English Language Varieties Essay

incline has spread rapidly, even since independence, any as a first wording or as a mediocre of education for non-native declaimers (Platt and Weber, 2002). The actual flap of varieties of side of meat is much biger than is found in the British Isles. On the one afford we can speak of an acrolect or racy status variety, and on the early(a) a basilect or wretched status variety, with the mesolect occupying the intercede position.These terms atomic number 18 normally descriptive of what is turn inn as a post-creole continuumthat is the range of non-discrete varieties in a post-colonial situation ranging from the acrolect, which is in everyday very close to the measurement words of the colonial power, through to the basilect, which geomorphologicly resembles a creole. It is sufficient here to characterise a creole as a conglomerate lyric, resulting historically from contact between speakers of distinct and mutually unintelligible linguistic processs.Creoles are usu ally associated with colonial situations and are ordinaryly designate a very low mixer status. Basilectal speakers, who occupy the lowest position in a post-creole continuum, are often quite an unintelligible to speakers of the acrolect. All speakers occupy a range on this acrolectbasilect continuum, which correlates closely with their amicable status, shifting along it according to complaisant context in much the resembling stylus as British speakers bull lingual variables. Of course, the extent of lingual oddment is much greater.Such continua pull in been depict in Jamaica by De Camp (2001) and in Guyana by Bickerton (1995), and it is likely, we should none, that these studies give be of increase relevance to an understanding of the sociopolyglotic body structure of pagan minority communities in Britain. A detailed paper of the structure and office of pidgins and creoles is not immediately relevant here, just now interested readers are referred to Todd (2000) for an introductory account of the companionable, political and linguistic issues involved.Although respectable Victorians were already reacting strongly against the prescriptive attitudes of the eighteenth century, the well-nigh extreme anti-prescriptive statements, as far as we know, are those made by slightly members of the the Statesn structuralist school of philology. Bloomfield (199322) felt that discovering wherefore aint is considered bad and am not dangerous is not a fundamental question in philology, and he thought it strange that people without linguistic training should devote a great appropriate of effort to futile discussions of this case.Bloomfield was certainly implying that the study of prescriptivism was not of primordial interest to linguistics he was thitherby limiting the field of linguistics to a descriptive study of form and governance in style which takes relatively precise account of wording as a social phenomenon. Some of Bloomfields take o verers cook gone further than this and develop attacked unscientific approaches to delivery with missionary zeal. C. C. hot up (1997) seems to have equated traditional school grammar with prescription(prenominal) medicine (which was by definition bad and unscientific in the view of structural linguists of the time), and in his book on side of meat syntax he went so far as to even reject traditional linguistic terms such as noun, verb and adjective. Friess score was say towards the educational system at the intermediate consumer. Anxious to assure all his readers that their design of language was just as good as that of anyone else, he proclaimed that in that respect is no such thing as good or bad, cleanse or incorrect, grammatical or ungrammatical, in language.English in Western europium and the States Although linguistic scholars would certainly dis throw offe the expatiate of this pronouncement, they have continued (for the near part) to adduce or assume that the ir discipline is descriptive and theoretical and that they do not deal in prescription. In Western Europe and America most theoretical linguists would even affirm that all forms of language are in principle equal.As Hudson (2002191) has put it Linguists would claim that if they were only shown the grammars of two incompatible varieties, one with high and the opposite with low prestige, they could not tell which was which, any more(prenominal) than they could predict the skin colour of those who speak the two varieties. Although around evidence from work by social psychologists (Giles et al. , 2000) lends some bear out to Hudsons point, we do not, in fact, know whether standard languages can be conclusively shown to have no purely linguistic characteristics that differentiate them from non-standard forms of language (the matter has not really been askd).It appears to be an article of assent at the moment that judgments evaluating differences between standard and non-standa rd varieties are always socially well-educated and never purely linguistic. However, we shall later show that the process of language standardisation involves the retrenchment of optional variability in language and that, as a consequence, non-standard varieties can be observed to permit more variability than standard ones (e. g. in pronunciations of particular words). Thus, in that location may be one instinct at least in which the linguistic characteristics of non-standard varieties differ from those of standards. prototype English UK grade In the UK, one vehement novice of the supposed malign influence of linguistics on English language dogma is John Honey (1997-2003). He has named an rank of linguistic scholars (includingastonishinglyNoam Chomsky, who has never been interested with educational or social issues), as advance a escape of regulation English belief in schools. This is an unaccompanied false claim. It is true that there has been some opposition to the t eaching of English grammar, nevertheless in our experience this has arisen mainly from the discernment of lecturers for literature teaching.Far from discouraging grammar, university linguists have been closely involved in maintaining and encouraging its teaching. No one has ever contrary the teaching of standard English, and many an(prenominal) of those named by Honey as enemies of standard English have devoted much of their careers to teaching ittraining students to compose clear and correct standard English. Experienced teachers give not take kindly to an attack that simply appears to them as brutish, presumptuous and pointlessly offensive.The linguists academic interest in the human capacity to learn and mapping language is not a bane to the teaching of Standard English, and it can be a great benefit. It does not follow from the educational necessity to focus on the standard that we should neglect to examine and formulate the different norms and conventions of diction and writing, or that we should flunk to acknowledge that standardised usage is most fully achieved in writing. Nor does it follow that we should neglect the fact that non-standard spoken vernaculars have grammars of their own.To investigate the structure of language varieties is an intellectual need that cannot be compromised, and which in no way contradicts the importance of the teaching of literacy in a standard language. Amongst other things, research on real language in use can help us to clarify and understand what standard English rattling is and appreciate more exactly what its roles and functions are. We will not improve practical language teaching by ignoring such matters or by maligning those who study conversational speech and non-standard vernaculars as enemies of standard English.The authors of elementary books on linguistics, however, have usually been nervous to dissociate their account of the face from that of traditional handbooks of rightness. As we have se en they usually fuel prescription routinely, and assert that linguistics is descriptive. Their general pointthat, if one is to study the temper of language objectively, one cannot make prior value-judgmentsis frequently misunderstood, and it has sometimes called forth barbellate and misinformed denunciations of linguistics as a whole. angiotensin-converting enzyme example amongst many is Simon (2002). In an canvas entitled The Corruption of English (2002), Simon blames structural linguistics and literary structuralists for an alleged fall off in language use and for bailable attitudes to language What this is, masquerading under the euphemism descriptive linguisticsis a benighted and despicable supply to mass ignorance under the supposed egis of democracy. His essay is outspoken and full of emotive language (pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo, rock-bottom illiteracy, barbarians, vandalism, etc.), and it betrays ignorance of what linguistics is more or less. To Simon, linguists are almost equated with some terror that is threatening Western (i. e. American) civilisation from outside. It is luckless that misunderstandings and misapplications of the American structural linguists teaching should have made it seem reasonable for anyone to write in this ignorant way. As many people still interpret descriptive linguistics as inimical to standards of usage, there has clearly been some failure of intercourse between linguistic scholars and the general normal. unitary reason for this is that mainstream linguistics has concentrated more on the abstract and formal properties of language than on language in its social context. Bloomfield (1993), as we saw above, considered that prescription was orthogonal to linguistics as a knowledge. Yet some linguists have been directly interested in prescription. Haas (2002), for example, has pointed out that prescription is an integral part of the life of language.By refusing to be interested in prescription, he adds lingu ists only ensure that every enterprise of linguistic planning will be dominated by ignorant enthusiasts and incompetent pedants (Haas, 20023). Since Haas made these comments, some social and educational linguists have been very participating in commenting on public attitudes and educational policies, and some have represented the subject on advisory committees. A general linguist, R. A. Hudson, is responsible for the Language Workbooks series, published by Routledge.Several relevant books on language variation have appeared, and linguistic correctness was the topic of the 1996 BBC Reith Lectures, delivered by Jean Aitchison (1998). In the USA much of the interest in language differences has been driven by public concern about the language of ethnic minorities. In 1997, the Linguistic Society of America published a document providential by a controversy about Ebonics (African American Vernacular English), which was recognised by the Oakland (California) School Board as a legitimate form of language.It ended with the hobby comments There is evidence from Sweden, the US, and other countries that speakers of other varieties can be aided in their learning of the standard variety by pedagogical approaches which recognize the legitimacy of other varieties of a language. From this perspective, the Oakland School Boards decision to recognize the vernacular of African American students in teaching them Standard English is linguistically and pedagogically sound.