Text 2.Correctness and standardization

Language change may be of a natural and universal phenomenon but people notice these changes and refer them to “mistakes.” Grammarians nowadays speak about mistakes, regional varieties, and dialects. When someone describes another person’s language as “incorrect” , he or she may refer to any of five things:

1. Foreign learners’ mistakes

2. Native speakers’ mistake

3. The use of dialect forms

4. Alternative usage

5. The use of vernacular or slang forms.

People who are not concerned with language may regard all these phenomena as instances of “bad grammar”, feeling perhaps, that there is a single correct version of the language defined by rules codified in grammar books, and that deviation from these norms is rule-breaking: a sign of carelessness, ignorance, poor education, or even low intelligence. However, there are significant differences between the several types of linguistic behavior referred to above, and not all of them may be called “incorrect”. Most importantly, there is a distinction between a “mistake” and a “variation”.

Mistakes.Few people acquire new languages after late childhood and it is normal for non-native speakers to make mistakes. For example, if a person says “I not understand” or “I want a dictionary who shows pronunciation” we clearly see that there are mistakes in these sentences. They are comprehensible but they conflict with English Grammar. Mistakes are common when speakers are off their own ground, using language they have not quite mastered. A sign in an Oxford baker’s a few years ago said: “This is a food premise. Please, do not smoke”. Clearly, the person who wrote it had not known that the word “premises” is a formal one and used only in plural. Written language should always follow grammar patterns. In other case all irregularities are considered to be mistakes.

Variation.If a dialect speaker says “I don’t know nothing” or “I am no working the day” or if someone says “I will” instead of “I shall”or if a shopper complains about “getting ripped off” , this is not the way to speak about mistakes. Whatever one might wish to say about their grammar, they are using familiar structures which they mastered as children, and which they use consistently in ways that are regular and accepted in their communities. Utterances like these are illustrations of variations, something which is normal and natural in language. Languages vary in time, (they change) in space (they have regional dialects), across society (they have class-based varieties), between individuals (the speakers of the same variety do not use it identically) and in each individual usage (people use different styles in different situations).

Dialect forms. Dialects are often regarded as corrupted forms of language, spoken by ignorant or careless people who make mistakes because they haven’t learned grammar.

In fact all English dialects have a long history. Linguistic analysis shows that any dialect has a rich and systematic grammar, even though this may be different from that of its standard counterpart.

A standard language is not linguistically better. It is simply a variety that had been adopted for official purposes such as government and education. The dialect of the London area gradually evolved into a standard language – the form of English generally accepted for use in government, the law, business, education and literature.

Alternative usage.Usage varies within, as well as between, dialects. Some speakers of Standard British English, for instance say “different to” others “different from”; some they “under these circumstances” others“in these circumstances”; “less people” and “fewer people” are both common.“Shall, if I were; whilst; whom” are used regularly by some people and rarely or never by the other. Such differences occur often as a result of the language change – new forms and usages do not replace the older ones overnight; and alternative ways of speaking may coexist for some time.

Individuals also have different ways of expressing themselves in different situations. Somebody may tell a friend that he “ got ripped in a shop” but in a complain to the manager he might replace the vernacular auxiliary and phrasal verb with a more formal alternative “I was overcharged”. We use constructions “I’ve” and “don’t” in informal speech and writing; in formal language we should use full forms “I have “and “I do not”.

Descriptive and Prescriptive Rules

The word “authority” can relate either to truth or to power. An authority on the subject is someone who can give you reliable information about it; a person in authority tells you what to do and what not to do.

Accordingly, linguistic authorities produce two types of rules: descriptive (authoritative) and prescriptive (authoritarian).

Descriptive rules are simply accounts of linguistic regularities- they are, so to speak, statements of the rules that languages make for themselves. A descriptive rule might tell us that standard English adds “-S” tothird person singular presentverbs, that “who” and “whom” are both currently used as object forms, that Southern US English , somewhatlike Scots , uses double modals “ I might could help you”= “I probably could help you”. None of these rules were consciously devised to make the language work properly. They are simply the products of linguistic evolution, generated by complex mechanisms of which the speakers of the language are quite unaware, and over which they have no control.

Prescriptive rules on the other hand, are linguistic regulations, rules which individuals devise in the belief that their languages needregulating, tidying up, or protecting against change. Such rules commonly appear in usage guides written for native speakers. Many were originated by the 18^th and 19^th century British grammarians, often because they believe that English grammar should imitate Latin, which was considered a superior language. Some of these rules have passed into educational tradition such as a superstition that a preposition is a bad word to finish a sentence with.

Language education in Britain and other countries has benefited in recent years from a more realistic understanding of the way languages work. But different variations are strongly condemned.The establishment of a standard language almost inevitably entails the devaluation of other varieties.

(Michael Swan. Grammar)