My reflection on this week's readings came at an unexpected time and place for me: standing in line at Dunkin Donuts. While waiting for my coffee and bagel, an older woman walked up to the window and ordered a coffee with cream and sugar. When the worker started pouring the coffee, the woman demanded, "Did you already put the milk in?" The worker confirmed that she had already put the milk in, much to the distaste of the customer: "You don't put the milk in first. It's not supposed to go that way. Milk goes in last. What a day!" After nearly shouting these words, the woman sighed heavily and said "well, how much sugar did you put in?" I didn't hear the worker's response, but the woman rebuked the worker, yelling, "Two? Two? I said SMALL sugar!" The worker, looking slightly unsettled by the woman's reaction, barely had a moment to say anything when the woman continued "Poquito! I said Poquito! Small! Learn to speak English." I didn't know how to react to this display. I wanted to tell the woman that this was not a comprehension issue (my food and coffee came out precisely as ordered!), and a difference in cultures or language had nothing to do with it. She, the customer, said nothing more than "cream and sugar" when ordering, and the worker gave her just that. But there was a problem. And this problem was in the woman’s thinking, not the worker’s doing.
Each of the readings necessitates the need for language to be looked at as a cultural product that can be shaped and reshaped through various learning environments. Subsequently, the authors largely argue that a prescriptive approach to language not only diminishes a culture’s history (Powell) but also tends to marginalize or Other a group of people and their rhetorical skills. Now, I am all for Horner et al’s proposition that we must “build on students’ existing language abilities…[to] increase the number of languages and language varieties that students know,” but what happens when people (whether in or outside of the academy) trample on this idea(308)? What happens when people do NOT “reject discrimination on the basis of language identity and use” as Horner et al do (308)? What happens when language prejudice is so deeply rooted in cultural stereotypes, biases, and assumptions that someone blames her incorrect coffee order on “non-native” language issues when, in fact, it was her own fault? What I learned from this experience is that the issues with a translingual approach to writing are more involved that I originally thought. I read the articles and thought, surely, our days of current-traditional textbooks are dead and gone, with grammar drills thrown out the window. Who really knows—and uses-- “correct” English anyway?... not so fast, though. Not everyone has caught up with globalization, translingualism, world Englishes (I’m not even sure I have yet), but, even more, I question how many people want to. To be sure, Horner et al’s piece is a stepping stone in the path to change: a start to the push for understanding various cultures, questioning cultural assumptions that seem inherent, and teaching a more accepting and culturally inclusive approach to writing that may just help bring people together. I respect this piece immensely, and I want to think about ways to support a translingual approach to writing in classrooms, in the writing center, etc. But, until then, I wonder if acceptance of this kind begins in the classroom, or if it begins in the community—maybe even while we are getting a cup of coffee?
For the record, my non-scientific brain imagines that adding milk first would create a slightly more viscous substance in which the sugar particles could hang, rather than collect at the bottom of the cup the way they so disappointingly tend to do...
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