Language Communities
Read this section and think about who some of your language communities are and how you change your language choices based on your environment.
While you are thinking about what you like and don't like about writing, I'd like to clarify a common misconception. A lot of people tend to think that there is only one "right" way to speak and write and that all others are "wrong".
This is simply not true!
Communication, by its very nature, is entirely based on the environment in which it is taking place (this "environment" is generally shaped by audience and purpose - you'll learn more about these later). As stated above, many of you have been using the English language to communicate, for much or all your life. I would never tell you that the way you communicate with your family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors is "wrong". However, when communicating in college, you will need to adapt to the expectations of a different environment. I like to think of these different communication contexts as "language communities".
The truth is that you already have several of these "communities". How you speak to your grandmother is probably very different from how you talk around your friends. How you talk to your ten year old cousin is probably very different from how you talk to customers at your job. You may even have a specific way of communicating that is special to one person.
To give an example, I know in my house, my husband and I have much of our own language. Because we have nearly twenty years of history together, we often communicate in the form of inside jokes and stories, and we even have our own made up words and household slang! In my home, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the way that we communicate with each other. However, if I were to teach my classes using this language, it would probably be pretty confusing for my students!
This means that as we talk about communicating and the rules you need to know for the type of writing you will do in college and professional settings, just because those rules are different from the way you currently communicate, doesn't mean that you are wrong. It only means that the way you have communicated and written in the past is different than what you will do in college.
Source: Erin Severs
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