This article was originally published in the International Journal of Christianity and English Language Teaching (IJC&ELT, ISSN 2334-1866, online).1
With appropriate urgency, Marilyn McEntyre begins her book by getting promptly to the point: “Caring for language is a moral issue” (p. 1). According to McEntyre, language-care should concern everyone, even beyond Christian English language educators, because the words we use and how we use them shape our way of being together. “Words are entrusted to us as equipment for our life together, to help us survive, guide, and nourish one another” (p. 2). McEntyre encourages her readers to resist the pressures poisoning the English language and to take on disciplines that, used correctly, will nurture it back to health. The pressures poisoning English are many: news media driven by corporate interests, technologies that encourage users to “be content to trade precision for speed” (p. 12), the loss of healthy discourse, and the widespread dependence on market language. The overall problem is that words have become “industrialized,” processed like food and emptied of their health benefit (p. 16). This cultural milieu affects both the instructor and student, and for this reason McEntyre’s book is a timely, prophetic call to steward words.
Summary
The book begins with a diagnostic of the current cultural context. McEntyre’s argument can be divided into two types. The first is a statistical analysis of the current state of language. Among the data points included, she notes the level of illiteracy and media intake in the U.S., and when appropriate, she pulls from her experience as a professor to confirm the data. Her use of anecdotal evidence continues throughout the rest of the book, providing compelling stories that support her proposals. Secondly, she argues for change in our practice by anticipating the potential outcomes if current language-use trends continue. Turning from diagnosis to strategy, McEntyre distills three actions necessary to restore and cultivate healthy language. Instructors must help students: 1) deepen and sharpen reading skills, 2) cultivate habits of speaking and listening that foster precision and clarity, and 3) practice poesis – “to be makers and doers of the word” (pp. 9-10).
McEntyre proposes twelve strategies for the recovery of the English language, giving attention to each in distinct chapters, and using them to support the actions listed above. The movement of the book is pleasantly simple, moving from strategies that are related to our affections to strategies related to language-rich rituals. These final three chapters are particularly stimulating because they confront the liturgies related to media and market speech. The book envisions a culture built from habits of language-use that challenge speakers to practice and play with beautiful words. English language educators will find in the final three chapters a theological orientation that roots good use of beautiful words in the Word Himself.
Commentary
Christian English language educators work in the intersection of what is and what could be. ESL students often need to make immediate gains (particularly adult learners), so instructors are pressured to teach functional English, that is, English that is useful in the workplace and market. Conversely, instructors have the opportunity to create new cultural patterns by forming the language practices of those assimilating to the English-speaking world. McEntyre’s book is dedicated to inspiring and even guiding instructors toward this latter possibility. For instance, she encourages her readers to teach students to “Love the Long Sentence” as a way of starving the impulse to indulge “our vulgar appetites for action” (p. 134). “Slowing down, for a contemporary reader, is a countercultural act. Nearly everything in the momentum of modern life urges us onward at an accelerating pace” (p. 133). Each of the “stewardship strategies” suggested by McEntyre is a countercultural move.
Readers may initially think McEntyre’s strategies are elitist, that the proposals are for the privileged. McEntyre herself is aware of this and treats this concern as it presents itself in each chapter. For instance, in “Tell the Truth,” McEntyre reminds the audience that demanding precision is not the same as demanding sophistication or even technicality. In fact, quoting from a wide variety of novelists, McEntyre reveals that precision often relies on understatement and is countercultural to the hyperbolic tendencies of media-speak. It is important to remember the culture McEntyre has in view. Media and market language dominate the major spheres of culture (such as education, politics, and the arts), and by these forms of English many are excluded from active participation in and agency over their community. In an article published immediately after the United States 2016 presidential election, it was reported that poetry was increasingly being used by people trying to make sense of social events. The elevated language of verse provided the solace people desired (Garber, 2016). It appears that the social context is such that the public intuitively recognizes the value of higher language. It is to this hungry group that McEntyre commends herself.
Caring for Words is beautifully written and stands as an example of the very practices it promotes. McEntyre quotes liberally from sociologists, novelists, and essayists, providing a bibliography of resources for instructors looking for tools to begin practicing poetry and teaching a love for the long sentence. The book will serve any instructor looking for long term strategies for English education and cultural transformation. In a culture increasingly lost for words, Caring for Words serves as a reminder of the essential language tools for communities of people. To the teachers, ministers, and speakers that McEntyre addresses in this book, the call for activism should be energizing and the strategies proposed are actionable in ways that transform the reader into part of the resistance, part of those refusing to let the English language perish, and with it our ability to be in community.
Reference
Garber, M. (2016, November 10). Still, Poetry Will Rise. The Atlantic. Retrieved from:
Footnote
(2018) "Entire Issue," International Journal of Christianity and English Language Teaching: Vol. 5 , Article 1.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.biola.edu/ijc-elt/vol5/iss1/1