<<Read Jane Austen and you will know you are reading beautiful English and will want to copy her.>>
<<This post wasn't written by me. Some troll used my name or the troll happened to have the same name as mine.>>
CORRECTION:
What makes me presume she was a troll?
(He)/she was either a troll using my name or someone (not a troll) having the same name as mine.
>>Here I just wanted to show David (who claims that using dialects makes you "anti-culture (sic!)) that even really educated people DO use dialects of low social status (as there are dialects which are not really welcomed at workplace, in the office, at school etc., to say the least). However, just because these varieties are socially stigmatised it doesn't mean they are "worse" than or inferior to other varieties. They are as valid as others since they have they own rules which are as difficult to master as those of the so-called "standard" varieties. (To those who say that any kind of "non-standard" dialect is "lazy" and "sloppy" English. Mxsmanic is not around, thank God. :-)) <<
One thing that should be pointed out here (not to you but in general) which many seem to miss is that standardness does not necessarily correlate with prestige in practice (in the minds of lay individuals, rather than what prescriptivists may think), especially on a local level. For instance, while one may refer to General American as being the standard in the US, on a local level there rather exists a different structure of varieties with respect to prestige.
For example, I would have to say that the most prestigious here is the local "white" dialect as spoken by more middle or upper class non-black individuals, which generally lacks certain deprecated features like the use of "ain't", use of "them" as a demonstrative, or negation agreement (aka "double negation"). Probably a bit below it, but not really deprecated at all, is the speech of many middle or upper class blacks, especially in public, which is effectively General American with varying degrees AAVE substratum features (which can vary from being quite noticable to being barely present at all).
Below that, but by not all too far, is the local "white" dialect as spoken by more working class non-black individuals, which is practically identical to that as spoken by more middle or upper class individuals except that features that are deprecated in such are present. And by far the least prestigious, covert prestige aside, is AAVE, which is often strongly deprecated here despite its being used quite widely. How much it is deprecated, though, is probably a function of how far from General American it really is, though; AAVE that is closer to General American is far less deprecated than AAVE that is quite far from it.
None of the varieties listed above are really "standard", even though *formal* speech in the local "white" dialect without particular deprecated features does approximate General American outside of phonology, and middle and upper class black speech can be quite close to General American. Yet at the same time they do have a clear prestige structure that really is not dependent on the standardness of the varieties in question, as the local "white" dialect very often has quite un-GA-like features that are completely independent of social class while remaining in a prestige position locally.
Whoops - the above post is by me.
Does an exact concept/definition of GA exist? It seems to be a rather vague term.
>>Does an exact concept/definition of GA exist? It seems to be a rather vague term.<<
It depends on who is speaking, as some people (especially laypersons) use it in a very vague and general fashion, whereas some (including myself) prefer to use it in a far more specific fashion that actually pins down what it is (so that it can be used effectively as a reference point). In practice, though, it is easier to say what it is not rather than what it is, even though I still try to treat it more specifically than that.