by Cami Greene
In 2009, Stanley Fish released a three-part essay piece entitled “What Should Colleges Teach?” The third part of the series, which can be considered the most important piece, details how colleges and schools should teach writing. Fish argues that Standard English should be taught as the primary dialect used for academic purposes but acknowledges that groups of people have prior dialects they use to speak. He claims that solely teaching Standard English will allow those with other dialects to not be prejudiced against or taken less seriously compared to someone who uses Standard English (2). Following this essay, Professor Vershawn Ashanti Young published an essay reacting to Fish. Young mainly disagrees with Fish and claims that Fish is indirectly supporting language discrimination because “he appeal to its acceptable form-standard language ideology” (111). Furthermore, Young presents the idea of code meshing, which is when different dialects are blended together in conversation, leading to language diversity (114). This disagreement of sorts paves the way for scholars to talk about whether different dialects, such as AAVE, can be accepted into academic usage. I believe that we should use code meshing to some extent, but primarily accept AAVE and other dialects as grammatically correct and academically appropriate.
Following the release of Young’s essay, people began to discuss code meshing and how it could be incorporated into society. Ghanashyam Sharma wrote about Young among others about how Standard English is the “assumed” language and the people who are going against that narrative. Suresh Canagarajah is another writing who promotes code meshing. Canagarajah’s idea is to have teachers allow students to create their own forms of English with previously known dialects, while Young promotes the idea of teaching multiple dialects, so every child is multidialectal (Sharma 253). I agree with both writers and their opinions because I think students should be allowed to speak their own dialects without having a singular standard of English. However, I think Fish has a valid point when he mentioned that it may not be the best idea to implement a multidialectal education in schools because of previous prejudices of AAVE and Black dialects (Fish 2). If we were to teach multiple dialects at once, those who are white may appropriate black language or take it too far, such as using slurs like the N-word. Although I believe Fish has a valid point, I think overall I agree with Young and Canagarajah more.
Another voice in this discussion is John McWhorter, another author who writes about racism and the advocacy for black voices. In an article on his website titled,” ARE WHITE PEOPLE USING BLACK ENGLISH WORDS BEING LIKE ELVIS STEALING ROCK AND ROLL?” McWhorter summarizes a skit from Saturday Night Live in which multiracial people were using AAVE and Black dialects. Within the segment, the actors were playing teens communicating in AAVE. Although they were not making fun of the language, there was great backlash because people assumed a white person wrote the skit, but in reality, Michael Che (who is Black), wrote the skit (27). Without knowing who write the skit, people thought the non-Black actors were appropriating Black culture. McWhorter indirectly argues in favor of Young’s code meshing because we have a history of being interconnected, such as music. Using music as an example, artists such as the Rolling Stones or Eminem would not have the popularity they do without Black culture. He answers the title of his article by explaining that white people are using Black language to show how comfortable they are becoming with Black people rather than stealing their culture, but there are also still words white people don’t use from Black dialects (26). In the classroom, this way of thinking could be seen through code meshing and having blended languages. Students would have interconnected dialects without appropriating Black languages.
This way of thinking led me to believe that code meshing with respect will help the future of language in academia. If students use a version of code meshing, but acknowledging the roots of Black dialects, students can grow up being more diverse with their language and highlighting the equality of language. Originally, I thought it would be best to not code mesh because of appropriation and the worry that white people would not use Black language correctly, but McWhorter explained that if we were to try to keep languages separate, it would not work out due to how immersed language is in society and how quickly people pick up phrases. On top of that, McWhorter does not believe in a true form of “Black English” because it could be seen as a black person speaking in a Southern accent, which is not wrong in itself, but can be seen as an indicator of a lack of intelligence, especially using outdated stereotypes (23-24). This idea supports Young’s idea of multidialectal speaking because of how engrained the use of combined dialects already is, proving that it would be more difficult to try and separate the languages instead of embracing the diversity.
One way code meshing with respect could be enforced in a classroom is to create a guide deciding how non-Black students should or should not code mesh to an extent. This is only a suggestion but can lead those who are confused about code meshing in the right path. An example of this is allowing AAVE and room for discussion but not allowing slurs or derogatory statements. When deciding what is or is not respectful, nobody in particular can choose for all, but I recommend listening to people of color in the community and seeing what they have to say, but also realizing that this topic means something different to everyone and not everyone will have the same response.
However, the larger issue at hand is that Black dialects are not accepted as academically or grammatically correct, leading to racism against Black people and the continuous stereotypes that they are not as educated as white people. If the academic community accepted Black dialects, there could be more diversity in the way people write and speak in the classroom. This could also lead to some of the negative stereotypes not being as popular as they currently are because Black writers would be gaining more recognition for their work and ideas.
In conclusion, writers have been arguing about how Black language can be incorporated into the academic community for years. Both Fish and Young want to have Black dialects acknowledged, but Fish wants Standard English to remain the appropriate dialect used for academic purposes, while Young wants to combine dialects in the classroom to create a diverse experience. Other authors have sided with Young, such as Canagarajah or McWhorter, but still think Fish has valid points. I primarily agree with Young and McWhorter, but I think that we should code mesh to a respectable extent and teach the histories of Black dialects so they can be widely accepted in society.
Works Cited
Fish, Stanley. “‘What Should Colleges Teach?’ Part 3.” New York Times, 7 Sept. 2009.
McWhorter, John. “ARE WHITE PEOPLE USING BLACK ENGLISH WORDS BEING LIKE ELVIS STEALING ROCK AND ROLL?” It Bears Mentioning, 29 May 2021, johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/are-white-people-using-black-english?r=3vwvr&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=twitter.
Sharma, Ghanashyam. “Rethinking Language and Writing in Composition.” JSTOR, 2009, www.jstor.org/stable/20866895.
Young, Vershawn Ashanti. “Should Writers Use They Own English.” Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 12, no. 1, 2010, pp. 110–18. JSTOR, ir.uiowa.edu/ijc.