Diane Hoang
ENGL 16
Basic Writing and Translingualism
Today, the world is very diverse with cultures and people coming together to create a
giant melting pot. Due to this, the world is turning into a multilingual--and translingual--society.
As such, schools need to adapt to this new society where many people know more than one
language. In society today, it seems that English is widely accepted as one of the dominant
languages of the world; it could even be considered universal. However, not everyone is fluent in
English and that affects students in schools. Many schools, especially in the United States, face
challenges with students who have insufficient English skills or students whose second language
is English. These struggles can be seen in writing academics for basic writers (BW).
In the last chapter of Basic Writing, George Otte and Rebecca Williams Mlynarczyk
focus on the current situation about BWs of this generation and possible directions for the field
because they recognize that "basic writing will continue to evolve in the years ahead" (Otte 163).
This book is oddly similar to Harris's A Teaching Subject except that it was published in 2010
and not 1996. This just shows that fourteen years later, people are still concerned about basic
writing. Otte and Mlynarczyk talk about the GI Bill and Obama's push for more people to get a
secondary education and his expressed hope that by 2020, America would have the highest
percentage of college graduates in the world (Otte 181). This would help increase the amount of
BWs attending colleges because 46.2% of students in California State Universities in 2007 were
identified as "students who needed remediation" (Otte 180). Otte and Mlynarczyk suggest
remedial programs freshman year to help solve the issue of an influx of BWs. They also insist
that “sustained national commitment to fully educate this vital but vulnerable student population”
is necessary regardless of what teaching trends arise in the years ahead (Otte 188).
One of the main concerns about basic writing is teaching BWs who are ESL students or
students that lack proficiency in English. Dana R. Ferris published an article in the College
English journal in 2014 that addresses this issue. In "'English Only” and Multilingualism in
Composition Studies: Policy, Philosophy, and Practice”, Ferris reviews nineteen different essays
about teaching ESL students. She talks about the "English Only" way of thinking, which is the
strict adherence to Standard American English and the neglect of the benefits of translingualism.
As an ESL composition teacher, Ferris believes that this attitude and practice causes students to
feel inadequate about themselves, can result in loss of culture, and "underestimate and
undervalue the reality and complexity of students’ language use” (Ferris 76).
This thought is further echoed by Terry Myers Zawacki and Anna Sophia Habib in
"Negotiating 'Errors" in L2 Writing: Faculty Dispositions and Language Differences". They were
following the arguments about the " English Only” bias implicit in writing instruction and the
"need for a new translingual paradigm that sees 'difference in language' not as error but rather as
evidence of a writer negotiating meaning across fluid and heterogeneous linguistic boundaries"
(Zawacki 186). They conducted a study of faculty dispositions towards language differences,
including how they talked about second language (L2) writers and error. It also focused on the
sometimes cluttered syntax and word choice of BWs that professors find hard to grade simply
because they don't understand the reasoning behind it (Zawacki 185). Zawacki and Habib noted
that writing was often a process filled with anxiety for L2 students who feared that their
“language deficiencies” would be exposed to teacher audiences “already disturbed by them”
(Zawacki 185). However, the teachers were only disturbed due to miscommunication; a common
issue in “English second language writers in postsecondary institutions” (Zawacki 184).
Teachers should still look for errors, but they should take a translingual approach in helping their
students understand the error by not asking whether the language is standard but "what the
writers are doing with language and why" (Zawacki 186). Zawacki and Habib hoped teachers
would “value the diverse written accents they encountered in their students’ papers and to see
their L2 students as language resources rather than as writing challenges” (Zawacki 186).
In "Noticing the Way: Translingual Possibility and Basic Writers", Sarah Stanley
presents a pedagogical practice for noticing and negotiating error in a multilingual classroom.
Her method is very similar to the translingual approach that Zawacki and Habib discussed in
their study. Stanley says that when we point out people's error, it is a "default reaction" (Stanley
38) to a standardized English. She argues that we should start noticing students' errors not as a
mistake, but as a linguistic feature that can limit their writing. The aim of noticing error and
translingual pedagogy is to enable social negotiation that will help students understand their error
and why they made it. Stanley goes on to say that there is a difference between error and
mistake; a mistake is "readily noticed and resolved when pointed out" and an error is a "misscommunication between writer and reader [which is] to be noticed, explored, and negotiated"
(Stanley 40). Error is a good opportunity for both language development and for knowledge
about a given language's limits, in basic writing specifically (Stanley 43). Basic writers often
make mistakes due to confusion about the rules and grammars of a particular language. We need
to recognize that the choices students make are dependent and relative to the number of options
possible. Stanley urges teachers to analyze the features of language as meaningful for
constructing social context and to ignore error in order to find meaning in a student's text
(Stanley 55-56).
Sarah Stanley offers up a different approach to viewing error in basic writing. In
"Relocating Basic Writing", Bruce Horner also asks his readers to approach the subject of basic
writing in a different light. He links basic writing to emerging (e.g. translingual) approaches to
language. Horner talks about how basic writing has become a part of "a long tradition in
composition studies challenging dominant beliefs about literacy and language abilities" (Horner
5). The dominant view "holds literacy to be singular, uniform, and stable" (Horner 9). Horner
disagrees with this view, arguing that basic writing is "not simple, not mechanical, nor ever the
same" (Horner 18). The field of basic writing is always changing, always being "re-located [and]
basic writing itself represents a re-location of earlier ... struggles that constitute a long and
ongoing tradition of challenging dominant beliefs" (Horner 18) about literacy, language, and
students. He believes that basic writing is essential to the research of literacy. If we change our
mindset about the basic writing field, we will be able to maintain the "intellectual, pedagogical,
and ethical intergrity" (Horner 5) as a field committed to reworking language and literacy.
It seems like most people agree that a translingual approach to basic writing is beneficial.
At times, students may make mistakes in their writing due to confusion or teachers may
misunderstand how and why students write the way they do. Basic writers do not have to
perfectly write something in order to convey a powerful message. In his book A Teaching
Subject, Joseph Harris discusses the importance of not simply disregard an ESL student’s paper
due to the imperfect grammar. He states that all writers sometimes make mistakes that get in the
way of what they are trying to do. But not everything needs to be fixed or changed. To the
contrary, "such moments may lend depth, complexity, and nuance to a piece of writing … as
students and scholars are urged to write in ways that mix, voices, styles, and genres” (124). To
take on this translingual approach will benefit all students and not just those who have English as
a second language. It's also important for teachers to have an open mind and try to see what their
students have to say. It will not only benefit the individual himself but also his peers, as they are
exposed to a new perspective. A more open model will also benefit students that have not had the
sufficient education within writing such as individuals from low-income areas and other suburban places.
Works Cited
Ferris, Dana R. “'English Only' and Multilingualism in Composition Studies: Policy, Philosophy,
and Practice.” College English 77.1 (2014): 73-83. Web. 14 March 2015.
Harris, Joseph. A Teaching Subject Composition since 1966. New ed. Logan, Utah: Utah State
UP, 2012. Print.
Horner, Bruce. "Relocating Basic Writing." Journal of Basic Writing 30.2 (2011): 5-20. Web. 14
March 2015.
Myers Zawacki, Terry, and Anna Sophia Habib. “Negotiating 'Errors' in L2 Writing: Faculty
Dispositions and Language Difference.” WAC and Second-Language Writers: Research
Towards Linguistically and Culturally Inclusive Programs and Practices. Ed. Terry
Myers Zawacki and Michelle Cox. Fort Collins, CO: WAC Clearinghouse, 2014. 183210. Web. 14 March 2015.
Otte, George, and Rebecca Williams Mlynaczyk. “The Future of Basic Writing.” Basic Writing.
Fort Collins, CO: WAC Clearinghouse, 2010. 163-88. Web. 14 March 2015.
Stanley, Sarah. "Noticing the Way: Translingual Possibility and Basic Writers." Journal of Basic
Writing 32.1 (2013): 37-56. Web. 14 March 2015.