David Foster Wallace

Final Draft

Charly Dahlquist

Weston Cook

English 110

March 29, 2016

Wallace

David Foster Wallace does a good job talking about what society thinks about American English. It is important to know how big of a influence language has on our daily lives. Wallace states that “Language is everything and everywhere; it’s what separates us from animals.” There are two debates happening here. Wallace’s side is defending Standard Written English. The Four C’s are stating that students don't need to have one form of writing. That they should have the right to their own language. I agree with Wallace when he states that Standard Written English is ultimately needed to be successful. SWE is the basic understanding of the American Language that many students and people in the working force use. When you combine too many dialects you lose structure which is one of the most important things in communication. Language can be seen by peoples eyes in two ways. You can relate to Language just as Wallace does. Wallace thinks its important to know and use “Standard Written English”. He states “In this country, SWE is perceived as the dialect of education and intelligence and power and prestige, and anybody of any race, ethnicity, religion, or gender who wants to succeed in American culture has got to be able to use SWE.” Although Wallace thinks its a necessity to know Standard Written English, he is not saying you cannot have your own dialect, Wallace is saying you should be able to use your own language along with Standard Written Language. SWE is something we should all know how to use it properly because we will benefit most from it. We are taught how to use it all through our years of schooling so its important to understand and learn how to use Standard Written English correctly.

The College Composition and Communications are defending “Student’s Right to Their Own Language.” The CCCC committee argues that students should be willing to write freely. They wrote:

“We affirm the student’s right to their own patterns and varieties of language - - the dialects of their nurture or whatever dialects in which they find their own identity and style. . . . “

The CCCC committee advocates for broad definitions of writing. It is important to them that people are able to have an open mind about the dialect they are using and create there own way of speaking. Descriptivist’s influence the culture that CCCC is trying to get people to follow. They are taught to write Descriptively such as, “”Free writing, ”brainstorming”, “journaling”, - a view of writing as self-exploratory and expressive rather than as communications an abandonment of systematic grammar, usage, semantics,rhetoric, etymology.”