I'm repeating briefly something I said individually earlier. There is
standard  English, Zimbabwean variant, just as there are US or UK
variants,and as in those cases the differences from other varities of
standard English are very small. As Caroline says, there may also be local
rhetorical or stylistic traditions, but the problem appears to be that the
the present text is not in standard English, Zimbabwean or anything else,
from a grammatical point of view. At present we wouldn't accept a
dissertation even in well-codified non'standard' varieties like Scots or
Jamaican Creole, so we can't accept one in non-codified non-standard. Maybe
this rule is wrong, but then it is wrong for all non-standard usage. It's a
good question why we are so hung up on standard usage, but  I agree 100%
with John Harbord.


Philip Shaw, Stockholm
On Wed, 2 Mar 2011 07:53:56 +1100, Caroline Chanock
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi, people, 
> this is one of the most interesting discussions I've seen for quite a
> while, and I'm beginning to fantasise that some of you might get
together
> and produce an article about this issue, maybe drawing on people like
> Pennycook for a linguistic perspective. Just on the question of
> non-standard varieties of English, though, I'm not sure I'd agree with
> John's idea that if a student writes in a mixture of standard and
> non-standard it means that s/he doesn't control either one. Most
students
> would be aware that the non-standard variety is not welcome at the
academy
> and would be trying to replace it with the standard, insofar as they
know
> how that works; it's because they don't have full control of the
standard
> one that we get the mixture. I think the really interesting question is
> whether universities are justified in excluding any of the "world
> Englishes" other than the original colonising one, and I'm gathering
from
> the last couple of endorsements of John's view that many people think
they
> are. I have real reservations about that, based on my experience of
reading
> theses that are a lot better than the supervisor thinks they are, if you
> read them with some knowledge of the rhetorical conventions and/or idiom
of
> the academic tradition the writer comes from. I'm not saying we should
be
> happy with writing that's incomprehensible; just that we might broaden
our
> repertoire for comprehending, and be the richer for it. 
> 
> Kate
> 
> ________________________________________
> From: European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing -
> discussions [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Linda McPhee
> [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Wednesday, 2 March 2011 7:32 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: PhD in African English
> 
> One of the universities in which I work has a multi-pronged approach to
> this, recognising that the ability to do good work and the ability to
write
> flawless English are not the same. The  PhD students have the option of
> working with me in a writer's group, the supervisors look at multiple
> drafts of individual chapters, students are encouraged to present parts
of
> their work in articles and at conferences (and are assisted in making
> presentable articles or conference papers), are required to give a
seminar
> (writing there can be minimal, but the questions asked therein that help
> sharpen ideas) and there is a final editor/proofreader.
>      This all sounds a bit strange to me -- especially the part where
the
>      entire thing has been written in dialect. Where was this person's
>      supervisor? Why were there no earlier drafts that a supervisor
>      commented on? Surely the supervisor would have known early on that
>      there was a problem with the Language -- and if he/she did not want
to
>      engage with the problem then find someone who could?
>      It's also strange to me since I've worked with Zimbabwean students
>      who had little or no problem code-switching into formal
international
>      academic language. Is there a more complex political story there --
is
>      he Matebele/Ndbele? Somehow, this person seems to have had
>      insufficient opportunity to work in English in Zimbabwe... at
least,
>      that's a guess... and to me, it sounds like his department has let
him
>      down.
> 
> linda mcphee
> http://www.lindamcpheeconsulting.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 1 Mar 2011, at 20:18, Shimona Kushner wrote:
> 
>> Here, here!!
>>
>>
>>
>> Shimona Kushner
>> Technion-Israel Institute of Technology
>> Neve Shaanan, Haifa 32000
>> Israel
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Harbord" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Monday, February 28, 2011 4:17 PM
>> Subject: Re: PhD in African English
>>
>>
>> Dear John and All,
>>
>> This is a knotty problem. If we assume for the moment that your
>> university is in a position to specify that theses should be written in
>> standard academic UK or US English (ours does, for example), it is then
>> possible to argue that this thesis does not meet that standard, quite
>> regardless of whether or not it may be an adequate sample of Zimbabwean
>> English.
>>
>> Much more difficult is the next question of whether or not the student
>> should be required to demonstrate mastery of one of these 'prestige
>> dialects' as a requirement to being awarded the degree. Arguably the
>> answer is yes if he is going to be accepted as a member of the academic
>> community and publish (at least outside Zimbabwe). I consulted with an
>> Indian colleague on this and he said that while Indian English is a
>> recognised different variety of the language at the spoken level and in
>> creative writing, in academic writing, the standards would be very
close
>> indeed to those of academic US/UK English and would not tolerate any
>> significant grammatical deviation.
>>
>> Another key indicator a linguist would bring to the analysis is the
>> regularity of the 'non-standard' grammatical structures. Certain
>> varieties of English, eg. some US black dialects, or Norfolk dialect -
>> which I speak - have no third person 's' (eg. She go). Yet that third
>> person 's' is consistently absent unless the code is switched (the
>> speaker changes to a more formal variety due to some sociolinguistic
>> contextual change related to topic, audience, location or whatever).
>> Within a PhD thesis, there should be no occasion for the code to
switch,
>> therefore, all grammatical 'errors' should be fully consistent
>> throughout. If they are not, the student simply does not master the
code,
>> or to put it in lay terms, he is not in control of his own language.
>>
>> The Russians, the Brazilians and the Indonesians are all required to
>> meet certain high standards of English as academics if they complete a
>> PhD in English - it is not clear that because someone speaks a variety
of
>> English that is accepted as being distinct from UK/US English they
should
>> be exempt from meeting this requirement. Unfortunately, universities do
>> tend to fudge the issue because it does not look good if their PhD
>> candidates (that they probably should not have taken in the first
place)
>> fail. This means that someone gets employed to 'polish up' the English.
>>
>> Writing support should have been on the ball with this student from the
>> word go. He should have been referred to a writing center or some other
>> kind of help after his very first written assignment and coached all
the
>> way so that he could graduate with the skills he lacked on entry. That
>> hasn't happened. If I was God right now I would hurl a thunderbolt and
>> fail him, and the university and the student should both suffer the
>> consequences. That, however, isn't going to happen because it is a lot
>> easier and cheaper to ask someone else to rewrite the whole thing for
him
>> - he passes, the university is happy, money is saved because about 700
>> euros spent on rewriting a thesis is a lot cheaper than actually
>> providing an effective writing support program, and the copywriter
makes
>> a fairly good living. Low standards and academic sloppiness and
>> indifference about authorship is a win-win situation; if it wasn't,
>> writing support would be a lot more extensive in every university in
>> Europe.
>>
>> In the present situation I would say two things:
>> 1. Proofreading should be charged at commercial rates, whether the
>> student or the department pays.
>> 2. Proofreading should deal with nothing other than " grammar,
>> punctuation and syntax" - there should be no effort to rewrite the text
>> into a more coherent argument. In other words, it should lay bare the
>> relative inadequacy or otherwise of the written argument.
>>
>> I'm in a savage mood today, aren't I?
>>
>> John