To what extent do I agree the status of Standard English (SE) has changed since the turn on the century?

One aspect that has the potential to change the status of Standard English that has been introduced in the last century is texting. This is implementing the status of Standard English as the effects of texting mean that people develop a tendency to be lazy and indolent with their dialect; meaning they don’t use standard form, leading to a decrease in the status of it. Although a lot of mobile devices feature an auto-correct which if a word is miss-spelt, it corrects it for you, this also encourages failure to exert in standard-English as the user will fail to pay attention to this correction and furtherly will not care to pay attention to standard forms as using texts will just do it for them.  Also another problem that lads to the decline of SE that is encouraged by texting, is that it allows users to develop a sense of failure to attend to standard English as abbreviations progress in a form of laziness and sense of urgency; an example of this is “c u l8r” instead of ‘see you later’; this means people are replacing standard English with non-standard forms, which carries the risk of replacing standard English.

In addition to this point, an aspect of the century that contributes to the changing status of SE is the advance of technology. This is due to the fact that one part of technology leads to the spread of social media; meaning that if a person has a large base of ‘followers’ from different areas, there will be more variants within the form of dialect; therefore because of this it leads to a large influence of using non-standard English as standard-forms has been alternated to non-standard variants. Another reason why technology has the potential to encourage the deterioration of Standard English, is because the use of technology has lead for people to develop a dependence using technology in order to communicate; leading to a decline in Standard English as people will tend to shorten, change and twist meanings of standard forms, therefore leading to a decline of standard English.

However a factor that provokes the question to what extent I believe Standard English has declined, is the fluctuation in the use of Standard English, depending on the area of England. For example; in certain areas such as North London, for example, it is least likely to be common to speak in a lot of standard forms, due to the fact that; there is a variety in ethnicities, therefore there is a greater influence on standard form leading to a decline in the use of it. There is a greater tendency in areas such as North London, certain areas of Essex, when it is popular (specifically for adolescents) to use slang words, or standard English words but with a different intended meaning than the original meaning of it, again leading to the decline in Standard English. Conversely, areas in which there are less influencing and new variables of dialect and, for example the more northern region of England, will have less susceptibility to develop and adapting to new slang words or ways of pronouncing words or phrases, meaning that in areas such as these the status of Standard English is maintained.

This leads me to propose the question that is there a possibility that one’s social class will depict their ability to maintain standard forms. An example of this is within education; an upper/upper middle class will receive an education that is directed towards being surrounded by people of the same class, therefore same attitudes and shared knowledge; meaning upper class education is of a niche standard that sub-consciously specialises in standard forms. It is argued that influences such as the Afro-Caribbean dialect is influencing standard English too harshly and that it has effects on students and young people particularly, due to its new meanings of vocabulary, slag words and pronunciation of words, this is bad on young people and students as internal of the school, in a lot of areas it is encouraged to speak in a non-standard variable, particularly of a working-class area as attitudes towards education, authority such as teachers and society are poor therefore people represent this mind-set through their dialect. In William Labov’s theory of language and social class, it is suggested an individual’s dialect is dependent on their class, and that upper class will have more of a received pronunciation and a dialect containing standard forms; thereby meaning lower middle and lower class are more likely to carry non-standard English due to their culture, attitudes, surroundings and class.

The argument in which is presented as to whether the status of standard English is changing, regarding this, is whether society is constructed dominantly of upper/ upper middle social classes, or middle lower/lower social classes.

Which brings me to my next conclusion, another argument as to why the status of Standard English is changing, potentially for the worst, is due to the fact that there is an increased amount of slang words and alterior meanings for what was originally a standard form. Portrayals by the media of role models, in my opinion, are held marginally responsible for the decline in standard-English, due to the fact that the media is able to represent such a great amount of role models to such a wide audience; of all ages, meaning that shows such as Towie, for sake of example, encourage the use of utilising non-standard forms, and taking advantage of new words and meanings. Also in the media, rappers that produce music with lyrical content of slang and homonyms, both leading to the development in use of non-standard English. A piece of evidence of the influence the media has on scoping standard English, is that new words are frequently being added to the dictionary; for example ‘selfie’, this encourages new variables to be more used than non-standard forms; leading to the decline of standard English.

To conclude, to which extent id agree that the status of standard English is changing is of a significant amount, this is due to the fact that there are many implementing and influencing factors towards the change of standard English, such as social class, education, social background, influencing ethnicities and peers.