Identifier

142

Date

2019

Document Type

Honors Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Major

English

Concentration

Professional Writing

Committee Member

William Duffy

Committee Member

Lorinda Cohoon

Abstract

This paper examines copyediting conventions regarding the formatting of foreign words in English texts while also identifying the advantages to altering these rules. Professional editors have an ethical responsibility to ensure that the media the public is consuming represents other cultures without bias or prejudice. As this paper argues, the same principles that apply to editing conventions that advocate for the avoidance of gender stereotyping or for the use of an individual's preferred pronoun, similar advocacy is needed for policies that inform copyediting foreign terminology because italicizing foreign words can mark them as pejoratively other, but refusing to mark them in any way implies cultural assimilation and appropriation. By applying technical and professional communicators' theories of the connection between social justice and technical and professional communication, this paper outlines strategies for ethically representing different languages in English texts.

Comments

Undergraduate Honor's Thesis

Library Comment

Honors thesis originally submitted to the Local University of Memphis Honor’s Thesis Repository.

Download

Share

COinS