Vernacular Eloquence
Introduction
The HRH Prince Turki Al-Faisal, the newly appointed Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, advised students taking scholarships in the US to be good representatives of their country abroad and also urged them to not only focus on their academic but also to reach out to the American community and experience the American culture. He, however, reiterated that challenges are expected to be encountered while on their studies abroad but exhorted them that the American people are hospitable and simple with a great thirst for knowledge. He put emphasis that sending Saudi students to the US was not merely for the acquisition of technical skills but also to be exposed to the knowledge of the American culture.
Literacy Problem
On December 8, 1975, an essay was published which purported that a child’s literacy skills were based on his or her ability to learn, which exposed the American literacy problem. On the contrary decades of research has revealed that the problem related to literacy does not lie with the child but rather the system from which the child learns and the views of the society on the composition of real learning. Elbow's ideas on writing first came to the limelight after his 1973 volume called ‘Writing without teachers' where he challenged some assumptions based on how students learn and how the writing process unfolds. His ideas could not go without political consequence academically, as seen in this context.
“I’M AN ENTHUSIAST. I think that everyone can write better and with less frustration and anxiety if they harness the enormous powers of their vernacular speech: speaking onto the page for the early stages of writing and reading aloud to revise during the late stages of writing.” (Vernacular Eloquence 317)
I believe that Elbows ideology is correct and that the society affects the learning ability as well as the outcome of a student, especially about the Prince Turki's statements. In order to eradicate violent extremism among the Muslim youth, it would be vital to have the embrace other cultures throughout the world to create a form of mutual harmony as they relate to different people.
A common English language
America being a diverse country no longer has a standard form of English but many competing English languages. Elbow’s ‘vernacular eloquence’ book recognizes this and hence provides a technique that encourages not only multiple languages of different voices but also ways of helping writers to reach an extensive network of English speakers. This means that as much as there may no longer be a single standard English, there is an extensive common shared form of English and vernacular eloquence (VE) which helps writers move from their dialects to a more commonly shared convention of English writing or grapholect. A grapholect is a language written in a spoken dialect that permits an oral dialect to be written and exist as a literate standard (Elbow, 2012). As demonstrated throughout VE, Elbow’s position supports oral as our solution:
When "illiterate" children learn to write by speaking onto the page, a principle of profound simplicity emerges: writing comes naturally before reading! Very young children can write before they can read, they can write more compared reading, and can write more easily than they can read. For they can write any word or sentence, they can say (Elbow, 2012).
Historical perspective
Elbow seconds the insights gained from historians of rhetoric and relationships that is there between writing and speech to enlighten on the existing literacy problems related to vernacular denoting that the necessary, critical skill of actual writing can be enhanced by what seems natural in speaking. From ancient times it was speech that led to the existence of writing yet writing has ended up being an art now used to dictate proper speech, which is contrary to how it is supposed to be in the first place according to Elbow. The natural method of addressing others in oral format should be used to as the basis for refining writing yet this transformation is met with overwhelming resistance from the guardians of English tongue decrying the loss of good English. Elbow has used Dante as a vital illustration of a luminary who defied convention by writing in his vernacular instead of Latin during the 14th century and ended up leading to the emergence of the Italian language which is a compilation of various colloquial dialects (Elbow, 2012).
Cultural conflict
Elbow's ideology has limitations about it as well, especially when looking at the Saudi Arabian religious practices. Religion, as a matter of fact, may lead to a lack of implementation of Elbow's ideology because of uncompromising and firm. The American culture is mostly liberal while for the students from Saudi Arabia, sound religious doctrines may hinder compromising of individual practices. On the other hand, grapholect may not apply when trying to form individual words in Arabic to intermarry with the English language as they both have different writing letters and mode of writing.
Conclusion
With the existence of so many Englishes, the diversification of the tongue has already occurred so the next step would be to recognize vernacular as an acceptable mode of communication. Secondly, it is time for the vernacular form of English to be accepted as an appropriate mode of expression especially for the enhancement interaction of different cultures. Finally, the use of Elbow's VE good writing is evidently helpful and should be encouraged to take a conscious effort in facilitating the transition to “vernacular eloquence” which is becoming widely significant.
References
Elbow, P. (2012). Vernacular Eloquence: What Speech can bring to writing? New York, NY: Oxford University Press
