Standard English: What it isn’t
I have to admit that after reading this article, I still am
not sure what Standard English is. At the same time, I have a better
understanding of what it isn’t. I thought that the author’s decision to write
the article by explaining the common misconceptions of Standard English has
left me more confused than if she had just attempted to define Standard
English. However, I will write about my interpretation and potential problems
with the idea of Standardized English.
What I can’t seem to comprehend is the idea that there can
be more than one Standard English. But if there is more than one Standard
English, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of what is Standard English. If you
have more than one standard of the same thing then you really haven’t established
a standard at all. It seems to me that establishing a standard based on varying
dialects is actually working to create different languages all together. Doesn’t
that defeat the purpose of trying to create a standard?
At the same time, we do not need to establish the one
superior version of English that we can all agree is the standard. With so many
different countries and unique regions now speaking English around the world,
we will never be able to agree on a true standard. English has already evolved
too much from its spread out of Britain. Complicating the idea of
standardization even more, in my opinion, is that every English speaking region
believes that there English is superior to anyone else’s. In this sense, we can
have many different versions of standardized English. I would not consider
either of them to be Standard English with a capital S because there is not one
version that ranks above the rest.
My other concern with the idea of Standardized English is
the creation of a hierarchy based on a person’s ability to speak in the
established superior version. There is power in language. If we devalue one
group of people’s way of speaking and establish another as better, we stand to
do the same in other aspects of society. We will begin to perceive a person of
being of lower status based on the way they talk and use the English language.
I believe that in this sense, language becomes a hegemonic device as one group
is able to establish dominance over another. For these reasons, I have concerns
about the idea of Standardized English.
And language is indeed a hegemonic device and our notions of being correct and judging people based on the way they speak attests to this fact. The idea that there is actually one standard is, as you point out, erroneous since the standard does change with each national shift. the grammar remains more or less the same, but the accent certainly changes.
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