Pedagogy Jan 2025

Writing Before and Beyond Monolingualism

Megan Behrend

Abstract

Abstract If writing studies today is engaged in a project to remake composition pedagogy apart from modern language ideologies, then medieval writing reminds us that such ideologies were not always dominant. This essay asks how medieval texts, written before monolingualism became normative, might help student writers to imagine possibilities for composing beyond monolingualism. What happens when students are invited to read Dante Alighieri's defense of his Italian vernacular in book 1 of the Convivio alongside contemporary defenses of linguistic diversity more commonly taught in the first-year writing classroom? As this experiment suggests, assigning medieval texts in composition courses offers at least two advantages to student writers in support of linguistic justice and critical language awareness learning goals. For one, contradicting a modern view of translingualism as deviation from a monolingual norm, students learn that writers have had to assume language difference, rather than homogeneity, as a condition of composition for most of history. Second, the juxtaposition of medieval and contemporary, far from flattening historical difference, prompts students to think even more specifically and critically about the conditions for and consequences of translingual practices in particular times and places.

Journal
Pedagogy
Published
2025-01-01
DOI
10.1215/15314200-11463007
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Open Access
Closed
Topics
first-year composition writing pedagogy translingualism race and writing
Export
BibTeX RIS

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

References (40) · 3 in this index

  1. Anzaldúa (1987)
    Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza
  2. Baldwin (1979)
    If Black English Isn't a Language, then Tell Me, What Is?
  3. Behrend Megan . 2022. “The Latinity of Middle English Literature: Transl…
  4. Behrend (2023)
    ‘Somdeel’ Translation: From Medieval England to the Multilingual United States
  5. Bunn (2011)
    How to Read Like a Writer
Show all 40 →
  1. Bunn (2013)
    Motivation and Connection: Teaching Reading (and Writing) in the Composition Cl…
    College Composition and Communication
  2. Butterfield (2010)
    The Familiar Enemy: Chaucer, Language, and Nation in the Hundred Years War
  3. Carillo (2015)
    Securing a Place for Reading in Composition: The Importance of Teaching for Transfer
  4. CCCC (Conference on College Composition and Communication). (1974) 2006. “Students’ Right to Their Own Langua…
  5. Coleman (2007)
    Aurality
  6. Curzan (2009)
    Says Who? Teaching and Questioning the Rules of Grammar
    PMLA
  7. Dante Alighieri (1996)
    De vulgari eloquentia
     ↗
  8. Dante Alighieri (1990)
    Il Convivio (The Banquet)
  9. Davidson (2010)
    Medievalism, Multilingualism, and Chaucer
  10. Evans (1999)
    The Notion of Vernacular Theory
  11. Hong (2021)
    Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
  12. Horner (2007)
    Resisting Monolingualism in ‘English’: Reading and Writing the Politics of Language
  13. Horner Bruce , and SelfeCynthia L. 2013. “Translinguality/Transmodality …
  14. Horner et al. (2002)
    English Only and U.S. College Composition
    College Composition and Communication
  15. Lahiri (2016)
    In Other Words
  16. Langland (1995)
    The Vision of Piers Plowman: A Critical Edition of the B-Text Based on Trinity College Ca…
  17. Lippi-Green (2012)
    English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States
     ↗
  18. Lu et al. (2016)
    Guest Editors’ Introduction: Translingual Work
    College English
  19. Lyiscott Jamila . 2014. “Three Ways to Speak English.” TED talk. https:/…
  20. Machan (2010)
    When English Became Latin
  21. Mallette (2021)
    Lives of the Great Languages: Arabic and Latin in the Medieval Mediterranean
     ↗
  22. Noodin Margaret . 2020. “Ozaagi'aan One Open to an Other.” Poets.org. Ac…
  23. Ramazani Jahan . 2015. “Code-Switching, Code-Stitching: A Macaronic Poet…
  24. Roy Arundhati . 2018. “What Is the Morally Appropriate Language in Which…
  25. Schirmer (2022)
    Borderlands Chaucer
    New Chaucer Studies: Pedagogy and Profession
  26. Shapiro (2022)
    Cultivating Critical Language Awareness in the Writing Classroom
  27. Shuck (2006)
    Combating Monolingualism: A Novice Administrator's Challenge
    Writing Program Administration
  28. Smitherman (1998)
    Ebonics, King, and Oakland: Some Folk Don't Believe Fat Meat Is Greasy
    Journal of English Linguistics  ↗
  29. Tan (1990)
    Mother Tongue
    Threepenny Review
  30. Walkowitz (2020)
    On Not Knowing: Lahiri, Tawada, Ishiguro
    New Literary History  ↗
  31. Watson (2018)
    Contesting Standardized English
    Academe
  32. Watson Missy , and ShapiroRachael. 2018. “Clarifying the Multiple Dimens…
  33. Wogan-Browne (1999)
    The Idea of the Vernacular: An Anthology of Middle English Literary Theory, 1280–1520
  34. Yildiz (2013)
    Beyond the Mother Tongue: The Postmonolingual Condition
  35. Young (2010)
    Should Writers Use They Own English?
    Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies  ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 0 View in citation network → Build reading path →

Related Articles

  1. Research in the Teaching of English Aug 2024
    College Composition Instructors’ and Students’ Orientations toward Translanguaging in Writing ↗
    Havva Zorluel Özer
    first-year composition writing pedagogy empirical research translingualism race and writing
  2. Written Communication Apr 2023
    “The World Has to Stop Discriminating Against African American Language” (AAL): Exploring the Language Ideologies of AAL-Speaking Students in College Writing ↗
    Shenika Hankerson
    first-year composition writing pedagogy translingualism race and writing
  3. Composition Forum 2021
    “Your Grammar is All Over the Place”: Translingual Close Reading, Anti-Blackness, and Racial Literacy among Multilingual Student Writers in First Year Writing ↗
    Sophie R. Bell
    first-year composition writing pedagogy assessment multilingual writers translingualism grammar and mechanics literacy studies race and writing
  4. Composition Forum 2020
    Promoting Linguistic Equity through Translingual, Transcultural, and Transmodal Pedagogies ↗
    Julia Kiernan, Joyce Meier, Xiqiao Wang
    first-year composition writing pedagogy multilingual writers translingualism race and writing editorial matter
  5. Teaching English in the Two-Year College Dec 2016
    Feature: Writing about Language: Studying Language Diversity with First-Year Writers ↗
    Samantha Looker
    first-year composition writing pedagogy translingualism race and writing