Standard English found lacking?

[jotham]

Is slang the same think as dialect to you?

I may not be sure of the difference. I'll give it a stab though. I think dialect can fit nicely in the framework of standard English. I think Southerners have a distinct way of talking; yet I wouldn't consider them off the beaten track of standard English. There are skilled lawyers and doctors who, even though they speak skilled English, have never lost their dialect, pronunciation, or manner of speaking. I also believe that about African-Americans, many of whom are highly educated and speak English skillfully, and yet their manner of speaking and pronunciation is always apparent and intact.
Slang also can be woven into standard English with great effect. But the dialect that is so extreme as to be ungrammatical, like the speech of hillbillies or that of undereducated and underprivileged African Americans, is what I'm talking about. I'm not sure if it is properly called dialect or slang, or both. I prefer to call it just the ungrammatical kind of dialect, to separate it from the kind that is merely different in pronunciation or in the diversity of putting words or thoughts together, which I think fits well with grammatically standard English.
I agree with Bill Cosby 100% that those who are raised with an ungrammatical kind of dialect should be bi-dialectal---although they often aren't, as Cosby notes. And it is a contributing factor keeping speakers in that group a permanent underclass. Cosby says that parents have the responsibility to speak standard English in the home for the sake of their children's education and good. Their ungrammatical dialect is good; it probably does help them communicate better with people who understand and speak the same dialect on the street (than SE does). But it probably hinders their communication with people who aren't familiar with it or don't speak it (which is the majority of English speakers). Their dialect can help them belong to their group and express an important part of their personality that should never be given up, but it can also hinder them from rising up and fulfilling the American dream, if that's all they can speak.

[Anuradha Chepur]

No slang is slang, and not to be treated as a dialect.

Maybe, we should talk about standard slang and non-standard slang.

[lolwhites]

BTW your link to the forum doesn't work, but in any case the quote only proves that any idiot with an internet connection can post rubbish in a public forum. If, as the poster you quote states, Black patois "demonstrably lacks the shades of meaning that standard English possesses", then it's up to him to demonstrate. I think that maybe he just doesn't know the dialect well enough.

[metal56]

, but I think most of us here appreciate that SE is just another variety, albeit a useful one to know if you want to be understood by a large number of people and be taken seriously.

So, bi-dilalectism is the way, mebbe?

[metal56]

I may not be sure of the difference. I'll give it a stab though. I think dialect can fit nicely in the framework of standard English. I think Southerners have a distinct way of talking, yet I wouldn't consider them off the beaten track of standard English. There are skilled lawyers and doctors who, even though they speak skilled English, they never have lost their dialect, pronunciation, or manner of speaking.

Sorry to keep picking at bits of your post, but what do you mean by "skilled English"? Are speakers of Southern American English dialect not skilled speakers?

[metal56]

No slang is slang, and not to be treated as a dialect.

Maybe, we should talk about standard slang and non-standard slang.

Mebbe.

[jotham]

So, bi-dilalectism is the way, mebbe?

Call it what you want, but just as long as they are familiar with standard.
I also think that Standard British is probably much more the case of being just one dialect of the many, many varieties than with Standard American. In the United States, people are much more equal and less class conscious. I think that to say standard American is just one mere dialect may be a bit of an understatement. But I understand the reason for saying it.

[fluffyhamster]

the majority of speakers in the wider population (from whose usage 'Standard English' is constructed/abstracted, and in return contructs)

Is that really the history of Standard English? I thought it was based on a small group of speakers.

So your answer to the thread question is that Standard English cannot be found lacking, right?

Attempts to establish "the standard(s)" may have been unashamedly prescriptivist in the past, but how many people (linguists) are nowadays not committed to accurate description? The LGSWE, anyone? I'm sure if linguists find that the 'correctness conditions' had changed (or were at least appearing to be in a state of flux) in a society generally, they won't be attempting to cover it up, but rather will seek to acknowledge it. Ultimately, though, if the focus of a grammar becomes too small, its potential use (to users) becomes correspondingly smaller too (unless one has a particular interest in non-standard forms).

Of course, it's unfortunate that it may take a while for every non-standard form to get even mentioned let alone recommended above previously "acceptable" forms, but it would be just another form of prescriptivism in its place if grammars began suggesting that the majority be supporting and indeed themselves actually using something which were not yet naturally widespread enough (and by 'naturally', I don't necessarily mean wafted along with only the help of rose-scented gentle breezes - it usually takes power to effect change etc).

There were several threads a year or two ago on 'prescriptive grammar' and the like, in which myself, SJ, woodcutter, perhaps lol and metal, Scott Summers etc participated, which might be worth reading for those newer to Dave's.

[jotham]

Sorry to keep picking at bits of your post, but what do you mean by "skilled English"? Are speakers of Southern American English dialect not skilled speakers?

To the contrary. I meant lawyers and doctors with a Southern accent who speak English very well and above standard---a demonstration of the fact that their dialect doesn't get in the way.

[metal56]

BTW your link to the forum doesn't work, but in any case the quote only proves that any idiot with an internet connection can post rubbish in a public forum.

This is the "idiot" of which you speak:

"No, I’m the Mark Halpern who’s a freelance editor, onetime software designer and programmer, onetime soldier, onetime college instructor in English. I have degrees from City College of New York and Columbia University in English Language & Literature. I’ve written two books: the first, Binding Time (Ablex, 1990) was on the technology and milieu of computer programming; the second, Language and Human Nature (Regent Press, 2006) is about the inter-relations among linguistics, language usage, and politics (to learn about it, please go to http://www.regentpress.net/language/index.html). Apart from books, most of my writing these days appears in either The Vocabula Review (about which see the next paragraph) or The New Atlantis. And the accompanying photograph is offered to further pin down my identity. If I still seem to be the man whose site you want, please read on. "

http://www.rules-of-the-game.com/

[metal56]

In the United States, people are much more equal and less class conscious.

Really? That surprises me.

[jotham]

Well, maybe I should say, you can't necessarily tell if people are rich or poor or a lord or serf, officer or private, etc., just by their speech dialect or in what family they were born. There's a lot of crossing over. We are pretty united in the way we speak and deal with each other despite our dialect or upbringing. Now I didn't say there wasn't any such division in the U.S.A.---I just said that we are a far outcry from what I've heard the situation is in the U.K., or many other countries.
Prescriptionism may have a bad taste for British because it smacks of that nobility arrogance and snobbery, which they loathe (I would too)---as did our American founders. Americans tend to be practical and see standard speech as education, laying-our-differences-aside-so-we-can-work-together-and-build-a-brighter-future kind of mentality. Our whole experience has been of assimilating different languages and cultures into one standard form for the sake of practicality. Being exposed to differences for a long period of time has had an accumulatively tolerating effect on the American psyche. So we can embrace standard English and proper grammar without the air or shadow or appearance of superiority hanging over us. Perhaps there isn't that same liberty in the U.K: to militate for correct grammar is to be an avatar of the perfect snob.
We Americans already had our political and language rebellion from the British nobility: Webster spelled things and pronounced things different from the British very intentionally. Today, it's the linguists' turn to rebel and uphold the lower classes, their mannerisms and way of speaking against the King's English all afresh. But as an American, I don't see a need to participate; I'm entertained just to watch the whole thing. My forefathers vented their frustration good enough for me.

[lolwhites]

Lots of idiots can still get their books and articles published, Metal

[metal56]

Sorry to keep picking at bits of your post, but what do you mean by "skilled English"? Are speakers of Southern American English dialect not skilled speakers?

To the contrary. I meant lawyers and doctors with a Southern accent who speak English very well and above standard---a demonstration of the fact that their dialect doesn't get in the way.

OK. Got it now. Thanks for the clarification.

[metal56]

<Well, maybe I should say, you can't necessarily tell if people are rich or poor or a lord or serf, officer or private, etc., just by their speech dialect or in what family they were born. >

That's a bit hard to do in modern Britain too. You have a lot of people using Standard English when they need to, quite a few who have had coaching in "posh" accents, many who imitate what used to be called "lower class accents" so they can mingle with their "inferiors" and lots of others taking on dude-ish ways of speaking.

Britain just ain't the place it used to be in the days of "Upstairs, Downstairs".