Today's English appears to be more tolerant than ever to non-standard variations. Is this a bad sign for the conservative traditionalists? or is it a good sign for the more liberal ones?
English has always changed, even the spelling. I like new words and don't even mind if they are spelt 'wrong', so long as you can understand them!
Yes in the English dictionaries some frequently used words from regional languages are included every year. I like it.
Example
Biryani
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/biryani?q=Biryani
whon standard! language is dynamic and flexible in accordance with the needs of community of speakers. it should fulfil the needs of language users; it is a natural characteristic of English as lingua franca
I agree with Farangis Shahidzade. This is the beauty of English.
Yes, I also agree with Farangis. Which standard? Notice that in former years the Ministry of Education in Singapore used to use the term 'standard English' in its English language curriculum for schools. However, in recent years it has reduced the use of the term 'standard English' and instead refers to 'internationally acceptable English.' That, I suppose, refers to English language production (speech and writing) that would be understandable to an international audience, say at a conference or business symposium.
But then of course you have to try to define "internationally acceptable English." I once asked a senior official at the Ministry of Education in Singapore if it was 'internationally acceptable' to pronounce the word 'international' without a /t/ sound (approximately like 'inner national'). The official (with a PhD from a UK university) said 'no'. "Well," I said, "that is how Hillary Clinton (who was then US Secretary of State) pronounces it. Are you saying that the top diplomat in the United States doesn't speak internationally acceptable English?"
When a language is vibrant instead of static, it will undergo update and up-gradation. That is how the language has been evolved and spread. It is not a matter of ‘standard’, communication is the sole purpose of a language. English as a language has always welcomed the changes.
The first Prime Minister of India Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru used the phrase “Scientific temper” first and the English language recognized it.
That's how the language should be. A vibrant dynamic language can not be conservative.
A language can be neither tolerant nor intolerant. That is a characteristic of people, like the conservative traditionalists and the more liberal ones.
This is whypeople like English, it is because it is always changing and accepting new words. It a flexible and dynamic rather than static language.
Language is arbiterary vocal symbols that's why i agree for those who say that English should be flexible as long as the words or expressions produced are conventionally acceptable among the community where English is an international lingua franca k
We have many Englishes , which implicates having many standard Englishes!
I disagree with the notion that having many Englishes leads to many standard Englishes. There is one standard English with several varieties based either on geographic regions, therefore dialects or on particular professions, thus jargon. Nonetheless, English as any other language has been accepting new words into standard usage as they become generally popular by the public, e.g Subir Bandyopadhyay 's Biriani (Asian origin), Coscos (North African), Intifada (Palestinian), Jihad (Arabic) etc. My online dictionary has just given me this for Intifada: an uprising by Palestinian Arabs (in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank) against Israel in the late 1980s and again in 2000.
The number one goal of language is to understand and to be understood. Therefore, variations in accent and even usage are not that big a problem, unless they impede understanding.
On the other hand, there are some fields in which there is a required professional language standard, such as the Associated Press Style Manual for journalistic writing. Deviations in this domain represent professional failings.
This is interesting question (thank you for asking!). As a person with interest in history, my immediate reflection would be whether this is a question we need to ask now. The world language status of English goes back to centuries, and the question assumes that becoming "non-standard" is something that is happening now. But what is standard English? Did the inhabitants of Britain feel the same when they heard Americans to speak centuries ago? Is it not the case that "non-standard" is an evaluation we may make all the time in the course of the history of a world language?
This leads to an additional point. Is there standard Latin or Classical Chinese? These archaic and written languages had changed a lot over their histories beyond antiquity, i.e. it is difficult to pin down a certain language to a point in time when it is 'standard', simply because languages evolve all the time, in particular those that are used beyond their original geographical/national boundaries.
Just my two cents...
It is a good sign for the advocates of English as a Lingua Franca/English as an international language in research and pedagogy (e.g. Seidlhofer, 2011; Sifakis, 2007).
This is the price to pay for being the language of globalisation: contact with many other varieties of english which leads to influence
Decomposition of the inflectional structure of the English language continues. It is hardly possible to restore such a system for the international language. Yes, the English language is already moving away from the standardized exact rules.
Even its phonology is changing, for example the shift of stress placement from 1st to 2nd syllable in disyllabic nouns.
Hi, Interesting and heated issue!
First you need to conceptualize what Standard English is. Is Standard English the "RP" or "GA", which are used by minorities in English speaking communities?
Standard English has lost its traditional meaning as even in English speaking communities, one can encounter variation in accents and cultural elements. Therefore, exerting too much emphasis on criteria used by around 2% of British people is against the main aim of language, which happens to be communication.
When involved in TEFL, teachers tend to focus on a standard variety of English such that learners do not get confused with other non-standard varieties, which can be taught in advanced stages and/or by university students of English. This is parallel to teaching RP English pronunciation first before introducing learners to other varieties; at least in the school where I come from.
I like Darshini Rajan
's question as to which "standard" is being discussed. Not only should we question the elusive native-speaker ideal, but we should pay close attention to what a strict adherence to that ideal may be doing (or not doing) for our students. In a recent paper by Hall et al. (2019), the authors write "it is becoming increasingly apparent to many applied linguists that, in a world of multiple Englishes, an exclusive pedagogical focus on monolithic English is incommensurate with many learners’ needs, both local and ‘translocal’ (e.g. in migrant contexts)” (p. 88). In this sense, focusing on a monolithic standard English ideal may be inequitable for learners.Hall, C., Wicaksono, R., Liu, S., Qian, Y., & Xu, X. (2017). Exploring teachers’ ontologies of English: Monolithic conceptions of grammar in a group of Chinese teachers. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 27(1), 87-109.
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