[Teaching_Composition] Academic language

[Kate McKinney]

I believe that there are certain levels of potentially "offensive" 
terminology that students, if they wish to participate in academic 
discourse, just have to get used to.

I do agree, however, that we should be careful with how we frame academic 
language. Students should know that academic language should be a tool of 
precision before power. Moreover, upon entering academic conversation a 
student--the one bothered by "Christian myth," for instance--can choose his 
or her own language accordingly and even present his or her case for a 
change in the discourse. We should teach that academic language is a tool 
fashioned by those who use it.

Incidentally, I think the definition that the instructor provided for his 
concerned student ignored the more (albeit intellectually) reverant 
connotation of the word "myth".  Myths, in the context provided here, serve 
to shape whole civilizations' cultural values--they are weightier than 
"stories"...


>From: "Charles Nelson" <charles.p.nelson@gmail.com>
>Reply-To: teaching_composition@mailman.eppg.com
>To: teaching_composition@mailman.eppg.com
>Subject: [Teaching_Composition] Academic language
>Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2006 11:49:54 -0400
>
>Bill in his module writes, "Could admitting charged or offensive discourses
>into the classroom be an opportunity to explore the role language plays in
>reproducing hegemony?"
>
>One point that hasn't been really discussed is how academic language works
>against religious conservatives in college. I remember once overhearing an
>instructor explain to a student who apparently was a Christian outside of
>class that "myth" didn't mean false but rather it referred to historical or
>legendary stories that couldn't be documented. The problem with this
>response is that the average person automatically associates "myth" with
>false or fictitious, and I doubt that even scholars who use the term escape
>from this cultural association.
>
>We can probably think of other such words, but I wonder how aware we are of
>how what we consider innocuous or appropriate vocabulary might actually be
>offensive to different populations of students. Do we, or can we, discuss
>any charged issue without using language that automatically privileges one
>group and disadvantages another? Do we reflect on the vocabulary we use 
>with
>our students and attempt to find, as much as possible, terms that don't 
>bias
>the discussion?
>
>Charles Nelson