duminică, 16 noiembrie 2008

Dilemma

I'm a hypocrite. Am I a hypocrite? I'm teaching students in Journalism this year. They should be incisive, fair but aggressive. More than anything, they should WRITE. About anything, at all times. But when using wikis to work with them should we have any language restrictions? Me and my colleague made it very clear to them from the beginning that we're working on an academic space where they should "watch the language". BUT: isn't it a form of hypocrisy on my behalf? Pretending swear words don't exist in a language? Isn't it a form of censorship, to erase words which have offensive connotations? I for one use bad words sometimes, I listen to hip hop, I don't blush when I say a ... joke.On the other hand, accepting these things will lead us educators WHERE?

I'm confrunting with this dilemma. Help!

Un comentariu:

sqpeg spunea...

your jurna students ought to write about anything, anywhere, indeed. however, what they mustn't forget is that they are compelled to adapt their language to their audience and to the context. it's ok to write a book only in expletives, methinks. it's not ok to write profanities in what is a public (academic) space. it's not censorship, it's not hypocrisy.
these students are here to learn how to manipulate language elegantly to convey their message. sometimes an elegant, verbal legerdemain is stronger than a cuss words. Romanian has degenerated so much these past few years. i sometimes feel so guilty myself for swelling the ranks of those barbarians who don't know, don't have a feel for tehir own language anymore. :(
maybe you should have a class on ways to avoid using obscenities directly - i don't know about romanian, but it might work in english.

si, mona? la ora 3 dimineata?

tsk, tsk, tsk