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Document : 346
Title    : Dialect, Standard English, and the Child at Home and in School
Author(s): Andrew Philp

Copyright holder(s): University of Glasgow: re-use of Crown Copyright
material

Text

Language and Identity

The child first identifies with the language of his parents as he
constructs for himself a language system which accords reasonably well with
that of those around him.  As he increasingly interacts with siblings and
young relatives, neighbours’ children or children in the nursery, he
learns the language of interaction with peers, which for most children is
likely also to be the language of the neighbourhood (the local dialect). 
Parents may say ‘You know?’ or ‘Give me that!’ while local children
may say ‘Ken?’ or ‘Geezit!’ The child may not, in fact, be
particularly aware of neighbourhood language – if different from home
language – until he goes to school, but at school he will also meet a
different form of language: teachers may say things like ‘Do you see what
I mean?’ and ‘Give me that, please!’

Therefore, children may often find a mismatch between the typical language
of home, neighbourhood and school.  They may have to construct for
themselves an identity or set of identities to cope with this; that is, the
child has to find ways of interacting that cause least problems, according
to which group he happens to be in at the time.  Incidentally, he also has
to learn a range of linguistic ‘manners’, including ways of taking
account of the status of others. (‘You don’t speak to Granny like
that!’ or ‘Right you! Just watch it, or I’ll batter you!’ or ‘Now
John, call me Miss Smith in future!’)

Moreover the language style that the child habitually uses – usually that
of the home – becomes the one in which he thinks and therefore the one in
which he makes sense of the world – and this has implications for the way
in which he learns through language in school.  The language in which
concepts are explained may be a more formal, technical style than the one
he is used to; or a different dialect (Standard English; or it may even be
a different language, if he has been brought up to speak an ethnic minority
language such as Urdu, Punjabi, Cantonese or Gaelic). Consequently, the
child needs opportunities to talk informally in groups about school
learning, whether it be in informal Standard English, local dialect or an
ethnic minority language.

The child is thus beginning to learn that he has an identity which he
shares with his family, friends and community, and that he has a linguistic
loyalty to them.  He also learns that there is another, different, world of
language and learning in the school, enshrined in the pronouncements of
teachers or written in books or on computer screens.  Many children cope
with this mismatch very well indeed: they learn that there is a ‘school
language’ – which they may already be familiar with from television –
and they learn to switch between that and the home language, as contexts
dictate.

Yet for some children in this mismatch situation, real difficulties may
arise, because they gain the message from school – either explicitly or
implicitly – that the school language is superior (it is ‘correct’)
and the home language is inferior (it is ‘wrong’).  This obviously can
create a tension for the child, since the home language is so close to his
own identity and all that he values, and he is now being forced to choose
between that home language and the world of the school, with the promise of
achievement in life that success in school apparently implies.  Many
children, of course, balance the claims of these competing language worlds
and their cultural and ideological implications well enough, but for many
this linguistic tension may be a central cause of their growing
disaffection with, and rejection of, the school – precisely because
language and identity are so closely bound up together.

Dialects and Standard English in Britain

Before considering what teachers can do about this problem of
‘mismatch’ between home and school, we must first consider in more
detail the current pattern of British dialects – including Standard
English, which is a dialectal variety too.

Dialectal variation concerns the way in which features of the language used
by a speaker, such as features of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation,
relate to features of his/her background, that is, where he/she comes from,
regionally or socially.  In cases where we can identify a range of
linguistic features as being typically used by a particular regional or
social group, we can call the self-contained system used by these people a
dialect.  Most of the dialects of modern Britain are now termed
‘socio-regional’ in the sense that they indicate speakers of a certain
social class from a certain region; for instance, the rural dialect still
found in parts of Aberdeenshire and known as Buchan, or the urban dialect
of Glaswegian, would in most cases be spoken by working-class speakers from
those areas.

Standard English speech from these regions would probably vary little in
terms of vocabulary and grammar (when used in comparable contexts), but for
many speakers their use of a particular regional accent with Standard
English would indicate their regional background.  Accent, then, is the
pronunciation level within dialect variation, and every speaker has an
‘accent’. Most linguists would now accept this use of the term
‘accent’, but some speakers still regard certain ways of speaking
English (usually their own) as not having an accent. It is more objective,
however, to regard all systems of pronunciation of English as accents.  It
is also important to distinguish dialects – which include also words and
grammar – from accents – which refer to the pronunciation systems of
both Standard English and the various socio-regional dialects.

Another important concept for describing the broad picture of present-day
British dialects is that of the standard dialect, Standard English.  Most
linguists accept that one can identify, at least in the written mode, a
basic standard form of the language; broadly, those conventions of grammar,
vocabulary and – in the case of the written mode – spelling, which are
printed in books and taught in schools as ‘correct’ written English. 
One can also perhaps recognise a spoken standard, comprising the broad
range of publicly acceptable grammar and vocabulary, much of it reflecting
written Standard English, together with one of the range of accents which
are clearly comprehensible to speakers throughout Britain.  These accents
are all regional, with one notable exception, the non-regional accent of
high social prestige often known as R. P. (Received Pronunciation).  Spoken
Standard English is the language in which much broadcasting takes place
and, not surprisingly, it is normally the speech of those who regard
themselves as educated. 

In recent times, however, a number of linguists have claimed that it is not
possible to identify a specific form of spoken Standard English. 
Certainly, it is true that it is more difficult to define spoken rather
than written Standard English, because one cannot easily demarcate which
spoken forms are and are not Standard English in the speech of many
speakers.  Yet most speakers throughout Britain can identify, as part of
the standard dialect, various other forms of spoken English from other
regions which they can understand and which they regard as acceptable in
public contexts, such as public meetings or on television. Therefore,
although it is not possible to identify in all cases exactly what
constitutes spoken Standard English, it can be defined as that dialectal
variety of English, with a particular range of accents, which can be
understood by all speakers of English throughout Britain.  

There is, of course, a tendency among many people to regard Standard
English as ‘English’, implying that most other alternative speech
varieties, apart from a few rural ones, are not worthy of the name of
dialects.  The view taken here, however, is that while it is reasonable to
recognise Standard English as a unique and important dialect, and as a
useful ‘lingua franca’ between speakers of other dialects, it is in
fact only one of a large number of native dialects, all perfectly efficient
as language systems within their own speech communities (the groups of
speakers who use those dialects).  

These other dialects, which may be called ‘nonstandard’ (which does not
mean ‘substandard’ in this context), tend to be the native speech of
those who originate from lower socio-economic class backgrounds.  Yet this
certainly does not mean that these dialects are deficient, or that those
who speak them are inadequate communicators within their own speech
community.  All these nonstandard dialects are perfectly efficient and
grammatical within the contexts in which they have evolved.  In other, more
public, contexts, or for use outside the speaker’s own region, an
appropriate form of Standard English, spoken with a suitably modified
regional accent, will be required.  This standard variety may be
appropriate in that context, but it is not ‘correct’ in the sense that
other dialects are deficient or wrong.  

Moreover, these nonstandard dialects are not ‘ungrammatical’, since
they have their own clear and consistent grammatical rules, which happen to
be different from those of Standard English.  The term ‘ungrammatical’
is much more suitably applied to usage which all native speakers would find
unacceptable, such as foreigners’ errors (‘I am being in this country
since three weeks’) or native speakers’ ‘slips’, where a pupil,
moving towards an unfamiliar expression, may fall between two stools and
produce an ungrammatical form such as ‘I am disagreeing against’ (a
combination of ‘I am speaking against/disagreeing with’).  

A related term which is also often used unhelpfully is ‘slang’, when
used to refer to examples of nonstandard English.  ‘Slang’ is better
used in the restricted sense of a ‘closed’ variety of language which
certain close-knit groups (prisoners, RAF pilots, boarding-school pupils,
etc.) use to distinguish insiders from outsiders, by using terms unknown to
outsiders, and changing them as those outsiders begin to understand them. 
Therefore, while much of the vocabulary of nonstandard dialects has been
current within those dialects for many years, slang is, by its nature,
constantly changing.

We shall now examine the current pattern of British dialect variation,
isolating certain basic types of variety: 
 Spoken Standard English with its various accents, indicative of the
different regions, and RP, the regionless accent associated with
upper-class speakers and national broadcasting.
• Written Standard English in its many genres.
• Variants of Standard English associated with the countries of the
United Kingdom, so that there are recognisable varieties of Scottish,
Northern Irish and Welsh Standard English.  Speakers of Scottish Standard
English may use distinctive vocabulary such as ‘outwith’ (largely
unknown outwith Scotland) and expressions such as ‘I will be coming’ (I
shall be coming) and ‘These shoes need mended’ (These shoes need
mending).  These national varieties of Standard English are all,
nevertheless, Standard English in that all of their features, except for a
very few grammatical expressions and vocabulary items, are clearly
comprehensible to speakers throughout the United Kingdom.
• Rural dialects from various regions.  These are still to be found in
some rural areas, such as parts of Aberdeenshire, but through the influence
of broadcasting and other social changes they have been largely replaced by
Standard English spoken with a marked regional accent.
• Urban dialects, associated with the cities.  For some people, these are
not dialects in the sense that the rural dialects are, but are, they
believe, ‘corrupt’ and ‘slovenly’.  There is no linguistic basis
for this view as the city dialects are dialectal varieties with a history,
a location and a range of language features, just as the rural dialects
are, although on the whole they are rather less divergent from Standard
English in vocabulary and grammar.

Another feature in the British dialectal pattern – which is now
established in our multilingual society – is that speakers from ethnic
minority communities may use their home language (Urdu, Cantonese, Gaelic,
West Indian Creole, etc.) and also switch between Standard English with a
regional accent, urban nonstandard English with a local accent (sometimes
with distinctive ‘ethnic language’ features) and a version of their
home language.  Therefore, like those whose home language is Scottish
dialect, these speakers can draw upon a range of dialectal varieties, each
appropriate in different contexts.

Nevertheless, this neat picture of dialects is certainly less than
accurate: the most noticeable feature of present-day British dialectal
variation, particularly in the case of urban speakers, is the way these
boundaries are fudged: there is great inconsistency in the usage of
speakers, best regarded not as switching between two distinct dialects, but
as a highly flexible form of speech modification.  What Speitel says of
many Scottish speakers is probably true for most nonstandard English
speakers too: ‘It is not so much a question of their speaking either
dialect or Scottish Standard English but rather more or less of the one
variety or the other.’ (‘Dialect’ in Davies, A. ed., "Problems of
Language and Learning" , 1975)

The Current Situation in Scotland

Yet the situation in Scotland is different from other regions of the United
Kingdom: the ‘nonstandard English’ of Scottish speakers is distinctive
from that of other regions, in respect of the extent of its difference from
Standard English and its historical connection with a firmly
institutionalised national culture, supported by ancient literary and folk
traditions.  Indeed, this distinctive Scottish situation has been
heightened by the growing status and prevalence in recent years of the
Scottish language (Scots): the status of Scots as a separate
historically-based language, underpinning and uniting the various Scottish
dialects, has been widely accepted by Scottish writers, linguists and
educationalists.  The Scots language scholar Derrick McClure regards Scots
as having at least some of the characteristics of a full language: ‘a
high degree of differentiation from the speech form most closely related to
it [English], possession of a literature and identification with a well
defined community’. (‘What is the Scots Language?’ in Niven and
Jackson, eds, "The Scots Language: Its Place in Education", 1999). 

Moreover, contrary to the former tendency to restrict ‘Scots’ to
‘Lallans’, augmented by reconstructed Scots vocabulary, the modern
trend among scholars of Scots language is to regard all the regional and
urban dialects of Scotland as part of the language known as Scots.  As
McClure says, ‘A long tradition exists in Scottish education of
contrasting “good” or “real” Scots with the “slovenly speech”
which is often encountered in reality.  Yet the observations and
assumptions of sociolinguistics [viewing urban dialects as integral parts
of national languages] give such a view very little support’.  It is
refreshing that SCCC’s "The Kist" anthology (1996) of texts in Scots and
Gaelic for schools includes poems or songs in Glaswegian dialect, such as
‘Lament for a Lost Dinner Ticket’, ‘The Wee Malkies’ and ‘The
Jeely Piece Song’, and that the Scots School Dictionary published by the
Scottish National Dictionary Association embraces urban, rural and older
Scots vocabulary.

Yet this situation creates a tension for many teachers who feel obliged to
discourage, if not ‘correct’, urban speech and yet are also being
encouraged by the education system to use poems and other literary material
couched in the same dialect.  Similarly, the attitude of many generations
of teachers to local Scots speech means that many Scots speakers have an
ambivalent attitude to Scots: they are both proud of their ‘guid Scots
tongue’ and also, at other times and in other contexts, ashamed of it as
being ‘ungrammatical’.

A Bidialectal Approach

Perhaps the solution to this dilemma is for teachers to develop a
‘bidialectal’ approach based on the principle of appropriateness,
rather than correctness.  ‘Correctness’ implies that one form of speech
or writing is correct and all other equivalent forms are incorrect, whereas
appropriateness suggests that all equivalent forms are correct when they
are used appropriately.  Therefore, this approach is ‘bidialectal’ in
that, instead of regarding the Standard English variety as correct in all
cases and outlawing all dialect forms, both the pupil’s local dialect and
Standard English are acceptable in the different contexts for which they
are appropriate. 

Thus we are not replacing the child’s own dialect, so close to his own
identity, with an alien school dialect, but extending his range of language
by enabling him to use spoken Standard English in ‘public’ contexts: as
a newsreader, or a judge in a mock trial, or as himself talking to a school
visitor, or speaking in assembly, etc.

In this approach, however, two factors are essential: firstly, that we talk
about differences in usage and about when different forms of speech and
writing are appropriate, so that the child can come to accept that both
local dialect and public Standard English are equally valid and useful for
different purposes and not feel guilty about using either, when
appropriate.  In encouraging this important kind of interaction about what
is appropriate and when, surveys and investigations into local dialect
forms or performances using local dialect are very valuable, as these allow
pupils to take pride in their local speech and encourage their self-esteem.
 It is in this context that the use of poems, stories, songs and plays in
the local dialect can have a valued place in the classroom without pupils
or teacher feeling ill-at-ease.

Secondly, we need to encourage the use of spoken Standard English in the
classroom, not by correcting the pupils and making them feel inadequate,
but by giving them as much experience as possible of speaking in the kinds
of public roles – simulated or real – which were indicated above. 
Thus, pupils may prepare to be kings, judges, newsreaders, interviewers, or
quizmasters, or to adopt other public roles in class role play, or to take
part in assemblies, oral reports on completed work presented to several
classes (perhaps with the head teacher present), or to ask questions of
policemen, firemen or other visitors to the school.

This approach does assume that in most cases children do not need to be
taught the grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation of Standard English but
that they will have assimilated most of what they need, from exposure to
television and to books.  In such circumstances, the teacher or other
pupils may constructively help pupils with an appropriate expression, but
this comes within a positive context of enabling the pupil to create an
appropriate response, rather than the negative one of correcting his speech
because his normal speech form is ‘wrong’.

Therefore, through the involvement of pupils in appropriate contexts which
call for local dialect and Standard English respectively, the value of the
local dialect is affirmed, as also is the value of Standard English as a
means of communicating in more formal, public contexts.


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Information about document and author:

Text
Text audience
Adults (18+): Specialists: Audience size: 1000+

Text details
Method of composition: Handwritten
Year of composition: 2001
Word count: 3083
General description: One of a series of position papers on current educational developments in relation to language education

Text medium
Other: CD Rom

Text publication details
Published: Publisher: SEED / University of Glasgow
Publication year: 2001
Place of publication: Glasgow
ISBN/ISSN: 0852417402
Edition: 1st
Part of larger text: Contained in: CD Rom: LILT Materials
Editor: J. McGonigal / C Kay
Part of a longer series of texts: Name of series: Position Papers: CD Rom: LILT Materials

Text setting
Education: 
Text type
Prose: nonfiction: Report: 

Author
Author details
Author id: 60
Forenames: Andrew
Surname: Philp
Gender: Male
Decade of birth: 1930
Educational attainment: University
Age left school: 17
Upbringing/religious beliefs: Catholicism
Occupation: Retired Lecturer in Education
Place of birth: Londonderry
Region of birth: Co. Londonderry
Country of birth: Northern Ireland
Place of residence: Airdrie
Region of residence: Lanark
Residence CSD dialect area: Lnk
Country of residence: Scotland
Father's occupation: Tool Fitter
Father's place of birth: Auchterarder
Father's region of birth: E & SE Perthshire
Father's birthplace CSD dialect area: Per
Father's country of birth: Scotland
Mother's occupation: Seamstress in shirt factory
Mother's place of birth: Ture
Mother's region of birth: Co. Donegal
Mother's country of birth: Ireland

Languages:
Language: English
Speak: Yes
Read: Yes
Write: Yes
Understand: Yes
Circumstances: At work, at home
Language: Gaelic; Scottish Gaelic
Speak: Yes
Read: Yes
Write: Yes
Understand: Yes
Circumstances: Evening classes and immersion
Language: Italian
Speak: Yes
Read: Yes
Write: No
Understand: No
Circumstances: Elementary
Language: Japanese
Speak: Yes
Read: No
Write: No
Understand: Yes
Circumstances: Very elementary
Language: Scots
Speak: Yes
Read: Yes
Write: Yes
Understand: Yes
Circumstances: Elementary - intermediate
Language: Urdu
Speak: Yes
Read: No
Write: No
Understand: Yes
Circumstances: Elementary