Writers, editors, and everyday language users look to dictionaries, style guides, usage guides, and other published works to help inform their language decisions. They want to know what is Standard English and what is not. Commentators have been prescribing and proscribing certain usages for centuries; however, their advice has traditionally been based on the subjective opinions of the authors. Recent works have analyzed usage by relying wholly or partly on statistical and descriptive data rather than traditional opinion alone; however, no work has presented statistical usage data in a user-friendly and consistent format. This study presents a statistically based methodology for analyzing the standardness of disputed English usage points that can be presented in a dictionary-like format useful to writers and editors. Using data from the Corpus of Contemporary American English, this study determined the percent of use of several disputed usage items. Percents of use were then applied to a statistically based "standardness" scale with several levels. The scale presented in this study is adapted from scales that have been used previously to study language change. In addition, returns from the Corpus of Historical American English were used to present historical trends, if any, for each usage item. It was found that traditional sentiments about certain prescribed and proscribed usage items differ markedly from actual observed usage. Corpus data make it clear that even usage guides that purport to rely at least partly on descriptive data are often wrong about the prevalence and acceptability of usage items. To produce truly objective and accurate analysis, usage advice must depend on corpus data and use a standard usage-trend scale that accounts for how language changes.

Dictionaries and, to a lesser extent, usage guides provide writers, editors, and users of American English information on how to use the language appropriately. Dictionaries, in particular, hold authority over correct usage of words. However, historically, usage guides and dictionaries were created using the knowledge of a small group of people. Lexicographers like Noah Webster set out to prescribe a proper way of using American English. To make these judgments, they often relied on a combination of study and idiosyncratic intuitions. A similar process took place in creating usage guides. Though these manuals profess to explain how the language is used by American English speakers-or rather by the selected group of speakers deemed "standard" by usage guide editors and lexicographers-ultimately the manuals can only express the perspectives of the editors and lexicographers on this language. Historically, the views of these editors and lexicographers were the best tools available to assess language, but now computer-based corpora allow for studying larger swaths of language usage. This study examines how much dictionaries and usage guides agree with real-world usage found in corpus data. Using the Corpus of Historical American English, a set of dictionaries and usage guides published throughout the last two hundred years were analyzed to see how much agreement they had with corpus data in noting the addition of denominal verbs (i.e., verbs formed by the conversion of nouns as in 'They taped together the box.') in American English usage. It was found that the majority of the time dictionaries noted new denominal verbs before corpus data reflected accepted usage of these verbs. However, about a quarter of the time dictionaries noted new denominal verbs concurrently with the corpus data. These results suggest that dictionaries-and the subjective opinions of the lexicographers that created them-are more aligned with real-world usage than would be expected. Because of sparse listings, results for usage guide agreement was inconclusive.

Throughout the 1900s, the English subject has gone through massive change in the Swedish school system. The main focus has always been on the British standard, with the United Kingdom as the model for all who study English or educate students. In the past decades, the American standard has been increasingly popular amongst the younger generations which leads to a mismatch between the experiences in school versus the ones outside of school. In light of Brexit and a shift away from Britain, there is cause to believe that this will also impact the educational system. With Euro-English being discussed amongst English scholars, there is reason to believe in a trickle-down effect on young students and teachers as well. This study consists of a survey as well as semi- structured interviews to see what attitude students and teachers have towards British English, American English as well as Euro-English. It will also investigate what impact that may have on the education system as of now as well as the future if nothing changes or if there is no change in the curriculum. The results show growing interest in American English or variations such as Euro-English that are the result of mixture. The results also show teachers being hesitant towards Euro-English, but with an interest due to the value of English varieties overall. Furthermore, the results may be an indicator of an upcoming gap in the education system if Euro-English remains ignored.

<p>English is the most expansionist language in the world today. Currently, native speakers are outnumbered by non-native speakers by a ratio of 3:1, a ratio that is set to grow to 10:1 within the next ten years. One of the consequences of a language growing so rapidly is that its new users tend to ignore already accepted standards. In what linguists refer to as the outer and expanding circles of English-speakers (mainly in Africa and Asia) new varieties and standards of English are now being invented.</p><p>In this study, the effects of the current expansion of English on the teaching of English in Swedish upper-secondary schools are explored. Questions raised include: Should teachers of English in Sweden reflect the changing nature of English in their teaching? Should they readily adopt the New Englishes that are emerging or should they teach with the standard they have always used? The national curriculum for the teaching of English in Sweden is discussed in some detail. The guidelines therein are evaluated in terms of their ability to capture the changing face of English as well as their ability to give solid guidance to teachers in a classroom situation.</p><p>Findings derive from linguistic literature and from interviews conducted with English teachers at upper-secondary level. One of the main conclusions of the study is that whilst the national curriculum recognises the global diversity of English, its goals are overambitious in what it tries to achieve and thus it fails to provide teachers with practical guidance in their day-to-day teaching. A recommendation, therefore, is that the curriculum should be clearer in spelling out the importance of adhering to native standard varieties of English. However this does not mean that teachers should ignore the cultural diversity of the English-speaking world.</p>

In Malaysia what was at first Standard English has over time changed and a variety called Malaysian English has arisen. This variety of English is full of colloquial expressions and the grammar also differs slightly from that of Standard English. This paper surveys Malaysian speakers’ attitudes towards Malaysian English and Standard English. A questionnaire was used to collect the data. The results show that the informants consider Malaysian English useful for informal and everyday communication whereas Standard English is more useful for international communication as well as more formal purposes. A good command of Standard English is still regarded as important. It became evident that while the informers were aware of Malaysian English and its linguistic characteristics, identifying them in written sentences was not easy. The informants’ attitudes towards Malaysian English and Standard English showed that one variety does not have to exclude the existence of the other. / Vad som först var standardengelska har i Malaysia över tid ändrats och en ny variant kallad malaysisk engelska har växt fram. Denna variant av engelska är full av lokala uttryck och grammatiken skiljer sig delvis från standardengelskans. Denna studie undersöker talares attityder till malaysisk engelska och standardengelska med hjälp av en enkät. Resultaten visar att malaysisk engelska är användbar för informell och vardaglig kommunikation medan standardengelska är mer användbar för internationell samt mer formell kommunikation. Att behärska standardengelska anses fortfarande vara viktigt. Det blev tydligt att även om informanterna var medvetna om malaysisk engelskas lingvistiska särdrag så var det inte helt enkelt att identifiera dem i skrivna meningar. Informanternas attityder till malaysisk engelska och standardengelska visade att en variant inte nödvändigtvis utesluter den andra.

Ce travail de recherche se donne pour but d’analyser la dynamique générale de la norme de l’anglais contemporain et son rapport avec la variation linguistique. Pour ce faire, nous abordons quelques subordonnants qui illustrent le déplacement du centre de gravité de la norme sur les axes spatial et social. À travers l’étude de la complémentation du verbe help, nous illustrons l’américanisation syntaxique de l’anglais britannique et nous montrons comment les contraintes d’emploi se sont assouplies, pour aboutir finalement, dans le cas de l’opposition help + to + infinitif et help + zéro + infinitif, à une disparition de la distinction sémantique entre les deux formes. Cette disparition est le résultat d’un recours sans cesse plus fréquent à l’infinitif nu pour des raisons stratégiques, surtout dans la publicité. Ensuite, nous nous intéressons au like conjonction et nous analysons son expansion dans la langue. Après avoir expliqué son apparition par des facteurs isomorphiques et sémantiques, auxquels s’ajoute probablement une réanalyse de l’adjectif like signifiant « vraisemblable », nous montrons comment ce subordonnant s’est répandu à travers les registres de langue et les types de texte, ainsi qu’à travers les constructions syntaxiques, jusqu’à devenir un élément non périphérique de la syntaxe anglaise. D’après nous, le succès de cette innovation reflète l’évolution des modes de communication, qui se fondent de plus en plus sur la proximité interpersonnelle à des fins stratégiques. D’une simple acceptation de la familiarité dans la norme, c’est donc de plus en plus vers une norme de familiarité que nous nous dirigeons actuellement. / This study aims at analysing the general dynamics of the norm of contemporary English, together with its relationship with linguistic variation. In order to do so, a few subordoners have been selected to illustrate how the centre of gravity of the norm moves along the spatial and social axes. The study of the opposition between zero and to after the verb help is used to document the syntactic americanization of British English and it is shown that the constraints limiting the use of zero have gradually slackened, which led to a complete disappearance of the semantic distinction between the two forms. The said disappearance results from an evergrowing use of the bare infinitive for strategic reasons, particularly in advertizing. The third part deals with conjunction like and analyzes its expansion in English. It is argued that the appearance of this subordoner can be attributed to isomorphic and semantic factors, and to a potential reanalysis of the adjective like meaning likely.. This section also traces how this subordoner has spread through registers and text-types, and through syntactic structures, before becoming a central part of the English syntax. It appears that the success of this innovation reflects the current trends in modes of communication, which tend to favour interpersonal proximity for strategic purposes. From a mere acceptance of informality within the norm, we are now heading towards a new norm of informality.

The first Speak Good English Movement, SGEM, took place in 2000, and has been organized annually ever since. Speaking a “standard” form of English is considered to bring increased personal power. However, the SGEM wants the Singaporeans to use “standard” English in their private life as well. A decade after the beginning of the campaign, a Speak Good Singlish Movement was started. Based on studies of language and identity, it is understandable why some Singaporeans might feel the SGEM threatens their identity. However, the reactions towards the campaign are mainly positive. For the purposes of this analysis, Twitter messages, Facebook pages, and newspaper articles from The Straits Times were collected. The SGEM has hailed both direct and indirect praise and criticism in both social and traditional media: Five newspaper articles praise the campaign while five criticize it; the results are nine and seven respectively for social media. This thesis looks at reactions towards the SGEM in both social and traditional media, analyzes how these reactions might relate to the ideas of the power of language, its variety and the relation of language and identity.

This study examined the use of an intervention, Contrastive Analysis (CA), with fourth-graders’ writing in a Central Appalachian elementary school. The purpose was to improve the use of Standard English in students’ writing in Appalachia by decreasing the number of vernacular features typically used in the writing. The researcher collected data through Consent and Assent Forms, interviews with the fourth-grade teacher, classroom observations and an accompanying CA observation evaluation rubric, pre- and post-writing prompts, selected writings and Writer Self-Perception Scale (WSPS), as well as communication data. Data analysis was accomplished for both the prompts, writing pieces and the WSPS scores. The primary results of the study indicated that the students’ use of vernacular features did in fact decrease after the implementation of CA. An approach that takes into account the vernacular or nonstandard dialect from the home speech of children, CA is utilized to help them perform better in writing in school. The CA approach has been used successfully with African American students primarily in large urban areas. The research results indicate that lessons from CA may be “customized” and used successfully with students who are speakers of Appalachian English. During the eleven-week study, the fourth-grade teacher implemented the intervention and a fifth-grade teacher also led a non-intervention group. A comparative analysis was done to determine whether membership in the fourth grade intervention group was a significant factor in lowering non-standard features in writing. This was a descriptive case study. At the beginning and end of the study, teachers of the fourth- and fifth-grade groups administered pre- and post-tests to their respective groups in the form of writing prompts. The researcher and a second reader did vernacular counts of the writings of both groups. A comparative analysis of the frequency of vernacular features (VFs) in the writing of the fourth-grade group showed decreases greater than the fifth-grade group in three of four categories of vernacular features in writing. The categories were: regularization of past-tense verbs, multiple negation, subject/verb agreement, and pronominal difference. There was only a 1% greater decrease of VFs for the fifth grade in the fourth category. A scale of self-efficacy in writing, the Writer’s Self-Perception Scale (WSPS), was also administered by the teachers pre- and post-study to both groups of students. The difference between the fourth- and fifth-grade pre- and post-WSPS scores was not statistically significant. The findings of the study are important because they show that the use of the CA approach, when used with students from the Appalachian subculture who are speakers of Appalachian English, does make a difference in their rate of usage of Standard English in writing.

Liverpool English, also known as Scouse, is an easily distinguishable accent, but whether or not it contains enough regionally specific grammar and vocabulary to be considered its own dialect is another matter. This Bachelor’s thesis set out to investigate this using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods on data consisting of informal interviews found on the website Youtube with people from Liverpool. These videos were selected based on the assumption that people with discernible accents are most likely to also speak with a dialect. The results of the research showed that discerning whether or not Scouse is a dialect is not as straightforward as it would seem. Depending on the judgment of how many regional features are enough, the conclusion of this project was that the appearance of any items is sufficient to claim that Scouse is indeed a dialect.

Society exhibits a wide variety of different languages with various prominent features. At the same time as we honour diversity, however our civilisation is coloured with prejudice and preconceptions. Even if there is a rather liberal view on language use today, dialects and accents still carry positive and negative connotations for a majority of citizens. Research shows, that we are prejudiced and that we have predetermined ideas when it comes to certain language varieties. In this study, I take up four varieties of Standard English: American, English, Australian and Scottish. I focus on the associations Swedish students make when it comes to these four language varieties and how this transforms into attitudes towards the speakers. A language attitude study is carried out by using a modified Matched Guise Test. I explain the difference between dialect and accent, as well as societal attitudes to language varieties and present some prominent linguists and their methods. Finally, I draw some conclusions by comparing my results to previous findings.