I am always surprised when students consider it approriate to use the F-word in public forums. It creates a good opportunity to discuss register and appropriateness of audience and context. But more so, I am shocked when my international students blurt out the N-word, even in the context of discussing literature that uses it–and it’s happened too often. I suppose since they hear it in rap music, they don’t realize the profundity of its history and connotations.
One of the ways that English A2 and Language A: Literature can help raise students’ awareness of language appropriateness is through studying when the word has been used, who the speaker was, what the context was, and whether they think it’s legitimate for African American’s to ‘reclaim’ it in order to change its connotations, or if the use of it by anyone reinforces racism. So I found this slide-show entitled, “The N-Word: The top 10 n-word controversies of the decade” interesting. This could be stimulus material for exploring issues like changing understandings of language appropriateness, political correctness, and censorship. There’s an interesting section in Language and Media: A Resource Book for Students that addresses this in the UK for comparison.
