Holmes, J. An introduction to Sociolinguistics. (Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2008) third edition [ISBN 9781405821315] Chapter 6: ‘Regional and social dialects; Chapter 15: ‘Attitudes and applications’.
Eppler, E. ‘Language and social class’ in Mooney et al. Language, Society and Power. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011) third edition
[ISBN 9780415576598] pp.154–72.
LaBelle, S. ‘Language standardi[s/z]ation’ in Mooney et al. Language, Society and Power. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011) third edition
[ISBN 9780415576598] pp.189–205.
Bauer, L. Watching English Change. (Harlow: Longman, 1994)
[ISBN 0582210895].
Bex, T. and R.J. Watts (eds) Standard English: The Widening Debate. (London: Routledge, 1999) [ISBN 9780415191630].
Blake, N.F. A History of the English Language.(Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996) [ISBN 9780333609842].
Cameron, D. Verbal Hygiene. (London: Routledge, 1995)
[ISBN 9780415103558].
Crystal, D. Internet Linguistics: A Student Guide. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011) [ISBN 9780415602716].
Crystal, D. txtng the gr8 db8 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008)
[ISBN 9780199544905].
Crystal, D. Language and the Internet. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) [ISBN 9780521868594].
Fennell, B.A. A History of English: A Sociolinguistic Approach.(Oxford: Blackwell, 2001) [ISBN 0631200738].
Freeborn, D., P. French and D. Langford Varieties of Style. (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1993) second edition [ISBN 9780333589175].
Haugen, E. ‘Language Standardisation’ in Coupland, N. and A. Jaworski Sociolinguistics: A Reader and Coursebook. (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1997) [ISBN 0333693442] pp.341–52.
Honey, J. Language is Power: the Story of Standard English and its Enemies. (London: Faber, 1997) [ISBN 9780571190478].
Leith, D. A Social History of Engish. (London: Routledge, 1997) second edition [ISBN 9780415097970].
Milroy, J. and L. Milroy Authority in Language: Investigating Standard English. (London: Routledge, 1999) third edition [ISBN 9780415174138].
Jenkins, J. World Englishes: A Resource Book for Students. (London: Routledge, 2009) second edition [ISBN 9780415466127].
Crystal, D. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) second edition [ISBN 0521530334].
Hill, A. ‘Accent blocks business success, say bosses’, The Observer, 21 July 2002. Available at: www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/jul/21/ameliahill.theobserver [Accessed on 28 May 2011].
McArthur, T. and R. McArthur The Oxford Concise Companion to the
English Language. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)
[ISBN 9780192806376].
Mesthrie, R., J. Swann, A. Deumert and W. Leap Introducing Sociolinguistics. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009) second edition
[ISBN 9780748638444].
Trudgill, P. ‘Standard English: What it isn’t’ in Bex, T. and R.J. Watts (eds) Standard English: The Widening Debate.(London: Routledge, 1999)
[ISBN 9780415191630] pp.117–28.
Trudgill, P. Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society. (London: Penguin, 2000) fourth edition [ISBN 9780140289213].
In Chapter 2 we defined some key terms and concepts. We noted for example that, in sociolinguistics, an accent refers to pronunciation, whereas a dialect refers to the words or grammar someone uses. It is worth noting, however, that even among scholars there is debate as to whether accent forms part of dialect. In this chapter we will build on the knowledge we have gained thus far by thinking about the relationship between language, region and social class. We will consider Standard English, a dialect of English, and also Received Pronunciation, an accent of English. As well as asking ourselves if there is a connection between the two , we will also investigate the debates and attitudes which have been associated with these two varieties of English.
In any consideration of Standard English and the debates surrounding this variety, you should note that the situation is further complicated by the fact that English is a global language, with second language speakers outnumbering native speakers by around three-to-one. English is often used as a lingua franca (a common language), a means of communication between people who cannot speak each other’s native or first language (what we refer to as a person’s L1). In addition, worldwide, there are many Englishes and many standard Englishes; for example, Indian Standard English, American Standard English, South African Standard English, Australian Standard English and others.
Another area is that of differing styles: do we write ‘Standard English’ or ‘standard English’? Some writers choose one; some the other. Sometimes the difference will be linked to whether they consider that the standard variety of English holds the most importance or whether it is just simply ‘another dialect of English’. As you can see, we have adopted ‘Standard English’ in this subject guide and have often shortened it to ‘SE’.
It is worth considering how the English language has evolved over the centuries in the British Isles. This allows us to see that the English we use today is very similar to the English that was used in the 1800s but somewhat different from the periods before that, and this can be linked to the standardisation process. Scholars (such as Fennell, 2001, p.1) who take a socio-historical and cultural approach to the history of English sub-divide it into four stages:
| Old English | 500-1100 | difficult for the modern reader; needs to be learnt |
| Middle English | 1100-1500 | still difficult for the modern reader (e.g. Chaucer) |
| Early Modern English | 1500-1800 | some difficulties, but getting easier (e.g. Shakespeare) |
| Modern English | 1800-today | few comprehension problems (e.g. Jane Austen) |
Defining the periods in this way can be problematic, however, because there is no exact time when one period stops and another starts. The approach that Fennell takes involves marking each period by a historical event. The impact of language standardisation, a process which began in the British Isles in the late 1400s, means that there are fewer comprehension problems, particularly from the 1800s onwards, as language standardisation slows down the rate of language change, a point we will discuss later.
Einer Haugen (1966) identified four key steps in the process of language standardisation. These steps take place in one form or another in relation to any variety that undergoes standardisation:
Selection: choosing a language variety to be the standard
Codification: codifying it in dictionaries and grammars
Elaboration: broadening the range of contexts in which it is used
Acceptance: being accepted by the speech community even though many speakers continue to use non-standard varieties.
With regard to English in the British Isles, there were a number of factors influencing the development of a Standard English. For example, when William Caxton brought the printing press to Britain in 1476, this had a major impact on literacy, spelling and the standardisation process. By Shakespeare’s era, it is thought that around half the population could read. In addition, there was greater access to education: the seventeenth century saw the rise of the middle classes, increased leisure and reading time and a greater interest in education generally. The printing press meant that books became cheaper. You can read about these points in Blake (1996). All of these factors contributed to the standardisation of English in the British Isles. Here are the four steps in relation to the evolution of a standard in the British Isles:
Selection: Standard English is based on the South-East Midlands dialect. In the fifteenth century, the South-East Midlands was a wealthy area of Britain, with a dialect which achieved prominence because of its use in London, at the Court and in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
Codification: Codification began in the eighteenth century: dictionaries and grammar books appeared (e.g. Dr Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, 1755).
Elaboration: Elaboration involves broadening the range of contexts in which the selected variety is used, and so it has much more functional use (for example, in government, public office, print material and education). The expansion occurred in the centuries following the evolution of the print process and involved borrowing extensively from Latin and French. Latin and French had been the prestigious varieties, while English had been seen as inferior. However, as the range of functions in which English was used grew, it gradually displaced the status of French and Latin, although Latin continued to be used in certain domains (for example, science) until relatively late on in the standardisation process.
Acceptance: Acceptance means that the standard variety is accepted by most as the prestige variety, even by those who do not use it. In public institutions in the UK Standard English is the norm (for example, within education, media news reporting, government, etc.)
Einer Haugen (1966, p.348) states that the goal of standardisation is ‘minimal variation in form, maximal variation in function’. This means that once a standard variety emerges there is less variation in the forms that are used, but the variety can be used in many contexts, far more so than non-standard varieties.
Activity
Consider what this goal described above might involve in practice, thinking of examples from everyday life.
Activity
What effects do you think the emergence of a standard has on other dialects or language varieties? Why? Make a list of the positive effects and the negative effects.
We can say that Standard English evolved ‘naturally’ (Holmes, 2008, p.77) in the fifteenth century as a result of a variety of factors (some of which are listed above), but in other contexts (such as Norway in the late 1800s or Tanzania in the 1960s) there was a clear, conscious decision to undertake a language planning exercise. The four steps will have taken place but the processes would have taken different forms.
As we are starting to discover, a language standardisation process is clearly an important linguistic and public phenomenon. Despite this, however, the consensus among linguists is that it is actually quite difficult to describe or define what we mean when we talk or write about Standard English. Here is a selection of different points of view:
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 non-standard, 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, and Standard English speakers swear as much as others.
(Trudgill, 2000, pp.5–6)
Activity
Think about the issues that these points raise. How would you define Standard English?
When thinking about what Standard English is, it is also worth considering some differences between speaking and writing. You should note, however, that the distinction between speaking and writing has in itself become more problematic and increasingly blurred, especially since the advent of the newer modes of communication; for example, text messaging, emails, forum chat, MSN and social networking sites such as Facebook and so on. Twenty years ago or so, these modes were non-existent or certainly not relevant in the way they are today. Nevertheless, it is still useful to consider some of the more general differences between speaking and writing, and especially how these relate to discussions of Standard English.
To begin with, we can suggest that it is less easy to ‘fix’ the boundaries of spoken language: codification has the effect of stabilising a language variety, but this is easier to do with its written forms. This is why written English has changed very little (relatively) from around the 1800s onwards. The spelling system is fixed and changes very little. The greatest changes (as we have pointed out) have occurred in the area of vocabulary.
Speaking, on the other hand, isn’t subject to the same constraints as writing: it usually involves other people. Spoken language can be negotiated by those taking part in a conversation. This contrasts with writing, which is often a solitary activity, involves only the author and where there are often opportunities for editing and revision. Speakers often judge their usage (that is, what counts as ‘Standard English’) by the speech of those they consider to be educated, but variation occurs even among this group and, in any case, how do you decide whether someone is ‘educated’ and whether they are using ‘Standard English’? Many of these (and other) points are considered in detail by Milroy and Milroy (1999) and it would be extremely useful to follow up their work.
In ‘Standard English: What it isn’t’, Peter Trudgill (1999, pp.117–28) attempts a characterisation of Standard English, highlighting some of the difficulties involved in its definition. He argues, for instance, that all of the following are Standard English even though the first is excessively formal and the third is very colloquial:
He also makes the point that the following is a non-Standard English sentence using the technical register of physical geography: ‘There was two eskers what we saw in them U-shaped valleys.’
Obviously, he has constructed that sentence in order to make his point, which is that the difference between what counts as ‘Standard English’ or ‘non-Standard English’ is not one of formality or informality. Further on in the same chapter, he lists eight grammatical idiosyncrasies (as he refers to them) of Standard English. It is these distinguishing features which, according to Trudgill, separate Standard English from other dialects of English.
Activity
Read ‘Standard English: what it isn’t’ by Peter Trudgill. It can be found in Bex and Watts. (You can also find a copy of the chapter at www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/SEtrudgill.htm) Do you agree with the points that he makes with regard to arriving at a definition of Standard English?
Activity
What are the merits of having a written standard? Are there any drawbacks? For historical linguists, there has been one!
Activity
Are the distinctions between written and spoken language so clear cut? Think of different examples/contexts, particularly the examples we have given of the newer communication forms. You might want to follow up on David Crystal’s work: he has written extensively about the internet and also about text messaging (see Further reading).
According to the Milroys, language standardisation involves the ‘suppression of optional variability’ (Milroy and Milroy, 1999, p.6). The point is that living languages are always evolving. So standardisation can slow down the rate of language change but it’s impossible to stop it . People can become quite upset, however, by language change/variation and complain publicly (in articles, letters to newspapers etc.). Milroy and Milroy (1999, p.24) refer to this as the ‘Complaint Tradition’.
Some people complain about usage they don’t believe is part of Standard English. They consider Standard English to be ‘correct’ and therefore unmarked, while non-standard varieties are considered to be ‘incorrect’ and marked (that is, noticed and hence complained about). According to Milroy and Milroy (1999, p.40) complainants often cite some past era, when things were so much better, perhaps when they were young. But Milroy and Milroy believe that there was no ‘Golden Age’: things were not better; they are just imagined to have been better. An additional aspect is that (so-called) linguistic decline also becomes associated with moral decline:
[I]f you allow standards to slip to the stage where good English is no better than bad English, where people turn up filthy… at school… all those things tend to cause people to have no standards at all, and once you lose standards there’s no imperative to stay out of crime.
(Norman Tebbit, 1988, quoted in Milroy and Milroy, 1999, p.41)
The linguist Laurie Bauer (1994) remarks that complaints about the state of the language are indicative of language change in progress. Let’s look at the changing meaning of the word ‘decimate’. This is an example which upsets John Honey (1997). If you look up the word ‘decimate’ in a dictionary you will see that the definition is something like ‘to kill every tenth man’. It is a Latinate word. However, many people today use this word to mean ‘destruction’ generally. What has happened is that the influence of Latin has declined substantially. It is taught far less in schools than it used to be. So people start to use Latinate vocabulary in spoken contexts perhaps without having any knowledge of its Latinate roots (its etymology). And the meaning shifts slightly. What is worth thinking about is whether you consider it problematic that the original meaning has shifted or whether you take the view that, unlike in the Roman era, we no longer need a word to describe the killing of every tenth man because situations and contexts have changed. You might then consider that languages evolve to suit the needs of their speakers.
Activity
Can you suggest some reasons why people might get upset about language change?
Activity
Read sections on language attitudes in LaBelle (2011) and Holmes (2008, Chapter 15). Then list a number of the languages and language varieties mentioned in these two chapters and critically discuss the attitudes towards these varieties.
Someone can speak Standard English (if you can define it in the first place!) with any accent. Listen to British news reporters on the BBC. You hear a variety of accents, although not heavily localised ones, but the dialect will always be the standard. But there is one accent that is not tied to any region or area. It is the socially prestigious accent which we call Received Pronunication or RP, learnt, for the most part, in public (that is, fee paying) schools in Britain. It has other names, for example, the Queen’s English, Oxford English or BBC English, because although we stated that you will hear a variety of accents if you listen to the news on the BBC, this was not always the case. Fifty years ago, the news would almost always been spoken by a news reporter with an RP accent. BBC news reporting today reflects the situation generally with regard to RP. It is an accent used by perhaps 3 per cent of the population and, moreover, it has changed in the last fifty years. If you listen to older members of the Royal Family or old BBC recordings it is evident that the accent has become modified and is a mixture of RP and regional varieties (‘modified RP’).
Although Standard English is a dialect and RP is an accent, the two are connected because although, as we noted, you can speak Standard English with any accent, if you speak with an RP accent, you are unlikely to speak any dialect other than Standard English. As Mesthrie et al. (2009, p.24) remark, some scholars contend that accents are part of what constitutes Standard or non-Standard English. Would you agree with this view? It is perhaps persuasive if we think of teaching English as a foreign language. The target is always Standard English and the target accent is mostly RP, at least outside of the Pacific Rim. In many people’s minds, therefore, RP is a ‘standard’ accent and part of what constitutes ‘Standard English’.
Activity
Read the following article by Amelia Hill, which appeared in the Observer (a UK Sunday newspaper) on 21 July 2002. What values are being linked with different accents? Is it the language and the way it sounds that is the problem or is the wider issue more to do with attitudes towards speakers using those accents?
Accent blocks business success, say bosses
It’s good to talk. Unless you are from Wales, Birmingham, Liverpool or east London: regional accents have been bad-mouthed again as Britain’s leading businesspeople admit to firmly associating them with dishonesty, lack of success, laziness and unreliability.
Those with a cockney accent were considered to be the least honest and trustworthy people in Britain, according to a survey of top directors, with 83 per cent of business leaders admitting they linked the East End twang with overall failure – the lowest rating of all regions.
‘I spend half my life trying to persuade people that there is no connection between accents and intelligence, social situations or criminality,’ said professor David Crystal, a linguistics expert at the University of Wales. ‘Despite the shake-up in class and society over the years, it is remarkable how the gut feeling has lingered that accents are indicative of deeper truths.’
More than one in five directors claimed businesspeople with a cockney accent were less likely to be successful than those from anywhere else in Britain, with a further 13 per cent admitting any hint of the chirpy patois indicated a low level of general honesty.
Welsh businesspeople were at the greatest disadvantage, according to the Aziz Management Corporation’s survey, with only 10 per cent of directors believing their lilt indicated success.
‘The fact remains that it is not what you say but how you say it,’ said Khalid Aziz, chairman of the Aziz Corporation, which interviewed 100 leading directors. ‘As a nation, we are still obsessed with accents and what we think they tell us about other people; these results prove that popular preconceptions still exist.’
However, Scots, those with a Home Counties accent and businesspeople from the West Country were widely assumed to be on the fast-track to success, with 28 per cent of respondents saying the Scottish burr indicated above-average honesty, reliability and an inclination to work harder.
More than one in four directors associated the Liverpudlian lilt with corporate failure; 85 per cent of directors believed the Brummie accent conveyed dishonesty and below average intelligence; and just 17 per cent of directors assumed those with a Geordie accent were unlikely to ever be successful.
Half of all directors associated the American twang with success and one-third favoured an accent from Continental Europe.
© Guardian News and Media Ltd, 2002
The section above demonstrates that there is a connection between language and social class that is also tied into geographical regions.
Activity
Study Figures 8.1 and 8.2 in Eva Eppler’s chapter ‘Language and social class’ in Mooney et al. (2011, p.159). Is there more or less variation in higher social classes? Why is there a plateau on the diagram capturing Standard English but not on the one capturing RP?
These diagrams represent the relationship between language, region and social class. What they show is that the higher up the social scale you go, the less variation you will find in how people speak, what their speech sounds like and the words and grammar that they use. So there is a lot of variation at the lower end of the scale and less variation further up. The pyramid with the plateau on top also suggests that there is some variation in what counts as the dialect of Standard English (which hinders our attempts at a definition), and the other pyramid shows us that there isn’t much variation in the accent called Received Pronunciation. But is this true? The pyramid was originally devised by Peter Trudgill to reflect the relationships in 1975 and, some 35 years later, the situation has changed to a certain extent. If you were redrawing the pyramid to reflect accents today, you would probably put the ‘RP accent’ label at a similar point to where the label ‘Standard English dialect’ occurs. There is more variation within that accent than there used to be. Recall that we noted that RP has become ‘modified’ in the last 50 years or so, and older members of, for example, the Royal Family sound different from younger people who perhaps go to fee-paying schools in the UK today (institutions where, traditionally, the RP accent has been learned).
Activity
Do you think definitions of Standard English should include systems of pronunciation or accent? Why or why not?
We have spent the majority of time in this chapter concentrating on English as used in the British Isles. But as we noted at the beginning of the chapter, English occupies a prominent position in the world today as it is a world or global language, spoken far beyond the shores of Britain. In fact, there are far more people who speak English as a second or subsequent language than as a native language. It is prioritised as an essential language to learn in many countries worldwide. It is a prerequisite for many occupations: for example, aviation personnel are required to have a certain level of competence in English: all international pilots and air traffic controllers must be able to speak and use English while at work. We also drew attention to the fact that there are many Standard Englishes worldwide. Although there is not space to include an extensive discussion of the position of English in the world today, as well as reading the section in the chapter on language standardisation by Suzanne LaBelle in Language, Society and Power, you should consult books such as Jenkins (2009), which will enable you to increase your knowledge in this area.
Activity
Can you think of some reasons why English has acquired its status in the world today? Some areas you might think about to help you (among others) include economic factors, innovations and the history of the British Empire.
As we have indicated in this chapter, there are many aspects to consider in a discussion of Standard English. There is the historical development of English, the emergence of a standard variety, the difficulties of definition and attitudes towards it and non-standard varieties. More recently, there is the phenomenal rise in the number of English speakers in the world today. There is a vast amount of scholarly work you can read on all of these areas and many articles (including work by Peter Trudgill) are available on the internet.
After working through this chapter, and having done a substantial amount of reading on the topic as well as the activities, you should: