Synopses & Reviews
African-American students who speak Black English vernacular and who have ties to the vernacular rhetorical traditions face unique problems in accommodating the language of academe.
Through rhetorical criticism of selected spoken and written texts of successful African-American students, Valerie Balester has made a first step toward a rhetorical focus. In Cultural Divide her analysis of eight African-American students' writing and speaking considers both their linguistic and rhetorical traditions, their situation as minority students in a large university, and their relationship to the researcher. Balester has learned much about these students' attitudes toward their own language and what they perceive as the language of academe. The students clearly use language to create or maintain identification with particular roles and they display the obvious pressure of young people who feel they must represent their race.
Review
This intelligent study pinpoints significantly the sociological and anthropological ramifications of bidialectalism. Strongly recommended.Choice
Synopsis
Through rhetorical criticism of selected spoken and written texts of successful African-American students, Valerie Balester has made a first step toward a rhetorical focus.
About the Author
Valerie M. Balester received her doctorate in English with a specialization in rhetoric in 1988 from The University of Texas at Austin. She also studied English, rhetoric, and composition at The Pennsylvania State University, where she received a Masters in 1982. She became interested in the writing of African-American students when she taught basic writing at Penn State in the late 1970s. In 1988, Balester became Assistant Professor of English at Texas A&M University. Her teaching experience includes first-year and advanced composition. With the help of Texas A&M graduate students, she founded the department's Writing Center and currently serves as its Executive Director. Her research into the rhetoric of African-American students and its effects on their writing continues.