Introduction
This chapter focuses on the social and historical processes involved in the creation of a standard language, the discourses which emerge and circulate as a result of those processes and the social and educational consequences of standardisation for speakers of the non‐standard, marginalised dialects. In order to provide the historical and contemporary evidence needed to support the arguments in this chapter, I have chosen to focus on one standardised national language, British English. Similar accounts have been written on other languages in their national contexts. We now have a wealth of studies on the development of standard languages and language ideologies in many countries, and especially in Europe where links between language and nation have been widely articulated (Davies and Langer, 2006; Grillo, 1989; Mar‐Molinero, 1997; Tosi, 2000). Several interesting studies have also been carried out in Anglophone countries (Collins, 1999; Lippi‐Green, 1997). There are...
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Notes
- 1.
Standard English spoken with an accent that includes regional features localisable in and around London.
- 2.
Brummie is the dialect spoken in Birmingham.
- 3.
Scouse is the dialect of Liverpool.
- 4.
Geordie is the dialect of Newcastle and the northeast.
- 5.
As in the expression ‘this is the standard issue for soldiers’.
- 6.
As in the expression ‘her work was of a consistently high standard’.
- 7.
See footnote 3.
- 8.
Bernstein was careful to point out that he was not referring to SE and NS dialects as such, but his theories have regularly been interpreted in that way.
- 9.
Committee appointed to advise on a model of English to be taught in schools.
- 10.
Committee whose role was to provide programmes of study and attainment targets for the teaching of English.
- 11.
The LINC project, coordinated by Ron Carter, University of Nottingham.
- 12.
Leverhulme-funded project: ‘Literacy practices at home and at school: community contexts and interpretations of literacy’, conducted by Eve Gregory, Brian Street, Dave Baker and Ann Williams.
- 13.
Year 1: pupils aged 5–6.
- 14.
The Literacy Hour: a daily hour of literacy teaching compulsory in all state primary schools as part of the National Literacy Strategy.
- 15.
In fact, the ‘t’ is realised as a glottal stop before a following consonant even in RP, so the child was ‘right’.
- 16.
In the dialect of the town of Reading in Berkshire, the past tense of DO is ‘done’, e.g. I done, you done, he done, etc.
- 17.
The Newbolt Report.
- 18.
Rosen and Rosen ( 1973, p. 54).
- 19.
The first year of school in UK. The children are aged between 4 and 5.
- 20.
See footnote 12.
- 21.
See footnote 12.
- 22.
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
- 23.
See footnote 12.
- 24.
The dialect of London.
- 25.
Public examination taken at age 18.
- 26.
The British Library collections: http://www.collectbritain.com
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Willams, A. (2008). Discourses about English: Class, Codes and Identities in Britain. In: Hornberger, N.H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30424-3_75
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