Positionality

AKA: Use All Your Englishes: Write with Style, in Your Style, in Your Voice

  

You’ve probably heard terms like “standard” or “proper” English. Just what does that mean for you as a student writer?  

Technically, there is no single, agreed upon definition. 

What is agreed upon is the importance of writing that is clear, concise, convincing, and stylish.

This page will focus on helping you develop a style that is drawn from your regional, cultural, and/or queer positionality/ies and lived experiences. It will make suggestions for incorporating your own lexicon while writing in a way that is clear, concise, and convincing because these things are not mutually exclusive.          

 

I have always tried to chase the authentic formal writing, but it never satisfied me because I didn’t know how to incorporate my personality.  ~C. Trujillo/LPC Student               

There are many ways to write from your positionality:

• Via diction/word choice
• Via use of the first person “I” and applicable metaphors
• Or through the content/topic instead of diction
• Click here to see examples of writers using positionality

 

Adopting the Voice of the Academy

 

Poet and educator, June Jordan, asserted that “White English in America is “standard English’. In other words, the term “standard English” is code for “white English.” 

 If this is true, a good number of us, then, will have to adapt to standard English. Or do we? 

Most people in America do some sort of code-switching, that is they change languages or style of a single language to fit the setting or cultural context. For example, you may not speak the same way you do at work as you do with your friends. At work, you probably speak in a way that is considered socially-acceptable for that environment. When you’re with your friends, the goal is to connect with them, so you use a version of English that helps connect. Code-switching is commonplace for people of color, but one could make the case that we all do it to varying degrees. Because most of us have more than one postionality (more than one way we identify) writing from your positionality could engage more than one of your Englishes in the same assignment, please note that engaging different Englishes is more than code-switching (some may refer to it as code-meshing).

Learning to write in the academy (that’s the dressed up way of saying, learning to write for college, or learning to write in a “academic voice”), can be disorienting for anyone new to college because there are so many conventions to learn that are particular to academic writing, like writing about a text in the present tense, even texts that were written decades ago. And when learning to write using an academic voice/style, professors will also urge you to write stylishly.

If all the things above are true, shouldn’t it be possible for students to learn to write in a way that is inclusive and respectful of their own positionality/ies, and use their positionality/ies to develop their own voice and style?

 

Writing to an Audience

 

Acclaimed writer, author of the Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan writes on this topic in the opening of her essay “Mother Tongue.”

I am not a scholar of English or literature. I cannot give you much more than personal opinions on the English language and its variations in this country or others. 

 I am a writer. And by that definition, I am someone who has always loved language. I am fascinated by language in daily life. I spend a great deal of my time thinking about the power of language -- the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth. Language is the tool of my trade. And I use them all -- all the Englishes I grew up with.

• In her essay, Tan discusses how growing up in the US, the daughter of a native Chinese woman gave her access to what she calls different kinds of “Englishes.”
• In many ways, Tan’s essay is about code-switching, and how important it is to think of language as a way to connect with people, and to use whichever version of English you speak to make that happen.
• In English study, we call this connection knowing your audience, using the tone, word choice, references, and level of formality that will best move, affect, and convince your audience -- the audience that you’re writing for and/or addressing. 
• Knowing, or considering your audience when you write is important because it helps your audience gain trust in you as a writer, thinker, and scholar. 

 

Trusting Your Positionality and Writing with Style

 

The first step in your trusting positionality is trusting that you know a lot about the world already from your experience living in it. Trusting your positionality and trusting that it has a place in academia is the first step in using it to develop your writing style, and doing so can help you feel more invested and connected to your work. 

What does it mean to trust your positionality? It means to use what you got! Access and use your place in the world, your vantage point, your lived experiences to help you decide what to write about and write with style. Stylish writing is writing that stands out, writing that the reader can connect to, or writing that makes the reader feel what you mean, even if the reader has never lived what you’re writing about. 

Stylish writing is also writing that makes clear to the reader that the writer has control of their sentence structure and word choice. A stylish writer cares deeply about word precision, using just the right words in the right places to connect with the reader, and/or to help them visualize what you mean.

Click here for examples.

 

When writing from your positionality, keep in mind:

• Adjust your style as needed to match the tone of the assignment
• Be aware that writing from your positionality could be a risk
• BUT many of the freshest, most memorable, or touching essays written were also a risk
• You’ve been taking risks your whole life
• Be aware that different teachers have varying tolerances for such writing risks 
• Be aware that there will be times that your teacher may expect you to write a certain way
• However, there is always a way to be yourself no matter the expectations

 

"Many people believe that English is just one of the many tedious subjects that will disappear after graduating college, but in reality English is power that can be used to illustrate an idea that can shape a person, an organization, a nation, and movement."  ~R. Castillo/LPC Student 

Finally, remember that your professors, especially English professors, want style, so give them your style. Bringing who you are to your writing can help you develop a writing style that can help you better connect with what you write about in school (and beyond). Developing your unique style can also help others understand you and what it is like to see the world through your eyes.

Click here for examples of writers using their positionality.

Click here for how to use positionality to create a thesis for an essay. 

Click here to view a document containing this lesson. [coming soon]