Linguistic Theory in Approaches to Written Error in US Composition: History and Current Directions

Abstract

We trace significant shifts over the last forty years in the assumptions about language, language relations, and language learning made by US composition scholars to understand written error through their use of specific theories and findings of scholarship in linguistics, and we explore the implications of these shifts for the teaching of writing. We identify three sets of assumptions with monolingualism, and a fourth set with a break from monolingualist assumptions and an alignment with those associated with translingualism and plurilingualism. Examples from student writing are used to illustrate the implications of these different assumptions for the teaching of writing.