Standard English

To what extent do you agree that the status of SE has changed since the turn of the century?

To some extent I agree that the status of standard English has changed vastly since the turn of the century. The different regions have made the accent and dialect change and differentiate, due to the new slang that’s been used and developed. The way in which technology has developed has also influenced the change greatly.

One way in which technology has influenced language is by the use of text messaging. Texting is a service that’s made to be quick, easy and is a useful way of communicating. However, some people think that because its quick, they can shorten words even further to make it even quicker. Abbreviations are used more and words are made up so it is like a way of communicating with friends that only they understand. It is also due to laziness and sense of urgency that people feel they need to shorten words in order to get a point across quicker, for example if someone was to say ‘I’ll be back later’ they may just use ‘brb’ short for ‘be right back’. This is getting more common as technology becomes more advanced and complicated. However, although this is implied, its being used less by teenagers and more by middle-aged adults as they may be seen as ignorant to learning, not used to the complications of some technology or simply because they weren’t exposed to it when they were younger and they feel as though now they should be trying to connect with the teenage age range by using language they believe they still use. Abbreviations have become much more well-known and are still being used in everyday language, pushing more standard, ‘proper’ language out. People tend to get lazy and their use of dialect isn’t as good which leads to the decrease of the status of language. Within text messaging, there is the use of auto correct meaning it will automatically rectify any spelling mistakes, although this is convenient, it also means that people no longer pay attention to if a word is written wrong and how to spell it knowing that it will corrected automatically anyway. This means that people’s vocabulary won’t be expanding due to little knowledge especially knowing they can’t spell simple words.

However, although I stated above that its used more by adults, something that challenges this concept is the increase in the social media platforms.Research project Twitter, Instagram and snapchat are predominantly the most used social media sites for teenagers-young adults. Specifically, in twitter and snapchat, there are character limitations, when sending a picture with chat on snapchat, there is a limit of only a few words, so of course abbreviations are used to get the point across that way. As snapchat is used worldwide and in everyday use, its then also going to create habits to use these abbreviations elsewhere when communicating. On twitter also, there is only a 140-character limit, if people want to write long tweets, this isn’t made possible, therefore the words are shortened and ‘u’ is now used instead of ‘you’. Also, within these platforms, different users may build up a large base of followers, therefore meaning the dialect will change as standard form will develop to non-standard variants. People are starting to become more dependent on technology as their only form of communication. Therefore, the meaning of words change, and are twisted to fit different meanings, leading to a decline in standard English.

David Crystal Third mode:When social classes are discussed, it becomes clear that upper/middles classes are taught within schools the same forms of English meaning that subconsciously, the standard form that’s taught is of a higher status kind of Standard English. It can be argued that influences such as the Afro-Caribbean dialect is influencing and changing standard English too much and is having too much of a change towards it. It’s been argued that this then has effects on young people particularly, due to its new meanings of vocabulary, slang words and pronunciation of words, this has a negative effect on young people and, in a lot of areas it is encouraged to speak in a non-standard variable, particularly of a working-class area as attitudes towards education. In William Labov’s theory of language and social class, it is suggested an individual’s dialect is dependent on their class, and that upper class will have more of an acknowledged pronunciation and a dialect containing standard forms; meaning then that lower middle and lower class are more likely to carry non-standard English due to their culture, attitudes, surroundings and class. Peter Trudgill also found and came to the conclusion that people believed that only royalty used standard English meaning people don’t even take notice to the way in which their dialect is and the variations within. As over the years there are more people in poverty, more people that aren’t seen as middle class or upper class, this implies that they won’t have a high status of standard English, leading to a decline/fall of Standard English.

However, something that changes my opinion that it’s the century that has changed due to the change in the century is the vast difference between different regions and where in the country you are. In this sense I mean that if you’re from the northern parts of the country, there may not be many different variations of standard form due to the dialect and accent. However, in London and main cities similar, there are many different ethnicities that may prevent the use of Standard English. Migration has become much more popular and there are a lot of migrants meaning they have learnt and developed the standard English into their own slang that is understood easier. This will therefore lead to the decline of the use of Standard English. However as stated above, in the Northern part of the country, the status of Standard English has been maintained and hasn’t changed too much as they haven’t really joined in with the use of slang or the use of using different words for different meanings.

Due to there being a huge increase on rappers particularly of the black, afro Caribbean race, /ethnic group, there has been a huge increase in slang words and vocabulary that is used only in the nature of music more specifically rap. If words are used in music, its likely that people of all age ranges may listen to this music meaning that they pick up on this vocabulary and slang and begin to sue it in everyday language. In the turn on the century, music has dramatically changed meaning that rap is much more common. Due to this issue, its lead to the words used in speech not being as varied in standard forms leading in a huge decline of standard English. Not only this, but the use of social media and media in general leads to new words being created and put into the English dictionary when the words aren’t standard forms. Some examples of these words would be ‘yolo’ meaning you only live once, used in rap song by Drake. Another example is ‘selfie’ meaning to take a picture of yourself with a device with a camera. This has led to the status of standard English lowering.

In conclusion due to all the reasoning discussed above, in my opinion I think that Standard English has changed since the turn of the century. The development of technology, music and different migrants entering new places bring new vocabulary and slang with them is the main reasoning behind this. In my opinion, I think that Standard English has taken a fall for the worst.