Standard English and English Standards

Proficient speakers of English are often quite interested in variation and take pride in their ability to switch between local and international Englishes. But learners – and their teachers – tend to be more interested in standards. The question then arises: which standard is best?

For many Asian learners, the main choice is between some kind of British English (still popular in Malaysia and Sri Lanka) and something more American (the usual preference of Filipinos, Japanese and South – but not North – Koreans). But reducing the choice to a simple UK-US division exaggerates the divide: many beginners cannot even hear differences between spoken British and American English, let alone see them in writing. And it overlooks the great diversity of speech within the UK and the USA.

This UK-US focus also overlooks the millions of Asians who speak fluent English with local characteristics. Even today, many Asians think of native speakers as North American, Britons and Australasians, rather than Singaporeans or Indians. The concept of native speaker is a complex and controversial one. Acquiring a language when very young may indeed bring a mastery that is almost impossible to replicate when learning another language later, but we cannot assume that everyone's strongest language is the first one they learned. To want to speak as well as a native speaker seems an admirable goal, but it can be quite a vague one. The ideal standard of English varies from person to person, depending on what they want to do with the language. And a standard suggests something that is fixed, whereas language is always changing.

In recent years I've noticed greater acceptance of different varieties of English around Asia. Schools in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward routinely invite foreign students to give conversation classes and don't mind where they come from as long as their English is reasonably fluent. Thai television's MCOT News uses newsreaders and reporters with American, British, New Zealand and also distinctly Thai and other Asian accents. Indeed, Leeds University's Anthea Gupta argues that there are so many varieties of spoken English that it is almost impossible to choose one standard form. On the other hand, Gupta believes that written English is remarkably standard throughout the world. Written language changes much more slowly than speech, and TOEFL tests, spelling checks on computers and the narrow range of writing styles preferred by international academic journals all operate to contain variation. Nevertheless, local vocabulary and grammar are increasingly evident on the internet. Many blogs written in standard Pakistani or Filipino English are easy enough for people from other Asian countries to read, but some are quite difficult because of the use of Urdish or Taglish – English mixed with Urdu or Tagalog.

A common theme in Asia's English-language press is the apparent slide in English standards. Readers of Malaysiakini, an online newspaper, regularly post examples of ‘bad English’ (such as a law professor asking his students “Are you understand?”). Hong Kong's South China Morning Post debated why 11-year-olds could not pass exams designed for 9-year-olds. The people who complain are often from a generation that studied entirely in English, and they typically blame postcolonial educational policies that emphasise local languages – as well as the‘broken English’of text messages and blogs. But they should remember that far more Asians use the language now than in the days when it was restricted to the middle and upper classes. Inevitably, many of this new generation use it badly. But many others simply use it differently.