Hi everyone! I’m Erin Friel, and I’ll be a senior in the fall studying public and professional writing and anthropology. While I’m looking forward to trying out new recipes and reading books about Jane Goodall this summer, I’ll also be continuing to work on my Bachelor of Philosophy research under the guidance of Dr. Tomas Matza in the anthropology department.
For my project, I’m looking into how English instructors talk about and think about and practice linguistic justice—a movement that seeks to address inequalities in the treatment of different English forms. Various Englishes—such as African American Vernacular English/Black Language, Appalachian English, Hawaiian Creole English, etc.—tend to be read and treated differently, which is in turn reflected on the people using any given form. As it stands, “Standard English” is strongly favored in professional and academic settings. Some scholars, including April Baker-Bell, have argued that the Standard most aligns with the language of white speakers and writers. This results in other forms, that are often seen to align with marginalized groups, being deemed inappropriate for professional and academic settings—excluding speakers and writers who don’t use the Standard from potentially entering or succeeding in those settings. While having to overwrite a person’s own language in favor of the Standard may be emotional or unfair, some argue that, since the Standard is so heavily favored, instructors must prepare their students for their future careers by enforcing the Standard over the language the student brings to the classroom.
Through interviews with English instructors and observations of classes and tutoring sessions, I hope to get a sense of how instructors balance teaching linguistic justice while preparing students for the current professional writing world. Wider societal discussions of what writing is upheld and why will be important in my project because issues of unequal treatment of Englishes can be closely tied to unequal treatment of people. In my project, I hope to provide at least some insight on the teaching and practice of language inequality and linguistic justice for instructors looking to acknowledge social justice issues in their classrooms as well as students who are sitting in these classes and who are, in these settings, most subject to existing and changing attitudes about the language they use when they write.
This summer, I’m looking forward to delving more into this topic using the lit review I worked on this past spring and starting to shape my thesis findings so I’m prepared to defend my BPhil before I graduate next year. After graduating, I plan on working for a year, probably writing for philanthropy, and then applying for graduate school. Both the resources provided alongside the Brackenridge and the discussions we will have in weekly seminars will better prepare me for grad school by helping me explore research and consider the type of researcher I’d like to be before I apply to graduate programs.