Texas Association of Chicanos in Higher Education Noticiario Noticiario_Summer2017 | Page 4

American Englishes: Celebrating Fluencies
By Rebecca Balcárcel, Associate Professor of English, Tarrant County College
https://rebeccabalcarcel.com
Students dart to their seats as English Composition I begins. We learn each other’s
names, and then I announce that by the end of the semester, we will all be bilingual. “If
you speak two or three languages already,” I say, “then you’ll be adding one more:
Standard English.”
Deep breath, dear reader. This is not one of those grammar-police harangues
that complains about nobody speaking “correctly.” Quite the opposite. Whew!
Instead, let’s consider the linguistic diversity of English, setting Standard
English alongside its more popular sisters, street English, AAVE (African-American
Vernacular English), Jamaican Patois, Spanglish, and whatever folks, especially teenagers,
are speaking. Savvy speakers code switch between all of these, suiting the language to
the situation. One of my favorite TED Talks features Jamaican-American Jamila Lyiscott
saying, “I put tri-lingual on my last job application.” The term tri-lingual fits since she can
say, “What’s good,” “Wah gwaan,” and “Hello.” I show the video in class and ask
students to comment on Lyiscott’s assertion that she is articulate, not because she knows
Standard English, but because she knows three Englishes. Most have never thought
about this before.
Students undervalue their articulate-ness, if I may invent a word. They walk in
scared. Many have struggled in writing classes and assume that they are doomed to
“never get it right.” While I do spend the semester teaching Standard or perhaps I should
call it Academic English, I want the class to realize that they are all fluent in their home
languages and neighborhood languages, whatever those may be, AND that these
Englishes (and of course other languages) are fully valid forms of expression. Standard
English may be the language of power in the boardroom, the classroom, and the
courtroom, but not any of us spend all our time in these places.
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