and posits CLA as a “common vision” for writing studies (Gere et al. 384-395, 390). Indeed, today may be a kairotic moment for CLA in writing studies, which “can bring into greater focus our role as analysts, users, and teachers of language” (Shapiro Kairotic 469).

These calls emerge from a long and uneven history of attention to language in composition. On one hand, this history has moved the field toward approaches that value language difference and see language as situated action. On the other hand, challenges and calls for something better persist. Relatively few compositionists have training in language and language development (Matsuda Lure 483), and language pedagogy and writing pedagogy are still disconnected (Gere et al.). Many instructors dwell in a pedagogical conundrum, unsure of how to be both progressive and pragmatic, particularly vis-à-vis standardized academic language (Shapiro Cultivating 7).

In this article, I suggest that composition’s limiting habitus—the norms and inertia propelled by U.S. linguistic miseducation and the field’s uneven attention to language—persists because composition has emphasized language ideologies or language itself, but not both together. For the counter-training necessary to change habitus, we need consciousness-raising as well as systematic approaches in classroom encounters with language. Accordingly, the article outlines two pedagogical interventions for emphasizing both social and linguistic knowledge: (1) developing a course language acknowledgement, and (2) analyzing language patterns. In three sections below, the article contextualizes history and habitus in composition, outlines the interventions, and closes with misconceptions that require new thinking.

Composition History and Habitus

Three traditions

One way to see attention to language in composition is through three traditions. These traditions have roughly chronological origins, ongoing presence in the field, and overlapping but distinct emphases. The first tradition emphasizes attention to language itself—to diction, syntax, and other linguistic knowledge. The second tradition entails erasure of language and language training to resist decontextualized language analysis. A third tradition emphasizes critical attention to socially-constructed beliefs about language to foster awareness of and resistance to hierarchical language ideologies.

Attention to Language Itself

The tradition of attention to language itself began with the formal establishment of the field. In the mid- to late- 20th century, developments in linguistics informed composition curricula (Kitzhaber), conference panels (MacDonald), and the 1970s National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) policy that became Students’ Right to Their Own Language (SRTOL) (CCCC Srtol; Smitherman Raciolinguistics 10). Late-20th and early 21st-century composition work in rhetorical genre studies (Miller 161), discourse studies (Barton and Stygall; Vande Kopple Exploratory), and rhetorical grammar (Hancock; Martha Kolln; Martha J Kolln; Micciche) have drawn heavily on research in linguists and applied linguistics second language study (Reid et al.). Likewise, style studies, corpus analysis, and writing analytics have modeled language-level analysis (Butler; Duncan and Vanguri; Lancaster), and linguistic analysis has been used to support fresh approaches to SRTOL (Perryman-Clark et al.).

This first tradition is visible in a variety of pedagogical approaches focused on analyzing language itself, including composition students’ analysis of their own writing. Examples include students’ analysis of social and linguistic rules underpinning rhetorical choices (Sanchez and Paulson), analysis of language practices as part of literacy narrative assignments (MacDonald and DeGenaro), and analysis of phonological and syntactical features in different dialects as part of analyzing genres and rhetorical goals (Perryman-Clark). In approaches to assessment, related applications include research connecting expectations like “objective” or “concise” to specific linguistic patterns (Aull, Connecting: Aull How), and composition courses in which students select the type and amount of grammar feedback they receive (Amano; Shepherd et al.).

Erasure of Language

A second tradition is characterized by the “erasure” of language and language training (Connors; MacDonald). To a degree, this tradition began in reaction to the first. The synergy between writing and linguistics in the 1950s and 1960s was undermined by understandable but foreclosing concerns about decontextualized grammar instruction and Chomskian approaches to language study (Braddock et al.; Crowley). The 1974 SRTOL document ultimately “fell short in terms of linking language theory to teaching practice” (Smitherman Raciolinguistics 10), and it still “lacks the authority to implement the resolution’s recommendations in teacher training programs” (Launspach 59). Rhetorical genre studies largely “set aside” language (Devitt Re-Fusing Form in Genre Study 27) rather than “keep[ing] generic form and generic context united” (Devitt Writing Genres 200).

This second tradition of erasure is visible in composition curriculum and training. It appears in graduate training and instruction that “[dismisses] various insights from language studies that can inform the study and teaching of writing” (Matsuda Let's Face It 150) and in composition research and policy disconnected from linguistics (Gere et al. 395). It is visible in decades of “anti-grammar/language beliefs in writing studies” through which “new composition instructors often receive little or no training in linguistics or in language-related writing pedagogy” (Ferris and Eckstein 325). It is visible in instructors who are “ill-prepared to work with increasingly diverse student populations” and students who are “mostly exposed to prescriptive approaches that teach them rules rather than how language works” (325). The all-too-common focus on rules rather than how language works constitutes what Geneva Smitherman labels “linguistic miseducation” (Raciolinguistics 6).

Attention to Language Ideologies

A third tradition is attention to socially-constructed beliefs about language. This tradition draws critical attention to standardized language ideologies, which are beliefs about language use “imposed and maintained by dominant bloc institutions” that are drawn primarily from the language preferences of the upper middle class (Lippi-Green 67). Standardized language ideologies include pervasive misconceptions about specific dialects (e.g., that standardized English is equally-available, neutral, and non-interfering) and about how language works (e.g., that language does not influence meaning or content) (Davila). In the institutional context of U.S. higher education, these ideologies underpin common values and practices (Clements and Petray), and they reinforce the relationship between standardized English and qualities such as clarity (Launspach). In response, translingual approaches call for affirming diverse language and language users (Horner et al. 304), with attention to students’ rhetorical dexterity and communicative resourcefulness (Dryer Appraising Translingualism 278).

This third tradition is visible in composition pedagogy and assessment particularly over the past decade. Translingual pedagogical practices include instruction that highlights semantic choices as informed by cultural sensitivities and audience expectations, and assignments that invite students to analyze and explain key terms and concepts from home cultures (De Costa et al. 468, 469) and other disciplines (Wang). Related assessment approaches draw attention to how we read and talk about what doesn’t look like standardized English (Greenfield) and offer alternatives to conventional grading that focus assessment on process (Athon) and labor (Inoue) rather than on a single, normalized, White, upper-class raciolinguistic standard.

A shared hope

Even as they come out differently in terms of attention to language, all three traditions share the hope that composition can shift away from a paradigm of language homogeneity and regulation. The tradition of attention to language itself strives to introduce descriptive understanding of how language works as a system. The tradition of language erasure strives to shift away from decontextualized grammar and reductive emphasis on form. The tradition of attention to language ideologies strives to foster critical awareness and non-hierarchical understanding of language diversity. All three, in other words, seem to advocate for a paradigm that celebrates language diversity and approaches language with a more contextualized and critical view.

Pedagogical Challenges

Challenges persist despite these shared goals. There’s the water-we’re-swimming-in challenge: linguistic miseducation is rampant. U.S. schooling conventionally includes explicit attention to prescriptive rules, instead of descriptive attention to how language works (Ball and Loewe; Curzan; Davila; Smitherman Cccc's Role in the Struggle for Language Rights; Smitherman Ebonics, King, and Oakland; Smitherman and Villanueva). This means students and instructors must unlearn prescriptive training, often without descriptive training to counter it.

There’s the baby-out-with-the-bathwater challenge—in other words, the language-out-with-the-language-ideologies challenge: to move away from error-hunting and decontextualized grammar, many composition programs and instructors move away from systematic language-level attention altogether. Instructors who associate sentence-level concerns with error can end up separating ideas and creativity, on one hand, from language-level choices, on the other (Athon). Without attention to linguistic norms, students have less insight for weighing the pros and cons of language-level choices (Shapiro).

There’s the in-theory-but-not-assessment challenge: Many instructors believe in language diversity but don’t know how to support it during assessment (Weaver Cla), due to lack of training and/or real and perceived external pressure. Even as research suggests that student success does not depend on mechanical correctness as much as instructors think (Crossley et al.; Freedman; Matsuda Let's Face It), concern about standardized English persists (Kelly-Riley; Launspach; Richardson). Whether in the name of uncertainty or access, it is hard to move instructors from intention to practice (Smitherman and Villanueva). Doing so requires continual challenge and support (Weaver Teacher Negotiation).

The Limits of Consciousness-Raising

Bourdieu would say these challenges persist because raising awareness only goes so far. Transforming habitus requires alternative training, too. Expecting consciousness-raising to change dominant norms ignores “the extraordinary inertia which results from the inscription of social structures in bodies”—instead, “only a thoroughgoing process of counter-training can durably transform habitus” (172). The inertia of composition’s habitus, in other words, is practically compatible with, but not dependent on, rational calculation; we need continual practice in something different, in classes and in our field, to support more comprehensive change. We need to bridge the theory gap with more practice; we need to get to work, using evidence in the form of actual language use, to support change (Dryer Rewriting 237). To counter the inertia of composition’s “discriminatory pasts,” write Gere et al., we need “a more systematic and concerted response” to language-based discrimination than writing studies has offered to date (384-395, 390).

Composition’s habitus helps explain why efforts to raise consciousness about language ideologies have not been sufficient. Raising consciousness may expose linguistic miseducation: it may raise awareness that language is “about way more than whether yo verbs and subjects agree” (Smitherman Raciolinguistics 6). But it may not help us repeatedly practice new ways to encounter verbs and subjects. As a result, critical language awareness pedagogy can fail—not, Shapiro writes, because students choose to conform linguistically, but because students remain “unaware that they have choices to make,” or are left to “make those choices without having the information they need to weigh the pros and cons” (Shapiro 60).

In response, scholars call for more training in language itself. They call for training in the nature, structure, and function of language (Matsuda Lure 483) and in how language is acquired (Lee). They recommend training in genre-based grammatical and lexical patterns to foster student awareness of situated language use (Oliveri et al. 43). They advocate for “the benefits of explicit language instruction and student self-study” (Ferris and Eckstein 325). They suggest that implementing critical language awareness pedagogy “requires some knowledge of linguistics” (Gere et al. 391), and call on the work of those with disciplinary grounding in linguistics and related fields to help CLA efforts (Launspach; Shapiro) in support of both progressive and pragmatic approaches to language including standardized academic language (Shapiro 13). Smitherman’s description of CLA pedagogy emphasizes knowledge of both the “social and linguistic rules” of language (Raciolinguistics 5).

These calls, and our history to date, suggest that no single tradition is sufficient. Attention to socially-constructed beliefs is crucial; attention to situated language use is crucial; and attention to language itself is crucial. Attention to language ideologies along with attention to lexico-grammatical patterns allows us to show versus tell that all shared language use is situated, meaningful, and linguistically equal.

Pedagogical Interventions

The following pedagogical interventions strive to connect social and linguistic knowledge of English: to expose linguistic miseducation and to practice something different in classroom encounters with language. They strive to show that all shared language use is rule-governed, constructed by language users, responsive to discourse communities, worthy of our critical attention in class, and constitutive of ideas and identities. I use them in two contexts: (1) a pedagogy course for English graduate students (mostly from literature and creative writing) that is a requirement before teaching composition; and (2) an English course for undergraduates that is a requirement for English teaching certification. Different though they are, both consider language in school and aim to prepare students to teach written English.

A course language acknowledgement

Both courses begin with freewriting, before any discussion or syllabus sharing, so that students can start by reflecting on their own associations and experiences. The general topic is “correct language in school,” via questions such as: in your education to date, what have you learned is “correct English” or otherwise correct language use? What have you learned about “good writing,” or writing that will get good grades? What have you learned is not part of school language? I let students know that they will hand in their freewriting (because I am looking forward to reading their reflections, not because there is a “right” answer, nor expectations regarding formal English conventions in the response). Students have about 15 minutes to think and respond, including a couple of minutes at the end to note highlights on a separate page before turning in their freewriting.

In groups of about 3 or 4, students discuss similarities and differences in their answers. Our subsequent full-class discussion addresses related questions: what kinds of language use are rewarded in school? What kinds of writing and other language use is “correct”—appropriate, moving, innovative, persuasive, entertaining, or otherwise effective—but not valued in school? Why do we think this is?

These discussions set us up for a “precision parameter” that I ask for in each course: we will work to avoid labeling language as “good/ bad” or “in/correct”; instead, our labels will strive to be more descriptive and precise. We might say an example aims for a familiar audience and follows informal norms, for instance, and point to relevant language choices in the text. I tell them we will develop more terminology as we go, but an underlying principle will be to use descriptive terms for the range of language patterns we discuss.

This freewrite discussion leads into both pedagogical interventions outlined below, but it leads more immediately into sharing a syllabus, which has a course language acknowledgment on the first page. Because the syllabus is a text conventionally habituated by uncritical encounters and implied dialect neutrality, it offers a key site for counter-training. In my experience, some students are already somewhat familiar with land acknowledgements, which have grown in visibility and use in recent years.

Land acknowledgements are part of overdue institutional efforts to acknowledge a history of removal from ancestral lands and other violence against indigenous American peoples; for instance, land acknowledgments in U.S. composition courses and conferences strive to acknowledge the use of unceded or ceded indigenous land for those events. The 2021 Conference on College Composition and Communication, for example, included a Land Acknowledgment for Spokane, which noted that the intended in-person conference was planned for the unceded lands of the Spokane Tribe. The CCCC program statement notes “the impacts of historical trauma brought on by genocide and forced relocation” and The People of the River’s “strength and resiliency,” and it urges conference participants to “recognize that racism and unjust actions forever changed the life of the Spokane people and their relatives” (CCCC Land Acknowledgement for Spokane 10). In a preceding example, the National Council of Teachers of English, the parent organization of College Composition and Communication, notes the need for support and time for land acknowledgments in their annual 2020 report. Andrea Mukavitz, American Indian Caucus co-chair, offers to correspond with those seeking this kind of reflection as they develop land acknowledgements.

Inspired by the NCTE/ CCCC resources and others, I kept thinking about something that we share in my courses, online or in-person: English and its norms and ideologies, all part of the violence of settling the U.S. but not explicitly noted in the land acknowledgments I’ve seen. I began to draft a course language acknowledgment that would highlight that language, and language in our course, can work oppressively, socially, linguistically, tacitly, and resiliently, and that students bring many language experiences, resources, and possibilities to the course. There is always much more we need to do to resist reinscribing singular, tired, oppressive language norms unquestioned in our virtual and physical classroom spaces (Kynard; Tuck and Yang). But we dwell with language in composition courses, and the syllabus is an opening document that begins a course, its objectives, and the learning relationship between instructors and students (Jones 26). Though a course language acknowledgment can never undo a history of oppressive uses of English, it is one way to foreground diverse language and language beliefs early in courses that teach students and teachers.

The land acknowledgement recommendations from the American Indian Caucus, local community members, and the CCCC 2020 invite reflection on reasoning, homework, pronunciation, honesty, and celebration.{1} I considered similar reflections in the case of the language acknowledgement that appears in Figure 1 below. First, a reason to include a language acknowledgment is to start my courses by habituating a critical way of approaching language: a way that makes language a site for attention and exploration, in terms of features, implications, and reasons for its situated use.

Material in support of this particular course language acknowledgement includes local radio sources with sound clips and interviews.{2} The acknowledgment of an indigenous word Michigan is one way to celebrate the contributions of indigenous language (usually, at least a few students have it emblazoned on something they are wearing on the first day of class).

Figure 1. Course Language Acknowledgement

Following this syllabus-based language acknowledgment, several readings can provide additional detail for discussion, such as Vershawn Ashanti Young’s Should Student Writers Use They Own English, Denis Baron’s English Only, Anne Curzan’s Says Who, and Jennifer Cunningham’s African American Language is not Good English from Bad Ideas about Writing. These provide details for discussion including definitions for concepts like dialect, register, and language.

As with all courses I teach, I ask us to read and reflect on the readings in two ways: as readers and writers.

To read and reflect like readers, we engage questions such as. What things have you learned about English and any other languages in school? What have you learned about English and other languages outside of classes and outside of school? How many languages do you use? Within each language, how many ways would you say you use that language—how many registers and dialects do you use? How do you decide? What kinds of language use do you encounter that you feel you do not know how to use?

To read and reflect like writers, we engage questions such as. What language(s), register(s), and dialect(s) do these writers use? To what end—what readers are they likely to reach, and what is the effect for you as a reader? What is one language pattern you notice (we will discuss these later, but see how you do—what is something you notice each writer does, or all the writers do, at the level of words, sentences, or paragraphs?). What is the effect of that pattern—what does it make you do (pause? rush? neither?)? What does it make you think about, understand, or not understand?

II. Analysis of Language Patterns

Changing a habitus based on linguistic miseducation and uneven attention to language requires repeated consciousness-raising about beliefs about language, as well as repeated action in encounters with language itself. The course language acknowledgment and related readings help expose language ideologies and get us practicing our descriptive terminology. Repeated descriptive analysis of language patterns provides further counter-training.

Analyzing language patterns fortunately builds on existing capacities. Consciously or not, most students and teachers have been paying attention to language patterns all their lives: in the womb, most could detect the sound patterns of mothers versus other humans; once born, most detected and reproduced lexical and grammatical patterns before age 4; as they grew, most continued to pay attention to how caregivers used language, how teachers and peers wrote in school, how friends were using emojis in text messages. Even when this knowledge is tacit, we already practice language as patterned, collective, and situated meaning-making (see, e.g., Ellis et al.).

To segue into language pattern analysis, I share my reasoning. One reason is that analyzing language use gives us descriptive ways to encounter diverse language, in contrast to the homogenizing approaches conventionally privileged in US schooling. Knowledge of language patterns offers what Shapiro describes as the information students need to make choices, to “weigh the pros and cons” of conforming or not conforming to linguistic norms. Another reason is that while it’s possible to navigate language without consciously thinking about linguistic patterns, possible doesn’t mean equitable. Depending on unconscious assimilation means student success rests on exposure and practice without the support of transferable metalinguistic awareness (Aull How Students Write). As we know from our course language acknowledgment and opening readings, U.S. schooling tends to include explicit attention to prescriptive rules but not explicit instruction about how standardized English is similar to and different from language use that is far more widespread and naturally learned, such as informal internet writing or informal speech in a range of dialects. The idea of discussing language patterns with students is not new for educators (Baker-Bell; Milu), but finding ways to show linguistic equity in language patterns is something we can habituate more in composition courses.

Informal and Formal Register Patterns in English

I begin with informal versus formal patterns because of the commonplace notion that academic writing needs to be formal.{3} First, we confirm our definitions of language, register, and dialect from the opening weeks of the courses. This allows us to underscore that identifying formal and informal registers is not the same thing as saying that a whole dialect is informal while another is formal (distinctions Young rightly challenges). Every dialect can be more and less formal; most dialects can be used in spoken, internet, and other written forms that are more or less formal. In other words, register is bigger than dialect, and in/formal register patterns can be descriptively analyzed.

Once we review these terms, we brainstorm related labels, examples, and other associations that come to mind. What characterizes informal and formal registers? How are they similar, and how are they different? What contexts and genres tend to call for each, or a blend of both? How do you know?

Then, I add two other continuum descriptions: personal to impersonal, and interpersonal to informational, language patterns. Personal language use tends to emphasize one’s personalized reactions and experiences, while impersonal language use emphasizes phenomena rather than personal reactions to it. Interpersonal language use tends to directly connect with the audience—e.g., to connect with their personal reactions—while informational language tends to focus on process or ideas more than people. Pronouns, for instance, can be a good illustration of both sets of patterns. First and second person pronouns can be personal and interpersonal (e.g., I cannot believe; you will never guess), for example, or they can be impersonal and informational (e.g., we conducted three trials; consider figure 1).

Once we have identified some of our own associations and examples, I share the language continuum that appears in Table 1 below, which synthesizes patterns from linguistic research.{4} The continuum represents several documented patterns, from writing considered more informal, personal, and interpersonal, to writing considered more formal, impersonal, and informational. The continuum purposes in the left column—cohesion, connection, focus, stance, and usage norms—are shared across different kinds of English. The linguistic patterns in the right column sometimes overlap and sometimes diverge, and of course, a piece of writing can exist on different parts of the continuum—it can include both interpersonal and informational patterns, for instance, as workplace email often does.

Table 1. English writing continuum

Continuum purposes	Continuum patterns
	Informal Interpersonal Personal ←—→ Formal Informational Impersonal
Cohesion Writers move between topics and language users	Pragmatic markers (well, um, like, yeah) Emojis Punctuation Pacing, pauses Narrative moves such as orientation to coda	Cohesive words (nonetheless, in other words) Paragraphs in 5-paragraph essays Rhetorical moves such as given-new or introductory moves Sections (intro, methods, results, discussion) in research articles
Connection Writers address readers/ writers	2nd person pronouns, rhetorical questions (can you believe) 1st person in relation to experiences, events (I remember; We going to) Reaction exclamations (omg) References to people, events	Formal directives (Consider this; See below), rhetorical questions 1st person in relation to text and process (I will argue; we conducted trials) References to shared knowledge References to sources, citations
Focus Writers emphasize priorities	More verbs, pronouns, and adverbs Sentence or phrase subjects are simple subjects that emphasize people, experiences More active voice	More noun and prepositional phrases Sentence subjects are dense noun phrases that emphasize ideas, phenomena, and processes More passive voice
Stance Writers show (un)certainty and attitude	More boosters (totally, literally), fewer hedges, and more generalizations and exaggerations (everyone, no way) convey more certainty Adjectives (amazing, nasty) and adverbs (ridiculously) describe, entertain, and convey more explicit attitude	More hedges (perhaps, suggests), fewer boosters, less generalizing, and few exaggerations convey more caution Adjectives (significant, novel), often in noun phrases (significant contribution), describe, classify, and convey less explicit attitude
Usage Writers follow grammatical and mechanical norms	subject-verb-object construction open and closed lexical categories{5} morphological rules of English{6}
	Flexible punctuation and usage conventions able to change	Correct writing punctuation and usage conventions (standardized from 18th c) and spelling (from 16th c))

Students first take time to look over the continuum on their own; then they note observations and questions in pairs or small groups; and then we discuss as a class. The questions I pose include: why this is a continuum? Why isn’t this something like (1) separate informal and formal spheres, or (2) a ladder with one on top the other? These questions get us talking about language purposes and patterns: to understand and be understood, we have some purposes and patterns across all shared language use; to fulfill different goals in different ways, we have a continuum of language resources. While our course language acknowledgement emphasizes that all language resources are not treated equally (instead, they are often placed on social ladders), the continuum offers linguistic evidence to challenge this unequal treatment. The continuum highlights the rule-governed and responsive patterns in all registers and dialects, and it allows us to consider our capacity to recongnize and analyze patterns, to consider who makes the patterns, and to reflect on reasons to follow and challenge them.

Once we discuss the general purposes and patterns on the continuum, we can map our own examples (with consent when not our own or public). For instance, if we start with the first continuum purpose, cohesion, we consider how writers indicate they are jumping in, inviting a new turn, or changing topics in ways that keep communication “flowing.” Students have observed, for example, that emojis and reactions commonly indicate conversational turns in text messages, while transition words commonly indicate topic turns in college writing and reading.{7} These examples can be mapped on the continuum, according to how in/formal, im/personal, and interpersonal or informational they are. Students who bring in examples that include other languages often carry the job of translating and explaining, but my students have been eager to share their expertise on the examples’ meaning and cohesion.

The continuum as it is represented here is only a start; it is there to be modified or otherwise expanded. But it gives us a concrete starting point for using descriptive versus hierarchical descriptions and for connecting rhetorical purposes with linguistic patterns. It helps us visualize that all shared language use has purposes and patterns—illustrating that it is not true, for instance, that formal academic writing follows norms but informal internet writing does not. At the same time, without explicit attention to it, a student who successfully builds interpersonal connection using an exaggerated stance in internet writing will not automatically see how these choices correspond to academic writing, and vice versa. (Depending on the students and the course, students can read more about the patterns by reading research noted in endnotes 4 and 8.)

Once we have mapped examples, we circle back to draft our own, individual language continuua and acknowledgment. One possibility is to start with separate columns for each language, as in Table 2 below. But students can modify those when they see fit—they might have one or three columns, and they may make the columns overlap. For instructors planning composition courses, this task might be used in preparation for a literacy narrative assignment.

Table 2. Individual language continua

Continuum language 1: (e.g., English, Spanish, Urdu)	Continuum language 2:
What patterns do you use in this language? (e.g., you could circle them all, or pick spot(s) and draw an X)	What patterns do you use in this language?
Informal ← → Formal Interpersonal ← → Informational Personal ← → Impersonal	Informal ← → Formal Interpersonal ← → Informational Personal ← → Impersonal
Notes (e.g., examples, observations)	Notes

After filling in and discussing the concentric circles, students can modify and/ or fill in responses to the individual language acknowledgement cues appearing in Figure 2 below.

Figure 2. Individual course language acknowledgement

Pedagogical Interventions Together

Together, these activities strive to expose our conventional paradigm of language hierarchy and regulation; and to practice a new paradigm of language diversity and exploration. By extension, they help us move beyond the two most common composition goals I encounter: the goal of error-free mastery of only one kind of language use, or the goal of systematic attention to language beliefs without systematic attention to language itself. Rather than leaving linguistic features as part of “the (un)conscious presences, absences, unknowns” of writing in higher education (Ratcliffe 206), the activities foreground that all sahred language use entails social and linguistic norms. Most important, to my mind, is that the activities foreground concrete evidence that all languages, registers, and dialects are systematic and meaningful.

In the face of ideas that resist linguistic diversity and uphold standardized language ideologies, these pedagogical interventions together have offered a more comprehensive response than any single intervention. Especially, I have heard various iterations of the following two sets of ideas: (1) that we need standardized English because otherwise people won’t have access to opportuniy; and (2) that informal language is “lazy” while formal English is a sign of disciplined effort. When we acknowledge socially-constructed beliefs, reflect on our own use of registers and dialects, and analyze how a range of language use follows recognizable and comprehensible norms, we have more ample evidence for showing that while these ideas are real—they circulate in much schooling and public discourse and create material consequences like school admission—they are wrong. They are wrong not only because they are unjust. They are not accurate.

Concluding with Limitations and Conceptual Shifts

Course language acknowledgements and continuum pattern analysis offer counter-training: a blend for challenging limitations of linguistic miseducation, and for incorporating both social and linguistic attention to language. For this reason, I would not use only one or the other. The language acknowledgements foreground socially-constructed beliefs as a way into attention to language, and pattern analysis emphasizes linguistic features as the way into attention to language. Together, they are complementary and often novel for students.

These interventions are also limited. While all kinds of modes of language use can be mapped, my own discussion focuses on written language, while many composition courses emphasize a wider range of communicative actions integral to student translanguaging (Gonzales). There are also clear limitations related to who gets to decide about the interventions we use. Flores and Rosa underscore that “raciolinguistic ideologies produce racialized speaking subjects who are constructed as linguistically deviant even when engaging in linguistic practices positioned as normative or innovative when produced by privileged white subjects” (150). My own raciolinguistic knowledge and experience are limited, and the role of the teacher, my role as a teacher, is institutionally sanctioned whether or not I have social and linguistic knowledge of the language in my students’ lives.

I insist that whatever the students otherwise do, in our class, we will think like linguists: we will use descriptive rather than hierarchical terms. But even as we discuss these terms and others proposed by students, I initiate and expect these parameters as the instructor. In the two years I have used these interventions so far, I have heard the resistant ideas noted in the last section, but I have also seen more comprehensive and nuanced attention to language. At the same time, some students may choose not to voice their resistance to me as their instructor, or they may ultimately choose to maintain a belief in the importance of “correct” and “incorrect” English in their own teaching. Research in educational linguistics has shown this trajectory in pre-service English teachers once they begin teaching (Baron).

Along similar lines, the continuum in Table 1 synthesizes research situated in particular sociolinguistic experiences and not others. I hope our students always help us modify and expand our framing and access to language evidence, but it remains true that I encounter my students in an institution in which I have overt authority as their instructor and writing program director. These interventions, and my positionality in practicing them, require ongoing reflection among other steps toward justice.

Small Shifts Toward Bigger Change

At the same time, engaging these activities has suggested to me that small shifts in our principles and practices can support ongoing, if slow, counter-training to habitus. In the research reviewed above and my own courses, I see three conceptual shifts that help. I want to close with these shifts, which are bigger than any single set of interventions.

Misconception: Ideas and language choices are separate → New Conception: Ideas, identity, and language choices are inseparable

In Athon’s study of student use of rubrics, emphasis on language replaced emphasis on ideas. Athon writes, “Early in the semester, many students listed ‘ideas’ or ‘creativity’ as most important to good writing; by the end of the semester, no students listed these as qualities of good writing and instead mimicked rubric language.” She concludes that “this is most likely due to the course rubric’s heavy emphasis on grammar and syntax” (Athon 88-89). We can see similar moves in the tradition of erasure of language. Yet language choices, ideas, and identities are inseparable: syntax patterns, for instance, constitute students’ ideas and dialects (Perryman-Clark). Language acknowledgments and analyzing language patterns are examples of making space in our classes for connecting ideas, identity, and language.

Misconception: Some language use is more systematic that others → New Conception: All dialects, registers, and languages are equally rule-governed, patterned, and can be analyzed and practiced

All languages, registers, and dialects are linguistically equal; their different value is socially-constructed, not linguistically-based. Socially-constructed value is determined by contexts and communities, and every language, register, and dialect is useful in some rhetorical contexts and not in others. Linguistic equity means that all shared language use follows rules and patterns that can be analyzed and that every language, register, and dialect is learned through practice and exposure. There are no innately good or bad academic writers, nor good or bad Tweeters, but there are people more and less practiced with the norms of each one. Language acknowledgments and analyzing language patterns are examples of identifying different language usage, not in socially-constructed, imprecise terms like “good writing” but in descriptive, linguistically-informed explanations.

Misconception: Language is an obstacle course → New Conception: Language is a creative workspace

People’s beliefs about language cause problems. But language itself is not a problem, and a student will not believe their language is a problem—or a privilege—unless it is treated like it is. So much of U.S. language learning in school makes language a problem site: a kind of obstacle course, in which one might succeed or not, but which is full of rules and “gotcha” moments. Social knowledge helps expose the fact that beliefs about language create inequitable obstacles. Linguistic knowledge helps us see that language is much more than those prescribed obstacles and courses; it is—and is already used by our students as—a site of work and exploration.

Concluding

It is time for comprehensive attention to language in composition. This means critical attention to language beliefs and experiences, and critical analysis of lexical and grammatical patterns. With both, we have more ways to make composition about exploring and celebrating a fuller continuum of language use.

Acknowledgments: The author would like to thank Shawna Shapiro, Dylan Dryer, Norbert Elliot, and anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback on drafts of this article.

Notes

1. See list of recommended steps here: https://cccc.ncte.org/cccc/land-acknowledgement
   (Return to text.)

2. Two stories from 2015, for instance, detail Anishinaabemowin history and include audio files: https://www.michiganradio.org/post/native-american-boarding-schools-have-nearly-killed-michigans-native-language#stream/0 and https://www.michiganradio.org/post/what-some-tribes-michigan-are-doing-stop-their-native-language-going-extinct (Return to text.)

3. Resources describing formal, objective writing skills range from the general (BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z996hyc/revision/1) to more specific, including the Cambridge assessment (https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/learning-english/activities-for-learners/c1w001-formal-and-informal-writing), and resources from various universities: Massey University (https://owll.massey.ac.nz/academic-writing/writing-objectively.php), the University of Southern California (https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/academicwriting), University Technology Sydney (https://www.uts.edu.au/current-students/support/helps/self-help-resources/grammar/formal-and-informal-language), Lund University (https://awelu.srv.lu.se/grammar-and-words/register-and-style/formal-vs-informal/), the University of Melbourne (https://students.unimelb.edu.au/academic-skills/explore-our-resources/developing-an-academic-writing-style/key-features-of-academic-style). (Return to text.)

4. This table synthesizes the following research: Aull, B.; Aull, L. How; Aull L. You; Biber; Biber and Egbert; Biber and Gray; Römer and Wulff; Tagliamonte and Denis; Thompsob; Crossley et al.; Kaufer and Butler; Klebanov et al.; Lancaster; Staples and Reppen. (Return to text.)

5. Open class lexical categories are where we create new words—nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs—while closed categories rarely change over time (and regardless of register), such as articles (the, an, a) and conjunctions (e.g., and, but). (Return to text.)

6. Morphological rules guide how we understand what words mean and how we make new words. In English, for instance, a morphological rule about adjectives is that if they have one or two syllables, they take can take -er comparative forms—e.g., a formal usage is that quiet becomes quieter; the word okayer is informal but still following English morphological rules. In terms of making new words, most are formed through the same morphological processes; e.g., covidiot is a blend of Covid and idiot, the same process that created a formal word like alphanumeric (alphabetic + numeric) and an informal word like frenemy (friend + enemy). (Return to text.)

7. Examples from research that can be used as models include, e.g., emojis as marking transitions and inviting turn-taking (Aull, B.); various ways Twitter users add new input (Scheffler). and examples of cohesive ties in student writing (Vande Kopple). (Return to text.)

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