Writing Workshop 1 - What is Standard English?

Standard English: what it isn’t
(Tony Bex & Richard J. Watts eds. Standard English: the widening debate. London: Routledge, 1999, 117-128.)

“Standard English is not the English language but simply one variety of it.” - Trudgill

Standard English is not an accent

Received pronunciation (BBC English or Upper Middle Class British English) is often thought to be Standard English but most standard English is spoken with an accent e.g. Caribbean Standard English (like Jimmy Prince o f SVG TV), Northern British accented Standard English (Mrs John’s accent in class). Northern U.S accented Standard English (Mr Gleicher in class)

Standard English is not a style
Style is the words and order of words (lexis and syntax) such as formal, informal, colloquial. Switching occurs within dialects not between them. So a person might use informal words e.g. old man, knackered, bloody and still be speaking Standard English.

Standard English is not the type of words (Register)
E.g. terms used in law, maths , geography. E.g. I-man sight two eskers dem inna dah U-shaped valley the register is physical geography but the dialect is Rasta English. Standard English does not have particular words e.g. cry is used by to all kinds of dialects but it does not contain non-standard words e.g eye-water instead of tears

What is Standard English?

A dialect or form of English which is used mainly in the written form and is often referred to as S. W. E. – Standard Written English. It is not a “superior” form of English but some may consider it to be because often the dominant social class who because of education tend to use it. Standard English is taught during foreign language teaching of English.

Used mainly in:
 written in published work or academic writing
 spoken in situations where published writing is most influential, especially in education (and especially at University level),
 spoken ‘natively’ (at home) by people who are most influenced by published writing - the ‘professional class’. (Richard Hudson)

Standard English is "good" grammar
Standard English is mainly determined by grammar and only about 20 very specific areas of grammar make up S.W.E. Some of the key ones are
 Use of irregular verb forms particularly for the third person by the “s” to indicate 3rd person (he/she/it)
 Use of irregular form of the verb to be for both present and past tense e.g. I am, you are, he/she/it is,
 A variety of past tense forms eg. (Simple past ) I saw, (past perfect) I have seen
 Does not use double negative e.g. I don’t want none is an error
 Reflexive pronoun is irregular i.e. myself, yourself, himself, themselves, ourselves.