Where is English Going?
APRIL 2015
The world writing is more diverse than ever, and college writers have begun to adapt to this change by diversifying their writing. Writers have changed from formal vocabulary and structure, to a wider range dialect and personal style. These personal styles may be related to the various backgrounds within culture, or “language experience” that Betty Birner mentions within her article, “Is English Changing” (1). She claims people build their differing language experience throughout daily lives (e.g., age, job, education level, region of the country and so on) (Birner 1). Even though people are diversifying their writing through individual language experience there are still some features of writing that are foundational to every college writer. Stance is one of these features that defines writers, and has been adapted in this digital era.
Stance may be the most important of the foundational characteristics of writers and can be affected by personal language experience. How a writer develops stance relies on writing choice tactics, but a writer’s ability to develop a clear stance for their reader is a way to gauge where a college student is on the spectrum of writing. Ken Hyland, in his essay, “Stance and engagement: a model of interaction in academic discourse,” refers to stance as a “textual voice” and states, “It is the ways that writers intrude to stamp their personal authority onto their arguments or step back and disguise their involvement” (176). In other words, stance is a tool to connect a reader to the writing, and a way a writer creates a persuasive argument. When stance is used properly, it makes the rhetoric of a college writer overall more successful.
Stance not only takes place within academic writing, but also digital-mediated writing. When a person writes a tweet, photo caption, or status, they create a statement with a stance- a judgment, opinion, or commitment. There are accounts on social media that solely state opinions or stances on topics such as politics and daily news. Nevertheless, the growing trend of digital-mediated writing has many individuals that are resistant to its rapid progression. This may be due to the growing diverse language and changing writing techniques. However, it could also be due to the recency illusion that these digital ways of writing are unknown and unfamiliar, which therefore gives them a bad connotation (Birner 1). This may be a false assumption because the progression of the digital age holds numerous benefits. The new digital-mediating age allows a vast space for a writer to express their opinion via keyboard at anytime. This convenient outlet can be abused and does not always present “proper English.” Yet, it is a new way of expression that can be highly beneficial despite that. For example, a tweet has only 140 characters to express one stance. A writer then has to creatively formulate in few words a stance and draw their followers in. This may propose that this new digital form of creative writing may be unfamiliar, but stimulating at the same time, sparking a new wave of creativity that has never existed before.
This creativity gives the current and upcoming generations vast writing opportunities on social media and blogs. With the digitally mediated world growing it is has endless possibilities, and academics will likely grow to adapt with it. On the other hand, this world does expose aspect of people’s private lives more so than ever before. However, when each person brings his or her language experience to the digital world it may lead to expansion to the ever-changing English language, fueling writing progression.
Works Cited
Birner, Betty. "Linguistic Society of America." Is English Changing? Linguistic Society
of America, 1991.Print.
Hyland, Ken. “Stance and engagement: A model of interaction in academic discourse.”
Journal Citation Reports, 2013. Print.