The Development And Peculiarities Of Standard English

The history of Standard English is as old as the history of London English.' (Albert C. Baugh and Thomas Cable, A History of the English Language, 5th ed. Prentice Hall, 2002). The factor that played an important role in the making of Standard English was London becoming the capital of England.

English is the world’s most widely used language. It is useful to distinguish three primary categories of use: as a native language, as a second language, and as a foreign language. English is spoken as a native language by nearly three hundred million people. (A Grammar of Contemporary English, Harlow: Longman, 1972, p.3)

In some countries of the world such as the UK, USA, Australia etc English is a de facto official language in others such as Anglophone Caribbean, Belize, Guyana it serves as a de jure official language, and it also works as lingua franca in many parts of the world to connect various communities living in a particular region or area.

Standard English is a controversial term but an idealized norm used for a form or type of English acceptable in many social situations. It is spoken and written by the educated language users in most public discourse and in regular operation of institutions. It is a term generally applied to a variety of English language which is considered to be normal with respect to grammar, vocabulary, spelling and pronunciation etc by educated native users. Whereas, ‘non standard’ is a variety of English language which employs informal language, with less language decorum, alternative pronunciation, regional spelling variations of vocabulary.

By the term standard English we mean a variety of English language which is used and accepted widely for the purpose of learning and teaching in a more meaningful manner with reduced complexities and conflicts in some aspect. Thomas mentioned, Standard English can be viewed as dialect of institutions, dialect of literacy and education, dialect taught as ‘English’ to foreign learners and dialect of higher social class. It is also entrusted as to ensure high quality of communication and intelligibility. This is why it is considered ‘correct’ when compared with ‘non standard’ variety. Primarily Standard English is employed in expository and argumentative writings as well as in public speaking and is viewed as a proper mode of communication by the news media, the government, the legal profession, and the teachers in our schools and universities.

Lippi-Green states, standard as a uniform way of speaking. Sometimes ‘Standard English’ refers to BBC English or Queen’s English for its being spoken in correct and appropriate way. Generally it is believed to be predominantly used in London and South of England. However, it is not exclusively used and heard in this particular region.

According to (Trudgill 1984:32), Standard English (SE) is a social dialect, generally defined as ‘a set of grammatical and lexical forms typically used in speech and writing by educated native speakers’. Trudgill (2002) says that Standard English is not a language, nor an accent, nor a style, nor a register, but just a dialect – the variety usually taught in school, commonly found in print and broadcasting, used as a model for ELT. Thus, both standard British and American varieties are considered as the right choice for ESL/EFL learners in formal education settings (Ling, 2008) and the learners from the expanding circles of countries look upon the native speakers as models (Tübingen, N.V., 2006). For some scholars ‘prestige association’ phenomenon is ‘linguistic imperialism’ (Modiano, 2001). It is also believed as “the most important dialect in the English-speaking world from a social, intellectual and cultural point of view” (ibid. p165 my emphasis). Another perspective to view Standard English is that it is an idealized language motivated by socio-economic interests of dominant groups in order to establish social hierarchies (see Crowley, 2004; Lippi-Green, 2012; Milroy and Milroy, 2012)

While there are no linguistic reasons for maintaining that it is superior to other dialects of English (Trudgill passim), it is nevertheless the ‘prestige’ variety, widely used in education, in the media and in almost all forms of writing. It is also used as a yardstick against which other varieties are measured. Milroy (2000) criticizes how linguists have historically adopted the prestige associated with a minority of speakers as part of the definition of Standard English. In spite of its high status, research suggests that Standard English is the home dialect of approximately 15% of the population of the UK (Trudgill, 1999b).

Received Pronunciation (RP) an accent associated with Standard English (SE) which is used by only 3% of British population in their everyday life (Trudgill, 2002). Although there is nothing central to RP that makes it superior to other varieties of accents but certain linguistic features give RP a privileged status in the United Kingdom but it is also contested that both RP and SE have no peculiar accent and dialect.

For teachers RP and SE serve as a reference frame work that they can present them as model to their learners to achieve. This is why, they continue showing reliance on these two models as norms for teaching and learning purposes because learning and teaching materials are easily accessible or available to both learners and teachers. As pointed out by Jenkin, who believes that teachers are reluctant to abandon ‘Standard English’ and ‘Received Pronunciation’.

'Standard English” is not hundred percent uniform throughout the world there are grammatical and lexical differences between the British and American Standard English: for example, American users of standard English say the first floor and I've just gotten a letter and write or spell center and color, while British users say ground floor and I've just got a letter and write centre and colour. But these geographical differences within the standard variety are few in comparison with the very high degree of agreement about which forms should count as standard. Nevertheless, like all living languages, standard English, accepts changes over time...'It is important to realize that standard English is in no way intrinsically superior to any other variety of English: in particular, it is not 'more logical,' 'more grammatical,' or 'more expressive.' It is, at the bottom, a convenience: the use of a single agreed standard form, learned by speakers everywhere, minimizes uncertainty, confusion, misunderstanding, and communicative difficulty generally.' R.L. Trask, Dictionary of English Grammar. Penguin, 2000.

Standard English is normally thought of as speech, which is not taught it is naturally adopted by the users but Standard English must be taught (The American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style. Houghton Miffin, 2005). An advantage of using Standard English or Received Pronunciation is that, it is universally understood. For example, if someone is using Standard English anywhere in the world i.e inner circles such as London, New York, Sydney etc, outer circles like India, Nigeria, South Africa or expanding circles of English like Japan, China, Russia etc they would be understood easily because they speak without any heavy accent or dialect.

As generally it is believed that English spoken in inner circles is ‘norm providing’, that in the outer circle is ‘norm developing’ and in the Expanding circles is ‘norm dependent’. This means that English language rules and standards are set by the native speakers because they claim to have the ownership of the language, while the users of English as second language are institutionalized and have developed or are developing their own standards.

According to Hudson (1996:32), standard languages are ‘quite abnormal’ in their development stage. One may think that Standard languages develop in a haphazard manner below the speakers’ threshold of consciousness but they are largely a result of direct and deliberate social intervention. Haugen (1966) indicated that for a dialect to become a standard language it undergoes four stages of social intervention

• a) Selection- choice of a variety to be developed as the standard e.g following the Norman Conquest when London became the centre of power ‘Standard English’ became the preferred variety of the educated class of London. Selection process is influenced by political and social factors which is promoted and enforced by those who can potentially get advantage over those speakers of non-standard varieties. Haugen (1966, p.932) argues, “to choose any vernacular as a norm means to favour the group speaking that variety. It gives them prestige as norm-bearer and a head start in the race for power and position”. There is a general consensus that William Caxton’s introduction of printing press in the England of 15th century was an earliest attempt to standardize the English language (Leith and Graddol, 2007; Locher and Strassler, 2008; Wardhaugh and Fuller, 2015).
• b) Codification- setting out the grammar rules and organizing dictionaries of the selected variety that its users can access to its standard form and use the language correctly. For instance, Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary is considered a milestone in the codification of the English Language (Wardhaugh and Fuller, 2015)
• c) Elaboration of function- at this stage new lexical items are added and new conventions are developed, Haugen (1996:931) describes elaboration as “maximal variation in function” enabling the form to fulfill different roles in society (such as governmental, educational, legislative functions).
• d) Acceptance (Implementation)-refers to the interplay between the promotion of the standardized form and the acceptance of its functioning norms among a speech community that means what is acceptable as standard or correct in language usage and what is not, leading to appreciation of certain uses and stigmatizing other. In order for a norm to be adopted certain groups may promote the standard variety through print and electronic media or most importantly through education system.

It was then London English adopted few and gave away few of its essentialities. The area it covered started from South to Midland. By the 15th century a fairly uniform dialect aligned with London’s dialect began to prevail in these regions.

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Who speaks Standard English?

On one hand, it is said that the standard of any language is the educated version of that language which is grammatically correct and an accent which cannot be associated with any geographical origins of the language specifically. But on the other hand it is claimed that there exist no ‘standard’ in practical terms our speech is influenced by our education and our place of origin, which means each person speaks his or her own variation of language. As we all tend to use certain words to express and our pronunciation varies from person to person. In addition to that English does not have a governing body like the Real Academia for Spanish which decides what correct or incorrect usage of the language is. Thus, generally there is an agreement among people that it is a norm or variety of language which is taught to the students of English as a Foreign or Second language (EFL/ESL) and it is particularly employed in academic writing, broadcasting, but it would be fair to say that nobody actually speaks standard English because there is no evidence that any country, city or town can claim the ownership of standard variety of English or that they speak the Standard English.

‘Standard’ is observed as synecdoche (Joseph, 1987) that is the standard is not seen as a dialect of a specific language, but as the language itself. However, Stevens (1985) argues, Standard English is not the whole English because it’s not the pronunciation that can be labeled “Standard”, but only one part of English: its grammar and vocabulary. Trudgill and Hannah (1994) also refer the term Standard English to grammar and vocabulary (dialect) but not to pronunciation (accent).

Since the 1980s the idea of Standard English started being highlighted and it became part of public debate. The Standard English of an English speaking country is identified as a minority variety having its distinctive features/specifications of vocabulary, grammar and orthography which is considered prestigious and widely understood (Crystal, 1994)

Lippi-Green defines the Standard Language Ideology (SLI) as “a bias toward an abstracted, idealized, homogenous spoken language which is imposed and maintained by dominant bloc institutions and which names as its model the written language, but which is drawn primarily from the spoken language of the upper middle class” (LippiGreen, 2012).

What is particularly interesting about the SLI is that even among people who are linguistically marginalised by dominant groups; it is possible to observe their acceptance of a hegemonic variety that is perpetuated by the education system (Siegel, 2006).

In recent years because of globalization and the introduction of internet, language is evolving at a faster pace than before. English language has changed its identity with its increasing acceptance in the expanding circles of English users such as in China or Japan. Consequently, new varieties of English emerged which made teachers’ job more complicated, challenging. Unlike in the past, when there used to be limited varieties of standard language. For instance, standard British English is a useful dialect and RP is a good accent but in case of listening and reading comprehension reliance on standard variety is likely to limit ones’ abilities to standard variety only. Language teaching practitioners find Standard dialect and RP very useful because a colossal amount of learning material is available in standard language and many exam boards expect it from the learners. The most important challenge for the education policy makers, syllabus designers, material writers and above all for teachers is how and at what point (when) to introduce these variations. To get the learners ready for the real world one thing teachers can do is to expose them to a wide range of varieties to give them practice in accommodating differences in accent, lexicon, grammar and discourse strategies as advocated by (Kirkpatrick, 2007; Matsuda, 2006) at an early stage. It would be useful to have cultural input and awareness of variation included in the learning materials that they choose to use in the classroom.

The process of standardization is an ongoing one. It attempts to reduce or eliminate diversity and variety. Standard variety is regarded as a natural proper and fitting language of those who use it or should use. They consider it part of their heritage and identity something to be protected and respected. Therefore, to ensure and reinforce the ideologies surrounding ‘Standard English’ organizations like British Council, English only movement (US) and Queen’s English are actively involved to protect and safe guard its status quo.

“Some uses are highly valued and others are not. These values are assigned through the various power relationships that exist. RP in England had (and may still have) a high symbolic value. Standard English is more highly valued than nonstandard varieties, at least in many public domains; for in-group interactions, nonstandard ways of speaking may be more highly valued” (Wardhaugh and Fuller, 2015: 212)

Like any other commodity SE is also a product of high value in the market of world’s languages. With the globalization its importance and demand as an educational, social and economic commodity value is increasing at a higher pace than ever. Due to high powered English speaking influential nations have increased the usage of English language through colonialism in 18th century, industrial revolution in 19th century and economic and trade.

Mostly teachers prefer to use Standard variety, because of their unawareness or lack of exposure to different varieties of dialect or based on their own academic experiences as they were taught in Standard English; they consider it as an ‘authentic model’. Also, they prefer to choose learning material which is authentic and has face value as well.

Conclusion

It is generally assumed that SE promotes quality in speech and written language and is understood by all classes and English-speaking peoples regardless of nationality. It can be an instrument of power in debate and argument.

Students exposed to different varieties of dialect are likely to show better performance and prove themselves more competent users of the target language in the real world as compare to those who are exposed to a single dialect that is Standard English only.

In order to support the students to be prepared for the real world usage of English, it is imperative that all teachers (native or non-native) should be encouraged or required to acquire a reasonable dialect awareness/knowledge of varieties of dialects being used in the real world because even within the inner circle countries of English speakers, differences on the basis of gender, socio-economic position, their likeness for one and negative attitude for other dialects makes it is vital that a native speaker teacher should also undergo a dialect awareness training programe (Hazen, 2001)

Thus it becomes essential that dialect awareness programs are incorporated into the ESL/EFL curriculum. As highlighted by Matsuda (2003) who claims “the international scope of learners’ English learning agenda should logically be matched by pedagogical approaches that teach English as an International language (EIL), in part though inclusion of varieties of World Englishes” (p. 719),and Talebinezhad and Aliakbari (2001) who point out that

Students are suggested that they should get familiar with different varieties, native and non-native. Our curriculum for teaching English should, thus, be improved with the inclusion of varieties of English spoken by different native or non-native speakers. This measure will help students broaden their appreciation and knowledge of the language they use and get prepared for any variety not yet known to them (p.4) .

Learners’ awareness can be enhanced by drawing their attention how they communicate in mixed language groups Wicaksono, (2009) dictionaries, grammar books, corpora, world literature, popular music, TV, internet as source of texts for reading, listening and presenting and practicing could be useful resources. Also learners’ should be asked the varieties they are already using or aiming to use and who they plan to use them with.