A resource book for students World Englishes Jennifer Jenkins

Strand 5: Standardisation in Mother Tongue Englishes Standard language  Term used for that variety of a language which is considered to be the norm.  Prestige variety: spoken by a minority of those occupying positions of power within a society  Yardstick against which other varieties of the language are measured  Held up as optimum for educational purposes A5

Standard language and language standards Language standards - Prescriptive language rules which constitute the standard to which all members of a language community are exposed and urged to conform during education. - Reverse side of the standard language coin. - Because natural languages are dynamic, these rules are subject to change over time. - During earlier and transitional stages, language change is regarded as error by promoters of standard language ideology. A5

Standard language and language standards ‘[…] standard languages are the result of a direct and deliberate intervention by society’ (Hudson 1996: 32)  Four stages of this process of intervention 1 Selection 2 Codification 3 Elaboration of function 4 Acceptance A5

What is Standard English? 1. The dialect of educated people throughout the British Isles. It is the dialect normally used in writing, for teaching in schools and universities, and heard on radio and television. (Hughes and Trudgill 1979, repeated in the 2nd ed., 1996) 2. The variety of the English language which is normally employed in writing and normally spoken by ‘educated’ speakers of the language. It is also, of course, the variety of the language that students of English as a Foreign or Second Language (EFL/ESL) are taught when receiving formal instruction. The term Standard English refers to grammar and vocabulary (dialect) but not to pronunciation (accent). (Trudgill and Hannah 1982, and repeated in the 4th ed., 2002) A5

What is Standard English? 3. Standard English can be characterized by saying that it is that set of grammatical and lexical forms which is typically used in speech and writing by educated native speakers. It … includes the use of colloquial and slang vocabulary as well as swear- words and taboo expressions. (Trudgill 1984) 4. (The term) ‘Standard English’ is potentially misleading for at least two reasons. First, in order to be self-explanatory, it really ought to be called ‘the grammar and the core vocabulary of educated usage in English’. That would make plain the fact that it is not the whole of English, and above all, it is not pronunciation that can in any way be labelled ‘Standard’, but only one part of English: its grammar and vocabulary. (Strevens 1985) A5

What is Standard English? 5. Since the 1980s, the notion of ‘standard’ has come to the fore in public debate about the English language … We may define the Standard English of an English-speaking country as a minority variety (identified chiefly by its vocabulary, grammar and orthography) which carries most prestige and is most widely understood. (Crystal 1995, repeated in the 2nd ed., 2003) 6. Traditionally the medium of the upper and (especially professional) middle class, and by and large of education […] Although not limited to one accent (most notably in recent decades), it has been associated since at least the 19th century with the accent that, since the 1920s, has been called Received Pronunciation (RP), and with the phrases the Queen’s English, the King’s English, Oxford English, and BBC English. (McArthur 2002) A5

Standard English: What it isn’t It is not a language: it is only one variety of a given English. It is not an accent: in Britain it is spoken by 12 – 15% of the population, of whom 9 – 12% speak it with a regional accent. It is not a style: it can be spoken in formal, neutral and informal styles, respectively. It is not a register: given that a register is largely a matter of lexis in relation to subject matter (e.g. the register of medicine, of cricket, or of knitting), there is no necessary connection between register and Standard English It is not a set of prescriptive rules: it can tolerate certain features which, because many of their rules are grounded in Latin, prescriptive grammarians do not allow. (cf. Trudgill 1999) A5

Standard English A dialect That differs from other dialects in that it has greater prestige That does not have an associated accent That does not form part of a geographical continuum. It is a purely social dialect. (Trudgill 1999) A5

Non-standard Englishes Non-standard native English varieties New Englishes: standard and non-standard varieties  Implicit belief that New Englishes are result of fossilisation A5

Standards across space Three ‘standard’ Englishes: Britain, North America and Australia  similarities and differences - across the three standards - across varieties of English within Britain and North America B5

Vocabulary = most noticeable level of divergence NAmE and BrE Early settlers introduced new words via – Extending meaning of existing English words (e.g. corn, robin) – Creating new words (e.g. buttle) – Borrowing from indigenous languages (e.g. moccasin, squash, toboggan) Developments since independence of US – technological innovation (e.g. NAmE: windshield, hood, trunk vs. BrE: windscreen, bonnet, boot) B5

Categories of lexical differences in EngEng and USEng Trudgill and Hannah 2002: Same word, different meaning Same word, additional meaning in one variety Same word, difference in style, connotation, frequency of use Same concept or item, different word B5

Australian English Borrowings from aboriginal languages (e.g. kangaroo, boomerang) some now widely known; especially for fauna and flora; now regarded as quintessentially Australian Words with different meanings Different slang words and phrases Many abbreviations, clippings B5

Differences in grammar USEng and EngEng (Trudgill and Hannah 2002) Verbs: morphology, auxiliaries Nouns: noun endings, using verbs as nouns Adjectives and adverbs Prepositions B5

Standard English and dialects Lexical and grammatical differences trivial? Dialects mostly different in pronunciation Grammatical structures in British dialects – Verb phrase – Adverbs – Negation – Pronouns Attitudes towards standard and non-standard varieties B5

Standards across channels Differences between speech and writing: Three approaches (Baron 2000): – Opposition view – Continuum view – Cross-over view Continuum between ‘typical speech’ and ‘typical writing’ (Leech et al. 1982) C5

Grammar of spoken (British) English Carter and McCarthy 1995: Features identified on the basis of CANCODE corpus Heads (or left dislocation) Tails (or reinforcement) Ellipsis Word order C5

E-discourse / s Features of both speech and writing as ‘speech by other means’ (Baron 2000) Differences in style depending on context, addressee, age, sex, L1 e.g. features of texting especially used by young ers Potential blurring of L1/L2, NS/NNS distinction  Reflect on your own practices C5