standard (n.)

A term used in SOCIOLINGUISTICS to refer to a prestige VARIETY of LANGUAGE used within a SPEECH COMMUNITY. ‘Standard languages/dialects/ varieties’ cut across regional differences, providing a unified means of communication, and thus an institutionalized NORM which can be used in the mass-media, in teaching the language to foreigners, and so on. Linguistic FORMS or DIALECTS which do not conform to this norm are then referred to as substandard or (with a less pejorative prefix) non-standard – though neither term is intended to suggest that other dialect forms ‘lack standards’ in any linguistic sense. The natural development of a standard language in a speech community (or an attempt by a community to impose one dialect as a standard) is known as standardization.