Re: The definition of the Standard variation of British English

On Sat, 2009-07-11 at 20:06 +0200, Arne H. Wilstrup wrote:

I know that there are points of controversy in the discussion of
grammatical issues -even among native speakers, but I just wanted to
know if I - in my attempt to comprise all the incidents about the
standard variety of British English - omitted some items here.

One of the books I am to read is a book called Writing - a College
Handbook by James A.W. Heffernan and John E. Lincoln. It is _the_ book
of reference we are to use when the discussion is about academic writing
and standard English.

It says about standard English as follows: ( have omitted some of the
paragraphs as it is a very long chapter of which I have only chosen the
main points I think says everything about my predicament in this matter
"the definition of the Standard variation of British English).

"The book aims to help you write effectively in English. But since there
are many kinds of English, you should know which kind this book
reaches - and why.
The language called "English" is used in many parts of the world. It is
spoken not only in England but also in the British West Indies and in
countries that were once British colonies -such as Canada, the United
States, Australia, India, and Nigeria. These are all "English-Speaking"
countries, but they have different ways of using English. Sometimes, for
instance, they have different words for the same thing:
Truck [U.S.] =lorry [Great Britain]
Pond [U.S.] =billagong [Australia]

Sometimes they have different ways of spelling or pronouncing the same
word:

Labor (U.S.) = labour (G.B. and Canada)
Recognize (U.S.) = recognise (G.B. and Canada)
Laugh:pronounced "laff" in the U.S., "lahff" in G.B.
Paint: pronounced "paynt" in the U.S., "Pint" in Australia
check (U.S.) = cheque (in G.B. and Canada.

Sometimes they use different grammatical forms:
The jury has reached the verdict. (U.S.)
The jury has reached a verdict (all other English-speaking countries.

Probably you have already noticed differences such as tese...

Just as English varies form one country to another, it also varies from
one region of a country to another, and from some cultural or ethnic
group to another. Consider these statements:

She says I be crazy
She says I am crazy

They ain't got no ponies; they got big horses: I rode one, real bing
uns.
They don't have any ponies; they have big horses. I rode one, a really
big one.

I have three brother and two sister
I have three brothers and two sisters.

These statements illustrate four dialects -four kinds of English used in
North America. The first statement in each pair illustrates a regional
or ethnic dialect; the second illustrates Standard English. Each of
these dialects has its own distinctive character and rules. But of them
all, Standard English is the only one normally taught in schools and
colleges, the only one normally required in business and the
professions, and the only one widely used in writing - especially in
print. Why does Standard English enjoy this privilege? Is it always
better than any other kind? And if you were raised up to speak an ethnic
ir regional dialect, must you stop speaking that dialect in order to
learn the Standard one?
There is no easy answer to the first of these three questions. But the
answer to the second is no. Standard English is not always better than
any other kind. In a spoken exchange, it can sometimes be less
expressive - and therefore less effective -than a regional or ethnic
dialect. Compare for instance, the original version of a regional
proverb with the Standard version:

They as has, gets, them as ain't, gets took.
Those who have, get, those who do not have, get taken.

The two statements strike the ear in different ways. While the first has
the expressive vitality of regional speech, the second- the Standard
version -sounds comparatively stiff...

But just as many peaple can learn how to read both Volume and the New
York Times, most people can learn how to speak and write more than one
dialect. Standard English is what you will normally be expected to use
in your writing. During college, it is what teachers will expect you to
use in essays, exams, reports, and research papers. After college, it is
what others will expect you to use in anything you write for business or
professional purposes."

The authors of the book seem to me to have exactly the right idea about
the subject and about how to explain and present it to English-language
learners.

They do, however, seem to me not to be quite as well acquainted with
American dialects as they might be:

I have never heard an American use
*The jury has reached the verdict.
instead of
The jury has reached a verdict.
If the former is supposed to be General American, it's news to me!

And (as best I understand the grammar of the dialect), the AAVE
equivalent of

She says I am crazy.

would normally be

She say I crazy.

or possibly

She be saying I crazy.

if she is only saying on one occasion

or

She be saying I be crazy

if the condition of craziness is not to be understood as a permanent
condition or essential quality of the person being talked about.

Well, it's pretty much okay that they miss these points about American
English, since they are not pretending to teach you standard AmE, much
less American dialects!

(Oh, and isn't a billabong [sic] a _particular type_ of pond?)

It is not easy for a foreigner to point out which is considered Standard
English and which is not. Sometimes it is rather easy to find it, but in
other cases one must - I think -be a native speaker in order to be
relatively sure about what S.E. is.

Yes, it is sometimes necessary to be either a native speaker or one with
such extensive experience of the language in speech and writing that he
and she can look at a sentence and answer the question "would I be
likely to see this sort of writing in a national newspaper or an
academic publication"?

Our Skitt, for example, is not a native speaker but he has functioned in
an English speaking milieu for most of his life (starting as a teenager,
if I remember correctly) and I would trust his judgment on whether or
not something was General American English as fully as I would trust my
own -- i.e. if we disagreed, I'd start looking for the reason why and
expect that it would to be for some reason _other_ than the fact that
English is not his mother tongue.

I am, however, pleased to hear from native speakers when they point out
that this or that is not S.E. in the above mentioned issues, but I don't
think I shall ever be sure of it, so my poor students must suffer - at
least I am not a teacher in a college, so the damage might be small and
not irrevocable bad at this level, I hope.

You command of standard English is really pretty darned good. The
mistakes you make tend not to be because of interference from any
exposure to non-standard English but rather typical small errors that
non-native speakers with a very good command of the language tend to
make from time to time (things like saying "the university" in a context
where a native speaker would say "university" and so on) -- My guess is
that they are probably mostly errors that you would yourself recognize
and correct most of the time, but occasionally you slip and let one out
without noticing it.

I think your students are being very well served indeed if you get them
to anything like your own level of command of English while they are
still in secondary school!

Out of curiosity: did you recognize "pretty darned good" above as a
colloquialism?


--
Roland Hutchinson

He calls himself "the Garden State's leading violist da gamba,"
.... comparable to being ruler of an exceptionally small duchy.
--Newark (NJ) Star Ledger ( http://tinyurl.com/RolandIsNJ )

.

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