“Should Writers Use They Own English”
This a post in response to reading “Should Writers Use they Own English” by Vershawn Ashanti Young. In the article, Young defends the existence of different dialects and varieties within the English language, opposite Stanley Fish, who wishes to remove these dialects to have writers and speakers conform. In this argument, I feel that Young is supporting the Mutual Intelligibility Hypothesis, which states that if two people can communicate using their respective idiolects, then they are speaking that same language. On the other hand, Fish supports some variation of the Invariant System Hypothesis, which, as it sounds, states that a language should a fixed vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. From Fish’s perspective, he wants everyone to speak the same English as he would, with no variation in dialect or vernacular. This may be a bit of an overstatement, as I do not think Fish intends for English to be as restrictive as something like Newspeak in 1984. However, I believe that limiting the way that the English language should be spoken or written is a means of restricting one’s freedom.
Young states in his argument that dialects are results of different language and regional backgrounds. It is something that weaves a nuance into the story of each person’s life and not something that should be cast away for the sake of conformity. If anything, the United States should be the home of such a kaleidoscope of cultural diversity. If two people can communicate and concisely convey their respective thoughts, then that is the goal of the English language, or any language for that matter. The combinations of words are discretely infinite, yet why would we willingly bind our own idiolects? It is unfair for those who grew up with different cultures or languages than Fish to be oppressed solely based on the way they speak.
Having said all this though, I do believe that we should be able to communicate without any misunderstandings. By no means am I saying that we should speak using the same fixed vocabulary as Fish implies, or that anyone’s English is worth less than anyone else’s. As mentioned earlier, at its core, language is just a means to communicate one person’s thoughts concisely to another person or group. As long as this happens, then who’s to say that one person’s English is better than another person’s. Unfortunately, I do not think there is a reconciliation point for these two perspectives. Fish strongly argues that we should speak the same variation of English, but Young takes the opposite position of flexibility within each person’s English.
