Internal Language Barrier: Addressing Disconnects in Discourse at the Collegiate Writing Level

Abstract

One of the most difficult issues students face during their First-Year Composition courses relates to their understanding of the concept of the language of academia. Instead of learning how to use the conventions of their personal discourse communities—or native discourse conventions (NDC)— to help create an amalgam of their languages and the language of academia, students feel compelled to learn and utilize what they perceive as a completely new language, disregarding the idea that an overlap exists between academic discourse communities and NDC. The resulting creation conflicts with the language used in students’ NDC and fails to represent academic language accurately. This project focuses on utilizing an in-text outline during the prewriting process as an outlet for students to write their ideas using their NDC. With the help of focused conferencing, students can learn to mold and transition the ideas from their in-text outlines into the language of academia.