Hello everybody!
As promised I'm going to talk about prestige in language. It is a fact that some varieties of English are more prestigious than others. When talking about prestige, you cannot leave out a sociolect. This is explained in the image below:
When you say that some forms of language are more prestigious, that also means that there are lesser forms. When talking about England, most people will think that Upper Crust RP is the most prestigious form of a language, but that is not necessarily true. The variety that is most appropriate depends on the situation you find yourself in. RP might be seen as denigrating when talking to family members, and talking your own dialect might seem like you lack respect when talking to your boss. Therefore it is really important to change your language to the person you are talking with, in order to prevent awkward situations.
A while ago you were seen as a lesser human being when you could not speak proper English. This meant that 'incorrect English' was seen as a broken variation. There was a debate, for example, in the US two decades ago. A school was using African American vernacular English in order to teach, they had decided that it would be better for their students. The school defended it was not a lesser variety, but only a different variety from the BBC one.
In order to contemplate a variety, you have to consider phonetics. It is a very important aspect to take into account, as well as syntax, vocabulary... Nowadays linguists also say that one of the main features of language is 'change'. The idea that we have to clean, correct and polish linguistic variation is not as important anymore. Next to change, contact with other languages is also very important. Contact between geographic regions is one of the key elements, very often there is even an overlapping of regional and social varieties.
When we go back to the 1970s, adding prestige to a variety was seen as a very posh, correct and even bastard way of speaking.
One good example of prestige, is 'h-dropping'. It used to be used by the upper class and nobility of the country, but also by the lower class. Everything changed with the arrival of the public school system, which only the upper class could attend. They decided to stop dropping the h. This meant that only the upper class stopped doing that since the lower class did not have the possibilities of going to school. That is how it is still seen as a feature of a variety spoken by someone of a lower class.
In conclusion, today there are still varieties that are more prestigious than others, but it is also important to adjust your language to the situation you are in and to the people you are talking with. It is, therefore, important to be able to speak your dialect and a standard form of a language. That way you can switch comfortably between both varieties, which will give you a lot of advantages in your future life. You should never let go of your dialect, because that is part of who you are, and it is what you grew up with. But being able to speak in a standard variety is a great advantage when it comes to your professional life. It means that everyone will be able to understand you perfectly and that you will have no difficulties in talking with other people.
Thank you so much for reading and talk soon.
x Evelien x
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