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Inchoateknowledge Posted 19 years ago
Linguistics Studies

Standard English is an elitism of one sort, do you agree?

0 I often read 'Is it standard?'02br
00So I have looked up an article discussing this matter:02br
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01a05000 02a02br
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00Then I thought the fact that we learners of the English language are supposed to follow this direction that we call standard rules makes us, for better or worse, one group of 'victims' of eliticism of one sort.02br
00"Standard English is only spoken by a very small part of the population of the British Isles (about 12-15%)." -- 05102br
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01b00"Elitism02b00 is the belief or attitude that the people who are considered to be the 05200 — a selected group of people with outstanding personal abilities, 05300, specialised training or experience, or other distinctive attributes — are the people whose views on a matter are to be taken the most seriously, or that these are persons whose views should be regarded as carrying the most weight, or, more simply, these people are best fit to govern or whose views and/or actions are mostly likely to be constructive. Alternatively, the term 01b00elitism02b00 could be used to describe a situation in which power is in fact concentrated in the hands of an elite, whether rightly or not."02br
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00What is your comment on this?0240hrefhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_English11id3242hrefhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elitecelite243hrefhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealthcwealth
  

Top answer

0I think that there are two issues being confused here with 'standard' English. 02br 02br 00We may speak a regional (non-standard) English accent (this is what the only 12-15% figure is talking about) but most people still use primarily standard English grammar etc, particularly in writing. I don't have a standard English accent but I do use standard English 'the language', if you see what I mean.

— Nona the brit

  • 0I think that there are two issues being confused here with 'standard' English.
  • 02br 02br 00We may speak a regional (non-standard) English accent (this is what the only 12-15% figure is talking about) but most people still use primarily standard English grammar etc, particularly in writing.
  • I don't have a standard English accent but I do use standard English 'the language', if you see what I mean.
  • At least most of the time.
  • I don't think there is anyone without a few regional/class slang or dialect words.
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8 Answers
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0I think that there are two issues being confused here with 'standard' English. Standard English with regards to grammar and so on, and a standard English accent.02br
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00We may speak a regional (non-standard) English accent (this is what the only 12-15% figure is talking about) but most people still use primarily standard English grammar etc, particularly in writing. I do
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0 Hi Nona.02br
00Thanks.02br
00What does URP stand for? what is it?02br
00With 12 percent at the top of the list -- English must be quite diverse.0-
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0URP - I'm not really sure. It's an extreme form of RP (received pronounciation). It's the upper class version so possibly upper RP. 02br
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00Yes, English is very diverse here, with many regional accents. I know someone who reckons you can tell which end of their village people live in as the two ends have slighlty different accents!0-
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0Hi Nona,02br
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00Could you tell us what your accent is like? How would you describe it? 02br
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00Englishuser0-
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0 Forming a negative opinion about someone solely on his or her accent is a form of elitism. 0-
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0 I don't know, south east of England in between the working class and middle class accents. Working class accent but without the more extreme features such as dropping my h's and glottal stopping everywhere, or saying f for th, and using words like 'youse'. 'Educated working-class south east of England accent' might sum it up. 0-
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1b00<"Elitism02b00 is the belief or attitude that the people who are considered to be the 01a01font00elite02font02a00 — a selected group of people with outstanding personal abilities, 01a01font00
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0 What does "educated" mean?02br
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00/km0-
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