Blog 3: Green, Camarillo, and Faison & Treviño Essays

Summary:

The first reading, from Neisha-Anne Green, focuses on a topic called code-meshing.  Essentially, the idea is to start incorporating people's own dialect into what is traditionally a field where "standardized English" is expected.  Our second reading was from Eric Camarillo, and focuses moreso on diversity in writing centres.  In particular, the focus lies in making writing centres more accessible to those who may not have a grasp on academic English writing, namely Hispanic students.  The third reading is from two authors: Wonderful Faison, and Anna Treviño.  They utilize the multi-author approach by providing accounts of their experiences at PWI writing centres, and how this conflicted with their own identities.  

Commentary:

Although I cannot say I have firsthand experience with this sort of cultural identity struggle, it is equally true to say that I can understand and sympathize with the authors' struggles.  In Green's essay, the concept of code-meshing stood out to me as something that can be highly beneficial to anyone in the world of writing.  Being able to use your own dialect in an academic setting can not only make your writing feel more natural, but it can help you to cement your own personal identity, as well as giving readers an insight into your own culture.  Though I cannot strictly say that I have my own dialect or specific cultural writing style, I have noticed that since I began writing at a college level, I've noticed that my speech has shifted in a way that coincides more with academic English rather than my usual way of speaking.  I believe that with more acceptance of code-meshing in an academic environment, perhaps writing would feel less "suffocating", for lack of a better word.  Feeling the need to write in a more "complex" or "rigid" way than one tends to speak, while it has its own arguable benefits, seems to lead away from one's roots in communication.  With that being said, I can't see myself ever being able to work in more benign slang into an academic assignment, as seeing a student using "dude" or "y'aint" or "methinks" would almost certainly lead a reader to discount the writer entirely.  The same could ostensibly be said of those from other cultural backgrounds trying to type in a more familiar dialect, however, and I would argue that the principals of the ideas are largely the same when it comes to analyzing the effect of code-meshing in academia, though arguably not to the same extent.  

Question:

Is there a point where one could consider code-meshing to be taken "too far"?  How far would one be allowed to delve into their own dialect in an academic setting without the practice being deemed "detrimental"?