essay natural language and standard english

Standard English Definitions and Controversies

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• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

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

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."

Controversies and Observations About Standard English

A highly elastic and variable term.

[W]hat counts as Standard English will depend on both the locality and the particular varieties that Standard English is being contrasted with. A form that is considered standard in one region may be nonstandard in another, and a form that is standard by contrast with one variety (for example the language of inner-city African Americans) may be considered nonstandard by contrast with the usage of middle-class professionals. No matter how it is interpreted, however, Standard English in this sense shouldn't be regarded as being necessarily correct or unexceptionable, since it will include many kinds of language that could be faulted on various grounds, like the language of corporate memos and television advertisements or the conversations of middle-class high-school students. Thus while the term can serve a useful descriptive purpose providing the context makes its meaning clear, it shouldn't be construed as conferring any absolute positive evaluation.

( The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language , 4th edition, 2000)

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 yardstick--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.' (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 as exists for French in the deliberations of the Academie Francaise, 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.

(Peter Strevens, "What Is 'Standard English'?" RELC Journal , Singapore, 1981)

Written English and Spoken English

There are many grammar books, dictionaries and guides to English usage which describe and give advice on the standard English that appears in writing...[T]hese books are widely used for guidance on what constitutes standard English. However, there is often also a tendency to apply these judgments, which are about written English , to spoken English . But the norms of spoken and written language are not the same; people don't talk like books even in the most formal of situations or contexts. If you can't refer to a written norm to describe spoken language, then, as we have seen, you base your judgments on the speech of the "best people," the "educated" or higher social classes. But basing your judgments on the usage of the educated is not without its difficulties. Speakers, even educated ones, use a variety of different forms...

(Linda Thomas, Ishtla Singh, Jean Stilwell Peccei, and Jason Jones, Language, Society and Power: An Introduction . Routledge, 2004)

"Although Standard English is the kind of English in which all native speakers learn to read and write, most people do not actually speak it."

(Peter Trudgill and Jean Hannah,  International English: A Guide to the Varieties of Standard English , 5th ed. Routledge, 2013)

Standard English Is a Dialect

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 ...Standard English is simply one variety of English among many. It is a sub-variety of English...

Historically, we can say that Standard English was selected (though of course, unlike many other languages, not by any overt or conscious decision) as the variety to become the standard variety precisely because it was the variety associated with the social group with the highest degree of power, wealth and prestige. Subsequent developments have reinforced its social character: the fact that it has been employed as the dialect of an education to which pupils, especially in earlier centuries, have had differential access depending on their social class background.

(Peter Trudgill, "Standard English: What It Isn’t," in Standard English: The Widening Debate , edited by Tony Bex and Richard J. Watts. Routledge, 1999)

The Official Dialect

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 typed 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

(Sidney Greenbaum, An Introduction to English Grammar . Longman, 1991)

The Grammar of Standard English

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.

(Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum, A Student's Introduction to English Grammar . Cambridge University Press, 2006)

The Guardians of Standard English

The so-called native speakers of standard Englishes are those people who have somehow espoused a particular set of conventions that loosely have to do with the way English has been codified and prescribed in dictionaries, grammar books and guides to good speaking and writing. This group of people includes a large number of those who, having espoused the conventions, nevertheless do not consider themselves to be excellent users of those conventions.

For many of these so-called native speakers the English language is a unique entity that exists outside or beyond its users. Rather than considering themselves owners of English, users often think of themselves as guardians of something precious: they wince when they hear or read uses of English that they consider to be sub-standard, and they worry, in their letters to newspapers, that the language is becoming degraded...

Those who do feel they have rights and privileges, who have a sense of ownership of the English language and who can make pronouncements about what is or is not acceptable, as well as those to whom these attributes are accorded by others, do not necessarily belong to a speech community whose members learned English in infancy. Native speakers of non-standard varieties of English, in other words, the majority of native speakers of English, have never had any real authority over Standard English and have never "owned" it. The actual proprietors may, after all, simply be those who have learned thoroughly how to use a standard English to enjoy the sense of empowerment that comes with it.

So those who make authoritative pronouncements about a standard English are simply those who, irrespective of accidents of birth, have elevated themselves, or been elevated, to positions of authority in academe or publishing or in other public areas. Whether or not their pronouncements will continue to be accepted is another matter.

(Paul Roberts, "Set Us Free From Standard English." The Guardian , January 24, 2002)

Toward a Definition of SE

From the dozens of definitions [of Standard English] available in the literature on English, we may extract five essential characteristics.

On this basis, 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.

(David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language . Cambridge University Press, 2003)

• SE is a variety of English--a distinctive combination of linguistic features with a particular role to play...
• The linguistic features of SE are chiefly matters of grammar, vocabulary, and orthography ( spelling and punctuation ). It is important to note that SE is not a matter of pronunciation . . . .
• SE is the variety of English which carries most prestige within a country... In the words of one US linguist, SE is "the English used by the powerful."
• The prestige attached to SE is recognized by adult members of the community, and this motivates them to recommend SE as a desirable educational target...
• Although SE is widely understood, it is not widely produced. Only a minority of people within a country...actually use it when they talk...Similarly, when they write--itself a minority activity--the consistent use of SE is required only in certain tasks (such as a letter to a newspaper, but not necessarily to a close friend). More than anywhere else, SE is to be found in print.

The Ongoing Debate

It is in fact a great pity that the standard English debate is marred by the sort of conceptual confusions and political posturings (no matter how poorly expressed) ...For I think there are genuine questions to be asked about what we might mean by "standards" in relation to speech and writing. There is a great deal to be done in this respect and proper arguments to be made, but one thing is clear for sure. The answer does not lie in some simple-minded recourse to the practice of the "best authors" or the "admired literature" of the past, valuable though that writing is. Nor does the answer reside in "rules" for speech laid down by either the "educated" of any official body held to be able to guarantee spoken "correctness." The answers to the real questions will be found to be much more complex, difficult and challenging than those currently on offer. For these reasons they might be more successful.

(Tony Crowley, "Curiouser and Curiouser: Falling Standards in the Standard English Debate," in Standard English: The Widening Debate , edited by Tony Bex and Richard J. Watts. Routledge, 1999)

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Standard and Non-Standard Types of the English Language Essay

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Most of the languages have standard and non-standard varieties. English belongs to those languages in which these varieties are not only numerous, but powerful enough to have an influence on each other. However, with non-standard forms being preferably used by the youth, these language varieties gradually modify and supplant Standard English. This can especially be seen from the mysic which the modern world listens to. The majority of popular and rap music song lyrics today are written in a non-standard form of English that changes and expands daily while Standard English can mostly be found in old melodies and is rarely used entirely in a song. As a result more and more “slang” words and phrases make their way in our daily speech showing the great influence song lyrics can have on the evolution or annihilation of the Standard English language and especially the way young people speak. Through a comparative analysis it will be shown that the non-standard varieties of English used in music lyrics become a part of the common spoken language much faster and easier and maintain their status through time whereas the Standard English we are taught when learning the language properly becomes more and more obsolete.

To begin with, standard varieties of languages have a number of peculiarities as for vocabulary and Grammar. The most important thing to mention is that Standard English, despite the fact that it is spoken by intelligent people, government agencies, broadcasting services, newspapers, etc (Slim 2), does not follow any official rules because there is no separate linguistic governance body for English language. However, Standard English does have definite grammatical rules that demand using certain structures, tenses, noun and verb phrases, as well as moods, conjunctions, and prepositions in a definite way. Apart from Grammar, Standard English has certain vocabulary peculiarities. Though the definitions of certain words and idioms may be different in different countries (such as the word ‘ pants’ which has different meanings in British and American English), the vocabulary words are mostly the same in all the varieties of the language. Finally, there are pronunciation peculiarities; Standard English may be “accentless” or spoken with Received Pronunciation (or “British” accent).

As far as non-standard varieties of English are concerned, they have certain similarities with those of the standard ones. Among these non-standard varieties, there are Black English, Cockney, Chicano English, etc (Bache and Davidsen-Nielsen 5). All these varieties do not have an official form, either written or oral. This makes them to some extent similar with Standard English for which there are also no official rules. Nevertheless, even the least widespread varieties have their own peculiarities. Even though they are characterized by complete ignorance of grammar rules as compared with Standard English (double negation, for instance), there are grammatical features characteristic only for them; besides, these features can be traced in the speech of every bearer of the dialect. The same goes for vocabulary (each dialect has words typical for it only) and pronunciation (especially intonation in Black English, for instance). This means that there is one more definite similarity between standard and non-standard language varieties, namely, specific Grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation.

Finally, these similarities between standard and non-standard varieties of English can be reflected in old melodies and modern rap songs, which shows the effect of “slang” words and phrases on Standard English and proves that the latter becomes more and more obsolete these days. Let us consider two songs of completely different language varieties, an old melody, Dawn – Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree and a rap song by Snoop Dogg – Gangsta Luv . In the former song, we can find grammatically correct language, for instance, in “If you received my letter telling you I’d soon be free” ( Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the ole oak Tree para. 2). Such Grammar is maintained throughout the song. Similarly, the peculiarities of Black English (ignorance of Standard English Grammar rules) can be observed in the second song under consideration, for instance, in the line “That’s what I aim fo’, that’s how the game go” ( Gangsta Luv para. 10) with the same “grammatical mistakes” observed in other lines, such as in “she like it,” “she make it do,” etc. Moreover, comparison of these songs allows observing the gradual effect of slang on the Standard English. For instance, in both the songs the contraction ‘cause may be observed. This contraction is not typical for Standard English, which reflects the effect of non-standard varieties of language on the standard ones.

Taking into consideration everything mentioned above, it can be concluded that the topic statement was proved and the aim was fulfilled. The comparison of standard and non-standard varieties of English has shown that there are many similarities among them. Thus, both of them lack official forms and have certain peculiarities in Grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. The analysis of two songs that represent the opposing varieties has reflected these peculiarities and shown how much modern “slang” words and phrases have affected Standard English.

Works Cited

Bache, Carl and Davidsen-Nielsen, Niels . Mastering English: an advanced grammar for non-native and native speakers. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1997.

Lyrics A-Z. Gangsta Luv . Lyrics A-Z. 2010. Web.

Mp3Lyrics. Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree . Mp3Lyrics. 2010. Web.

Slim, Mark. Explore Good English Grammar: Master the Structure of the Language. London: A.D.R. London Limited, 2004.

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NATURAL LANGUAGE AND STANDARD ENGLISH Paper details: Think about your own language usage for a day or two. Use the questions below to analyze your use of English. In what ways is your natural language different from Standard English? (Material in the lesson “Learning a Standard” will help you to distinguish these two types.) Did you grow up in the United States? In what region? In a city, a small town, or the country? In what ways is your accent different from other regions or from Standard English? What about vocabulary? Think of specific words or phrases that you use that would be considered nonstandard. What aspects of your natural language make it a challenge to learn Standard English? Do you speak Standard English at home? Are you learning English as a second language? Use your findings to write an organized essay with at least four paragraphs, including an introduction and conclusion (150-250 words). You do not need to answer all of these questions, nor answer them in this order, but you should answer most of them. essay will be graded based on the following: your attention to the instructions given above use of evidence or explanation use of proper punctuation, spelling, grammar, and sentence construction (commonly called “conventions”) proper paragraphing (either indent each paragraph five spaces OR double-space between paragraphs) The answers for he questions, I am born and raised in North Fort Myers Florida in the country and yes i kinda sound southern.

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Essay on Standard English

English is increasingly used throughout the world, either as a first or second (or even third) language. At the same time, the notion of Standard English still seems to be an important one. Is there more than one Standard English? Evaluate the notion of Standard English, considering social, linguistic and ideological assumptions.

Introduction

Estimates of the number of people who speak English around the world tend to vary- unsurprisingly given the complex task of conducting a thorough census of those who speak it as their first language, with it being further ambiguous in determining if English is one’s second or third language. Even at the turn of the century, Crystal (2000), a renowned linguist and scholar, theorised that over 1.5 billion people across the world spoke English in 2000 (then approximately a quarter of the world’s population), which is certainly a considerable amount, with the number since that time being considered to exceed this considerably, with English currently been estimated to be the third most commonly spoke language across the globe (Ethnologue, 2015). This shows the prevalence of English worldwide. However, prior to entering the main breadth of this assignment (which discusses whether there is one Standard English (SE) or not), it seems pertinent to note the amount of people who have English as their first language (‘mother tongue’), how many have it as their second language (‘L2’, where the individual is fluent in English to at least some degree) and those who speak it as a foreign language (where they have some competency in the language, but are a distance away from the aptitude of a native speaker). Upon researching the literature, it can be difficult to locate the precise amount of people who fall into the three categories which are mentioned above, however Denison and Hogg (2006), in their authoritative tome on the spread of English across the globe, estimate that there are around 400 million native speakers of the language, roughly the same number who speak it as a second language (also known as a Lingua Franca i.e. English is spoken in their locale, rather than as the first language in their country), with approximately 700 million speakers of English as a foreign language. Adding these statistics together, mean that this estimate of people who speak English (in some form or capacity) is commensurate with the earlier figure provided by Crystal (2002), although such statistics should be treated with caution, as they are not up-to-date in the present era. The notion of SE will first be discussed in reference to the UK, before proceeding to dissect it into its minutiae across the globe in English-Speaking Countries (such as America and Australia), also considering which other factors may influence the style of SE which is projected in a country.

What is Standard English?

Again referencing the work of Crystal (2011), he defines SE as being the most commonly accepted form of English across the globe (although his article was mainly penned with reference to England itself). Elaborating further upon his definition, he articulates that it is a ‘dialect’ of English in itself, in that it is devoid of any regional identifiers or grammar/syntactical features, therefore it may be hard to discern where the individual speaking the language originates from in terms of which part of a country they are drawn from (again his definition of what constitutes SE seems to be predominantly restricted to English-Speaking Countries where there are widespread regional variations of how English is spoken).

However, Crystal (2011) redeems himself slightly by extending his definition of SE to one which is more malleable to be extended to the concept of English being a ‘global’ language, in that he purports that it is the variety of English which is most accepted in a country (he labels this in an ameliorative fashion as ‘prestige’). From this, the inference could possibly be made that SE could be a potential indicator of social class or economic status (regardless of which country one inhabits). The Committee for Linguistics in Education (2011) perhaps give further credence to this point as they are adamant that SE is the variety of English which pupils (in English-speaking countries) are expected to use in their academic work (with an insistence on regional/dialectal features being absent from their text or prose), an expectation which is extended to any one communicating in the academic vernacular, regardless of what level of education (primary, secondary, tertiary etc.) they may be at. In their paper, the Committee for Linguistics in Education (2011) also articulate the notion that many scholars have failed to comprehensively define SE, perhaps because the concept is so wide-ranging as defining SE will constitute defining all tenets of the English Language (grammar, spelling, vocabulary and punctuation), and (as the point will be made later on in this assignment) the definition of SE may depend on what section of the globe (in geographical terminology, hemisphere) the country which speaks English is located in.

Standard English Across the Globe

Definitions of what constitutes SE can be controversial in some quarters due to the ambiguity and assumptions which surround it. For example, in the UK, the standard accent of SE is known as Received Pronunciation (RP), also colloquially known as the ‘Queen’s English’, and is synonymous with the prestige articulated by Crystal (2011) at a previous juncture of this assignment (Roach, 2004). With this version of SE being known as the ‘Queen’s English’ (with the Queen being arguably the epitome/zenith of high social class and standing across the UK), this sentiment alone alludes to the class implications of this branding of SE in the UK, with the inference being clear that those of a higher class (or more favourable social standing and economic circumstances) speak SE (or RP as it is known in the incarnation of it in England). Treading into the area of sociolinguistics (branching away from the phonological aspects of the matter which were covered with disseminating the RP aspect of SE), Trudgill (2000) estimated that only a small minority of people (3%) actually speak Standard English, predominantly those from the South of England and in the midst of the sprawling London conurbation (which is known to be a more historically affluent area than the North of England), which again infers the elitist aspect of RP.

However, class may not be the only differentiator of SE, the country which one is located in may also have some bearing on the type of SE which is spoken in that country, which owes a lot to the spread of England across the world and the various global influences which impact upon it. In America, SE is known as General American (abbreviated as either GA or GenAM), and like its transatlantic counterpart in the UK, is considered to be devoid of any regional variations, although it is also recognised as transcending cultural and economic barriers, something which the English equivalent of SE fails to do (Wells, 2008). However, the differences between SE in British and America seem to be multifarious and abundant- the eminent Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw once remarked that Britain and America are  “2 Nations Divided by a Common Language”  (Readers Digest, 1942). This alone references the cultural differences between the countries (something else which could be theorised to have an impact on the version of SE exhibited in both countries), although Shaw could have been making reference to the political reverberations which occurred at the time between the two countries. Specifically, the differences between SE and GA seem to be mainly in phonological (the American accent is notably disparate from those contained in the UK), spelling (Americans have a tendency to substitute ‘z’ where the British would use ‘s’ as well as omitting the letter ‘u’ from words such as ‘color’) and word choice (those in the USA have a collection of equivalent words for everyday words in the UK, such as ‘trash’ or ‘garbage’ for the British word ‘rubbish’, which are commonly known as  Americanisms , although paradoxically some of these Americanisms did not originate from America; e.g. the word ‘garbage’ is from the Italian Derivative ‘Garbuzzo’), although it is interesting that there is apparently little distinction between written forms of SE and GA (Crystal, 2003). Regardless of the differences between SE and GA, this example alone illustrates how the nature of SE varies among each English Speaking Country.

In essence, the uniformity of Standard English seems questionable: there may be many versions which exist of it across the globe, being affected by which country the version of SE is located in, the class and ethnicity of the people who speak it and also the context it is used within (with factors such as the formality of a situation, the recipients of the individual who is speaking SE and the characteristics of the individual themselves being deemed to have a bearing on the nature of the SE being used). There is some commonality and convergence between the features of the versions of SE which are spoken across the globe (such as it being the most accepted form of language in that country, the absence of contractions and dialectal features in one’s speech when expressing themselves in SE). However, the notion of one version of Standard English across the globe seems to be an untenable proposition. Instead, it could be argued that there is one Standard English  per each  English-speaking country (or potentially set of English Speaking Countries if they are located within close geographical proximity to each other), with the demographic (class, country of origin etc.) and personal (dialectal) features exerting a significant influence over the style of SE which is spoken in that country.

Committee for Linguistics in Education (2011)  Standard English . [Online]. Available at: clie.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/standard-english.doc (Accessed: 07 May 2015).

Crystal, D. (2000) ‘Emerging Englishes.’,  English Teacher Professional.

Crystal, D. (2003)  A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics . London: Blackwell Publishing.

Crystal, D. (2011) ‘What is Standard English?,’  English Teacher Professional.

Denison, D. and Hogg, R. M. (2006)  A History of the English language . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ethnologue (2015)  Summary by Language Size . [Online]. Available at: http://www.ethnologue.com/statistics/size (Accessed: 06 May 2015).

Readers Digest (1942)  George Bernard Shaw Quote .

Roach, P. (2011)  British English: Received Pronunciation.  School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies: University of Reading.

Trudgill, P. (2000)  Sociolinguistics of Modern RP.  University College London.

Wells, J. C. (2008)  Longman Pronunciation Dictionary . 3rd edn. New York: Longman.

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