تسجيل الدخول

تسجيل

Language in the world: properties and powers Linguistic autonomy Language and literacy education policy in England Standard English

المؤلف:  Alison Sealey & Bob Carter

المصدر:  Applied Linguistics as Social Science

الجزء والصفحة:  P168-C7

2026-10-01

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Language in the world: properties and powers

Linguistic autonomy

Language and literacy education policy in England

Standard English

The 'standard' variety of a language is notoriously difficult to define, and definitions invariably draw on social criteria, either functions (the variety is identifiable by the purposes for which it is used) or evaluation (the variety is identifiable by the prestige in which it is held). The extent to which linguists are culpable in contributing to the dominant perception of what constitutes standard English is a matter of debate. The orthodoxy is that linguistics, with its aspirations to scientific method, does no more than describe the characteristics of language varieties, with no pretensions to prescription or proscription. This claim is challenged, however, by commentators such as Harris (1980), Crowley (1989, 2003) and Pennycook (1994b). From his position as an applied linguist, Pennycook is particularly keen to point out the difficulties of separating claims about language from sociopolitical goals. It is part of his argument that linguistics and applied linguistics are implicated almost unwittingly in the expansion of English across the globe as a 'neutral' or 'beneficial' resource, as a result of 'the dominance of positivism and structuralism' in these disciplines (p. 141). Pennycook's critique is that the maintenance of descriptive neutrality is deceptive, since teaching a standard variety is inherently exclusive. On the other hand, a number of linguists have sought to influence policy-makers in other directions, by appeals to the knowledge base of the discipline, a strategy which has met with very little success, as we shall see. Firstly, however, it is necessary to present the background to the conflict over language and literacy education in English schools at the present time.