Standard needed?

MollyB   Wed Nov 14, 2007 9:52 am GMT
In a country such as mine, where 50 odd languages are in use, and English ranges from pidgin to Standard, it is understandable that knowing and using the Standard form comes in handy, but why is the Standard form needed, intranationally, in Britain?

I've been round Britain and found that ,apart from accent, there is very little difference in each "variant" of English (and I'm not thinking about sub-standard use here, only Standard and non-standard use/s) that land.

So, why does one need a Standard form in Britain when most people seem to understand each other quite well, even across variants?
Guest   Wed Nov 14, 2007 11:34 am GMT
"English ranges from pidgin to Standard"


The English that is spoken in England, Ireland, Canada, USA, Australia, and NZ is pretty much standard. In none of those countries is anything like "pidgin" spoken but rather "standard" English which varies from country to country. Most people with a decent education from any of those countries is usually able to tell if someone from one of the other countries speaks "properly", i.e. standard English, or not.

I think you might be referring to the English that is spoken in places like India where it is not the national language but rather a foreign one that is taught in schools and used for commerce but rarely if at all spoken in the home. In this case it is important to learn "standard" English for the sake of simply learning it correctly. I think what you mean by "variants" are not really variants of the language such as BE or GA but rather varying levels of competence in the language among non-native speakers.
MollyB   Wed Nov 14, 2007 4:54 pm GMT
<The English that is spoken in England, Ireland, Canada, USA, Australia, and NZ is pretty much standard. In none of those countries is anything like "pidgin" spoken but rather "standard" English which varies from country to country.>

No, I was talking about my country, Nigeria. We have a range of "styles" of English from Pidgin to Standard.

In Britain, most people understand each other, even when not using Standard English. So why does one need standard English if conversing, communicating, in spoken English only within the boundaries of the island of Britain?
Cleveland   Wed Nov 14, 2007 5:00 pm GMT
Scotland? are they not speaking "standard English?" and also a lot of west Indian islands they speak English as their only language.
AJC   Wed Nov 14, 2007 8:30 pm GMT
I'd say what you were experiencing is not so much the lack of need for aq standard as the effects of the actual existence of a standard in education, the media etc. People may still have an accent but are usually quite able to avoid using dialect words or gramatical structures when they feel they should be avoided, e.g. in some work environments, when talking to someone not of the area, or just through trying to avoid appearing "common" but will still revert to using their dialect in the environment where they feel comfortable using it.
Guest   Wed Nov 14, 2007 11:10 pm GMT
<Scotland? are they not speaking "standard English?" and also a lot of west Indian islands they speak English as their only language. >

Who is that post too and what does it mean?