Calling Henry Higgins: School Makes a Case for Standard English

LONDON â€" A school in the northeast of England has opened a can of worms by urging parents to make sure their offspring learn when to use the Queen’s English rather than their distinctive local dialect, if they want to get on in life.

The Sacred Heart School in Middlesbrough, in the Teesside region, wants its 5 to 11-year-old pupils to avoid localisms in their writing and speech and has included a handy guide in a letter to parents.

Examples: avoid “gizit ere” and stick to “please give me it”. It’s “letter” and “butter”, not “letta” and “butta”. And always say “you”, not “yous”, even when there are more than one of yous.

“I believe that basic communication skills are essential for life,” Carol Walker, the school’s head teacher, said this week. “We would like to equip our children to go into the world of work and not be disadvantaged.”

She said she was not asking children to change their dialect or accents. But she did not want them to enter the world of work without knowing about standard English.

It sounds like commonsensical advice in what careers advisers would call the modern competitive workplace. But tradition-loving regionalists might be forgiven for discerning it as part of a broader trend toward conformity and homogenization.

Academics consulted by the Evening Gazette, the local Teesside newspaper, were broadly supportive of the school’s initiative, while also defending the role of regional dialects.

It quoted Mike Davenport, head of Durham University’s English Language Center, as saying it w! as a tricky balance to find.

Children needed to know standard English, he said, but added: “Accent and dialect is a badge. It’s a way of showing what group you belong to and that’s why we switch to it.”

Peter Stockwell, a Teessider and a linguistics professor at Nottingham University, told the newspaper: “Fortunately, in spite of the best efforts of teachers and professors, language loyalty is stronger than the desire to sound like people from outside the town.”

One linguist based in the northern city of Lancaster expressed sympathy for the children:

Like so much in English society, accent and dialect continue to be linked, consciously or otherwise, to issues of class.

It is hard to believe that the BBC once caused a stir by employing J.B. Priestley, the Yorkshire author, to make wartime broadcasts in which “the contrast between the cut-glass accent of the presenter ad Priestley’s warmer Yorkshire tones was striking.”

These days, in public life and broadcasting, regional accents are the norm and the clipped upper-class accent of yesteryear is the exception.

Steph McGovern, a BBC business reporter, Tweeted defiantly this week in response to the school diktat:

Even the younger members of the royal family are accused of lapsing into Estuary, a Cockney-derived patois of glottal stops and dropped h’s that has swamped the southeast of England.

A hierarchy of dialects has nevertheless emerged, with authentic Cockney (London), Brummy (Birmingham), and Scouse (Liverpool) at the bottom of the heap.

According to the British Library’s language Web site:

For many years, certain English dialects have been viewed more positively than others. Many of us make assumptions based on the way pe! ople spea! k â€" judging certain dialects or accents as too posh, harsh, aggressive, unfriendly, ‘unintelligent’ or ‘common’.

Unfortunately many individuals have suffered as a result of this irrational prejudice. No one dialect is better at communicating meaning than another. The fact some dialects and accents are seen to be more prestigious than others is more a reflection of judgements based on social, rather than linguistic, criteria.

It advises that, in an increasingly homogeneous society, the vocabulary, structure and sounds that define the speech of a particular region, should be a source of great pride and an important expression of cultural identity.

Ken Hurst, a journalist from rustic Norfolk County, wrote in a blog on Thursday that regional dialects could also be a barrier that is often deliberately applied to encourage insularity and exclude outsiders.

“Regional speech and, worse, writig, serve only to accentuate narrow social, economic and educational horizons that constrain ambition, opportunity and the ability to engage fully with the wider world,” he wrote.

What do you think Are dialects valid, or should we all try to speak the same way Are accents a proud expression of regional origin or a barrier to communication