Angelo Makris 10/7/2012
APLING 623- Week 6 critique of Bartolome
In Understanding Academic Discourses, Bartolomé addresses the recurrent problem of
disproportionately high rates of failure and dropping out among minorities through the lens of
academic discourse. Because academic and ongoing success is relative to literacy, it is
imperative to understand the nature and role of academic language.
A key point that Bartolomé raises is that academic discourse is inaccurately referred to as
“de-contextualized language”, as if it existed in a power-neutral vacuum. All language is
contextualized within relationships of power though, including the academic language of essays
and standardized testing, which itself operates out of cultural systemic norms. It is this very
perception of academic discourse as neutral or natural that perpetuates its dominance over other
varieties. For example, historical/cultural references and cultural value judgments are recurrent
features of academic discourses, but their cultural specificity also provides flashpoints for
cultural and socio-economic bias. And in presenting arguments are presented as neutral facts,
when value judgments are made, the inherent and ultimate subjectivity behind those judgments is
embedded, but masked.
Likewise, the articles we read are written in highly advanced language, with multisyllabic
words and complicated clause and sentence structures. In turn, the papers we write tend to
feature the full extent of our respective structuring, sequencing, and word choice abilities. We
use what are sometimes jokingly called “SAT words” to reinforce and emphasize arguments. As
Bartolomé notes, academic discourse is often overly explicit. Somewhat ironically, a lot of the
material related to the elucidation of language is often so fastidious. Subsequently much of the
informed or research-based discussions about language circulate freely within the academic
community, yet culturally biased and stigmatizing folk theories continue to misinform public
belief all the while. The challenge remains linking theory into widespread practice.
The point of being overly explicit also provides an interesting contrast to other dialects
and discourses which feature non-redundancy. In Black English for example, plural forms may
be unmarked and the Standard English conjugate of “to be” may be absent. Plurality, tense, and
aspect are often embedded in extra-linguistic contexts with an assumed “obviousness” on the
part of the speaker/hearer. Moreover, other languages simply have different rhetorical and
structural styles that do not conform to the SAE model. This isn’t to say that one language or
variety is inferior or superior to the other, but the difference between the two becomes
particularly problematic when a marginalized speaker of a non-redundant language is required to
make the shift to a relatively overly explicit style in academic discourse. It also becomes a
psychological liability when the student’s home culture- already the outgrowth of social
inequalities- is further marginalized, invalidated and/or supplanted implicitly and explicitly by
the dominant system.
This is not to disparage the usefulness of academic discourse as a lingua franca. As
Bartolomé points out, its tradition of explicitness, use and recognition does provide a distinct
clarity for communication that builds upon an existing knowledge base. But it becomes an issue
of inequality as it perpetuates the dominance of the advantaged while alienating the
disadvantaged. This is reliant upon academic discourse and “de-contextualized language” being
perceived as the only natural and acceptable way to make a rhetorical argument—the ultimate
culmination of the highest cognitive processes. Subsequently, it gets popularly imbued with a
sense of “magic”, and it is almost magical in the sense that is potentially so esoteric, exclusive,
exclusionary, and illusionary. Yet its cultural capital is perceived as “magical” because
academic discourse is positioned as having natural and objective “truth”, although it is the
product of cultural and social forces. Literacy is a learned discipline that requires time and
nourishment to develop, and success in literacy often corresponds to the transfer of native
language literacy to performance in English.
Bartolomé and Bizzell share the view that academic discourse should be made more
accessible to students. Bartolomé posits that this may achieved by democratizing social
structures so that marginalize people can more readily mobilize and participate in structures of
power. As it stands, literacy and success are often corollary to class and socio-economic status,
and overcoming the disproportionate rates of academic difficulty that minorities encounter is
dependent upon greater opportunities for improved access and equality. How can we do this?
Questions & Activity:
Take a small but sizable text sample written in standard academic discourse (like this
one) and simplify its language- its syntactical and lexical features- from the point of explicitness
to non-redundancy. Does it maintain its intelligibility and meaning? Is it more or less effective
or persuasive? How might different readers and discourse communities view the standard text
and the revised text, respectively?