Last year, Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in literature and
Donald Trump tweeted his way to become leader-elect of the free world. While
these events have little to nothing in common, they both make me ponder the
future of literature. In the past century, when I attended college at Suffolk
University in Boston, we studied Lincoln’s Gettysburg address in the entry level English literature class. Even as a newbie
to this country, I could engage with those words, the subtleties, the passionate
art of trying to unify a nation. Lincoln rocked! While I don’t personally object
to the selection of Bob Dylan for the Nobel Prize, I know that it raised a few
eyebrows around the world. I’m fairly certain that Trump’s tweets are raising
more eyebrows – both because of the content and the grammar. So, what are we to
do?
As teachers and faculty members we are obligated to keep up
with the latest trends in our respective subject areas. This means that
professors in Political Science, English, and even Philosophy and History, will
need to consider how to handle the White House’s latest mode of communication.
But writing and communication cuts across disciplines. When you can become
president of the US and put your name
by sentences like “Having a
good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. Only ‘stupid’
people, or fools, would think that it is bad!” what are we to do
with general writing instruction? Is it really necessary to clarify that
a good thing is not a bad thing and that stupid people equal fools, especially
when you only have 140 characters to get your point across? I would try to use
some of those characters to back up my arguments. But research, scientific
facts and good arguments seem to be a thing of the past.
140
characters do limit you, and it may make sense to try to simplify your
language, use the shortest words possible (e.g. sad), and leave out obvious
arguments, but why all the quotation marks? I am not a writing teacher and my
first language isn’t English, but even I know that quotation marks are
supposed to be used when you quote somebody else, or possibly to indicate that
you question or blatantly discredit the word in quotation marks. As in, “according
to the administration’s ‘alternative facts’ more people attended the current
president’s inauguration than any
other inauguration”. For more about the
US president’s use of quotation marks you may want to explore Trump’s ‘Use’ of ‘Quotation Marks’
an article found in the February 1, 2017
edition of the Chronical of Higher education by Ben Yagoda: http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2017/02/01/trumps-use-of-quotation-marks/?cid=trend_right_a
Where does all of this leave college writing
instruction? I’m curious to find out if students are using Trump language as arguments
in their own writing – and if they do, do you accept it? How are you navigating
this ‘brave’ new world?
