Vernacular Writing VS. Everyday Writing

We have defined everyday writing multiple times throughout this ENC 1145 class so far. We defined it the first day of class, and we keep defining it and narrowing down what we think everyday writing is as the course continues. My personal idea of everyday writing may change drastically, or may not change at all the next class. One characteristic of everyday writing that has stayed consistent in my mind is the idea of being personal, and how one writes is based off of who they are writing for (aka the audience.) Also, I continue to believe that through everyday writing written documents have more power. In contrast, I used to define everyday writing as informal and I do not agree with my previous thoughts. I believe now that Informal/formal does not impact or define what everyday writing is. Also, I used to believe that everyday writing was thoughtless. I refuse to believe this now because everyday writing is not thoughtless because the writer wrote for a reason, and they had to understand the situation they were in. Overall for everyday writing, we have studied as a class deeper into everyday writing, as we now know that Rhetorical situation surrounds a text. Networks of genres that came before it influence the text. The audience also influences the text as I explained above.  On the other hand, vernacular writing is another concept to explore into. Vernacular writing is known as writing that is common to your native language or dialect. It can refer to a specific population. I think the idea of vernacular writing focuses more on discourse communities and audience.  Discourse communities is a community in which there are specific codes/ values/ standards you adapt in your responses. Therefore, you have to live within on to understand why one reacts the way they do. The audience is influenced by a discourse giving a response. Also the idea of knowledge is addressed. Knowledge is created through individual reactions with or within his or her discourse community. Therefore, one may have a certain reaction because of what they know through their vernacular language. I think that everyday writing and vernacular writing have some common similarities. First, I think audience plays such an important role in both of the situations. Audience is considered in both influencing how one writes a text for everyday writing, and how one understands a text in discourse communities from vernacular writing. One difference between the two I have realized is that I do not think the materials the text was made in matters as much in vernacular writing as it does in everyday writing. In everyday writing permanence plays a key role. Overall, I believe that a tombstone has characteristics from both everyday writing and vernacular writing. I think this because tombstones focus on the audience and permanence and discourse communities. We know tombstones in society play the role to honor and remember the loved ones we have lost. We have the knowledge in society to know this through vernacular writing. Audience plays a key role also because whoever sees the tombstone will feel an impact/ emotion drawn from it. Also permanence plays a key role because tombstones are meant to last forever through the imprint in cement. I can’t wait to go to the cemetery and my idea hopefully may be persuaded to believe tombstones are all everyday writing or all vernacular writing!

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