The question of English in Britain
著者（英） Terunao Abe
journal or
publication title
Doshisha literature
number 39
page range 77‑99
year 1996‑03‑10
権利（英） English Literary Society of Doshisha University
URL http://doi.org/10.14988/pa.2017.0000014794
The Question of English III Britain
TERUNAO ABE
1. Introduction
The much heated controversy over the British national curriculum, particularly over Standard English, has recently reached a compromise, which, however, seems to be an ostensible and temporary one. According to The Independent, "English has been revised three times" since the government first introduced the curriculum six years ago.l No wonder we might like to ask what has made English so controversial that it has needed as many revisions within such a short period of time. The present paper is a critique of a newspaper article about the standard language question in Britain2 As its lead clearly illustrates, the whole story is presented in a militalised rhetoric, with the political right or traditionalists engaged with the left or the progressives over English education. Does this mean that the writers are suggesting us that the question of English is essentially a socio-political power struggle and that it is being fought between the rivals? Such a rhetoric is a common place in our economic and social life today and could be ignored as it simply being a media's usual technique to attract readers' attention; or it might be the case that it rightly reflects what has been going on in this society over the question of language. Anyway, as we shall see later in connection with the Orwellian criticism of abuses of language, it seems reasonable that we need to be cautious when faced with this kind of rhetoric as it could have serious effects upon our understanding of the matter.3
There are at least two major points in the article on which disputes are (77)
shown to be arising. They are: the notions of grammatical correctness and appropriateness; the relation between language, identity and nation. These are all matters of ideology and somewhat inextricably interrelated and each of them has some more related notions. We will illustrate these points in this order by citing relevant parts from the article and discuss them in the light of some recent sociolinguistic literature. We would like to argue that the present English language dispute is largely a politicised ideological power struggle and that other ways of putting it fall short of giving an adequate explanation of the phenomenon.
n.
Correctness and AppropriatenessThe following excerpts show contrastive use of the word "correct." (The numbers Par 1, 2 ... given in the parentheses refer to the paragraphs in the article.)
(1) "WILL them photos be going in the paper?" a child asked ... if the Government has its way, teachers will in future leap upon such a child and demand grammatically correct English. (Par 1;
our italic)
(2) The right disliked the Cox notion that grammar was part of a living and changing language and were furious at the suggestion that dialect could be "correct." (Par 28; original emphasis) In (1), "correct" is used in the conventional way; in (2), this usage is challenged, hence emphasised. In other words, it is presupposed in (1) that there is a single variety of English which is considered "correct," that is,
"standard" as is so called elsewhere in the article, for example, in (Par 28).
Therefore, what (1) amounts to say is that there is a possibility that the children who now cannot use the grammar of that "correct" variety will be demanded to do so in future. The teachers' attitude will then be prescriptive.
79 On the contrary, in (2), such a presupposition IS contested; it is rather claimed that all varieties of English are equal with no relative value- judgements attached, which is accordingly entirely at odds with the traditional ideology of dialect-standard relations.
Milroy and Milroy (1992) examine the notion of correctness in the context of language standardisation. First of all, as standardisation, in its strict sense of the term, does not tolerate variability, and as it is difficult to find an invariant kind of English except in its written form, they choose to "speak more abstractly of standardisation as an ideology, and a standard language as an idea in the mind rather than a reality" (22-23; original italic). When standardisation is so conceived, it can now be seen as a historical process whereby a greater uniformity is achieved in the written channel and "a standard ideology" or "a public consciousness of the standard" is promoted (30;
original italic). Milroy and Milroy can then consider the correctness notion to be a contributing factor in the maintenance of such a standard ideology.
This can be confirmed from what they write about the role of usage complainers. Thus they put it, "their role is related to the ideology of standardisation, in that they attempt to keep the notion of a standard language alive in the public mind" (21; original italic). They also state, "[o]ne useful way of charting the history of standardisation is to look at the history of linguistic complaint . .. " (31; original italic). A third, clearer indication of the same idea is given in their statement that "[t]he letter [of complaint about spoken usage] is one of thousands of similar contributions to the mainte- nance of a standard language ... " (39).
In reviewing complaints about English from the Medieval to our times, they point out two major things. One is the fact that by the end of the 18th century the ideology of standardisation or "a ... consciousness of a lelatively uniform 'correct' English" was established, firstly and remotely, through Caxton's adoption in the 15th century of the South-East Midland
variety of English as the literary standard for his printing purposes and, secondly, through extensive codification of the language in the 18th century by such scholarly figures as Dr. Johnson, Bishop Lowth and Lindley Murray. As literacy and mass education advanced, the public came to look, as the model of correctness, to the written form which had been relatively standardised in this way. The other is the classification of what Milroy and Milroy call "the complaint tradition" into two types: Type 1 and Type 2, the former being concerned with correctness of usage based on the standard norms and the latter with such moralistic matters about the usage of standard English as its effects upon society and human behaviour. These two types, it is also said, are sometimes not sharply distinguishable. Let us now take a little closer look at each of these types of complaint.
Milroy and Milroy give a summary of the assumptions shared by Type 1 complaints as in the following:
(3a) That there is one, and only one, correct way of speaking and/or writing the English language.
(3b) That deviations from this norm are illiteracies, or barbarisms, and that non-standard forms are irregular and perversely deviant.
(3c) That people ought to use the standard language and that it is quite right to discriminate against non-standard users, as such usage is a sign of stupidity, ignorance, perversity, moral degeneracy, etc.
(40; original italic)
In order to obtain a clearer picture of this type of complaint, we may need to include some more observations that the authors make. Firstly, the ideology built upon these assumptions is an absolute prescription. It demands uniformity, accordingly allows no deviations and attacks them, if any.
Secondly, as is indicated in (3a) above, complaints of this type often do not
clearly distinguish between spoken and written language. Thirdly, Assump- tion (3c) entails that correctness is used as a social barrier, for instance, as in a job interview. Fourthly, complaints in this tradition, as Assumptions (3b) and (3c) suggest, often attribute the decline of general standards of conduct and morality to a decline in literacy. And, lastly, the authors point out complainers' usual unawareness about the arbitrary nature of the choice of standard forms and about their role in the maintenance of the standard language as well as discrimination against non-standard speakers.4
Complaints of Type 2 do not attack non-standard deviations; instead, taking the existence of a standard literary language for granted, they condemn "abuses of [it] that may mislead and confuse the public" (37). In other words, and in perhaps the clearest characterisation that Milroy and Milroy give, these complaints "are concerned with the usage of Standard English in public, formal and written channels, and the effects of such usage on society and human behaviour" (40). In this connection, the authors take up George Orwell's concerns. The gist of their explication of them runs like this: English vocabulary and styles as they are used in news bulletins, lectures, official speeches and documents are increasingly artificial and stilted. They lack clarity and honesty. They are "totally ineffective in communicating with the ordinary public" (44). This is due to over- centralisation and authoritarian prescription of the language as well as to politicians' and other public figures' failure to distinguish spoken and written language. It is envisaged that, if politicians and others on the mass media go on to centralise and publicly manipulate language, i. e., if they continue to abuse language, there is a possibility that our understanding of events as expressed through language and our use of some parts of English are quite radically affected, the ultimate effects of which being a complete and permanent removal of creative, critical or abstract thought from the language. Milroy and Milroy are of course "less pessimistic than Orwell
was" about such a possibility (47). But they are as well aware of harmful effects of excessive language centralisation and prescription.
When seen in the light of the classificatory knowledge above, most linguistic claims reported in our text to have been expressed by traditional- ists or government officials can be shown to fall in Type 1. Consider, for example, (4) below.
(4) "English syntax appears to be dead; replaced by classroom argot," reported the examiners for A-level philosophy, [sic]
"Consonants, together with the apostrophe and question mark, have vanished from too many essays." (Par 11)
Here the examiners, by saying that "English syntax appears to be dead ... "
may well allude to such uses as "them" for "those" (d. (1) above), "were" for
"was" and "could of" for "could have." They brand them as "argot," but these, it should be remembered, and as so claimed in our article and elsewhere,5 are part of dialect grammar. Similarly, by missing "[c]onsonants," the examiners presumably intend to refer, in particular, to droppings of initial hand word-final t in writing, which may again reflect the phonological system of the examiness' dialect. Thus, according to Cheshire (62-63), (5a) and (5b) are instances of Reading dialect; nevertheless, they will both be interpreted as sheer spelling mistakes by such examiners.6
(5a) He finds is food and he closes is mouth.
(5b) One day in the morning I woke up and I when downstairs.7 It can safely be said that "the examiners" here hold a monistic view of language which is based on assumptions like those in (3) above.
As we said earlier, the correctness tradition often holds a view that a decline in linguistic standards is the cause of a discernible decline of morality and other standards. The following passage illustrates such a
tendency.
(6) Lord Tebbit, the former Tory party chairman, once blamed football hooliganism on the decline of grammar lessons. (Par 6) Milroy and Milroy say that the cause-effect logic underlying claims of this kind is only valid on the premises that grammar is necessarily prescriptive, and that "[it] is [therefore] related to discipline and authority" (180). It is important to note here that grammar associated in this way with morality and authority "is enforced by them," and "becomes one of the instruments through which power and authority are maintained ... " (180). What then made traditionalists like Lord Tebbit feel it necessary to maintain or reassert their power and authority?
"The decline of grammar lessons" is naturally considered by traditional- ists to be the result of what they call "sloppy English teaching" (Par 10) or
"'trendy' teaching methods" (Par 13) which have been practiced in schools since the 1960s with emphasis on children's imagination and creativity8 In other words, teachers, especially those belonging to "the National Associa- tion for the Teaching of English," and "the left" in general are held to be blamed (Par 24). These people are believed to have been indoctrinated by descriptive linguists. Some ideas about language which have been put forward by recent linguistic theories, including the ideas of linguistic equality or relativism, are said to have threatened the traditional values,9 which are held by traditionalists as inalienably connected with the language and which have hence been taken for granted. The controversy over standard English and grammar is therefore considered to be an ideological struggle with the conservative right reasserting its power to protect their values and the progressives tying to change them in accordance with new ideas about language and society. We have more to say in the next section about this aspect of the English question. For now, we have another important aspect of
the correctness tradition to discuss, which also reveals the same ideological basis of the controversy.
The teaching of standard English has been justified by appealing to the concept of "appropriateness," which has virtually attained the status of common sense among many teachers. This can be seen in the following extracts from our text which are expressed by some teachers.
(7) It's very important not to discourage the dialect, but to make sure children know when and where it is appropriate to use it. (Par 3;
my italic)
(8) You don't say 'You don't talk proper at home. Talk proper here'.
(Par 20; my italics)
The word "proper" here obviously carries the same meamng as the word
"appropriate," though their use in respective sentences is different, the former being adverbial and the latter adjectival. Fairclough (1992b: 36) illustrates, in (9) below, how the concept of appropriateness is typically used
1ll educational contexts to address the matter of language variation.
(9) [D]ifferent vanetIes of English, and different languages, are appropriate for different contexts and purposes, and all varieties have the legitimacy of being appropriate for some contexts and purposes. (original italic)
As he says, despite their prescriptivism, models of language variation like this, on the face of it, seem "relatively acceptable" because they give legitimacy to each non-standard variety as appropriate in some contexts (37).
Nonetheless, there are some strong reasons that Fairclough has to reject such models. Firstly, he points out that they are based on "the suspect assumption ... that speech communities are characterised by well-defined varieties clearly distributed among contexts and purposes, so that what is
appropriate or inappropriate is a clear-cut matter for all of us" (37). Let us see some of the evidence he offers for this contention. He refers to such areas of variational indeterminacy as in cross-gender communication in organisa- tions, and medical interviews. Thus, he observes that, in "the current climate of problematised gender relations," it is often the case that "women and men are ... not sure how to talk to each other, and ... find themselves in communicative dilemmas." "[T]he practices which exist are [being] contested and struggled over"; therefore, no clear-cut appropriateness conventions can be called upon (44). Similarly, in contemporary medical interviews, where the traditional fixed patterns of turn-taking and topic-choice are eroding, one may not be able to expect a clear-cut set of appropriate behaviours, although
"for a great many patients" this is probably still not the case (44-45).
Fairclough, then, calls attention to the different degree of (in)determinacy of the variety-context/purpose relation in the two examples or, as he puts it, in
"different parts of the sociolinguistic order" (45). Another piece of evidence that he gathers from the examples casts doubt on the last clause of the suspect appropriateness assumption cited above, i. e., on the conception that
"what is appropriate or inappropriate is a clear-cut matter for all of us." Both examples, he says, suggest "that different groups of people may have not only different senses of the variety/[sic]context/purpose relation but also practices which may come into conflict" (45). Moreover, he speaks, not of variational indeterminacy this time, but of "complex mergers and overlaps"
of varieties in relation to contexts. Thus, he mentions that interviews are sometimes carried out in conversational styles and that information may slide into advertising (46).
The second reason put forward against appropriateness models of language variation is based on observations like those we have just had in the preceding paragraph. Appropriateness models do not accurately repre- sent sociolinguistic realities. Fairclough, therefore, argues that what they
project are "imaginary representations of sociolinguistic reality which correspond to the perspective and partisan interests of one section of society ... its dominant section" (48). This is why Fairclough calls them "ideologic- al." Let us be a little more elaborate on this argument. He says that appropriateness models in sociolinguistics or educational documents con- fuse sociolinguistic realities with "political projects in the domain of language," that is, with "a regulated sociolinguistic order" (48). The result of this is to "express a historically specific relationship between people- those who speak the language [i. e., standard English), those who struggle to impose hegemony and those who contest it [i. e., speakers of non-standard varieties)- "as a timeless [and natural) relationship between things:
between a variety, and a context" (51). Hence, "constant processes of contestation and struggle between class and other groups" of the society are made "invisible" (48). Appropriateness models are thus said to be helping to
"normalise and legitimise" a hegemonic political objective and ideal (52).
Having seen all this ideological discussion, we may be in a better position to understand tl'te following remarks quoted from the article here under revIew:
(10) Teachers who favour a greater emphasis on creative expression argue that grammar exercises may be just a way of keeping the lower orders in their place.
(11) Anne Barness, a leading member of the National Association for the Teaching of English, says: "If you can make a series of hurdles which children have to jump over to speak and write English in an acceptable way, it is a good way to control society.
Society is much more difficult to control if you make everyone articulate and fluent." (Par 6)
These remarks clearly show, that some people are aware that grammar is
87 being used as an instrument through which power is maintained and that a hegemonic struggle
IS
being fought in the country. The question of English here again reveals itself as a question of ideology. Fairclough's concern, moreover, seems relevant here. Since the contexts and purposes prescribed to be appropriate for non-standard varieties are largely limited to private, informal domains and excluded from prestigious, public, formal and written domains, he fears that appropriateness models might give children "the unspoken message that their [non-standard] varieties ... are pretty marginal and irrelevant" (36).10Let us now turn back to Type 2 complaints and see if we can say anything in this connection about the article. Remember that the complaint tradition of this type largely expresses concerns about overcentralized, authoritarian prescription of the language, about the fear of its consequent destruction of creativity and innovativeness in the language. Although they might be related, only remotely and at an elementary level, with such concerns, some such complaints as in the following, which are expressed by teachers, could be included in this category:
(12) ... an old fashioned emphasis on the rules of spelling and grammar will do nothing to improve literacy in the widest sense.
Traditional exercises and tests may ensure that children use language correctly but not that they use it confidently or enthusiastically. They will write a few stillted and impeccably grammatical sentences, but nothing more. (Par 16)
(13) ... the children had to work through books of English exercises .... Children who excelled at these exercises were often mediocre writers .... (Par 17)
(14) The authors of the proposals for the new curriculum are against splitting the infinitive .... But ... the split infinitive IS some- times essential if you want to be forceful. (Par 26)
Excessive prescription is feared here. It is thought to deprive children of their creativity, to corrupt their thought and cause them to be mediocre writers. Are these not an echo of the Orwellian concerns coming to our ears from the distant past?
In. Language, Identity and Politics
In this section, we shall be discussing the relationship between language, identity and politics, firstly, at the micro-level, i. e., the local community level; and secondly, at the macro-level, i. e., the national level. In the meantime, our discussion will be moving from the social onto political planes.
Reading variational studies of English, we almost always come across such questions as "Why do people continue to use low status varieties when they know that it may well be in their economic and social interests to acquire a variety of high prestige?" (Milroy and Milroy 57). An answer we are given and which is based on some empirical research is that it is because people are under "pressure exerted by [their) informal ties of kin and friendship," (58). These ties are called "social network" (57). The social network account goes on to demonstrate that so long as people value "the moral, emotional and practical support of [their) network," or, to put it simply, so long as they value "solidarity" with their own group, "[they) will opt for their familiar speech-patterns" (59). People hold "positive attitudes"
towards their local community speech. In such a case, the non-standard varieties are said to have "covert" prestige in contrast to "overt" prestige which the standard variety has.u Incidentally, network pressure is also said to exist at higher levels of society, though, in this case, it is exerted by people sharing some common interests. When considered in functional terms, then, a non-standard variety is said to express its speakers' solidarity as a group, namely their group cohesion, their loyalty to community values
89 (i. e., the home, the neighbourhood, family and friends), hence their personal and social (or group) identity ..
Now let us examine the following extracts:
(15) "Children may have several different ways of speaking," says another teacher. "You can never eradicate dialect all together because they spend as much time with other adults as with us." (Par 4;
my italics)
(16) So wot if I dont write proper? Miss says my spelling dont matter cos thats how I talk. (Lead)
(17) ... whoever wins, it is likely that many Chorley children will continue to say "them" for "those" and that many greengrocers will continue to misplace the apostrophe. (Par 34)
(18) Mrs. Caswell has strong views about dialect because she is Scottish .... "The government should think carefully before it intrudes on the cultural heritage of our children," she says. "I am proud of my language and they are of theirs." (Par 5) What the teacher says in (15) is that since children continue to be under informal pressure exerted by their network adults, they are likely to develop a sense of solidarity with the local community and therefore unlikely to opt for status. (16) can be interpreted in various ways. When read as it providing the reason for the state of things expressed in the title "Illiterate England," it is a criticism directed at teachers because it says that they are not teaching children how to write. But the possibility of this interpretation is small.
Firstly, the writers appear to be quite favourable towards teachers. Thus they write: "THE TEACHERS at St Gregory's put their arguments quietly and rationally' (Par 23; my italics). Secondly, (16) should better be read in conjunction with the writers' concluding remark cited here as (17). (16) and (17) together seem to suggest, as does (15), that dialects will not cease to
exist because they are part of what their speakers are, part of their personal identity just like the greengrocers' misplaced apostrophe has almost become part of their trade mark, their identity. So, when reading (16), let us forget about the problem of literacy; the "Miss," obviously putting that part of education till a little later, places instead more emphasis on creativity.
Moreover, can we not understand that (16) describes a child coming to recognise its own dialect as part of its identity? In (18), a dialect IS
considered to be part of one's inviolable cultural identity. Besides, the inclusion of this passage in the article might be suggesting that antagonising national sentiments are also working somewhere at the bottom of the current language controversy. For the Scottish teacher, standard English represents a cultural heritage which is different from hers, hence, maybe a different national identity, though she might admit that she shares the British identity.
Our final set of extracts brings us back to the topic of the relation between language and nation. We shall be discussing how they come to get connected to each other and how they are exploited in the current discourse of politics.
To begin with, let us cite one of the relevant passages.
(19) Traditionalists argue that, without correct grammar and spelling, the country goes to the dogs. (Par 6)
In (19), "correct grammar and spelling" obviously refer to standard English;
and "the country goes to the dogs" implies at least two complex propositions such that the country has good traditional values, which underpins its national identity, and that it has good social order, which in turn assumes that the present authority has the country under its control. Therefore, (19) as a whole suggests that the traditional values, national identity, social order, and the present ruling power are all dependent on the language, standard English. Standard English here has more functions to perform. When we analysed Extract (6) earlier, it was assigned a role of maintaining power and
authority; here we see that it is called in to play another role, that is, to carry national identity. We may suspect, then, that national identity as well as the power of the dominant social group are being threatened.
Extract (20) below gives us a hint.
(20) "English," said Michael Fallon, a junior education minister until the last election, "is the linchpin of our education system. If we allow cultural relativism to creep into English it becomes more difficult to establish a sense of order in other subjects." (Par 6) Here the former minister defines English as the most important subject in the school curriculum. The problem lies in the very fact that he has to make such a definition after all. His premise "If we allow cultural relativism to creep into English" makes it clearer. The premise suggests that "cultural relativism" is threatening to enter, or, to some extent, has entered the subject.
Indeed, the latter is the case. Stubbs states: '''English' as a subject is contested at present: most primary school teachers would prefer 'Language' as a curriculum area; and the concept of 'English as a mother tongue' makes little sense in bilingual classes where pupils have other mother tongues"
(237; original emphases). By the end of 1980s, cultural relativism and social pluralism had become much prevalent, particularly in the domain of education. In such a social environment, the minister seems to contend, English as a mother tongue or as a cultural heritage needs to be reasserted because English, in his view and in the traditionalists' view, is inseparably connected with the British cultural heritage, hence being a symbol of British identity. Moreover, the extract may be able to be read in more general terms.
Thus, it may go: "If we allow cultural relativism in education, we will have to allow it in all other social institutions, which will throw the country into chaos." In this extended interpretation, English, to the minister, and to traditionalists in general, is the linchpin to maintain their power to control
social order. And, in fact, in 1987 the then Tory government set out to control education, and organised the so-called Kingman Committee to produce a model of the English language upon which teacher training and the school curriculum were to be based. And next year it established the Education Reform Act, which, it is said, "gave central government powers to intervene in education to an extent unprecedented in Britain" (Bourne 1).
The 1980s were said to be a time ·of "renewed concern with social polarisation." "Serious unrest" was feared "among the dispossessed of the Thatcher era" (Cameron and Bourne 158). A solution the Kingman Committee offered was to "construct an 'English' identity" based upon the language, its standard variety in particular. "English was crucial ... not only because it was easier than classics or because of the need for a literate work-force, though doubtless these were factors, but for overtly ideological reasons to do with national identity and social cohesion" (156).
The 1990s see the continuation of the same or even worse concern. A newspaper article quotes a professor at the Open University as saying: "In many respects Britain is a more class-divided and certainly income-divided society than it ever has been before."12 On top of this, the country faces the prolonged economic recession, the re-emergence of separatism as a result of development of the EC, and the lost public confidence in the government.
The Times recently reported a government's plan to "organise an unpre- cedented high profile conference" in which it will be using English "to rekindle public confidence in Britain's greatness," "to convince public opinion that Britain still has assets, such as its language .... "13 The paper, in its editorial on the next day, gave an overwhelming support to such a plan14 It states:
The Government's decision to open a far-reaching debate on Britain's place in the world in March will rightly focus on English as an asset
whose potential has hardly yet been realised. However great our political disenchantment with European integration, Britain's linguistic hegemony is beyond doubt. ...
The government has an urgent concern to restore confidence not only of the public but also of its party members; and it is again going to adopt the same old tactic: to use the language as a unifying force, as a means to control. As far as the editorial coverage is concerned, the "greatness" of English is apparently associated with its current world-wide hegemony, i. e. its contemporary greatness; nonetheless, the paper does not forget to suggest a link between the language and the nation's great cultural heritage. Thus it writes: "And with the language comes much more: anyone who learns English learns something also of this nation's thought, culture, attitudes and lifestyle." Moreover, the editorial risks criticism for two reasons. First, it erroneously assumes that every native speaker is a speaker of standard English, which only may be counted as an asset. Second, it just ignores the fact that the country has a significant number of speakers of other languages, which is evident in its opening sentence: "Every child in this country grows up with a goldmine [i. e. English] in his or her mouth." This reminds us what Cameron and Bourne once stated about the relation between citizenship and language in this country. Thus th€y wrote: "This equation of belonging to a nation and speaking a particular language would appear absurd in many parts of the world; in England, by contrast, it is taken as obvious" (152). We might wonder how the government could achieve social cohesion by appealing to
"great" English but at the same time ignoring many people who supposedly constitute a significant part of the social division which it is expected to tackle ..
IV. Conclusion
In analysing the article we have so far seen that the question of English is basically a conflict between two opposing ideologies, one is the traditional standardising, hence prescriptive, ideology, which has long been operative in favour of one of the varieties of English, the other the liberal, pluralistic one, which seeks to treat all the varieties on an egalitarian basis and has been entertained from the 1960s by many, especially by those in the teaching profession. What inflamed and exacerbated the conflict was the conservative right's intervention in the matter of education in order to maintain such values as order and Englishness they deemed important. Emphasis is particularly to be placed on the teaching of standard grammar, which is rationalised by applying the notion of appropriateness; for in the traditional- ists' view grammar is connected with discipline, hence with order. The English cultural heritage, which is to be taught in addition to grammar, is also important to them because they believe they need something to express their national identity in place of the bygone British imperial greatness.
Linguistic discrimination seems still persistent in the country. It would indeed be an appalling surprise for an outsider to encounter such a statement:
"Although public discrimination on the grounds of race, religion and social class is not now publicly acceptable, it appears that discrimination on linguistic grounds is publicly acceptable, even though linguistic differences may themselves be associated with ethnic, religious and class difference ... "
(Milroy and Milroy 3; original emphasis). Facing the defacto hegemony of standard English, it would be unrealistic to propose "institutionalised"
national multi-dialectism. As Andersson and Trudgill suggest, it wQuld be more reasonable for one "to guard oneself against dialect prejudice by changing one's dialect, or by mastering an additional dialect, if one wishes"
(123). But the suggestion completely leaves out the question of multi-
lingualism, which would require a much greater and careful socio-political decision for its solution. If to follow, reluctantly, the present government policy as the next best choice for dialect-/minority-language-speaking children, in order to encourage them to acquire an additional dialect/
language, it is not enough to stress their entitlement to the opportunity which the standard variety offers them and for this purpose to force teachers to teach them to read, write and speak it. The government needs to pay more attention to the structural inequality of non-standard dialects and minority languages, hence of their speakers, who may wish to master standard English. The Guardian reported about "a marked decline in reading skills ...
in areas with the poorest catchment areas" (my emphasis)15 The Times, too, carried an article about a claim that "the government is creating an 'education underclass' that [would] grow to threaten society" (original emphasis).16. We come across in the media many other similar claims about a growing gap between rich and poor schools and, as we mentioned above, between rich and poor social sections in general. Persistence of linguistic discrimination seems to be supported to a great extent by such socioecono- mic structural inequality, not to speak of public ignorance about dialect differences and the social nature of prescriptivism, to which sociolinguists have long been drawing our attention.
NOTES
Judith Judd, "Dearing 'cure' calms teachers," Independent 11 Nov. 1994: 3.
2 Judith Judd and Sarah Strickland, "Illiterate England," Independent 7 Feb. 1993:
19.
3 On the effects of the militalisation of media discourse upon our thought and social practice, see Fairclough (1992': 194-198).
4 In connection with language complainers' discriminatory role, the authors also write: "we must take the view that prescriptive comments on linguistic correctness
amount to an indirect expression of a social prejudice which cannot acceptably be directly expressed" (100). Moreover, Honey describes the historical root of prejudices against social dialects as follows: "as Industrial Revolution progres- sed, it was the lower classes of the large industrial cities - so readily perceived as bearing the image of the mob - who offered a threat to the privileges of the established classes .... "
5 Milroy and Milroy (82) maintain that "non-standard varieties are in themselves grammatical and rule-governed forms of English." For some examples involving these and other non-standard forms, see, for instance, Milroy and Milroy (39, 83-89), Cheshire et al. (65-66; 71-72) and Edwards (219-234).
6 Only Ihl -droppings in stressed syllables are at issue here, because it is said that
"all speakers of English drop Ihl in unstressed positions" (Milroy and Milroy 94).
7 As for the form "when," Cheshire gives this explanation: "A word-final It I is not always pronounced in Reading English: occasionally it is completely deleted;
more often a glottal stop occurs. This means that the words when and went be distinguished only by a final glottal stop, and accounts for the spelling in the sentence ... " (62-63, original italics).
8 Stubbs (239) describes this trend as "a child-centered movement in teaching." It is worthwhile mentioning in this connection Stubbs' "translation" of some of the often used terms in public debates directed against those in educational and linguistic professions:
Bilingual is often a euphemism for 'Black', 'immigrant', or 'poor working class'. Equality (as in 'all languages are potentially equal') is often read as a slogan of the political left: and linguists are classed along with trendy teachers. Trendy is a code term for 'left wing' ... Grammar has a wide range of connotations: discipline, rules, authority .... (243, original italics)
9 See, for example, Stubbs (240-241) and Crowley (259-268).
10 Widdowson (325) opposes Fairclough's argument by saying that his concern is one-sidedly "fixed on the discourse of power." He contends that there is such an idea of "the discourse of solidarity," by which he means that speakers of the non-standard varieties cannot feel marginalised since they "surely value the
language of personal relationships, of peer groups and regional loyalties, whatever its public status." He goes on to argue that there is no evidence that such people feel inferiority of their language. But we may be able to counter Widdowson's claim by citing some examples of hypercorrection. Why do some people try to make desperate efforts in order to conform to the prestigious norms and sometimes end up with hypercorrection? It is simply because they do know relative social values of their own speech forms. Milroy and Milroy write that
"speakers certainly have knowledge of different variants," and that they have
"knowledge of the social values attached to them" (18, original italic). As we shall see later in Section Ill, it is true that there are many speakers of non-standard varieties who value solidarity with their own group and do not opt for the prestigious speech forms; but it is also true that there are many who experience linguistic insecurity about their non-standard speech (see, for example, Cheshire and Edwards 45-46). Moreover, the persistence of non-standard varieties despite being publicly stigmatised should not always be ascribed to their solidarity function. There are at least some structural reasons for this. Thus, Milroy and Milroy acknowledge that "[i]t is very likely that in many communities adolescents will simply not have access to spoken Standard English" (179). Chambers and Trudgill (91-92), also, report that, in Norwich, England, unemployed young and elder people show more use of non-standard speech forms than employed middle-aged people, which suggests that socioeconomic factors like employment should also be taken into account when explaining persistency of non-standard varieties. Too much empahsis on solidarity can conceal the possible structural basis of dialect persistency. For more instances of the relevance of structural factors, see our mention of some media reports about socioeconomic inequality in the concluding section below.
11 Holmes says:
"Prestige is a slippery concept. The meaning of overt prestige is reasonably self-evident. ... Covert prestige, by contrast, is an odd term .... How can something have prestige if its value is not publicly recognised? The term 'covert prestige' has been widely used, however, to refer to positive attitudes towards vernacular or non-standard speech varieties. Clearly such varieties
are valued or they would not continue to be used. (347-348)
12 Lucy Berrington, "Britain more divided by class and cash than ever," Times 21 Nov. 1994: 9.
13 Michael Binyon, "Major plans crusade to put Great back into Britain," Times 22 Dec. 1994: 1.
14 "Golden English: Item One in the great debate on Britain and the world," Times 23 Dec. 1994: 13.
15 Stephen Bates, "Background blamed for reading skills decline," Guardian 17 June 1991: 5.
16 Matthew D'Ancona, "Teacher accuses Tories of creating an under-class," Times 22 Apr. 1992: 11.
References
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