Book contents
- The New Cambridge History of the English Language
- The New Cambridge History of the English Language
- The New Cambridge History of the English Language
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors to Volume III
- General Preface
- Abbreviations
- General Editor’s Introduction
- Introduction to Volume III
- Part I The Transmission of English
- Part II Tracking Change in the History of English
- Part III Ideology, Society and the History of English
- 22 The Ideology of Standard English
- 23 Discourse of Prescriptivism
- 24 English Dictionaries from the Eighteenth Century Onwards
- 25 Networks, Coalitions and Language Change
- 26 Communities of Practice in the History of English
- 27 Indexicality, Enregisterment and the History of English
- Index
- References
22 - The Ideology of Standard English
from Part III - Ideology, Society and the History of English
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 October 2025
Edited by
Book contents
- The New Cambridge History of the English Language
- The New Cambridge History of the English Language
- The New Cambridge History of the English Language
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors to Volume III
- General Preface
- Abbreviations
- General Editor’s Introduction
- Introduction to Volume III
- Part I The Transmission of English
- Part II Tracking Change in the History of English
- Part III Ideology, Society and the History of English
- 22 The Ideology of Standard English
- 23 Discourse of Prescriptivism
- 24 English Dictionaries from the Eighteenth Century Onwards
- 25 Networks, Coalitions and Language Change
- 26 Communities of Practice in the History of English
- 27 Indexicality, Enregisterment and the History of English
- Index
- References
Summary
The English language is generally discussed publicly with reference to an ideologically constructed correct form. Such discourses first emerged in the eighteenth century forming part of a long process of language standardisation, a process associated with major political imperatives. Standard language ideologies, articulated and maintained by powerful social groups, vary in different nations. Distinctive British and American ideologies are associated with critical points in national histories, and have the effect of disadvantaging specific social groups by disparaging their language varieties. Rather than being dismissed as examples of ill-informed misunderstanding of the nature of language promoted by powerful speakers for their own purposes, such ideologies can be considered more broadly as part of a larger set of perspectives on language articulated by language users, intimately connected not only with vested social and political interests but with explaining connections between language and the social world or describing its structure systematically.
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- The New Cambridge History of the English LanguageTransmission, Change and Ideology, pp. 631 - 659Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
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