Linguistic Contact Zones in the College Writing Classroom

Written Communication Jan 2002

Linguistic Contact Zones in the College Writing Classroom

Michelle Hall Kells Texas A&M University

Abstract

In this examination of Mexican-American bilingual college writers, it is argued that implicit language ideologies, common misconceptions about bidialectalism/bilingualism, and the classroom attitudinal domain subvert the success of ethnolinguistic minority students. The author designed and conducted a randomized language attitude survey (N = 195) of 1st-year composition students on the assumption that language attitudes, reflective of the social/ethnic/linguistic polarization of south Texas, exist inside the English classroom. Findings correlate the multiple ethnolinguistic identities of this student population with language myth adherence. Results reveal the tendency among college writers for subscription to various language myths: dialect misconception, English bias, language purity myth, literacy myth, misconception of oral performance.

Journal: Written Communication
Published: 2002-01-01
DOI: 10.1177/074108830201900102
Open Access: Closed
Topics: multimodality multilingual writers

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (2)

Barajas (2025)

Writing for Perspective: A Case Study of Literacy Practices and Personal Agency…

College Composition and Communication
Hankerson (2023)

“The World Has to Stop Discriminating Against African American Language” (AAL):…

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Written Communication

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