| 
Definition
 The
term 'Standard English' refers to a dialect
which has acquired the status of representing the English language.
It
refers to the content of the utterance rather than the pronunciation.
However,
Standard English is used in both speech and
in writing.
Examples
A business letter
Thankyou for your letter dated July 3, requesting more information
on the Snowmobile.
A telephone conversation
"Hello. I'm ringing on behalf
of my wife, Mary. Unfortunately, she won't be in today because
she's feeling unwell."
Use
Standard
English in written form is used in such
formal documents as essays, business letters, notices, reports,
and memos.
Standard
English in spoken form is used in such
formal utterances as business negotiations, public announcements,
and news broadcasts.
Most
educated writers use Standard English in all texts -
except when a special effect is required.
It
is fairly common for a speaker to use Standard English and deliver
it with a regional accent.
Standard
English is believed to have evolved by means of a universal linguistic
process. The essential concepts concerning standardisation are
as follows:
- an element of conscious engineering always obtains
- a variety regarded as exclusive is cultivated
by an elite
- a written form always
exists, though not
always as a standard
- standardisation
slows
down
language
development
The
standardisation process is thought to comprise the following stages:
1. selection
2. acceptance
3. elaboration
4. codification
If
these principles are applied to the English language, we can see
how a dialect became Standard English.
Selection.
The origins of standard English lay in the merchant class who had
by the fourteenth century settled in London. They spoke an east
midland dialect, associated first with
Norfolk and later with Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, and Bedfordshire.
It had already become a class dialect within London. The lower
class Londoners spoke a south east dialect which was the antecedent
of Cockney.
By
the end of the fourteenth century the east midland dialect was
the embryonic written standard. About 1430, one regional variant
of that dialect became increasingly dominant. This selection of
a standard was obviously linked with the economic power and the
ideas of the new merchant class. This was confirmed by the advent
of printing, which created a concrete representation of the merchants'
spoken variety. [Caxton brought the printing press to England in
1475].
The
spoken standard came about later in the Middle Ages for the following
reason. Students from all over England mixed in the universities
of Oxford and Cambridge, both of which were only sixty miles from
London. In this triangle formed by the three centres a great deal
of east midland speech would have been heard, and possibly used
as a kind of lingua franca (common language) among a socially
mobile group. Here then, we see the selection of a certain dialect due
to need and function.
Acceptance By
about the middle of the fifteenth century the east midland dialect
had been accepted as a written standard
by those who wrote official documents. However, this acceptance
was made unconsciously.
[For
instance, when Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales [1387]
in the east midland dialect, his contemporaries had their own,
local written varieties. Langland's Piers Plowman [1362-87]
and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight [1370] are both written
in dialects which are different than Chaucer's.]
Even
as late as the sixteenth century, no national literary standard
existed. By Shakespeare's time however, the regional differences
had disappeared and a real, national, literary standard prevailed.
Elaboration Regional
dialects of English lost status as their writing systems were displaced
by the standard. Their functions became more restricted as the
standard became more elaborated. Regional dialects became
the medium of ordinary everyday conversation among equals.
The
new written standard now had to function where previously Latin
and French had been the norm in legal, ecclesiastical and scholarly
matters. By neccessity it thus became elaborated.
Elaboration
when applied to the development of a standard means that the particular
variety must cope with all types of communication. Thus any variation
within the dialect ceased to be based on region. It was based instead
on stylistic function.
That meant, for example, that vocabulary could
now be differentiated as legal, literary, or technical.
English
language was first used in government and law in 1362, although
the use of French persisted alongside it for another century. It
is interesting to note in this respect that Milton - one of the
great English poets - wrote a great deal of his work in Latin.
In 1731 an act of parliament was passed to restrict the use of
Latin and French to the province of law. [Even today, the English
legal system uses Latin expressions - 'habeas corpus', for instance.]
Codification The
process of codification means that the use of language is documented
in order to reinforce a certain variety which has been accepted.
Codification is easier to effect in written form than in speech,
although attempts have been made since the development of a written
standard to apply the same practices of codification in speech.
Codification
slows down the natural development of any language because of its
aims for minimal variation in form. Criteria for choosing one particular
use rather than another are usually related to the vested interests
of certain social or economic groups. The impulses behind this
codification stem from notions of prestige based on the emulation
of social groups considered worthy of esteem.
Other
countries in Europe such as France and Italy set up their own academies
designed to monitor language and prescribe certain usages. The
Academie Francaise (established in 1635) is still in operation.
One of its most recent projects was trying to prohibit the use
of 'Franglais' ['Le parking', 'le week-end'] which was thought
to be making the French language impure. The attempt was not successful.
In
England, eighteenth-century scholars such as Jonathan Swift and
Samuel Johnson pressed for the institution of an English academy,
but it never happened.
The
phenomenon of the dictionary arrived as a direct result of the
desire to codify. Samuel Johnson's dictionary (1755) was historically
significant in that whilst it was a major work of codification,
it was the first to acknowledge variation in meaning and usage.
Important
note for teachers. The new National Curriculum requires youngsters
to be competent in using "Standard English". This is quite wrongly
taken by many people to refer to accent,
when it actually requires pupils to understand the use of standard
grammatical constructions, together with a comprehensive standard
lexicon. |
