Art Of Teaching

As the use of English grows day by day in the workplace and in social circles, a very common concern for many students and teachers today is their inability to speak English fluently. I want to tell you, be fearless and speak the language because there is no Standard English. It is a myth and needs to be busted.

Linguistics is usually defined as the science of language. It can be theoretical or applied. Sociolinguistics which is the study of a language in relation to Society forms a part of applied linguistics. This blog will concentrate on Language variation. Especially on regional variation which can sometimes be referred to as ‘dialectology’. Let us make an attempt to locate the strategies from a linguistic standpoint to prove that ‘standard dialect’ is a myth.

The term “Standard English” suggests that there is a single standard variety of English. We cannot deny that the “language is a social behavior; however, and the way people communicate and use language are always situated within specific contexts and interactions” (Charity Hudley & Mallison, 2011, p.12).

Therefore, there is no one way that we speak!

Let us focus on “Language Variation’i.e how language varies in different contexts like ethnicity, social class, sex, geography, age, and a number of other factors.

Language Variation includes internal variation, Language variety, and dialect.

• Internal Variation: The property of languages having different ways of expressing the same meaning. This refers to language differences.
  Example – An example of internal variation in English is “ask” and “aks”.
  
• Language variety: This is a general term that may be used at a number of levels. We can use them to distinguish between two languages or two varieties of the same language.
  Example – English and French or Two varieties of English like New York English or Appalachian English.
  
• Dialect: For Linguists, a dialect is the collection of attributes (phonetic, phonological, syntactic, morphological, and semantic) that make one group of speakers noticeably different from another group of speakers of the same language.
  Example – Particular words have different meanings from dialect to dialect, or different words are used for the same thing in different dialects.

1] The compound ‘knocked up’ in England means ‘rouse from sleep’. In America, it means ‘to make pregnant’.

2] ‘soda’ for me will mean a general term for a soft drink. For speakers of other dialects, it may mean ‘seltzer water’ or ‘club soda’ only.

3] In some dialects, the general term for a soft drink is ‘pop’ or ‘coke’. For me ‘coke’ refers to a specific brand of cola.

4] In Montana they get their groceries in a sack while in India a sack is used to carry material and groceries are carried in a bag.

Concept Of Dialects & Myth Of Standard Dialects

There are many common sources of a misunderstanding of a dialect:

1] Dialect is not a negative term for linguists: – It refers to any variety of a language and we all speak a dialect of our native language.

2] Dialect is not synonymous with an accent: – A part of the dialectal variation is accent. Non-linguists think that accent alone identifies people like us as non- native or foreign language speakers.

BUT IT IS ALWAYS THE OTHER PEOPLE – THE NATIVE SPEAKERS WHO HAVE AN ACCENT

The English language is really a collection of dialects and dialects themselves are a collection of idiolects (technical use to refer to a variety of a language spoken by each individual speaker of a language). Thus we may finally conclude that linguistic differences between standard and non- standard dialects are simply that, differences and nothing else.

We should accept that the fact that what is standard is not a matter of “better” from the linguistic point of view.

What is “standard” is dictated by the attitudes of society (People who think of themselves as scholars of the English language by doing a stint abroad and picking on some accents ) towards a particular group of people who speak in particular ways due to their native schooling in India.

If Indian English is a genuine dialect, Indians should not try to change their accent to be more like native speakers. When it comes to languages, among other things, definitions cannot be clear cut – where a dialect ends and a language begins!

Now, when I talk about Indian English, I talk about the variety of dialects of English spoken in different parts of the Indian Subcontinent, which includes Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc, since these English dialects are in a range with each other. I can spot the differences in the tradition between not just the Indian and other variants. No, Indian English does not have any genuine accent because none of us are native speakers.

We learn it as a second language and our accent depends upon in which school we have studied and who taught us English. There would be mother tongue influence that gives some common noticeable feature but that also varies from state to state. Indian English is unique in that it is almost always a second language. People who pick up a second language inevitably add some quirks from their cradle language. Because it is a second language, some deference should be given to the language as it is spoken in its own lands.

Indian English is certainly not the Queen’s English as our cultural contexts are very different. The essential idea of Indian English also constitutes the difference in accent as we stress on different sounds in our various regional tongues.

We also have to accept the fact that what is today’s standard might be tomorrow’s non- standard.

Once we recognize and understand the arbitrary nature of what constitutes a standard variety of English language, it is impossible to maintain that any dialect is “superior” to any other.

DIFFERENT? YES. BETTER? WORSE? NEVER.

Therefore “Standard English Dialects” are nothing but a myth.

So whether you say Hello Madam…….. Or Hi M’am is a matter of opinion only. Or ASAP or A.. S..A..P or Genre pronounced as Zhau.Nruh Or Jhonaure, Nobody should judge you on that.

Happy English speaking Friends! Don’t get discouraged by any criticism of your accent. It doesn’t matter as long as you are able to communicate what you want to say.