Jake Strange
ENGL 254
February 19, 2015
Blog 5
For the purpose of this blog post, I will be relating Hanfler's explanation of "social construction" to Vershawn Ashanti Young's "Should Writers Use They Own English?" and Judith Lorber's "Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender." To give this nebulous term a concise meaning, "social construction" is -- to me -- a set of both overtly and subversively communicated behaviors and identifiers that are defined as either normal or deviant by a larger society. Under this theory, ideas such as class, gender and race are machinations that are "constructed by society."
Vershawn Ashanti Young relates the concept of social construction to language and writing in her unique essay "Should Writers Use They Own English?" Most of what she writes is a rather scathing criticism of the philosophies of literary theorist Stanley Fish, who holds that in order to get ahead in life and succeed as a writer, one must suppress their individual voice and adhere to the style of what he calls "standard English." Fish contends that certain voices and dialects make people "subject to prejudices," to which Young responds, "It’s ATTITUDES. It be the way folks with some power perceive other people’s language. Like the way some view, say, black English when used in school or at work. Black English dont make it own-self oppressed. It be negative views about other people usin they own language..."
In my experience as a student, an unfortunate truth is that this notion of "standard English" is a fairly common expectation in the classroom. To be fair, I have had some teachers and professors who urged encouraged students to write more for style and novelty, rather than following a predetermined format. But more commonly I have been required to adapt an almost "checklist mentality" with my writing in order to earn recognition or a high grade on an assignment.
On the other hand, Judith Lorber effectively relates this idea of social construction to sex, gender and the societal roles of men and women in "Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender." I found it incredibly interesting that on page 59, transgender subject Jan Morris adopted the socially constructed idea of "learned helplessness" that is associated with women.
"And if other's responses shifted, so did my own. The more I was treated as woman, the more woman I became. I adapted willy-nilly. If I was assumed to be incompetent at reversing cars, or opening bottles, oddly incompetent I found myself becoming. If a case was thought too heavy for me, inexplicably I found it so myself."
I particularly enjoyed the chapter from this larger piece, as the "gender gap" between men and women that Lorber discusses is something I make a concerted effort to discredit. I am dating an -- as she puts it oh-so-eloquently -- "loud and proud feminist," who has introduced gender-equal initiatives on our own campus. I think what she is doing is great!
It is my belief that an individual's worth, be they man or woman, should be determined by their abilities, character and merit. For example, if a man is more capable than a woman in a shared workplace, the man deserves the opportunity to advance more than the woman. The opposite absolutely holds true as well; if the woman is better than the man, she should be recognized and rewarded for it. Sadly, the world we live in isn't so cut-and-dry. To be, for lack of a better word, "lumped" into an underrepresented category from birth as a woman is an injustice. While society is far from where it ultimately needs to be, it is rewarding to see equal opportunities being encouraged and -- to a degree -- afforded for both sexes.
I really appreciate your definition of social construction and how you incorporate the idea of normalcy or deviant behavior and how society names those "regulations'. I felt the same way when I was coming up with my definition
ReplyDeleteI also pulled out the same quote from Young's text. I found that in my linguistics course that all dialects are created equal and they all follow rules and regulations of their own but since we have social construction, people view certain dialects greater than others. Do you think that we could ever overturn that belief? Do you think there is hope to have people understand that no dialect is greater than any other?
I can't help but wonder if there will ever be a day when we are able to go against the flow with social construction. Social construction fills the minds of people with ideas that are looked at as the absolute truth. It is very sad that we have the gender binary that Lorber talks about and how we don't let people act the way they want because they are looked down for it.
The part of your blog post that I was really interested was when you were talking about the expectations we have in classrooms to use "standard English" You mentioned that you have been in classes where they want you to write with some style but you tend to go with the standard English as if there was a checklist of things you need to do in order to receive the grade you desire. I see Caitlin commented above that no dialect is greater than any other and I absolutely agree. I think our generation will be the generation that will open the door up a bit for that and have an understanding that people talk and write differently even if it is the same language. I think that is because we live in a technology world and we have created our own little styles that we write with online. What are your thoughts on that? Do you think our generation will start allowing writing dialects to be more open and broad publicly and professionally in the future when we (our generation) are the professionals and leaders of the nation?
ReplyDeleteI, too, liked your definition of social construction. In my blog post, I agreed that people are set to a standard for writing in school. The "standard english" certainly is prevalent in all levels of school. I feel like more college-level students are having the ability to share their voice more often, since they don't need to be as high strung as the high schoolers in regard to standardized testing and what not. I can see this with the class we are taking right now. I appreciate Nicole a lot because she is not so nitty gritty about the details of how we write. I like that she is giving us freedom from the "standard english" put out in front of us.
ReplyDeleteI really like your description of how man and woman should be treated. I truly believe that people try their hardest to bring about equality. It has gotten a lot better. But I also believe that subconsciously, people still hold on to that idea of the man and woman stereotypes. They may not want to, but it is embedded in their brains as "normal" because that is what society constructed.