SSR 2

Ceyda Baysal

English 300 Texts & Contexts

4/17/17

Summary/Synthesis Response 2

Summary:

In Chinese Fortune Cookie, LuMing Mao discusses the inevitable difficulties faced when attempting to introduce two cultures. Because both the Chinese and American rhetoric have individual sets of expectations and norms, Mao confesses that he must use a strategic angle in order to make his Chinese rhetoric palatable for the American readers. However, he argues that instead of translating one culture’s common rhetoric in order to match that of another culture’s, people should learn to accept and enforce together-in-difference. Mao encourages the use of Chinese American rhetoric and explains, “I want to characterize the meaning of Chinese American rhetoric as ‘articulated moments in networks of social relations and understandings’—to be created, negotiated, and experienced between ‘border residents’” (Mao 3). The author encourages that, like a fortune cookie, rhetoric should fuse two cultures together whilst maintaining their individual characteristics such as organization, intention, and underlying meaning.

 

Synthesis:

Chapter seven of Scrolling Forward describes the innate, human need in American culture for organization. The chapter describes how the physical organization of humans typically reflects their mental organization. Physical organization fuses together the mental stability and the physical world which could be seen as separate cultures. Therefore, Americans possess an underlying desire to physically tidy and organize their belongings. Specifically, the organization of documents pacifies this need. Each document carries its own characteristics and connotations which allow humans to approach each document with an individual set of assumptions and emotions. The author clearly states, “Each of these documents has its own trajectory and its own rhythm” (Levy 122). For example, a person would be more stressed by the sight of a bill than a birthday card from grandma. Although each document has an individual set of connotations, when combined to form a collective pile, the documents provide a visual that can be either very approachable or overwhelming based on the level of organization achieved.

Chapter four of What Writing Does and How It Does It focuses on intertextuality. Intertextuality is the combination of multiple medias and texts in one piece which essentially creates a hybrid of multiple works. This can include the use of other stories, shared phrases, or even just commonly known facts. The author reminds, “Intertextuality is not just a matter of which other texts you refer to, but how you use them, what you use them for, and ultimately how you position yourself as a writer to them to make your own statement” (Bazerman 94).  Intertextuality encourages the fusing of multiple texts in order to create an ideal, rhetorical piece that most people can view with some sense of understanding and even relation. The created piece is an entirely new piece that, although protects the integrity of the original pieces, makes its own, independent statement.

In A Teaching Subject, Joseph Harris confronts the major differences between English classes in America and in Britain. Although, the subject of English is constant, the lessons taught face great variability based on the country. British English classes tend to follow the growth model which focuses on the experience of the students and how the use of language shapes their experiences. Americans view this approach as too lenient; they believe that English should be taught academically. Harris directly compares the two styles of teaching, “One can view the American position at Dartmouth, then, as an attempt to justify the study of English to other university experts, and the British position as trying to place such work in relation to the needs and concern of the students” (Harris 6).The American school system aims to teach English as a disciplinary weapon in the scientific American culture and focuses on justifying English to other scholars; in other words, America, in the presence of scholars, strategically protects its face. British schools, however, seek to bring together the diverse knowledge and experiences of the students themselves. British English classes not only seek, but also encourage, divergent thinking that may combine culturally bound ideas in order to create an entirely new statement or belief.

In Voices of the Self, Keith Gilyard approaches the subject of Black English and whether or not it should be integrated into everyday language and American schools. Gilyard argues that Black English is already commonly used and therefore a piece of everyday language. In fact, in 1979 Black English was officially ruled as its own language form. Despite this, Black English is still not accepted all over the U.S. and those who use it are typically deemed “slow learners”. People who speak Black English are expected to understand and adopt standard English. Because of this, Gilyard states, “I would expect, therefore, most Blacks to be bidialectal to some extent. But if we accept…that no one is ever perfectly bidialectal, that is, even-handed in a linguistic sense, I think we can safely assert…that for me Black English was developing as the dominant tongue while Standard English, though quite significant, was not wielded as handily” (Gilyard 31). Much like when theorizing a way to combine the rhetoric of two separate cultures, Gilyard first dissects the differences between Black English and standard English. He notices opposite phonics and differences in subject-verb agreement. In other words, Black English and standard English present the same meanings just in different sounding ways, and ultimately, it is society’s choice whether to actively accept and integrate the two types of spoken English.

Chapter 3 of Scrolling Forward is titled “Leaves of Grass” in honor of the works of the phenomenal, world-renowned poet, Walt Whitman. The chapter specifies that Walt Whitman’s book of poetry, Leaves of Grass, is not identical in every edition. Based on the publisher, certain lines, words, and illustrations are either added to or removed from specific poems. The subject matter of the poems remain constant; however, they are presented differently, and the published poems do not present the entire integrity of Whitman’s intended initial product. Much like how rhetoric of cultures are molded and translated to fit the norms of a different culture, Whitman’s poems were modified in order to cater to the current audience. However, the author reminds that some of these changes were made by the poet himself, “There can be substantial textual differences among editions, a good deal of which are due to the changes Whitman made over the years” (Levy 43). Whitman adjusted his own poetry in order for it to accommodate to changed societal perceptions and changes within his own perspective. He himself had a desire to adapt his “outdated” work to the culture’s current norms.

Questions:

1. How can public schools teach different rhetorical norms of different cultures?
2. In America, we act on reason. However, in China, most behaviors are engaged in due to emotion or the value of the perception of others. Should American children be given the liberty to choose to act upon and strengthen emotional intelligence such as in China?
3. What are the differences in characteristics between citizens who were raised in individualistic and collectivistic cultures? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each type?
4. Should old works, such as Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”, be modified to cater to the reading styles and societal understandings of present readers?

 

Word Count: 1190