Culture · 6 pages · 12 min
Why no dialect is a broken standard
Each dialect has patterns of its own. It is not a failed attempt at the standard.
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From the opening
No dialect is a broken standard because each dialect has patterns that its speakers follow consistently, patterns a linguist can write down as rules; measuring those rules only by whether they match a different dialect will make every difference look like a mistake. The difference is real; the breakage is in the measuring. The opening covers regular patterns, not random misses, habitual be makes a distinction, and stigma is not the absence of rules.
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Inside
- Regular patterns, not random misses
- Habitual be makes a distinction
- Stigma is not the absence of rules
- Correction can be a second dialect
- Where the idea stops applying
- A distinction worth keeping
Sources
- Habitual be in African American English
- William Labov's descriptions of nonstandard English as ordered structure