Ethics and Language Diversity

Ethics in the UWC: linguistic diversity, “good writing,” graduate students, and your consulting
April 14, 2010
UWC Staff Training
Droz, Jung, Lee, Massengale, and Wulf

Ethical Guidelines: “What do I do?”
Ethics: how we decide what to do in difficult situations.
Interpersonal Ethics: deals with the relationships between people we work with
Writing Ethics: deals directly with students’ papers

Interpersonal Ethics
Consultant-Student
Consultant-Professor
Consultant-Consultant

Who decides what is acceptabble?
Censorship
(Whose cultural standards
apply?)
Plagiarism
(Sharing or stealing?
(Who owns ideas?)
Voice
(Whose? What happens to identity?)

Language and Cultural Diversity in the Writing Center

Writers’ Expectations
Established Voices & Identities
L2* writing instruction & L1 identity
Even in the USA, we have differences in cultural identity and ways of expressing them.
*L1 is first language; L2 is second language

Writers’ Expectations
Cultural Conflicts
Interactional Style
Includes interpersonal space, how to ask questions, what the tutor or student is supposed to do or not do, when to interrupt, who gets to talk most . . . All that and more
Consultants are authority figures; they should answer questions, teach, and solve problems.

Writers’ Abilities
Deaf or Blind Students
Resistance to “hearing” & “speaking” metaphors
- “audist” verbs like “I hear you” to mean “I understand.”
Extension to Blind Students
-“visual” verbs like “I see what you mean”
Mobility Constraints
Learning Disabilities (learning styles)

Defining Grammar
Descriptive Grammar
Describes what speaker actually do
Respect cultural, ethnic, racial, and sexual diversity reflected in language use.
Prescriptive Grammar
The rules that tell writers (and speaker) what they should do and should not do
Standard English – “a dialect with army”
Does the writing center promote Standard English? Is that the writer’s decision?

Range of Grammar

“Good” for American Academics?
So-called
“Good Writing”

Topic Sentences
Assumptions
Functions
Provide transition
Suggest the organization of the paragraph
Present a topic
Influences
Rhetorical purposes
Author’s preferences
Publication type

Cohesion/Coherence
Cohesion
Connected ideas
High-scoring essays
Low-scoring essays
Coherence
Resistance to prescriptive approaches to writing
Interference of the mechanics

CAUTIONS about “Good Writing”
Avoid:
Repeating maxims and platitudes about “good writing” practices
Imposing your personal interpretation of “good writing” or your style on clients
Do:
Respect the diverse effective choices clients make in their writing
Inform clients about their options
Respect the teacher’s requirements for an assignment

Working with
Graduate Students

[1] Elaborative: self-expression
[2] Low self-efficacy: doubt in their abilities
[3] No revision: resistance of revision
[4] Intuitive: visualization of the scheme
[5] Scientist: reliance on a well-formulated plan for writing
[6] Task-oriented: adherence to the rules with little opportunity for self-expression
[7] Sculptor: propensity to get it all out in a rough draft, and then to go back and refine
An Inventory of Processes in Graduate Writing

5 Ways Clients Resist Advice
1. Cite Resource Difficulty
2. Assert Own Agenda
3. Invoke Authority
4. Act Irrational
5. Minimize Import of Advice

Ethics and Language Diversity

by Texas A&M University Writing Center on Aug 03, 2011

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