Vershan Ashanti Young and published Polish economist, Agnieszka Szczypińska both present arguements in their respective discplines in articles they published for members of their respective discourse communitites. In “Should Writers use they Own English?” Young argues the use of English by different individuals who have different backgrounds to an audience of scholars who perhaps value standard American English above all else. By contrast, Agnieszka Szczypińska argues the restoration of power in EU after Brexit in “Who Gains More Power in the Eu after Brexit?*”. Ultimately each schoalr uses numerous rhetorical strategies to persuade the audience. Young uses non-Standard American English to effectively show his point. He also uses capitalisation and breaks down the essay into small paragraphs so that the audience can stay engaged and read easily. Agnieszka Szczypińska uses British Standard English with specific economic and financial vocabularies to show her credibility. She also uses charts and tables to give the audience the appropriate and useful evidence to her arguement. Additionally, she formats her essay into different sections to discuss different aspects of in detail. Although they use different technique to write their essays, they both use parentheses to clarify and for in-text citation to strengthen their essays.
As a scholar of colour who served on the faculty at many universities with a doctor of Philosophy, Young provides personal credibility to make an arguement about potentially racist modes of discourse that academics in the discipline of English support either tacitly or explicitly. Young talks briefly about his work on his website “dr. vay”, “I often work as a diversity consultant to schools and organizations, conducting training on cultural competency, interpersonal and intercultural communication, and how minorities can negotiate and lead in predominantly white settings without giving up their cultural backgrounds or “selling out”.” (Young 2) Looking at the name of the journal Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies, and the title, it is clear that Young’s article is related to cultures and diversity, specifically in the English writing community.
Furthermore, Young purposely writes this academic article in non-Standard American English for an academic audience of English professors because he seeks to invite them to mediate over the issue by making them feel uncomfortable about his arguement about black vernacular through both his content and the format. For instance, he uses words like “talkin” (Young 110), “cuz” (Young 110), and “sho” (Young 110), without specifying what they mean, which makes this essay difficult to read. However, considering the fact that he is African American, it can be assumed that he is using Black English. Since this is a scholarly article in the English department, it is very impactful. Many students are taught to write appropriately for essay assignments, and surely, professors must use normal English when publishing academic writings. Nonetheless, by using English that is not considered normal, this text confronts the club the unfair standard of writing. Young uses the term “code meshing” (Young 112), to replace the term code-switching as many people including teachers tell students to speak differently at school and at home. In addition, he uses code meshing himself to make this text more persuasive and relatable. This is a groundbreaking technique as he is a well-known professor in the English community who have been writing in Standard American English for a long time.
Moreover, he uses two different techniques to engage the audience and to make a strong arguement: breaking down the essay into smaller paragraphs, and using parentheses. By breaking down the essay, he not only allows the audience to read the text easier, but also makes it more engaging as each paragraph strikes his main points. He also uses parentheses when specifying his meaning or intention of the use of words or phrases. For example, “Standard language ideology is the belief that there is one set of dominant language rules that stem from single dominant discourse (like standard English) …” (Young 110). In addition, he uses many parentheses for in-text citation, which proves that he uses numerous numbers of references, leading the text to be more reliable and effective.
Besides these techniques, Young makes an impact by using capitalisation to empasise and convey his messages effectively. For instance, he capitalises the word “attitudes”(Young 110) and a phrase “but at home”(Young 110). When he capitalises the word attitude, he is stating that language, dialect or style do not make people vulnerable to prejudice but attitudes do. By capitalising “attitudes”, it emphasises his message that language and the way we speak should not be the reason for prejudice or discrimination. When he capitalises the word “but at home”(Young 110) with an exclamation mark, it shows that he is upset and baffled with the fact that all writers and speakers of English must use standard English and dominant language ideology should be kept out from school or academic situations.
On the contrary, as a reliable, experienced economic analyst, who works as a Chief Expert at Ministry of Finance, Poland, Agnieszka Szczypińska uses her analytical skills and effective uses of charts and tables to discuss the power dynamic in the Eu after Great Britain left. As the title of the journal is “Journal of Economics and Finance”, it is clear that this article is in the Social Science community, specifically, Finance and Economics. The title of the article is “Who Gains More Power in the EU after Brexit?”, which suggest that the article is about the effect of Great Britain leaving the EU. In other words, this title is straight forward and I could say it is boring compare to Young’s essay, which is titled “Should Writers use they Own English?”. This sounds more interesting, leading the audience to be more engaged with the title.
Unlike Young’s essay, this essay is written in standard British English, and there are many vocabularies specific to Economics and Finance community, which allows her to show the audience of Economist that she knows the field and topic well. It is likely that she used British English as it is an essay on Brexit, meaning that it is more appropriate to use British spellings such as “normalised” and “analysed”. Due to the fact that this essay is written for the community of people who have knowledge and interest in this topic, Szczypińska does not explain or clarify the definition. For example, she uses terms like Shapley-Shubik Index, Normalised Banzhaf Index, and Brexit. It can be assumed that Shapley-Shubik Index and Normalised Banzhaf Index are some methods that measure something. However, it does not justify that those indexes are used to measure the powers of players in a voting game, as it is a common sense in her field.
Further, Szczypińska uses formulas and charts in the essay, which give appropriate evidence for the audience. However, rather than jumping into giving equations, she gave detailed explanations of what she is trying to find using the formula, with references to other scholarly essays. By explaining, she allowed herself to show that she knows the topic well and by citing other academic works, she gained more creditability and reliability. Additionally, she labeled the case, charts, and tables, which she used to refer back when using them as evidence. For example, “under two voting procedures (Case 1 and Case 2)… (Szczypińska, 26).” shows that when she compared different cases of voting procedures, she stated which cases she was referring to.
Comparing to “Should Writers use they Own English?”, this essay is structured clearly into different sections, allowing her to explore different aspects of the topic thoroughly. First, she briefly illustrates what the essay is about by writing an abstract. Second, she moves on to introduction with the title “Introduction”, where she gives necessary knowledge and background to inform the audience. Third, she starts off her body paragraph by the title “Methodology and Voting Procedures”. Then, she splits the body paragraph into two parts by numbering them 2.1 and 2.2 with subtitles. She also uses the same format for the next section, where it talks about the result of her calculation. Finally, she titles the last paragraph “Conclusions” to clarify that she is going to clarify and explain the significance of her argument with the answer to her thesis.
As shown above, Vershawn Young and Agnieszka Szczypińska are two different writers from two distinctive fields. This leads them to use different techniques to convey their messages. As Young is an African-American English professor, who is trying to convey the message that we should be able to use our own English, he uses the method of “code-meshing” to make voice stand out. He also uses a structure, where he breaks down his essay to small paragraphs, capitalisation, and parentheses to emphasise his points. On the other hand, Szczypińska is a Polish Economic Analyst, who is trying to analyse and explain how Brexit will influence the EU economically, and financially. To validate her opinion, she effectively uses language, equation, charts and tables, and a structure where she gives titles to each section of the essay. Despite these differences, both writers use references and citations to verify their arguments, which leads the essays and the writers to gain credibility. This means that no matter which fields the essay is written for, citing reliable sources allows the essay to be more powerful and convincing.
Works Cited:
“Linkedin Agnieszka Szczypińska”. Linkedin Agnieszka Szczypińska, 2018, https://www.linkedin.com/in/agnieszka-szczypi%C5%84ska-943296145/?originalSubdomain=pl. Accessed 8 Oct 2018.
Szczypińska, A. (2018). Who gains more power in the EU after brexit? *. Finance a Uver, 68(1), 18-33. Retrieved from http://ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/2042742590?accountid=13158
Young, Vershawn Ashanti. “Should Writers use they Own English?” Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies.12 (2010): 110-7. ProQuest. 6 Oct. 2018 .
Young, Vershawn. “Vershawn Young | About”. Vershawn Young, 2018, http://dr-vay2014.wixsite.com/vershawn-young/page2. Accessed 8 Oct 2018.
Yu's English Project 