Language variations, language ideologies

Rosina Lippi-Green’s chapters from English with an Accent provides a thorough and fair assessment about the perceptions and prejudices towards different spoken Englishes. She brings up many instances of this, but, for me, the most salient is that of the testifying speech pathologist who said,

I urgently recommend [Mr. Kahakua] seek professional help in striving to lessen this handicap...Pidgin can be controlled. And if an individual is totally committed to improving, professional help on a long-term basis can produce results (Lippi- Green 45).

This isn’t exactly a confidence booster for Mr. Kahakua. Underlying this is the belief that certain non-native dialects of English are handicapped or that these dialects need to be controlled. Lippi-Green gave a comprehensive examination on why changing one’s phonology is impossible on a physiological scale so I won’t comment on that. However, I do find the belief that certain types of English are inferior, a stance that is commonly held in the United States, to be very inconsistent. If the logic of standard English only is followed, then we would have to see our American English as a non-standard variety of British English. Proposing that all Americans seek professional help in order to control their American accents would seem absurd to most (probably all) proponents of exclusive standard English. This is what is being asked of speakers of HCE, AAVE, and other non-standard English speakers. Standard English proponents might answer by saying that both standard American English and the Queen’s English are okay because they are the norm for both contexts. While both may hope to normalize language, neither has been successful thus far. Consider Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary editors who state without any sense of guilt that “there can be no objective standard for correct pronunciation” (Lippi-Green 54-55). I think Lippi-Green touches on the real reason for the fervency of proponents of standard English. She says “The myth of standard language persist because it is carefully tended and propagated” (Lippi-Green 59). In other words, standard English is an abstraction. It serves an idealogical purpose, but doesn’t actually exist. Non-dominant dialects are seen as Other and described with mis- in front of their adjectives because they don’t fit into mainstream culture.