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Standard English is that variety of English which is usually used in print, and which is normally taught in

schools and to non-native speakers learning the language. It is also the variety which is normally spoken
by educated people and used in news broadcasts and other similar situations. The difference between
standard and nonstandard, it should be noted, has nothing in principle to do with differences between
formal and colloquial language, or with concepts such as 'bad language'. Standard English has colloquial
as well as formal variants.

SOCIOLINGUISTICS

An introduction to language and society

A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

Standard English

English is probably the most widely used language in the world, with around 400 million native speakers
and a similar number of bilingual speakers in several dozen partially English-speaking countries, and
hundreds of millions more users in other countries where English is widely known and used in business,
government, or media. It is used for government communications in India; a daily newspaper in Cairo;
and the speeches in the parliament of Papua New Guinea. You may hear it when a hotel receptionist
greets an Iranian guest in Helsinki; when a German professor talks to a Japanese graduate student in
Amsterdam; or when a Korean scientist lectures to Hungarian and Nigerian colleagues at a conference in
Bangkok. A language so widely distributed naturally has many varieties. These are known as dialects. I
That word doesn't apply just to rural or uneducated forms of speech; the way we use it here, everyone
speaks a dialect. And naturally, this book doesn't try to describe all the different dialects of English there
are. It concentrates on one central dialect that is particularly important: the one that we call Standard
English. We can't give a brief definition of Standard English; in a sense, the point of this whole book is
precisely to provide that definition. But we can make a few remarks about its special status. The many
varieties of English spoken around the world differ mainly in pronunciation (or ' accent'), and to a lesser
extent in vocabulary, and those aspects of language (which are mentioned but not covered in detail in
this book) do tend to give indications of the speaker's geographical and social links. But things are very
different with grammar, which deals with the form of sentences and smaller units: clauses, phrases and
words. The grammar of Standard English is much more stable and uniform than its pronunciation or
word stock: there is remarkably little dispute about what is grammatical (in compliance with the rules of
grammar) and what isn't. Of course, the small number of controversial points that there are - trouble
spots like who versus whom - get all the public discussion in language columns and letters to the editor,
so it may seem as if there is much turmoil; but the passions evinced over such problematic points should
not obscure the fact that for the vast majority of questions about what's allowed in Standard English,
the answers are clear? Moreover, in its written form, Standard English is regarded worldwide as an
uncontroversial choice for something like an editorial on a serious subject in any English-language
newspaper, whether in Britain, the USA, Australia, Africa, or India. It is true that a very few minor points
of difference can be found between the American English (AmE) and British English (BrE) forms of
Standard English; for example, BrE speakers will often use She may have done where an AmE speaker
would say She may have; but for the most part using Standard English doesn't even identify which side
of the Atlantic the user comes from, let alone indicate membership in some regional, ethnic, or social
group. Alongside Standard English there are many robust local, regional, and social dialects of English
that are clearly and uncontroversially non-standard. They are in many cases familiar to Standard English
speakers from plays and films and songs and daily conversations in a diverse community

Standard and non-standard English

In addition to differences between national varieties of English, there are differences within each
national variety. Each has a number of dialects. In countries where the majority speak English as their
first language one dialect is used nationally for official purposes. It is called Standard English. Standard
English is the national dialect that generally appears in print. It is taught in schools, and students are
expected to use it in their essays. It is the norm for dictionaries and grammars. We expect to find it in
official printed communications, such as letters from government officials, solicitors, and accountants.
We expect to hear it in national news broadcasts and documentary programmes on radio or television
Within each national variety the standard dialect is relatively homogeneous in grammar, vocabulary,
spelling, and punctuation. Pronunciation is a different matter, since there is no equivalent standard
accent (type of pronunciation). For each national variety there are regional accents, related to a
geographical area, and social accents, related to the educational, socio-economic, and ethnic
backgrounds of the speakers. In British English, Received Pronunciation (RP) is a non-regional social
accent associated with public school education but it is not regarded as a standard accent to be learned
in schools throughout the country. It is spoken by about 3 per cent of the population in Britain. Standard
English has prestige because people connect it with education and with higher-income groups. It is not
intrinsically better than other dialects, though many believe it is. One of its major advantages is that it
has developed a range of styles to suit different kinds of uses of the language, particularly in writing.
Non-standard dialects tend to be restricted to people from a particular region or from a particular social
group or to social groups within a region. Many people speak more than one dialect, perhaps using
different dialects at home and at work.

Variation according to use:: Language also varies according to context and communicative purpose. For
example, newspapers, cookery books, scientific papers, emails, poetry, and fiction all have distinctive
language features. Newspapers have a distinctive layout, headlines are often highly compressed (Banks
warned on student loans), cookery books tend to use many imperatives (Mix the ingredients), scientific
papers use many passive constructions (A colourless gas is produced). These varieties are known as
registers, that is, varieties of language associated with specific uses and communicative purposes. Some
variation depends on the medium, that is, the channel of communication. There is a major distinction
between spoken and written language. Conversation, the most common type of speech, involves
immediate interchange between the participants, who convey their reactions either in words or through
facial expressions and bodily movements. There is more spontaneity in conversation than in writing;
self-correction occurs in the flow of conversation, whereas it is eliminated through editing in writing.
Writing needs to be more explicit, since obscurities and misunderstandings cannot be removed
immediately. People feel more committed to what they write because of the potential permanence of
the written communication. The differences in the nature of the media is reflected in the greater
concision that is possible in writing and in the greater care that writers take over their choice of words.
Language also varies according to the attitude of the speaker or writer towards the listener or reader,
towards the topic, and towards the purpose of communication. We can select from features that range
from the most formal to the most informal. For instance, comprehend and strive are more formal than
their respective equivalents, understand and try. Similarly, This is the student to whom I gave the
message is more formal than This is the student I gave the message to. Grammatical variation across
spoken and written registers is a central theme of the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English
by Douglas Biber et al. (1999). In Chapter 10 we examine the grammatical features of a range of English
registers, including conversations, sports commentaries, emails, and literary texts.

From glossary: standard English Standard English is the variety of English that normally appears in print.
Its relative uniformity is confined to grammar, vocabulary, spelling, and punctuation. There is no
standard English pronunciation. There are some differences in the standard English used in English-
speaking countries, so that we can distinguish, for example, between standard English in Britain, in the
USA, and in Canada. Varieties other than the standard variety are called non-standard.

An Introduction to English Grammar

Standard and non-standard English

There is no official government-sponsored academy that regulates usage For the English language, but
there is still a widely recognized standard English: the dialectal variety that has been codified in
dictionaries, grammars, and usage handbooks. This same variety has been adopted by most major
publishers internationally, resulting in a very high degree of uniformity among published English texts
around the world. The differences between the American and British standards for written English, for
example, are restricted mostly to a small set of spelling and lexical variants, such as theater v. theatre,
favor v. favour, elevator v. lift (see below). For the most part, the notion of 'standard' English does not
play a large role in the descriptions offered in the present grammar. For written registers, we adopt an
implicit, descriptive approach to characterize 'standard' English, in that we describe the grammatical
forms and patterns actually used in published texts (as opposed to prescribing explicitly the forms that
should be used in 'standard English'). Although it is more difficult to apply the notion of a standard to
spoken English, a similar approach can be used: we define standard spoken English as including
grammatical characteristics shared widely across dialects, excluding those varlants restricted to local
or limited sociallregional varieties. This approach recognizes that conversation has special
grammatical characteristics not typically found in writing, and so we do not impose a written standard
on our analyses of conversation. Further, we recognize that there are somewhat different spoken
standards for AmE and BrE, and we include discussion of those differences where relevant
(particularly in Chapter 14). However, it is not our purpose here to survey the range of regional and
social dialect variants in spoken English.

1.3.3.1 Variation within standard English

It would also be wrong to assume that standard English is fixed, with little or no variability. In fact,
one of the major goals of the LGSWE is to describe the patterns of variation that exist within standard
English, and to account for those patterns in terms of contextual factors. For example, standard
English uses two relative pronouns with inanimate head nouns-that and which: I could glve yoti
figures that would shock you. (FICT) This chapter is devoted to a discussion of various pow processes
which occur in open systems. (ACAD) In most sentences, either of these two forms would be
grammatical, although there are a number of contextual factors that favor the use of one or the other
(8.7.1.5). Thus, the existence of a standard variety has not levelled out variability of this type. In
particular, the notion that the standard insists on 'uniformity'- allowing just one variant of each
grammatical feature-is a serious fallacy, arising from a misleading application to language of the
notion of 'standard' and 'standardization' taken from other walks of life. In most cases, variation
within the standard does not attract attention from ordinary speakers. However, speakers of English
do tend to be aware of selected grammatical features and sometimes have strong opinions about
what forms are 'correct'. Thus, while the choice between that and which has a relatively low profile,
the choice between who and whom has attracted more attention; purists claim that only whom is the
proper choice when the pronoun refers to a human and functions logically as an object. In contrast,
speakers of English regularly prefer the pronoun who, as in: There's a girl who I work with who's
pregnant. (co~v) <relative clause> He reckoned the copy of Memories he's got is sung by who? (co~v)
<direct question> Shall I tell you who Sally fancies? (CONV) <indirect question> (In fact, the use of who
in such contexts dates back at least to Shakespeare.) In the LGSWE, we do not argue that any one
alternative is the correct choice in such cases. Rather, we focus on describing the actual patterns of
use and the possible reasons for those patterns. It turns out that speakers often use other strategies
to circumvent controversial choices between grammatical variants; for example, in relative clauses
speakers prefer that or the zero relativizer over either who or whom (8.7.1.4). Throughout the LGSWE,
we discuss in passing several traditional usage controversies; in addition to the who-whom choice,
these include dangling participles, stranded prepositions, and the case of pronouns following be.
However, our primary goal is to describe the patterns of use across the breadth of English grammar,
rather than focusing on a handful of usage issues. There is a basic difference between the variability
found within standard English and that found among non-standard dialects: the patterns of variation
within standard English are widely shared across dialects, while the variants associated with non-
standard English are usually restricted to particular social1 regional dialects (14.4.5). Examples of
variability within standard English can be found at most linguistic levels. With respect to
pronunciation, there is a wide range of differences accepted as standard. For the other linguistic
levels, much of the variability is due to the existence of somewhat different national standards for
AmE and BrE. The most widely known differences relate to spelling (e.g. behaviour v. behavior; centre
v. center) and word choice (e.g. petrol v. gas(o1ine); boot v. trunk). There are fewer grammatical
differences between AmE and BrE. For example, AmE has two participle forms for the verb get-got and
gotten-while BrE uses only the form got: Angie I think we've got a leak. (B~E CONV) v. They've got
money. (A~E CONV) And we still haven't gotten a damn pumpkin. (A~E CONV) Another difference
between the two standards concerns subject-verb agreement with singular collective nouns (such as
government, committee, corporation). In BrE, these nouns can occur with either singular or plural
verbs, while in AmE they occur only with singular verbs (cf. 3.9.2.3):

They're limiting the numbers, the government are limiting the numbers. (B~E CONV) And of course
local government is the most wonderful procrastinator in the world. (B~E CONV) v. The Indian
government was still doing one hour a week of modern rzews in Sanskrit. (A~E CONV) In contrast to
these dialect differences, which are largely conventional, most linguistic variation is functionally
motivated (influenced by discourse or register factors) and shared by both standard AmE and BrE. As
already noted in 1.2, variation of this type is one of the central focuses of the present grammar.

13.32 Variation within non-standard English

The kinds of features associated with non-standard English are similar to those above, except that
these forms are stigmatized and restricted to particular social1 regional dialects. For example, the
relative pronoun what can be used as an alternant to which and that in some dialects of BrE, as in:
They were by the pub what we stayed in. (co~v) In some social dialects of English, it is also possible to
use the verb inflection -s for all persons in the present tense; this is especially found with the verb say
(see 3.9.4) and with go meaning 'say' and introducing direct speech quotations (14.4.4.3), as in: 1 goes
don't you dare, you little cat. (CONV) So I goes you must be a pervert too. (CONV) Variants such as
these are considered non-standard in that they are restricted to particular social dialects (usually non-
prestige dialects) and often restricted regionally as well. Such non-standard variants are largely
outside the scope of the present grammar, which focuses instead on the variants shared generally
across regional and social dialects. The primary exceptions to this general focus are the major
differences between standard BrE and AmE (considered in various chapters, particularly Chapter 14),
and a brief survey of non-standard features in 14.4.5. Further, the distinction between standard and
non-standard English in conversation is sometimes unclear. Since our purpose in every chapter, and
especially in Chapter 14, includes describing the patterns of use characteristic of conversation, we
have not excluded examples containing features that some readers might regard as non-standard.

GRAMMAR OF SPOKEN AND WRITTEN ENGLISH

Standard English is a dialect, defined by the criteria I have discussed. However, because it is
standardized and codified, it is not part of a continuum of dialects: either a feature is standard, or it is
not (Trudgill 1999b:124). It also does not have a particular pronunciation associated with it. Trudgill lists
eight ‘idiosyncrasies’ of Standard English grammar, four of which (perhaps the most widespread in
mainstream dialects) are the following:

1 Standard English does not distinguish between the forms of the auxiliary do and its main verb forms.
Non-standard varieties normally include the forms I done it (main verb), but did he? (auxiliary): Standard
English has did for both functions. 2 Standard English does not permit double negation (negative
concord), as in I don’t want none. 3 Standard English has an irregular formation of the reflexive, with
myself based on the possessive my, and himself based on the object form him. Non-standard dialects
generalise the possessive form, as in hisself. 4 Standard English redundantly distinguishes between the
preterite and past participle forms of many verbs, as in I saw – I have seen, orI did – I have done, where
dialects have forms such as seen or done for both. (adapted from Trudgill 1999b:125)

Language in the British Isles

Standard English is often referred to as ‘the standard language’. It is clear, however, that Standard
English is not ‘a language’ in any meaningful sense of this term. Standard English, whatever it is, is less
than a language since it is only one variety of English among many. Standard English may be the most
important variety of English, in all sorts of ways: it is the variety of English normally used in writing,
especially printing; it is the variety associated with the education system in all the English-speaking
countries of the world, and is, therefore, the variety spoken by those who are often referred to as
‘educated people’; and it is the variety taught to non-native learners. But most native speakers of
English in the world are native speakers of some nonstandard variety of the language, and English, like
other Ausbau languages (see Kloss 1967), can be described (Chambers and Trudgill 1997) as consisting of
an autonomous standardized variety together with all the non-standard varieties which are
heteronomous with respect to it. Standard English is thus not the English language but simply one
variety of it.
So what is it then?

If Standard English is not therefore a language, an accent, a style or a register, then of course we are
obliged to say what it actually is. The answer is, as at least most British sociolinguists are agreed, that
Standard English is a dialect. As we saw above, Standard English is simply one variety of English among
many. It is a sub-variety of English. Sub-varieties of languages are usually referred to as dialects, and
languages are often described as consisting of dialects. As a named dialect, like Cockney, or. Scouse, or
Yorkshire, it is entirely normal that we should spell the name of the Standard English dialect with capital
letters. Standard English is, however, an unusual dialect in a number of ways. It is, for example, by far
the most important dialect in the English-speaking world from a social, intellectual and cultural point of
view; and it does not have an associated accent.\

Standard_English_The_Widening_Debate_by_Tony_Bex,_Richard_J_Watts.

Standard English is the national variety of English in countries such as the United States and England
and is not restricted to any region within the country. It is to be distinguished from accents with which
it may be pronounced. Standard English is pre-eminently the language of printed matter and is the
dialect of English that is taught in the education system.

The Oxford English GRAMMAR

Standard English The term Standard English refers to both an actual variety of language and an idealized
norm of English acceptable in many social situations. As a language variety, Standard English is the
language used in most public discourse and in the regular operation of American social institutions. The
news media, the government, the legal profession, and the teachers in our schools and universities all
view Standard English as their proper mode of communication, primarily in expository and
argumentative writing, but also in public speaking.

As a norm, writers and editors look at Standard English as the model of language in which they work.
Their decisions both are based on and help shape the rules and conventions of Standard English.
Standard English is thus different from what is normally thought of as speech in that Standard English
must be taught, whereas children learn to speak naturally without being taught. Of course, Standard
English shares with spoken English certain features common to all forms of language. It has rules for
making grammatical sentences, and it changes over time. The issues of pronunciation discussed in this
book mainly involve how to pronounce specific written words or written letters, such as ch or g, in
different words. The guidance to pronunciation is not meant to standardize or correct anyone's naturally
acquired form of spoken English.

Nonstandard English There are many expressions and grammatical constructions that are not normally
used in Standard English. These include regional expressions, such as might could, and other usages,
such as ain't and it don't, that are typically associated with varieties of English used by people belonging
to less prestigious social groups. In this book an expression labeled nonstandard is thus inappropriate for
ordinary usage in Standard English.

The AMERICAN HERITAGE»


Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style

STANDARD ENGLISH: A widely used term that resists easy definition but is used as if most educated
people nonetheless know precisely what it refers to. Some consider its meaning self-evident: it is both
the usage and the ideal of 'good' or 'educated' users of English. A geographical limitation has, however,
often been imposed on this definition, such as the usage of educated people in Britain alone, England
alone, or southern England alone, or the usage of educated people in North America and Britain
generally. Others still find standard English at work throughout the English-speaking world. For some it is
a monolith, with more or less strict rules and conventions; for others, it is a range of overlapping
varieties, so that standard <AmE> is distinct from but similar to standard <BrE>. Although for some the
term is negative, for most it appears to be either neutral or positive, referring to something important:
'Standard English (by whatever name it is known) is the variety of English that is manifestly recognized in
our society as the prestigious variety' (Sidney Greenbaum, in English Today 18, Apr. 1989).

A general definition.: in everyday usage, standard English is taken to be the variety most widely
accepted and understood within an English-speaking country or throughout the English-speaking world.
It is more or less free of regional, class, and other shibboleths, although the issue of a 'standard accent'
often causes trouble and tension. It is sometimes presented as the 'common core' (what is left when all
regional and other distinctions are stripped away), a view that remains controversial because of the
difficulty of deciding where core ends and peripheries begin. Linguists generally agree on three things: (i)
The standard is most easily identified in print, whose conventions are more or less uniform throughout
the world, and some use the term print standard for that medium. (2) Standard forms are used by most
presenters of news on most English language radio and television networks, but with regional and other
variations, particularly in accent. (3) Use of standard English relates to social class and level of education,
often considered (explicitly or implicitly) to match the average level of attainment of student.

The Oxford Companion to the English Language

What Standard English is NOT

The foregoing positive assumptions about the existence and definability of a Standard English are
balanced by certain negative assumptions, about what Standard English is not: (i) It is not an arbitrary, a
priori description of English, or of a form of English, devised by reference to standards of moral value, or
literary merit, or supposed linguistic purity, or any other metaphysical yard-stick - in short, ’Standard
English’ cannot be defined or described in terms such as ’the best English,’ or ’literary English,’ or
’Oxford English,’ or ’BBC English.’

(ii) It is not defined by reference to the usage of any particular group of English-users, and especially not
by reference to a social class - ’Standard English’ is not ’upper class English’ and it is encountered across
the whole social spectrum, though not necessarily in equivalent use by all members of all classes. (iii) It
is not statistically the most frequently occurring form of English, so that ’standard’ here does not mean
’most often heard.’2

(iv) It is not imposed upon those who use it. True, its use by an individual may be largely the result of a
long process of education; but Standard English is neither the product of linguistic planning

or philosophy (for example such as exists for French in the deliberations of the Academie Fransaise, or
policies devised in similar terms for Hebrew, Irish, Welsh, Bahasa Malaysia, etc.); nor is it a closely
defined norm whose use and maintenance is monitored by some quasi-official body, with penalties
imposed for non-use or mis-use. Standard English evolved: it was not produced by conscious design.

A Working Definition of Standard English

Within the assumptions outlined above, this paper sets out to define Standard English as:

a particular dialect of English, being the only non-localized dialect, of global currency without significant
variation, universally accepted as the appropriate educational target in teaching English; which may be
spoken with an unrestricted choice of accent.

This highly-simplified and reductionist working definition requires comment and explication. The main
body of this paper concentrates on the following elements in the working definition:

dialect; accent; non-localized; global currency; significant variation; universal acceptance; educational
target; choice of accent.

Thus it will be obvious that the question of Standard English, as here addressed, is concerned with: the
existence of a large number of varieties of English; different functions and uses for different varieties;
the variable distribution, both geographically and socially, of different varieties, and differing restrictions
upon the co-occurrence of some elements within language variation; social and professional attitudes
towards particular varieties.

the British applied linguist and language teacher Peter Strevens


sought to establish the nature of standard English by saying what it
was not:

‘what is Standard English?' (RELC Journal, Singapore, 1981), the British applied linguist and language
teacher Peter Strevens sought to establish the nature of standard English by saying what it was not:

'What is Standard English?' (RELC Journal, Singapore, 1981)

The importance of English 1.1 English is generally acknowledged to be the world's most important
language. It is perhaps worth glancing briefly at the basis for that evaluation. There are, after all,
thousands of different languages in the world, and each will seem uniquely important to those who
speakit as their native language, the language they acquired at their mother's knee. But there are
more objective standards of ielative importance. One criterion is the number of speakers of the
language. A second is the extent to which a language is geographically dispersed: in how many
continents and countries is it used or is a knowledge of it necessary? A third is its functional load: how
extensive is the range of purposes for which it is used? In particular, to what extent is it the medium
for highly valued cultural manifestations such as a science or a literature? A fourth is the economic
and political influence of the native speakers of the language.

1.2 If we restrict the first criterion to native speakers of the language, the number of speakers of
English is more than 300 million, and English ranks well below Chinese (which has over three times
that number of speakers). The second criterion, the geographical dispersal of the language, invites
comparison with (for example) Hebrew, Latin, and Arabic as languages used in major world religions,
though only Arabic has a substantial number of speakers. But the spread of English over most of the
world as an international language is a unique phenomenon in the world's history: about 1500 million
people -over a third of the world's population -live in countries where English has some official status
or is one of the native languages, if not the dominant native language. By the third criterion, the great
literatures of the Orient spring to mind, not to mention the languages of Tolstoy, Goethe, Cervantes,
and Racine. But in addition to being the language of the still more distinguished Shakespeare, English
leads as the primary medium for twentieth-century science and technology. The fourth criterion
invokes Japanese, Russian, and German, for example, as languages of powerful, productive, and
influential nations. But English is the language of the United. States, whose gross domestic product in
1980 was more than double that of its nearest competitor, Japan. No claim has here been made for
the importance of English on the grounds of its quality as a language (the size of its vocabulary, its
relative lack of inflections, the alleged flexibility of its syntax). The choice of an international language,
or lingua franca, is never based on linguistic or aesthetic criteria but always on political, economic,
and demographic ones.

The use of English 1.3 English is the world's most widely used language. A distinction is often made
that depends on how the language is learned: as a native language (or mother tongue), acquired when
the speaker is a young child (generally in the home), or as a nonnative language, acquired at some
subsequent period. Overlapping with this distinction is that between its use as first language, the
primalanguage of the speaker, and as an additional language. In some countries (particularly of course
where it is the dominant native language), English is used principally for internal purposes as an
intranational language, for speakers to communicate with other speakers of the same country; in
other8 it serves chiefly as an international language, the medium of communication with speakers
from other countries. One well-established categorization makes a three-way distinction between a
native language, it second language, and a foreign language. As a foreign language English is used for
international communication, but as a second language it is used chiefly for intranational purposes.
We can distinguish five types of function for which English characteristically serves as a medium when
it is a second language: (1) instrumental, for formal education; (2) regulative, for government
administration and the law courts; (3) communi- cative, for interpersonal communication between
individuals speaking different native languages; (4) occupational, bath intranationally and
internationally for commerce and for science and technology; (5) creative, for nontechnical writings,
such as fiction and political works.
What do we mean by a perfect English pronunciation? In one sense there are as many different kinds
of English as there are speakers of it; no two people speak exactly alike – we can always hear
differences between them - and the pronunciation of English varies a great deal in di Terent
geographical areas. How do we decide what sort of English to use as a model? This is not a question
which can be decided in the same way for all foreign learners of English. If you live in a part 1orld like
India or West Africa, where there is a tradition of speaking English for general communication
purposes, you should aim to acquire a good variety of the pronunciation of this area; such varieties of
Indian English or Áfrican English and the like are to be respected and used as a model by all those who
will need their English mainly for the purpose of communication with their fellows in these areas. It
would be a mistake in these circumstances to use as a model B.B.C. English or anything of the sort. On
the other hand, if you live in an area where there is no traditional use of English and no body of
people who speak it for general com- munication purposes, then you must take as your model some
form of native English pronunciation, and which form you choose does not very much matter. The
most sensible thing to do is to take as your model the sort of English which you can hear most often. If
you have gramophone records of English specch based on, let us say, an American pronunciation,
make American your model; if you can listen regularly to the B.B.C., use that kind of English. But
whatever you choose to do, remember this: all these different accents of English have a great deal in
common, they have far more similarities than differences, so don't worry too much what sort of
English you are listening to provided it is English.

Origins of Standard English

"By far the most influential factor in the rise of Standard English was the importance of London as the
capital of England...London English took as well as gave. It began as a Southern and ended as a
Midland dialect. By the 15th century, there had come to prevail in the East Midlands a fairly uniform
dialect, and the language of London agrees in all important respects with it. We can hardly doubt that
the importance of the eastern counties...is largely responsible for this change. Even such Northern
characteristics as are found in the standard speech seem to have entered by way of these counties.
The history of Standard English is almost a history of London English." (Albert C. Baugh and Thomas
Cable, A History of the English Language, 5th ed. Prentice Hall, 2002)

"Half-way through the 17th century, the lexicographer Thomas Blount declares that the 'Babel' of the
vernacular made England a 'self-stranger' nation—one growing alien to itself through this diversity of
available forms. He dedicates his dictionary of 1656 to the cause of having 'English Englished.'
Arguably, in this context, it is not the rise of a standard variety of language, but a new awareness of
dialect and variability of discourse—the 'self-stranger' English of the Renaissance—that best defines
the linguistic culture of early modern England." (Paula Blank, "The Babel of Renaissance English." The
Oxford History of English, ed. by Lynda Mugglestone. Oxford University Press, 2006

Nordquist, Richard. "Standard English (SE)." ThoughtCo, Feb. 11, 2020, thoughtco.com/standard-
english-1692137

http://thoughtco.com/standard-english-1692137

For some of those people, Standard English (SE) is a synonym for good or correct English usage. Others
use the term to refer to a specific geographical dialect of English or a dialect favored by the most
powerful and prestigious social group. Some linguists argue that there really is no single standard of
English.

It may be revealing to examine some of the presumptions that lie behind these various
interpretations. The following comments--from linguists, lexicographers, grammarians, and
journalists--are offered in the spirit of fostering discussion rather than resolving all the many complex
issues that surround the term "Standard English."

Standard English is a controversial term for a form of the English language that is written and spoken
by educated users. Abbreviation: SE. Also known as Standard Written English (SWE).

According to Tom McArthur in The Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992), the term
Standard English "resists easy definition but is used as if most educated people nonetheless know
precisely what it refers to."

It is no simple matter to define the difference between a standard and a nonstandard variety of
language. However, for our purposes, we can define a standard dialect as one that draws no negative
attention to itself... On the other hand, a nonstandard dialect does draw negative attention to itself;
that is, educated people might judge the speaker of such a dialect as socially inferior, lacking
education, and so on. A nonstandard dialect can thus be characterized as having socially marked
forms, such as ain't. A socially marked form is one that causes the listener to form a negative social
judgment of the speaker.

"It is important to understand that identifying a dialect as standard or nonstandard is a sociological


judgment, not a linguistic one."

(F. Parker and K. Riley, Linguistics for Non-Linguists. Allyn and Bacon, 1994)

Nonstandard English refers to any dialect of English other than Standard English and is sometimes
referred to as nonstandard dialect or non-standard variety. The term Nonstandard English is
sometimes used disapprovingly by non-linguists to describe "bad" or "incorrect" English.
"Nonstandard dialects of English differ from Standard English most importantly at the level of
grammar. Examples of widespread nonstandard grammatical forms in English include multiple
negation."

(Peter Trudgill, Introducing Language and Society. Penguin, 1992)

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