Shen: Writing for English Audience

Shen presents the difficulty that students with Chinese cultural backgrounds face when composing in English. She outlines her struggle in adapting to a culture that asks students to be themselves (460). This statement however, “be yourself” bothers me. Ultimately, composition teachers are asking students to adopt and master Standard Academic English. Perhaps we should ask them to “be themselves,” but we teach them Standard Academic English, an inherently artificial voice, so that they present themselves as professional once they leave the classroom. I suppose my problem lies in Shen’s description of this form of writing as students “being themselves” because an adopted style is not an authentic voice. We are asking them to present their individual thoughts—which I can see as a difficult task for Shen when she first began writing in English—and admittedly there is definitely something useless about telling a student to “write what you think” if the prompt they are responding to makes little sense to them.

As instructors, I think it is necessary to be aware of the attempts that students make to reconcile their culture with Standard Academic English, but we still need to make them aware that SAE has a purpose and a function. Shen claims that she created two selves: an English and a Chinese self, but it sounds a lot like writing for specific audiences—which is an important skill that students should have. Or am I misreading that?