At first sight, the topic of the “Standards” of English might seem a little boring. However, once you realise how complex this topic is, your opinion will surely change just as mine did not so long ago.
Firstly, it is important to bear in mind the fact that English is not just merely an Anglo-Saxon language, but a hybrid one. This is a key factor to take into account because from the very beginning of English, it has been a language made up of bits and pieces of others. However, its role as a lingua franca has given this language a powerful position in the world’s economy and politics. Nevertheless, this has also contributed to its spread and the creation of lots of varieties around the globe.
This map shows the spread of the English language in the world and the territory size shows the proportion of all the people who speak English as a first language that live in that specific place.
Although the process of expansion of this language is very interesting; this article is going to focus in the creation of the different varieties and the so-called “standards” of English.
In order to understand how a dialect, that is, a variety of a language such as American English, becomes a standard variety, we need to look at the politics behind it. By definition, a dialect is a deviation from the standard, however, a few centuries ago any native speaker of English would tell you that the British English spoken by the Queen was the standard. However, nowadays this question is way more complex. This has a relatively easy explanation, in the first part of the 18th Century, the amount of people who spoke English was very little compared to nowadays. It was not until the British Empire expanded its power that English became the most important language of the world.
A variety does not become a “standard” over night, some linguists may argue that in order to create a standard variety we need a set of academic and political rules that it must follow. Yet in our current society the idea of a clean and polish language is not as important as it was decades ago. Schools around the world now teach American English as well as Australian English. British English is no longer the only standard to imitate and this is changing the way we perceive this global language.
This video deals with the issue of how the varieties of English are taken over in countries such as Malaysia that belong to the outer circle, the circle in which English is spoken as a second language. The speaker, Mariana Pascal, defends the idea that we should embrace our local varieties of English because they are beautiful and unique. She states that the only thing that should be considered in order to say if a variety is acceptable or not, is if we are able to understand and communicate with each other. If another speaker of English either native or non-native is able to understand you, your variety should be considered as good and valid as the others. She makes fun of how there could be some misunderstanding but at the same time she also says that although we need “standard” English in this case to communicate with others from outside our region, it would be a pity to loose the different varieties in the process. As Rita Mae Brown said “language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come fro and where they are going.”
There are two approaches to the study of language variation: prescriptivism and descriptivism. The first states that the “standard” is the rule, while the second accepts the different varieties. We are going to leave behind the prescriptivism conception in order to focus on the pluri-centric view of the descriptivism. English around the world is constantly changing and it varies from one place to another. English-speaking countryies have variations in the spelling, grammar and vocabulary and this is why we cannot consider BBC English as the “standard”. The United States of America for instance has more English native speakers than the UK and it just does not seem fair to tell them that a bunch of people from the other part of the world have the power to tell them how they should speak. After all, speakers are the ones in charge of making the language. Regarding this topic, Cesar Chavez stated that “our language is the reflection of ourselves. A language is an exact reflection of the character and growth of its speakers”. That is why it is constantly changing, because it evolves along with our society. What I am trying to say here is that the prescriptivism view might have worked centuries ago before almost the whole world spoke English (even though there were different variations within the UK back then), but nowadays English is not just the language of the British, it is the language of most of the world and therefore, everybody should have the right to have and create different rules.
However, it is clear that even now, in order to tell which varieties become standard and which not we have to take several factors into account. A variety needs to go through the process of standardization in order to be accepted as a the standard one, leaving the rest as non-standard varieties. One of the first steps to achieve the standardisation of a varietiy is the publication of grammars and dictionaries that state the rules of said variety. The imposition of that variety into the school system also helps in this process. The process can take years but the last and in my opinion more important part is when the government of the country makes the variety the official language.
All in all, the standardisation of a variety can be a very complex process, but we need to understand that although a few centuries ago we could say that the Queen’s English was the standard; nowadays countries such as India, the USA, Canada, or Australia, have their own “standards”.
Sources:
- Anderson, M. (n.d.). TalktoCanada.com. Retrieved October 30, 2016, from 24 Inspirational English Quotes to Help You Improve Your English Language Learning : http://www.talktocanada.com/blog/24-inspirational-english-quotes-to-help-you-improve-your-english-language-learning/
- Pascal, M. (2013, September 23). YouTube. Retrieved October 30, 2016, from Malaysian English, Local English or Standard English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbQTKv83XxM
- Team, W. (n.d.). WorldMapper.org. Retrieved October 31, 2016, from http://www.worldmapper.org/display_languages.php?selected=591
