VERNACULAR ELOQUENCE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction to the Book 3

PART ONE: WHAT'S BEST IN SPEAKING AND WRITING 13

Introduction: "Speech" and "Writing" 13

1 Speaking and Writing as They are Used: The Role of Culture 21

Literacy Story: Three Basic Systems for Written Language 35

2 What's Good about Writing 40

Literacy Story: The Development of Alphabetic Writing in the Middle East 55

3 Speaking as a Process: What Can It Offer Writing? 59

Literacy Story: The Rebus 73

4 Speech as a Product: Nine Virtues in Careless Unplanned Spoken Language that Can Significantly Improve Careful Writing 77

Literacy Story: How We Got Spaces between Our Words 101

5 Intonation: A Virtue for Writing at the Root of Everyday Speech 104

Literacy Story: How Charlemagne and Alcuin Robbed Latin of Its Name 122

6 Can We Really Have the Best of Both Worlds? 124

Literacy Story: Two Stories of How Early Standard English Was Born 135

PART TWO: SPEAKING ONTO THE PAGE: A ROLE FOR THE TONGUT IN THE EARLY STAGES OF WRITING 139

Introduction: Speaking and Writing as Mental Activities, p. 139

7 What Is Speaking onto the Page and How Does Freewriting Teach It? 147

Literacy Story: The Linguistic Brightness of the So-called Dark Ages 165

8 Where Else Do We See Unplanned Speaking onto the Page? 169

Literacy Story: Another Successful Rhetorician in the Court of Queen Isabella 183

9 Considering Objections to Speaking onto the Page 186

Literacy Story: Everyone Complains about Language, but No One Does Anything about It---Except Now and Then 196

10 The Need for Care: Easy Speaking onto the Page Is Never Enough 198

Literacy Story: An Example of a Collage from The New Yorker (July 5, 1982) 211

PART THREE: READING ALOUD TO REVISE: A ROLE FOR THE TONGUE DURING LATE STAGES OF WRITING 213

Introduction: What Is Standard English? 213

11 Revising by Reading Aloud: What the Mouth and Ear Know 219

Literacy Story: Syllabaries and Sequoyah's Invention in Arkansas in 1820 235

12 How Does Revising by Reading Aloud Actually Work? 237

Literacy Story: When They Stopped Teaching Grammar 257

13 Punctuation: Living with Two Traditions 259

Literacy Story: The Rule about That and Which 271

14 Good Enough Punctuation by Careful Reading Aloud and Listening 275

Literacy Story: Languages Dying and Being Reborn 294

15 How Speech Can Improve the Organization of Writing: Form as Energy 299

Literacy Story: Three Countries with Competing Official Written Languages 315

16 Summary Chapter: The Benefits of Speaking onto the Page and Reading Aloud 317

Literacy Story: Chairman Mao Tries to Make Literacy More Available to the Chinese 336

PART FOUR: VERNACULAR LITERACY 341

Introduction: Dante's Vulgar Eloquence 341

Writing and voice 281

17 How Our Culture of Proper Literacy Tries to Exclude Speech 343

Literacy Story: Illegal Alphabets359

18 A New Culture of Vernacular Literacy on the Horizon 363

Appendix I : How Freewriting Went from Dangerous to No Big Deal in the Composition and Rhetoric Community 391

Appendix II : A Sampling of Published Writing in Non-Mainstream Varieties of English 399

Also, Peter Elbow 401

Works Cited 411

Index 429