who else reckons this is a fake "teacher" letter?

This highlights the problem of English becoming a lingua franca. Do we say that the only authentic English is that spoken by Americans, Canadians, etc,

North Americans' English approaches standard English, but it's not quite the real thing 

Yes, well as a Brit, I tend to agree in jest, but do you really believe that there is such a thing as 'standard' English, or are you just trying to wind up the colonials?

Spanish has an academy to keep the language pure and approve any changes, and I know that my Latin American Spanish is quite far from standard Castillian, but I would say in reality there is a standard English for America, one for Australia and one for the UK (and all the other native countries).

I agree that you could say the standard English for Britain is 'Queen's English' even though hardly anybody actually speaks it. I once inherited a student who had learned (almost perfectly) received pronunciuation, and she asked me if she would fit in in England. I told her it would depend if she had a Polo pony.

I don't really think there is - there's an alleged 'standard English' and there's RP, but there really isn't any rational defence of either concept.

Absolutely:  the Polo Pony set are just about the only ones who speak that way these days.

My subjective idea of standard English would be English that is accepted and understood everywhere, or as near to everywhere as possible.  It certainly wouldn't be RP.  I'm not too well up on American accents, but I've had US colleagues who were a delight to listen to, and others who were very hard for me or students to understand. Same applies to Scots, of course: Aberdeen is so different from the Western Isles!  Among students who work in foreign trade, the biggest problem seems to be understanding Indians (they often put the stress in all the wrong places).


The French also have an arrangement like the Spanish, but they still say 'le weekend', ha ha!

There is World Standard English.  Raoul himself is the icon of this perfect form of English, and I also speak it.  If my fingers could keep up better with my target typing rate, my postings would also match it.

World Standard English was naturally derived in the USA.

British English is more of a prototype language in need of debugging.

Ha ha! My Scottish friends also deride English English as lacking 'r's.  They claim to have been speaking perfect English since, oh, some time before the New World was discovered by Europeans.

If I speak my real mother tongue, no student would understand me. I modify it without trying to sound like the queen.

The whole thing gives me lots of laughs: posh people using 'the wife and I' when they should use 'me'; Lord Whatsisname who did the inquest into the death of David Kelly - pronouncing 'mass' as in 'weapons of mass destruction' to rhyme with 'arse'.

In the UK it's also a class thing - I wonder whether this applies in the former colonies?

If there isn't a standard English then IELTS is running the world's largest scam.

Dialects will drift away from the core of English in their own fashion and cast aside this rule or that meaning, which is probably fine and manageable in the case of one dialect versus English itself, but the intersection of all dialects is unlikely to count as an effective language, nor an especially rich representation of English.  So unless one of these dialects wants to take a shot at the title, by for example developing a large number of influential users, then dialects per se are out of luck.  Whatever people actually do talk, once mutual understanding fails, it'll be off to the grammar book and dictionary we go to find how to effectively communicate.  

Language is an institution.  Institutions have pillars.  And institutions become imperialism when they compete with the institutions of other communities.




*ponders*

To apologise or not?  "George, your English is really good, you're almost a white man now!"

What's known as 'standard English' is a dialect.  It's the dialect that was spoken by the British ruling classes a century or so ago, and is still the preferred option for many.

IELTS would be valid regardless of whether there really is a standard English:  IELTS students learn effective communication in the dialect that is most widely recognised and understood.

I don't really see how one can talk of one dialect versus English itself.  There is no 'pure' form of a language: usage dictates grammar, not the other way about. To put it another way, grammar rules are descriptive, not prescriptive.

Of course, we often loosely talk of 'pure', 'correct', 'standard', etc., but really these terms refer only to what is widely accepted, and this can and does change.

To suggest that there is, or was, a core of English that dialects can approach or move away from, is not really accurate.  There is/was one dialect that is/was accepted in influential circles.

Fixing silly issues like this is why Raoul set up World Standard English.  There is one and only one perfect form of the English language.

If you have any grammar, spelling, or pronunciation questions, you can ask Raoul.  If he's busy, you can ask me.  Either way, the answer will naturally be 100% correct.

"English itself" is English qua institution.  It's true (sorta) to say all English everywhere is a dialect of one variation or another, but a natural process of institutionalization has, and will always, privilege one of these dialects.  One will be picked as the touchstone, even though it will actually be the case that this touchstone moves over time.

It's not an issue of language so much as an issue of people functioning.  We invent touchstones for stability.  Thus, culture, for example.  And "the" language.  the effectiveness of "the" language as a tool of communication is undermined to the extent that dialects are allowed to compete with "the" institution, so dialects are naturally resisted, mon.


On the other hand, it was the invention of the printing press, and more specifically the distribution of dictionaries, that introduced the current stability to "the" language, or so I dyd une fois reade.  In the absence of such institution-making devices as grammar books and proscriptive dictionaries, we could've all been Shakespeares.  At least in our own communities.

Well this has definitely turned into an interesting thread( though I say so myself as shouldn't -with a Yorkshire accent)
Anyway fyi guys I am NOT taking this job,firstly because I felt uncomfortable with the way they were answering me,and secondly as the Bahai geezer came across as VERY weird.
And in answer to Mr Benn,I am glad you think Israelis speak pretty good English.After 30 years here I can honestly say that the level here is bloody awful.It may be better than in China but it is nowhere the standard of that spoken by visiting Scandinavians or Dutch etc. They learn English here from 4th grade and honestly the level is just not that great. However there are many (particularly supposedly weak) students who speak excellent Spanish because they are addicted to telenovellas. 

No disagreement with you there, Calach.  Except for the rather good 'touchstone' point. Surely they never move?

I'm remembering now that one of my great teachers at school slapped us down when we used the word 'surely'.

"'Surely' is a very arrogant gambit. Bend over, boy!"

But I still insist, dictionaries are descriptive:  language is what people say, not what they should say.  If you read newsgroups, there's a bunchful of erudite (and nice and helpful) posters on alt.english.usage

My uni Prof  one Clifford King once told us that the word "storyline" did not exist,only the word "plot".But then he was a strange individual who used to answer the phone by booming the one syllable "KING" into the receiver.

I dont think its fake....although the writers credentials/degree/TEFL cert might be.

Sad fact that many people cant string together two sentences, and few have the inclination or patience to really think about improving their own English, even when they are teaching it.

Ive seen worse on my friends Facebook status updates!

I can't speak for other countries, but I do know that the English I learned growing up in Illinois is called General American and is generally accepted as the standard English in the broadcast industry.  However for the last fw years I have been living in Texas and a bit of that Texas drawl has entered my speech patterns.  Sometimes when I teach I really have to concentrate on controlling my accent so my students can understand me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Broadcast_English

The General American accent is most closely related to a generalized Midwestern accent and is spoken particularly by many newscasters. The famous news anchor Walter Cronkite is a good example of a broadcaster using this accent. This has led the accent to sometimes be referred to as a "newscaster accent" or "television English". General American is sometimes promoted as preferable to other, regional accents. In the United States, classes promising "accent reduction" generally attempt to teach speech patterns similar to this accent. The well-known television journalist Linda Ellerbee, who worked hard early in her career to eliminate a Texas accent, stated, "in television you are not supposed to sound like you're from anywhere"; political comedian Stephen Colbert worked hard as a child to reduce his South Carolina accent because of the common portrayal of Southerners as stupid on American television. General American is also the accent typically taught to people learning English as a second language in the United States, as well as outside the country to anyone who wishes to learn "American English," although in much of Asia and some other places ESL teachers are strongly encouraged to teach American English no matter their own origins or accents.

I know this is true, because I had a friend in Texas who did a call in show at the local radio station, off-mike he had a thick Texas accent, but the minute the mike went active he could switch it off and he sounded like he came from "up north." The only time he let his accent come through on the air was if he was agitated with what he called a "stoo-pid caller."

The opposite now holds true in many UK media positions. Regional accents seem to satisfy the 'diversity' brigade with national radio station, BBC Radio 1 seeming to feature a number of regional accent holding presenters.