Basic writing students: Investigating oral and written language

Basic Writing Students: Investigating Oral and Written LanguageAuthor(s): Marcia Farr and Mary Ann JandaSource: Research in the Teaching of English, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Feb., 1985), pp. 62-83Published by: National Council of Teachers of EnglishStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40171004 .

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Basic Writing Students: Investigating Oral and Written Language

Marcia Farr, University of Illinois at Chicago Mary Ann Janda, University of Illinois at Chicago

Abstract. This study investigates the relationship between the oral and written language of one college-level basic-writing student who is a speaker of Vernacular Black English. One possible explanation for basic-writing students' difficulties in writing is that they may inappropriately use features from their oral language in their written language. We found in this study that neither VBE patterns in the student's oral language nor other features of orality which previous research has identified primarily account for his writing problems. For other such students, future research will need to explore 1) whether or not the use of oral, or the lack of literate, features account for problems in writing, and 2) the nature of other, as yet unidentified, features of orality and literacy.

In many composition classrooms diversity in student backgrounds is the rule, not the exception, and this diversity is clearly reflected in language differences. That is, many students - especially in urban schools - either speak a language other than English or speak a nonstandard variety of English. Furthermore, no matter what variety of language students may speak, there appear to be differences between oral and written language use that may affect the learning of writing. This study investigates the complex relationships between language variety and oral and written language use. Our goal is to determine if aspects of orality or literacy help to explain why students in basic writing classes have difficulty in writing effectively.

In this study we present the results of an exploration of one student's oral and written language for features which are typical of speech or writing. In particular, we explore the inappropriate use of these features in one or the other mode of language. Whereas we realize that some crossover (i.e., the use of oral features in writing and literate features in speech) is natural and appropriate in many contexts, the possibility also exists that such crossovers may at times be inappropriate, and thus may partially explain why the writing of students in remedial writing classes is often judged to be problematic.

We would like to acknowledge the helpful comments of Deborah Tannen and Ann Doyle on an earlier version of this paper, as well as the support granted to the senior author by the Research Board of the University of Illinois at Chicago for this study.

Research in the Teaching of English, Vol. 19, No. 1, February 1985

62



Basic Writing Students: Investigating Oral and Written Language 63

Related Research

Sociolinguistic research over the last two decades has shown that there are both ethnic and social class differences in American English. Beginning with work on Vernacular Black English by Labov (much of which is compiled in Labov, 1972), Wolfram (1969), Kochman (1972), Fasold (1972), and Smith- erman (1977), among others, this type of inquiry gradually moved to explore other varieties of American English. For example, sociolinguistic descriptions are now available for Puerto Rican English (Wolfram, 1974; Zentella, 1981), for Appalachian English (Wolfram & Christian, 1976), for varieties of Amer- ican Indian English (Wolfram, Christian, Potter & Leap, 1979), and for others (Labov, 1980; Ferguson & Heath, 1981; Amastae & Elias-Olivares, 1982). These references are by no means exhaustive; they are intended instead to give an indication of how far we have come from viewing all variation in speech as mistakes (the correct forms being those of standard English). We now know that nonstandard varieties of English, or of any language, are as complex and as regularly patterned as are standard varieties.

In addition to the above studies which focus primarily on differences in language form (e.g., on phonology and syntax), other studies have focussed on differences in language use (i.e., how language is used in different contexts within one's culture and by different cultural groups). The language- use studies are building toward an ethnography of speaking, as suggested by Hymes (1962). They have taken place both within classrooms (Cazden, John & Hymes, 1972; Gilmore Sc Glatthorn, 1982; Green & Wallat, 1981; Cherry Wilkinson, 1982) and within home and community contexts (Bauman & Sherzer, 1974; Kochman, 1981; Heath, 1983; Gumperz, 1982a, 1982b).

Almost all of this sociolinguistic research has focused on oral language. As such, it may at first appear to have limited relevance for the teaching and learning of writing. However, studies of oral language are relevant to writing for two reasons. First, as Shuy (1981) has argued, language is language, "whether native or foreign, written or listened to, productive or receptive." That is, language should be viewed holistically, and both oral and written language come from the same source: one's communicative competence (as defined by Hymes, 1971). Second, the overwhelming use of language for most people is oral. Particularly for those who are not yet skilled writers (whether in elementary school or in college), most of the linguistic capacities on which they rely are orally-based.

For both of these reasons, the more we know about the communicative competence of a student, the better we can facilitate the expansion of that competence to include effective writing. Research on all aspects of communicative competence can be used to improve the teaching and learning of writing, and this is especially true of research which investigates the interaction of oral and written language.



64 Research in the Teaching of English

What, then, is the relationship between oral and written language capacities? More specifically, what are the relationships among the various aspects of communicative competence, and how do these aspects interact in learning to write? Research to date on the interaction of oral and written language has looked both at the influence of writing (or of becoming literate) on speech and at the influence of speech on writing.

Work which has explored the effect of becoming literate on speech (Goody & Watt, 1968; Ong, 1982; Olson, 1977) at first identified "orality" and "literacy" as characterizing speech and writing. Tannen (1982a, 1982b) drew on this work to propose the notion of oral and literate strategies. An oral strategy is the emphasis on personal involvement (e.g., in oral storytelling) which is reflected in the language of the speaker. A literate strategy is the emphasis on the increasing integration of information in language, as observed by Chafe (1982).

Although it has been useful to identify differences between typical speech (i.e., casual conversation) and typical writing (i.e., school essays), there has been a growing recognition in the research of the different kinds of speech and writing as they serve different functions. We have been looking at oral and written language too much as a dichotomy; in reality, even in highly literate societies like our own, a sharp distinction between speech and writing rarely exists. As the work of Tannen (1982b) shows, although they differ in physical manifestation, different kinds of oral and written language share each other's "typical characteristics" in various contexts. What we have come to identify as "literate strategies" can be observed in some spoken language (e.g., formal speeches) and what we have identified as "oral strategies" are found in some kinds of writing (e.g., written narratives). How the language is being used (i.e., what function it serves) is more important in the em- ployment of these strategies than whether it is oral or written.

In addition to investigations of the effect of becoming literate on speech, researchers have explored the effect of oral language on writing. Earlier work on the influence of speech on writing (Farr Whiteman, 1981) determined how phonological and syntactic features of nonstandard English affect learning to write in standard English. This work showed that oral language patterns do influence writing, but not in a simple, one-to-one fashion. More recent work in this area has explored how other aspects of oral language forms and functions also affect the acquisition of literacy. Heath (1983), for example, has shown how the functions of language across different ethnic groups can affect literacy use and acquisition in subtle ways. Gumperz (1982a, 1982b) and others working in this tradition (Michaels, 1981) have focused on the role of intonation patterns in the oral language of various ethnic groups and their effect on both oral and written communication.




Need for Research

More research in the tradition described above is needed in order to broaden our understanding of writing as an aspect of language. Such research will not only create descriptions of the communicative competence of students from various ethnic groups, but also could explore how primarily oral-based communicative competence affects the learning of writing as we teach it. In particular, fine-grained analyses of the speech and writing of students strug- gling to learn to write could shed light on how writing is learned, and how this learning is affected by oral communicative competence.

The work presented here is part of a research program to investigate the interplay of the oral and written language of students from a wide variety of ethnic groups in Chicago. The data base of this research program includes samples of the oral and written language of both native and non-native speakers of English, all of whom speak English fluently. The native speakers include those who speak Vernacular Black English, varieties of Hispanic English, and other nonstandard varieties characteristic of various other ethnic groups in the Chicago area. Non-native speakers include bilinguals who, in addition to English, speak a variety of Spanish, an Asian language, an eastern European language, or a Middle Eastern language.

All the contributors to the data base had been placed in a basic writing course (considered remedial writing) at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The placement was done on the basis of a diagnostic test which includes both multiple-choice items and an essay. In our view, this test generally works well as a diagnostic instrument; that is, most students are placed appropriately in remedial or regular composition classes.

Study

Data Source

The data for the analyses presented here were provided by a student whom we shall call Joseph. When he contributed the data (his oral and written language), he was 18 years old and enrolled in the basic writing course mentioned above. As can be seen in the excerpts from his dialogue journal below, Joseph had a number of problems in writing effectively. These problems, which are underlined in the excerpts below, include word choice, sentence organization and punctuation, spelling, and standard English grammar.

Excerpts of writing from dialogue journal: 1 . Violence does upset me. very much. I am a non-violent person. When

ever I get into situations that deals with violence . I try to ration




things out. But in that particular day . My manly evil part of me took over. And couldn't control it . Yes it was cruel. But at that time, I did not see it as such. I saw it as sport, a dual sort to speak. I am a very sensitive person.

2. You are right. I do keep my inner thoughts inside me. J[ dare not to display them , because I fear people might take advantage of me. I am having trouble with the two paragraphs you've assigned to us to do on the weekend. The place that I am trying to discribe is "Great America." When I discribe the unattractive things about it, it comes easy . But when I try to describe how beautiful it is, I am at a loss for words. You certainly have gave me challenge. I just don't know what to say. "Can you help me get started?"

In addition, his writing often had a truncated, formal quality; he seemed to be attempting to generate language which fills an appropriate form rather than language which is an authentic vehicle for his own intended meaning. This latter problem was more characteristic of his paragraphs written for class assignments, such as the one below, than of his entries in the dialogue journal.

Excerpt of writing from class assignments (paragraph):

People should not smoke for three reasons, and in this passage I will focus on all three. First of all people should not smoke because it is fatal. The reason for this statement is because smoking is the main cause of lung cancer. Many people die from lung cancer every year. One good example that supports my factual statement is Peter Scott. The drummer for the Allman Brothers Band, who died of lung cancer was 37. Secondly people shouldn't smoke because it is destructive. Smoking destroys all kinds Marriages don't work. Families cannot function. Friends lose all respect for the person who smokes. Finally, people shouldn't smoke because it smells bad. Smoking makes your breath stink. It ruins the fresh air. It makes public places smell bad like restaurants, washrooms, airplanes, movie theaters, etc. It ruins the smell of your cologne. It also gets into the lining of your clothes and makes them smell bad. In conclusion, I have given you 3 sound reasons why people shouldn't smoke. They are Death, Destruction and Odor now you know, and furthermore, I think people who smoke are total losers.

This passage demonstrates that although Joseph seems eager to fulfill the form he has been taught, he does not emphasize the communicative function of writing. Joseph seems to be writing not to convey information to, or convince, a reader but to satisfy certain structural criteria. Knowing that a writer is supposed to focus, he announces that he intends to do so; knowing that a statement should be supported by three reasons, he marshalls three ideas. When he has three ideas down on the page, he announces that he has reached a conclusion. That the three ideas are not explicitly connected and that they are out of proportion to one another does not seem to matter. Logical relationships are truncated (Smoking is fatal), generalizations are unelaborated (Families cannot function), and examples are left dangling




(The drummer for the Allman Brothers Band, who died of lung cancer was 37. Secondly . . . ). As a result, the paragraph does not illustrate the power of language to convince. The problem here is not that Joseph's meaning is obscured by grammatical errors or nonstandard usage; the problem is that Joseph has not created a coherent, elaborated text which provides a convinc- ing vehicle for his meaning.

Joseph has lived in the city of Chicago all his life, first in a primarily black "inner-city" neighborhood which he described in both positive and

negative terms. Later, when he was about 13, his family moved to a more middle class, white urban neighborhood. His family, in fact, was the first to

integrate this neighborhood. He orally described the first neighborhood and the subsequent move in this way:

Excerpts from oral language: OK I'll start with my old neighborhood first. Well, I had a lot of friends, I made friends mpre easily. The neighborhood was mostly uh, kind of like, oh, run down, you know, garbage everywhere. The buildings was kinda condemn ... A lot of dogs runnin' around, but it was a friendly type neighborhood; everybody knew each other, you know. And uh, there was a big playground down the corner and all my friends play games like basketball. We'd jump rope and we play football, softball, stuff like that . . . Kinda nice neighborhood to be in even though the core was terrible but we live through it you know . . . When I grew up we went to a better neighborhood where we don't see many a these gangs runnin' around the streets. My father and my mother tried to protect me from that kind a, uh, happening, goings on ... An when we move to the northwest side ... we experience a lot of prejudice there, you know, people didn't think highly of us ... And our father said ... just go about your business, and so we did, and eventually everybody came around as time pass. They threw a very nice welcome to the neighborhood party. It was really very beautiful, I thought.

Joseph's socioeconomic status - black upper working-class/lower middle- class - would lead one to expect a vernacular dialect, and an inspection of

Joseph's oral language showed that he used a number of characteristic features of Vernacular Black English, the dialect used by many working class blacks in this country. A fuller description of VBE features can be found in Wolfram & Fasold (1974) and in Labov (1983). The excerpts from Joseph's oral language below illustrate his frequent use of typical VBE features; the features are underlined and labelled according to descriptions in Wolfram & Fasold (1974).

Excerpts from oral language with VBE features: 1. The buildings was kinda condemn--. (Concord with forms of be, here

the use of was with plural subject) 2. There was a big playground down the corner and all my friends

play- games like basketball. We'd jump rope and we- play football. (Absence of final d, after a vowel)




3. Kinda nice neighborhood to be in even though the core was terrible, but we live- through it you know. (Final consonant cluster simplifi- cation, here /vd/ simplified to /v/)

4. My brother Tom, he's forty years old. (Left dislocation, often called a "double subject")

5. He always have to tell everybody, you know, secrets . . . (Present tense suffix absence, and here the use of have rather than has with a third person singular subject)

6. ... secrets which, really, nobody doesn't want to hear in the first place. (Negative concord, often called a "multiple negative")

It is clear from these examples that VBE is included in Joseph's linguistic repertoire, that is, that he uses VBE patterns in ways that have been documented in previous studies. However, it is also clear from his interview that he, and his family, are upwardly mobile; this is evidenced by their move to a ''better" neighborhood, by their middle class values, and by Joseph's attend-

ing college.

Issues Explored in This Study

Previous work (Farr Whiteman, 1981) has shown that oral dialect patterns account for some, though not all, problems in writing standard English. This research also showed that it is primarily grammatical patterns that are affected, not phonological ones. For example, most such dialect influence in writing consists of problems with the omission of standard English inflectional suffixes: the plural -s suffix, the third person singular verbal -s suffix, the possessive -s suffix, and the past tense -ed suffix. In contrast, many phonological (pronunciation) features of VBE do not appreciably affect the writing of standard English, at least at ages nine and above. For example, postvocalic -r absence (e.g., the omission of /r/ after vowels in words such as sister) occur rarely, even in the writing of those who use this feature with high frequency in speech.

Based on this previous research, and because we had determined both that Joseph had problems in writing and that he spoke VBE, we wanted to explore the relationship between Joseph's oral and written language. As a first step, we needed a closer look at his orally produced VBE features. A preliminary investigation of his oral language (presented earlier in the section on data source) had determined that he did use VBE features, but we wanted to see what features occurred most frequently, which of these affected his writing, and how much and what kind of an effect they had.

Secondly, we wanted to extend the results of the earlier research by exploring aspects of "orality" other than nonstandard dialect features. That is, we wanted to determine the extent to which Joseph used oral and literate strategies (Tannen, 1982b) in language. In particular, we wanted to explore whether such strategies, if used at all, were used appropriately in his oral




and written discourse. If, for example, his writing lacked appropriate literate strategies, or inappropriately used oral strategies, we then might be able to account more specifically for problems in his writing.

There is additional value in extending the research in this way, beyond accounting for more problems in Joseph's writing. We already know that oral language patterns influence writing, but the only oral language patterns which we definitely know influence writing are the nonstandard dialect features described earlier. And the influence of these features on writing is limited, primarily to certain features of standard English grammar. To understand whether and how much oral language competence affects the learning of writing, we need to move beyond restricted features of phonology and syntax. In particular, we need to explore discourse-level characteristics of oral and written language.

Methodology

The sample of Joseph's oral language studied here was tape recorded in an informal interview of the type used in many sociolinguistic studies (see Wolfram & Fasold, 1974, pp. 48-56, for detailed guidelines in using this type of interview). The goal of this free-conversation interview is to gather natural

language data which is a reasonable approximation of how language is

actually used. Although certain questions are suggested (e.g., What kind of

games do you play around the neighborhood?), the interviewer pursues those

topics in which the informant seems to be most interested. Such flexibility in encouraging spontaneous conversation helps to minimize what Labov has termed the observer's paradox: "To obtain the data most important for

linguistic theory, we have to observe how people speak when they are not

being observed" (1972, p. 113). Joseph's interview was about 45 minutes long; transcribed, it consisted of 3,021 words.

The sample of Joseph's written language consisted of everything he wrote for the ten-week composition course. This included a dialogue journal which was essentially a daily, written conversation between himself and the teacher of the course (see Staton, 1982, for a fuller description of the type of dialogue journal used), and all drafts of paragraphs written as class assignments. The topics for all writing, in both the journal and paragraphs, were selected by the student. Joseph wrote 1,989 words in the journal and 852 words in the paragraphs; the total written language sample, then, consisted of 2,841 words.

The oral and written language data for this study thus ranges across three modes: oral dialogue, written dialogue, and written expository monologue. The data was analyzed a number of ways. First, his oral language was explored for characteristic features (both phonological and syntactic) of VBE, using the considerable sociolinguistic literature which has documented identifying features. Then his written language was explored for these




features. In this way, we were able to determine which particular VBE features occurred most frequently in his speech and whether or not the use of these features in speech affected his writing.

Like the methodology for gathering data, the methodology for analyzing it was that used in a number of sociolinguistic studies (Labov, 1966; Wol- fram, 1969). Frequencies of occurrence of dialect features were tabulated, allowing quantitative differences in language use to emerge from the data. The frequency of occurrence of each feature was obtained by counting all actual as well as potential occurrences of each feature. For example, Joseph omitted postvocalic -r 185 times in our oral data; he included postvocalic -r 87 times. All potential occurrences of this feature then total 272. To obtain the frequency of occurrence of this feature, the number of absences is divided by the total potential occurrences. Thus, Joseph omitted postvocalic -r 185 out of 272 times, or 68 percent of the time.

Through such detailed analyses of language, dialect differences sometimes have been shown to be matters of degree. That is, the differences between two dialects of English, for some features, may be in the frequency with which those features are used, not whether or not they are used at all. Other features are unique to particular dialects, so that their presence alone dis- tinguishes one dialect from another.

A note here on the term "dialect" may be useful. First, all languages, given sufficient numbers of speakers, have dialects, and everyone who speaks a language speaks one or another dialect of that language. That is to say, variation across speakers of a language is a natural state of affairs. Generally, it is only when a dialect differs from one's own that it is noticed. Second, dialects are not in reality self-contained, isolated language systems; they are varieties of a language which are socially and regionally recognizable as distinct from one another in some respects. That is, dialects are generalized groupings of the variation that exists in a language. Although each dialect is characterized by some distinct features, it also shares a great number of features with other dialects of the language. Thus to refer to Joseph in this study as a speaker of VBE means not only that he includes features of VBE in his linguistic repertoire, but that his repertoire also includes features of standard English.

A second kind of analysis of Joseph's oral and written language explored the data for "oral" and "literate" features. This enabled us to determine whether or not his problems in writing were due to the use of these features in inappropriate modes. The oral and literate features investigated were those suggested by Chafe (1982), Michaels (1981), and by our own intuitions as researchers and teachers of writing. Michaels' and our own features will be explained in the results section later in this paper. Chafe's features, however, are quite detailed and so are listed below with examples from Joseph's oral and written language:




Features Characteristic of Informal Spoken Language (with examples from Joseph's oral language): 1. Initial coordinating conjunctions:

And uh, there was a big playground down the corner and all my friends play games like basketball. We'd jump rope and we play football, softball, stuff like that. And, uh, we had a corner store where everybody would, uh eat candy and potato chips and popcorn.

2. First person references: And so the first time / had composition, uh, I didn't do so well because / was very confuse-.

3. References to speaker's mental processes: And in biology I remember we had to do lab reports.

4. Monitoring information flow (using well, I mean, you know): A lot of dogs runnin' around, but it was a friendly type neighborhood; everybody knew each other, you know.

5. Emphatic particles (just, really): It was really very beautiful, I thought.

6. Direct quotes: And my father said, "Look over there, don't speak to them. If they don't have nothin' to say, don't say, don't say nothin' to them at all."

7. Fuzziness: It was kind of like a wonderful experience for me.

Features Characteristic of Formal Written Language (with examples from Joseph's written language): 1 . Passive voice:

I was envied by most of the guys. 2. Nominalization:

Another beautiful thing about this fantasy wonderland it's beauty in appearance.

3. Participles: One beautiful aspect is that it brings joy and happiness to everyone involved.

4. Attributive adjectives: It is really nice for people to give good positive comments about one's writing.

5. Conjoined phrases: It also gets into the lining of your clothes and makes them smell bad.

6. Series: It makes public places smell bad, like restaurants, washrooms, airplanes, movie theaters, etc.

7. Sequences of prepositional phrases: My mother got to be on TV by her work down at the U of Chicago Hospital.




8. Complement clauses: It is very interesting to see that most people and you share the same inter sts in music.

9. Relative clauses: They are Death, Destruction and Odor now you know, and furthermore, I think people who smoke are total losers.

Those features which Chafe (1982) found to be characteristic of informal spoken language reflect qualities of what he terms personal involvement and fragmentation. In contrast, those features which he found to be characteristic of formal witten language reflect qualities of what he terms personal detachment and integration (more information per idea unit).

Chafe points out that these features are not categorically applied to all spoken and written language, but that spoken and written language exist on a continuum on which the frequencies of features regularly increase or decrease from one end of the continuum to the other. Chafe suggests that the frequencies of some of these features (those which characterize either fragmentation or integration) vary because of differences in real time processing between speaking and writing. That is, because written language is

produced at a much slower pace than spoken language, it tends to be more

integrated through the use of such features as nominalization, relative clauses, and series. Those features, in contrast, which characterize either involvement or detachment seem to have nothing to do with real time processing constraints. That is, speakers tend to reflect more personal involvement through the use of such features as first person reference, references to mental processes (e.g., / think, I believe), and so forth. Writers, however, tend to reflect more detatchment by using a feature such as the passive voice.

Results

The results of our analyses bear on two issues: Joseph's use of VBE in his oral and written language, and his use of oral and literate features.

VBE Features in Joseph's Oral and Written Language The analyses of VBE features in Joseph's oral and written language are summarized in Tables 1 and 2. The percentages in these tables represent the frequency of occurrence of the VBE variant of each feature. For example, Table 1 shows that out of 272 times in the oral data that Joseph used a word with a postvocalic -r, he pronounced the word without the /r/ in 185 instances, or 68 percent of the time. Because a VBE variant is sometimes the absence of a standard English feature, as it is in this case, the concept of "frequency of occurrence" can be confusing. It is useful to remember that use of a VBE variant is not an error, but an adherence to the rules of VBE. For example,




the standard English variant for the copula (conjugated forms of the verb be) is the presence of the copula (is or are); the VBE variant is the absence of the copula. Thus the percentages in these tables are a positive indication of the presence of VBE features in Joseph's language.

As it turns out, Joseph's oral language does reflect high frequencies of some VBE features, but not of other VBE features that would be expected from previous studies. As can be seen in Tables 1 and 2, Joseph orally used high frequencies of two VBE phonological features and one VBE syntactic feature, but very low frequencies of two other VBE syntactic features. That is, he did not use in his speech all the expected VBE features at the high frequencies typical of VBE speakers from previous studies. The two VBE phonological features which he used frequently were final consonant cluster

Table 1

Frequencies of Occurrence of Two VBE Phonological Features in Joseph's Oral and Written Language

Consonant Cluster Reduction Post Vocalic -R Absence

Occurrence/ Occurrence/ Total * % Occurrence Total % Occurrence

ORAL 126/163 77 185/272 68 WRITTEN Total 0 0 0 0

journal 0 0 0 0 paragraphs 0 0 0 0

•Occurrences of VBE feature/Total number of potential occurrences

Table 2

Frequencies of Occurrence of Three VBE Syntactic Features in Joseph's Oral and Written Language

Verbal -S Absence Copula Absence Negative Concord

Occurrence/ % Occurrence/ % Occurrence/ % Total* Occurrence Total Occurrence Total Occurrence

ORAL 1/21 5 3/38 8 8/11 73 WRITTEN

Total 0 0 0 0 2/3 67 journal 0 0 0 0 1/2 50 paragraphs 0 0 0 0 1/1 100

Occurrences of VBE feature/Total number of potential occurrences




reduction (e.g., And so, the first time I had composition, uh, I didn't do so well because I was very confuse-. Maybe I was lazy.) and post-vocalic -r absence (e.g., And in Biology I remembe- we had to do lab reports.).

Of VBE syntactic features, Joseph used one frequently and two relatively infrequently. He used VBE negative concord (e.g., I don't like to see nobody drinking.) frequently; however, the frequency rate was based on relatively few occurrences. The two VBE syntactic features which he used infrequently were copula absence (e.g., It's like, uh, you get used to it while you there and you never want to leave.) and verbal -s omission (Because when I was living there, he always gets on my nerves, you know, and he always have to tell everybody, you know, secrets, which really nobody doesn't want to hear in the first place.). In this case, it is the use of have instead of has, rather than the lack of an -s suffix, which characterizes this VBE syntactic feature. Within the same sentence, he uses the nonstandard have and the standard -s suffix in gets, which is an indication of the inherent variability of this, and most other VBE features.

The regular presence of well -documented VBE features in Joseph's oral language, as well as the occasional occurrence of features unique to VBE (e.g., they be sucking on the butt of the thing - a classic example of VBE invariant be) demonstrate that Joseph's communicative competence includes VBE. Because of this, we assume that he would use VBE more categorically in other, less formal, more appropriate (home and community) contexts. In the context in which he was tape recorded for this study (by his composition professor, at the university), however, he used certain common VBE syntactic features less frequently in his speech than we would expect from previous studies of VBE speakers. This may indicate that in contexts like this one his language use is more standard, a goal toward which many teachers want to see their students move. For Joseph, the control (whether conscious or not) of some standard English features is firmer than for others. For example, in our data he seldom omits the standard Engish verbal -s suffix (He gets on my nerves) which many VBE speakers almost always omit.

We can draw two conclusions about Joseph's oral language use of VBE features: first, that he includes a significant number of VBE features in his linguistic repertoire, and second, that in "school" contexts he retains the phonology of VBE but shifts to a more standard English grammar. This is not surprising, in view of the fact that phonology seems to be less subject to conscious control than grammar. Also, in concert with his general orientation toward upward mobility, he may be using what Taylor (1971) has termed Standard Black English among middle class blacks, that is, a com- bination of standard English grammar with other (VBE) features which allow a speaker to maintain a "black" identity.

When we turn to Joseph's school writing, we see an almost categorical absence of any VBE feature, either in his dialogue journal or his paragraphs.




Thus, although his communicative competence seems to include VBE, by and large it does not influence his writing in standard English. He uses VBE negative concord only twice in his writing, once in his journal (I haven't seen nothing like that in 4 years. So you know how thrilled I was to see it.) and once in a paragraph on why people shouldn't smoke (Why should the child have to suffer? The child did not do nothing to her.). All his other uses of negative concord conform to standard English. We can conclude, then, that the occurrence of VBE features is not primarily responsible for Joseph's writing problems.

Oral and Literate Characteristics in Joseph's Oral and Written Language

The results of the analyses using Chafe's characteristic features of oral and written language are summarized in Tables 3 and 4.

As the tables show, Joseph's oral language generally reflects what Chafe termed characteristically "oral" features of English, and Joseph's writing generally reflects what Chafe termed characteristically "literate" features of English. Moreover, of the three modes of language, Joseph's paragraphs generally show the lightest concentration of oral features and the heaviest concentration of literate features; the reverse is true for his oral language. The overriding pattern in the tables, then, is what we would predict across the three modes of language: concentrations of features which move from more "oral" to less "oral" and more "literate." That is, the dialogue journal, being written conversation, is more like oral language than are the paragraphs. But being written, the journal is more like the paragraphs than the oral conversation. There are only a few exceptions to this pattern, and they are almost all minor differences between the two modes of writing. There is no exception to the pattern when both modes of writing are combined and contrasted to the oral data.

We can interpret these results primarily to mean that Joseph employs the respective devices of oral and written language similarly to the speakers and writers in Chafe's study. The numerical spread between the quantitative results for each feature in oral and written language in both studies is generally the same. The only exceptions to this are with four features (three oral and one literate), and these mostly occur in the dialogue journal data, which is unlike the formal writing in the Chafe study. Thus we can conclude that Joseph's speech and writing generally show many conventional characteristics of what have been termed oral and written English. Specifically, we do not find a predominant use of "oral" features in his writing, which eliminates another potential explanation for his problems in writing academic prose. Nor do we find a lack of "literate" features in his writing, which also was a potential explanation for the problematic nature of his writing.




Other Oral and Literate Characteristics of Joseph's Oral Language

To explore further Joseph's communicative competence, we analyzed his oral language for other qualities of "orality" and "literacy." This seemed

especially important in light of the suggestions by many scholars (Goody &

Watt, 1968; Olson, 1977; Scollon & Scollon, 1981; Ong, 1982; Hildyard &

Table 3

Frequencies of Occurrence of Typically "Oral" Features in Joseph's Oral and Written Language

Coordinating Conjunction First Person Mental Reference

Occurrence Occurrence Occurrence Per 1000 Per 1000 Per 1000

Occurrence* Words** Occurrence Words Occurrence Words

ORAL 89 29.46 220 72.82 19 6.29 WRITTEN

Total 9 3.17 141 49.63 0 0

journal 8 4.02 124 62.34 0 0

paragraphs 1 1.17 17 0 0 0

Monitoring Information Flow Emphatic Particles

Occurrence Occurrence Per 1000 Per 1000

Occurrence* Words** Occurrence Words

ORAL 25 8.28 13 4.30 WRITTEN

Total 0 0 6 2.11 journal 0 0 2 1.01

paragraphs 0 0 4 4.69

Direct Quotes Fuzziness

Occurrence Occurrence Per 1000 Per 1000

Occurrence* Words** Occurrence Words

ORAL 1 0.33 14 4.63 WRITTEN

Total 0 0 1 0.35

journal 0 0 0 0

paragraphs 0 0 1 1.17

#Total number of occurrences of feature in text ** Number of occurrences of feature per 1000 words in text




Olson, 1982; and others) that becoming literate affects one's oral language as well as one's written language. That is, aspects of literacy can be detected in oral language use.

A reanalysis of Joseph's oral language with oral and literate strategies in mind yielded a description of a heavily literate orientation, at least in terms

Table 4

Frequencies of Occurrence of Typically 'Literate' Features

Passive Voice Nominalization Participle



ORAL 0 0 0 0 1 0.33 WRITTEN

Total 5 1.76 1 0.35 6 2.11

journal 0 0 0 0 0 0

paragraphs 5 5.87 1 1.17 6 7.04

Complement Conjoined Phrases Series Clauses



ORAL 6 1.99 6 1.99 1 0.33 WRITTEN

Total 25 8.80 9 3.17 2 0.70

journal 15 7.54 5 2.51 2 1.01

paragraphs 10 11.74 4 4.69 0 0

Sequence of

Prepositional Phrases Attributive Adjectives Relative Clauses



ORAL 0 0 9 2.98 4 1.32 WRITTEN

Total 5 1.76 27 9.50 10 3.52

journal 2 1.01 6 3.02 7 3.52

paragraphs 3 2.35 21 24.65 3 3.52

Total number of occurrences of feature in text ** Number of occurrences of feature per 1000 words in text




of discourse structure. His utterances flow from one to another in clear organizational patterns; almost in spite of comments or questions by the interviewer, he seemed to determine not only topic, but how long he would stay on that topic and when he would conclude it. He explicitly signalled each introduction of a new topic, elaborated on that topic in various ways, and then always returned to the original topic to "wrap it up" before moving on to another explicitly signalled topic for the interview.

This interview, of course, was not like a naturally occurring conversation (in which patterns can only be found by including the language of both particiants in the analysis). What we have instead are longer stretches of Joseph's discourse, with occasional questions or prods by the interviewer. Nevertheless, even with this interview structure Joseph's discourse largely can be analyzed alone. His language seems characteristic of what Olson (1977) has termed "decontextualized" language, a quality which he sees as typically literate. Moreover, the discourse structure of Joseph's oral language is strikingly parallel to the organization taught in most composition texts for paragraph structure: topic sentence (with topic explicitly stated), sup- porting sentences (elaborating on the topic by providing details, generalizations, examples or comparisons/contrasts), and concluding sentence which

"wraps up" the paragraph. In the excerpts below, Joseph introduces a new topic into the interview

and elaborates on the topic. In spite of comments and questions from the interviewer which might have taken him off the topic, he always brings the conversation around to his original topic, first with a generalization, then with an explanation, and finally by saying, "That's about all on that subject."

Excerpt from oral interview:

J: . . . and that's that. (ENDS PREVIOUS TOPIC) But when I started going to college I told you . . . you thought I lived in a house with my family, with Felicia and George, which is not true. I'm sorry if I deceive you but I do not live in my, in my parents' house anymore. When I went to uh Northwestern, that's when I moved out.

(INTRODUCES NEW TOPIC: LIVING BY MYSELF) M: Oh, I didn't feel deceived; I was just surprised because you describe it

like you live there.

J: Yeah. But anyway, I live, I live down there in the dorm for awhile, and then when I decided to come back here I rented apartment at Lawless Gardens, that's near north, southeast side near north, near the Loop area, anyway.

M:Um hmm.

J: And so I live by myself. (BACK TO TOPIC) It's nice over there. I have visitors. I have total freedom. I like it. Occasionally my mother drops by, my father, sometimes my sister, but never my brother. He doesn't like, like it because every time, if he drops by, my girlfriend happens to be there and he doesn't want




to interfere, which was very considerate of him. But I told him he could come in anytime.

M:Um hmm. Are you the oldest in your family? (POTENTIAL DIGRESSION INITIATED BY THE INTERVIEWER)

J: No, I'm not the oldest. My brother Tom, he's forty years old . . . M:So you are the youngest? J: No, my brother George is the youngest. He's fifteen, Felicia, she's

seventeen, and I'm eighteen. And my sister, uh, after her, is Cheryl, and she's twenty, and Shirley, she's thirty-three ... So we have a very big family. (LOOKS FOR CLOSURE WITH GENERALIZA- TION)

M: Is anybody else living at home? I guess the two younger ones are.

J: Oh, yeah. George and Felicia are living at home. Both of them are going to Dunbar High School. No, Felicia is going to Whitney Young and George is at Dunbar High School. And Felicia will be graduating, I believe. And George is a freshman over there. And they get along very well. Although George is very, uh, witty; he doesn't act like a fifteen year old should. He's very grown up. And sometimes he gets on people's nerves.

M: He gets on your nerves?

J: Yes, he gets on my nerves. I think the main reason of leaving was because of him.

M: Really?

J: Uh huh. Because when I was living there, he always gets on my nerves, you know, and he always have to tell everybody, you know, secrets, which really nobody doesn't want to hear in the first place.

M:Um hmm.

J: And uh, so, other than that, I just wanted my freedom. (TIES WHOLE ELABORATION ON FAMILY MEMBERS BACK TO TOPIC OF LIVING BY MYSELF)

M: Well, that's understandable.

J: It's best to have it that way. And, let's see, what else. That's about all on that subject. (EXPLICITLY ENDS TOPIC)

These characteristics seem to make Joseph's oral language in this interview very "topic centered," rather than what Michaels (1981) identified as

"topic associating." In her research in an early elementary school classroom in Berkeley, Michaels identified two oral discourse patterns during the Sharing Time (or Show and Tell) classroom speech event common in most elementary schools. One of these patterns, which she termed "topic centered," was used by the white children in this classroom; the other pattern, which she termed "topic associating," was used by the black children in this classroom. She found that both patterns evidenced topic cohesion through the narrative, but that the topic centered pattern, because it is more explicit and decontextualized, is more reflective of a literate orientation. Moreover, the teacher, either because she was white, or because she was literate, or both, seemed more comfortable with it. Since that time, Cazden, Michaels and




Tabors (in press) have reported similar discourse patterns among black and white children in a Boston area elementary school, and have retermed the black pattern "episodic," citing Smitherman's (1977) description of black adult narrative style as "concrete narrative . . . (whose) meandering away from the 'point' takes the listener on episodic journeys."

It may be that an episodic narrative structure is a Black American cultural pattern, and children who share this heritage probably bring such patterns to school with them. No research yet has shown what happens to children across the school years who originally came to school with these patterns. Joseph, however, did not use at this time an episodic, or topic associating, discourse pattern. His oral discourse, in contrast, was overwhelmingly topic centered, explicit and decontextualized. Whether he learned a topic-centered discourse pattern during his twelve years of schooling, or whether he came to school with such a pattern we cannot know. We do know, however, from the way in which he structured his oral language, that his problems in writing are not due to the lack of a literate style of discourse organization.

Summary and Implications

We have explored in this study several potential explanations for Joseph's difficulty in writing academic prose. Although features of Vernacular Black English are part of his linguistic repertoire, VBE features occur relatively infrequently in his writing, eliminating nonstandard dialect influence as a major cause of his difficulty in writing. Furthermore, Joseph's writing evidenced many "literate" characteristics, i.e., devices which have been found to be typical of written English. Likewise, his oral language reflected conventional use of many "oral" characteristics, i.e., devices which have been found to be typical of oral English. Finally, when we look at the more global qualities of his discourse, we find a highly literate orientation in terms of its organizational structure; that is, even his oral language is very topic-centered, explicit, and decontextualized.

What, then, is the problem with Joseph's writing? Why was he placed in a remedial writing class? It is clear that those features which we used in our analyses cannot account entirely for the judgment that Joseph needed remedial writing instruction. This is not to say that VBE features do not account for some of his problems at the sentence level; they do, and some instruction in standard English grammatical patterns is appropriate for Joseph. However, other more significant problems in his writing seem to have nothing to do with his nonstandard dialect. Nor can these problems be accounted for by reference to already-defined characteristics of orality and literacy.

Our brief description of Joseph's writing problems in the section on data source earlier in this paper shows that he may have learned the lessons of form at the expense of other qualities of writing. His writing does not appear




to be language that was generated by a human being in an attempt to express or create meaning. The form is there; the functional attempt to communicate does not seem to be. In addition, his often terse statements are unelaborated, with the logical relationships between them inexplicit. Some of these problems may be due to his previous experiences with writing. If his experiences in public school are typical, Joseph may not have had much instruction which called for the meaningful use of writing or for writing which required more than a sentence at a time (Graves, 1978; Applebee, 1981).

Other problems in his writing may be due to features of his oral language which we did not define here. For example, the use of terse, unelaborated statements can be seen as an oral feature of language, similar to utterances from one speaker in a conversation. Research is needed to explore this and other possibilities which relate the overlapping use of oral and literate features in samples of oral and written language. That is, we have eliminated as explanations for problems in Joseph's writing only those features of orality and literacy which previous research has defined. We may yet identify unexplored features of orality which students do use inappropriately in writing.

Research also is needed which analyzes the oral and written language of other basic writing students. Such research would inform us about the generali- zability of the results from this study. That is, it would answer questions such as, How typical is Joseph of VBE speakers in basic writing classes? and How typical is he of basic writing students in general?

Research which identifies new features of orality and literacy, as well as research which applies current methodology to language samples from speakers of other languages and dialects will be of benefit in two ways. First, it will increase our understanding of the complex relationship between oral and written language. Second, it will increase our understanding of how this relationship affects the learning and teaching of writing and help us to improve both.

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Basic writing students: Investigating oral and written language

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