What Is English?

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            This is my fourth year teaching a course called Pre-Teaching Secondary English, for first and second year students who are considering becoming middle or high school English teachers.

            Each year, one of the first orders of business is to define English as a field, which is a surprisingly difficult task.  We begin by reading an article called “What Is English?” by H. A. Gleason, which was published in 1964 but that raises many questions that remain remarkably relevant more than fifty years later.

            I begin by asking the students to define English as a field, and then to list all the relevant subfields of the discipline.  Gleason never provides a neat and tidy definition, but you can extract one from his conclusion.  I would paraphrase it as “The understanding, manipulation, and appreciation of language.”  His subfields are simple—literature, composition, and grammar.

            My students come up with more varied and interesting definitions, and collectively their list of subfields is tremendous.  Here’s the list they came up with this year.  (Mind you, this is their list and not necessarily mine!):

·      Literature and fiction (including poetry).

·      Drama and theater.

·      Creative writing (including poetry slam).

·      Composition/writing.

·      Rhetoric/speech/communications.

·      Grammar/linguistics.

·      Journalism.

·      Reading.

·      Pedagogy/educational methodology.

·      Language arts (spelling, vocabulary, phonics).

·      Translation/literature in translation.

·      Comparative literature.

·      Culture studies.

·      Film study.

·      Visual literacy (including the fine arts).

·      Digital literacy.

·      Media studies.

·      Literary criticism/analysis/interpretation.

·      Gaming/game theory.

In our discussion, the students liked Gleason’s shift toward the use of Language as a term to replace English, and emphasized that the field should include the consumption, interpretation, and production of language (much like Gleason’s emphasis on understanding, manipulation, and appreciation).  But unlike Gleason, my students wanted to explore the idea of text and what constitutes a text.  Perhaps this is the influence of their digital literacies, but virtual texts and visual texts and performance texts were, to them, as valid as books, and as worthy of study. 

They also were interested in the way language is used—for communication and persuasion, of course, but also as a source of personal and cultural identity (which itself can be defined many ways).

By the end of that second class, I think they were both overwhelmed and excited by the breadth and possibility within the field.

The thrust of my argument to them was that—as Gleason points out early in his piece—the field of English has never been static.  In fact, it has been perhaps the most dynamic of what we might consider the core disciplines of current education (math, science, English, and history).  But because of this dynamism, this volatility, the field is also vulnerable to outside forces.  In short, either we define our own field or we let others define it for us.

I think this point, so valid in 1964 but at least as valid today, must be taken very seriously.  Legislators, journalists, and so-called education reformers have all been guilty in recent years of defining our field as one necessary to create productive workers who can help large corporations compete in a cut throat global market place.  But even if we accept this as a necessary element of the discipline (and I hesitate to do so), where does such an emphasis place poetry?  Or film study?  Or the fine arts, or creative writing, or literary criticism, for that matter?

Several years ago, the Department of Modern and Classical Languages redefined itself as the Department of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages.  Currently, many English Departments are discussing changing their undergraduate majors, and one basic decision that needs to be made is how to define themselves.  Will we continue to emphasize a traditional focus like literature and maybe composition, or do we choose to make much more significant changes?

One very real and valid concern is that this discussion is being driven more by market concerns and misplaced fears than by a real need to redefine the major.  While I respect that concern (and I do think that the apparent fear among many undergraduates that the English major is not marketable is being driven more by yellow journalism and political careerism than by reality), I do think we should think more broadly and creatively about our field. 

At the very least, the discussion is healthy and necessary because it gives us that important opportunity Gleason emphasizes to take control of our own field.  I’m curious what your definition would look like.