Quick questions on Standard and non-standard English: accent, dialect and attitudes - Eduqas A-Level English Language

Two kinds of prestige explain attitudes to variation. Overt prestige is the openly acknowledged status of Standard English and RP, associated with education, formality and social advancement. Covert prestige is the hidden value of non-standard forms within a community: a regional or working-class variety can carry solidarity, authenticity and group identity, which is why speakers maintain it even when they know the standard. Both operate at once, which is why people code-switch between varieties in different situations.

The decisive argument is that attitudes to accents and dialects are attitudes to people. Judgements that a variety sounds uneducated, harsh or untrustworthy track social associations (class, region, ethnicity), not any property of the sounds or structures. Research grounds this: matched-guise studies, where the same speaker is rated differently in different accents, and the Accent Bias Britain findings on persistent hierarchies of accent prestige and their effects in education and employment. Use this evidence to argue the social basis of language prejudice.

"The claim that Standard English is simply 'correct' confuses social prestige with linguistic superiority. Standard English is a dialect that gained dominance through historical accident, the rise of a London written standard, the printing press and codification in dictionaries, not because it is more logical or expressive than, say, Yorkshire or Multicultural London English, both of which are fully rule-governed. Double negation, often condemned as illogical, is systematic in many varieties and was standard in Chaucer's English, which shows the judgement is social, not grammatical."

"Matched-guise experiments, in which listeners rate the same speaker more or less favourably purely on the accent used, demonstrate that the judgement attaches to the social associations of the variety, not to the speaker's actual qualities. The Accent Bias Britain research confirms that accent hierarchies persist and shape outcomes in employment and education, supporting the argument that attitudes to accents are attitudes to the people imagined to speak them." This applies research to the argument.

What is the difference between accent and dialect? [2 marks]

What is the difference between overt and covert prestige? [2 marks]

Discuss the view that there is nothing inherently better about Standard English than any other variety. [18 marks]