Standard English Usage Research Articles

Lexico-Syntactic Study of English Usage in Online News Responses and Their Implications for 21st-Century Pedagogy

Online news reading is becoming a part of people’s daily lives, and this medium gives readers the opportunity to comment and share their opinions. It is noteworthy that the comments posted in response to online news articles encompass the entire Nigerian populace of over 250 ethnic groups and more than 400 languages for whom English is a second language. Therefore, this study examined the diverse ways in which Nigerians use English in their comments on online news articles and how these usages affect the teaching and learning of English in the 21st century. A study corpus of about 100 sentences was collected from Opera news responses over a period of three months. Analysis revealed that the use of English in online news responses differs from standard English usage due to users’ habits to code switch and mix, translate directly from their mother tongue to English, give different meanings to existing words, or coin words to represent things that are new to ease their communication. In the attempt, grammar, punctuation, and spelling were either badly used or omitted. This linguistic habit, when transferred by students to their academic work, influences how they are subsequently evaluated. Therefore, there is a critical need for teachers to identify and distinguish between the usages of English that are “incorrect,” “dialectical,” and those that conform to “Standard English” so that students do not mistakenly interchange them.

When the definite article is used for possessive determiners in Kenyan English

The literature on the use of articles in L2 varieties of English reports both the overuse and the underuse of the definite article. An excellent synoptic discussion of such apparently contradictory results is Sand (2004). Because L2 English varieties have developed in a sociolinguistic environment where they were in contact with indigenous languages, Sand (2004: 284–287) reviews what research findings show about ‘substrate influence on article use’. Two substrate languages she mentions (p. 286) as examples are Hindi (which is expected to have influenced Indian English) and Swahili (which is expected to have influenced Kenyan English). Regarding Indian English she writes: ‘Typically, we find reference to a “lack of articles” in descriptions of contact varieties like Indian English [ . . . ]’ (p. 286). But a few lines later she adds this: However, Sedlatscheck (forthcoming: 105) also finds for his Indian data that, apart from zero articles, the largest number of what he calls ‘article substitutions’ occur in the category of the definite article. Thus, the definite article is used instead of the zero or indefinite article expected according to standard English usage. (p. 286)The quotation above suggests that both some overuse and some underuse of the definite article can be observed in Indian English, thus making the possible influence of a substrate language like Hindi (reported not to have articles) not so relevant.

Standard English and the Distortion Introduced by Social Media Short Messages

This study assesses the negative effect of social media text messaging on the Standard Written English of Nigerian undergraduates. Data is elicited from the written English of undergraduates from the three most popularly used social media websites in Nigeria; namely, Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram. The data is analyzed using a simple percentage. The results are presented in tabular form. The study reveals that the use of social media text messaging prevalent on social media platforms has impacted negatively, the Standard of written English of Nigerian university undergraduates. The study further observes that the major areas of deviation found in the written English language of the undergraduates include: wrong punctuation, wrong spelling, breaking of concord/agreement rules, code-mixing and code-switching, etc. The study shows that to a large extent, the use of text messages has affected adherence to Standard written English of undergraduates in Nigeria. The study, therefore, recommends that urgent pragmatic measures are needed to curb the problem. Specifically, the study recommends the following measures as checks: to awaken the consciousness of the undergraduates to the importance of the use of the Standard English language in their communication; to urge the media to use its functions as a watchdog of society to sensitize the public and condemn the profuse use of social media text at the expense of the use of Standard English and to enlighten undergraduates to use Standard English in all forms of their formal communication to uphold the continued development of Standard English usage in the universities and society at large.

The Influence of the Nigerian Pidgin English on Eha-Amufu Secondary School Students’ Usage of the Standard English

The use of Pidgin English in the Nigerian context has gone beyond verbal communication to become more of a mode of behaviour as its expression has moved from informal conversation to formal situations. The above scenario necessitated this study which investigates Eha-Amufu secondary school students’ usage of the Standard English in view of the use of the Nigerian Pidgin English (NPE). The study sets to find out what informs the usage and the extent the Nigerian Pidgin English has affected the use of the Standard English of these students using the affective filter hypothesis from Stephen Krashen’s 2003 Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theory. Using the questionnaire and essay writing as research instruments, data were collected from a sample of 200 students and willing teachers from four selected secondary schools in Eha-Amufu. Findings reveal that the use of the Nigerian Pidgin English is traceable to homes and peer group influence and has grossly affected the students’ Standard English usage. The finding that students do not use Nigerian Pidgin English in their written essays was largely contradicted by the avalanche of the Nigerian Pidgin English expressions found in the written essays of the students which also reveal its adverse effect on the Standard English both in spelling and contextual usage. This research, therefore, concludes that a deliberate and conscious effort at instilling in the minds of Eha-Amufu students the knowledge of the adverse effect of NPE usage on their academic performance and the danger of its persistent use will go a long way in mitigating the adverse effects of Nigerian Pidgin English usage on the Standard English usage among them.

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Powerful words: skillful and sensitive empowerment of urban undergraduate pre‐service teachers through improvement of Standard English usage

With the goal of assisting predominantly low‐socio‐economic status and minority undergraduate education majors to achieve necessary competence in the use of oral and written Standard English, an innovative action research initiative was incorporated into an introductory education class at a comprehensive urban university in the northeastern part of the United States. The project integrated written and oral Standard English exercises into the course’s curriculum as a means of bolstering students’ skills while still helping them master the course content. Preliminary results demonstrate students’ improved competence in both written and oral Standard English, and an increased awareness of how and when to use various forms of English.

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The sociolinguistics of choice in Malaysian business settings

Almost all institutional imperatives on training in large Malaysian business houses or corporations map onto English as the traditional normative language of choice. This paper, which is an ethnographic account of the sociolinguistics of code and style choice in the oral presentations of two such business organizations, reports on the ascendancy of localized forms and patterns of communication in the situated discourse of the workplace settings. This phenomenon clearly points to the localization of English as evidence for the acculturation of English by Malay and other languages in Malaysian workplace interactions. Aspects and features of Malaysian English (ME) as the localized variety are discussed and presented in relation to a critique on research to date on ME. The paper demonstrates that ME and other ways of speaking in these Malaysian corporate business contexts contrast with the norms of standard English usage. Thus the normative view of language choice and modelling for such contexts of areal communication, which have long been viewed as bastions of English language use in Malaysia, is being challenged.

Guest Editorial: African American Education and the Ebonics Issue

Ebonics, or American Language has been a source of vigorous debate and concern for the past 20-plus years. Most recently, the Oakland (California) Unified School District (OUSD) generated renewed interest in the topic with its late December 1996 and early 1997 resolutions addressing the use of Ebonics as a bridge for teaching Standard English to African American students. The school district's public positions resulted in much controversy and contention. Concomitantly, fervent misconceptions and earnest defenses alike emanated from educational and sociopolitical arenas. In this period of relative quiet after the storm (and perhaps before yet another storm erupts), the purpose of the Journal of Negro Education's special focus on Ebonics was to bring together a roster of authors to address the most salient issues and concerns relevant to the education of African Americans who speak Ebonics as a dialect or vernacular of Standard English. This issue features articles by some of the leading thinkers on this highly publicized topic. To begin, Richard Wright, a longstanding authority on human communication, presents a sociolinguistic perspective. His article critiques the form, content, and function of the OUSD's original resolution, explicating the specific impact of these features in generating the maelstrom that accompanied that document's issuance. In doing so, he reveals the manner in which the Ebonics debate has become politicized, and how this politicization has led to the distortion of the public's perception of Ebonics and its speakers. Next, my co-authors, Grace Reid and Cecilia Wisdom, and I discuss the impact of Ebonics use on the results of traditional psychoeducational assessment measures. Our article also highlights alternative measures, such as ecological and curriculum-based assessments, that allow Ebonics speakers to demonstrate skills that are often not readily apparent when traditional assessments are used. Only by adopting such measures, will the risk of misdiagnoses in the psychoeducational assessment of children who speak Ebonics be reduced. For their part, Frederick Harper, Kisha Braithwaite, and Ricardo LaGrange address the role of the school counselor in facilitating intervention strategies for and attitudinal awareness among classroom teachers who work with Ebonics-speaking youth. Not only should counselors work one-on-one with Ebonics speakers, these authors posit, but they also must collaborate with teachers and administrators in order to create an educational environment that is conducive to these students' acquisition of Standard English. Their contribution highlights the importance of both innovative and time-tested counseling techniques as means of improving the Standard English usage and comprehension of African American youth and adults. Orlando Taylor wrote extensively on the topic of Black English in the early 1970s. In this issue, he presents a historical overview of policy matters related to Ebonics and discusses the implications of recent developments in this area. Taylor then challenges educators to apply the lessons learned from this debate to the schools of the 21st century: that the use of Ebonics must not be mistaken for a deficiency in Standard English, and that all educators working with Ebonics speakers must become familiar with this language system and the culture of its users. Last but not least, Mary Hoover, one of the leaders of the OUSD's efforts and a member of the African American Task Force that drafted the resolutions, offers a recommended reading list of articles, books, and other resources that can help build teacher' knowledge base and improve their attitudes toward youth who speak Ebonics. Dr. Hoover's decades of work with such students and literacy learning have greatly contributed to the research which demonstrates that educators' attitudes improve if (a) they are introduced to the structural features of Ebonics and the culture of its users, and (b) they are made aware of the stereotypical thinking about African Americans ingrained in American culture. …

Canny Writers: Tyneside dialect and the writing of secondary school students

Summary The issue of writing in accordance with the conventions of standard English usage is one which is becoming increasingly prominent, with changes in the National Curriculum in English reflecting concerns about correctness in language. The present study examines the writing of a group of Year 11 pupils to examine the nature of the deviance of their writing from standard English patterns and, in particular, to assess the impact of non‐standard dialect forms on their written work. Errors in writing are seen to be very largely attributable to difficulties with such aspects of the system as punctuation, spelling and other orthographic features. There is evidence of non‐standard dialect influences on grammar and vocabulary but these are relatively slight, and, it is argued, should not be the prime concern of teachers interested in meeting the demands of the National Curriculum with regard to writing.

Assortative mating for cultural identification as indicated by language use

Persons of Japanese ancestry from Hawaii who marry within their own racial/ethnic group show a significant degree of homogamous assortative mating for "pidgin" and for standard English usage, variables reflective of important cultural differences in Hawaii. Persons of Japanese ancestry who married persons of other racial/ethnic groups had less exposure to pidgin in their parental homes and were less likely to speak this dialect of English. Sibling-spouse analyses suggested that assortment for such language use is entirely due to social homogamy rather than active phenotypic assortment.

George Herbert's "Significant Stuttering"

George Herbert's "Significant Stuttering' by Thomes F. Merrill Reeding Herbert's "The Reprisell" or "Vertue," eccording to Rosolie Colie, is "something like the experience of seeing e poem in, soy, Swedish. One knows thot the Arrangement of words forms the poem, recognizes just enough of the cognote words to suspect thet the poem is good, but in the end one is forced to recognize the brute feet thet one doesn't know the lenguege."' She exeggeretes, of course. It is not thot Herbert's diction or grammer violetes standard English usage; he uses no specielized vocabulary, ond his syntax, even considering customary poetic license, is proper enough. The "Swedishness" goes deeper. "As a natural child of the Church," Colie surmises, Herbert "rarely saw fit to explein anything relevant to that condition. For him, the worship of God . . . was so securely immutable and timeless as to require neither comment nor explanation."2 For Colie (and presumably for contemporary readers like her) Herbert's language strains intelligibility not because of what it says but because of what it finds unnecessary to soy. What is missing is not "facts" but rules — unconscious canons of verbal coherence which govern what Friedrich Waismann would call its "logical style."3 An invisible grammar dictotes the "puzzling" conduct of this lenguege — o gremmer, os the lete Bishop of Durhem, Ion Remsey, once put it, for "significant stuttering about the Inexpressible."4 Herbert's devotional lenguege mey baffle modern readers not beceuse it is Swedish but beceuse it is God-talk.5 God-tolk hes olweys been difficult beceuse it is e deliberate misuse of language.6 It is ordinary lenguege "stretched" beyond its functionel limits to Address supernAtural "fACts."7 Its inedequecy to this tosk hes been witnessed from St. Augustine ("When we speok of the Three Persons of the Trinity it is 'not beceuse the phrases ore edequote — they ere our only olternetive to silence' "a) to Wittgenstein ("Whot we connot 2 Thomes F. Merrill speek ebout we must consign to silence"9), end todey, when God, os one leeding Christien scholer puts it, iso "ghost ... so leid to rest thet it is now only 'the lest foding smile of e cosmic Cheshire Cot,' "10 the issue of God-tolk's odequecy hes feilen beck to one of its relevence. No wonder, then, thot its "stuttering" hes become foreign to meny reoders' eers. The words ere femilior, the bosic grammer seems right, but somehow its sense oppeers oddly oskew.1' Under the circumstences.it is not surprising thet Herbert's devotionel poetry (so misleedingly spare and simple on its surface) should créete mischief for literary scholers. Williem Empson hes token Herbert to task for his "successive fireworks of contradiction, end e mind jumping like e flee."12 Coburn Freer remorks how "the formel pettern" of Herbert's poems seem disturbed end rearranged."13 Helen Vendler speaks of how the poems disrupt their own order, thus effecting the "re-invented poem."14 Stanley Fish writes persuasively of the se//-destructive15 logic of Herbert's language which sponsors a "poetics of tension," and then, surveying recent trends in Herbert criticism, observes that "the older view of a calm end resolute Herbert is no longer in feshion,"16 thot it hes given wey to the picture of o much more unstable poet whose "Jordons never stay crossed"17 end who in feet "re-invents" his poetic devotions. All of this mokes Fish wonder "how it is thet e poet end the poetry he writes cen be restless end secure af the same time?"™ Fish mey not hove intended it so, but "restless security" is more then e critical paradox; it is an essentiel fact of Christian anthropology. In one of his sermons, John Donne notes thet "To escend to God, To ottend Gods descent to us, is the Motion, end Rest of o Christien. . . . ell Motion is for Rest."19 Herbert conveys Donne's point in "The Pulley" by rendering the dynemic interploy between men's "repining restlessnesse" ond his security in God's bosom es the very essence of the Christien life end, hence, the essence of its lenguege too.20 God-talk indeed does "stutter...

Eponym's 's: Argyll Robinson, Not pseudo-Turner, Was e. e. cummings' endocrinologist

To the Editor.— As senior medical students interested in the history of medicine and in eponymic nomenclature, we read with great interest Dr Vaughan's 1 recent letter concerning the National Board of Medical Examiners' policy regarding the use of 's in eponymic designations. We disagree with Dr Vaughan's assertion that the nagging dilemma of correct and consistent usage of ' s is properly resolvable by categorical deletion. While this proposal may indeed be expedient for the editors, proofreaders, and typists of the National Board of Medical Examiners, we strongly oppose this deviation from standard English usage. Having endured numerous National Board examinations in recent years, we can attest to the fact that the loss of ' s is both jarring to the ear and clumsy on the tongue (eg, Crohn disease, Pott disease). Our foremost objection, however, lies in the blatant linguistic impropriety of this policy. Dr Vaughan states that the National