content, but the variety of English itself – they are not accusing that
politician of lying under oath or running Ponzi schemes or of dereliction
of duty. Such commentary is not about policy or law; it is delivered in the
manner of the finger-wagging way of children on the playground, the ones
who police the social structure and keep people in their place. The fact is,
the variety of English a person speaks, highly regarded or stigmatized,
standard-like or vernacular, cannot predict the quality and effectiveness of
any given utterance or that person’s worth as a communicator.
What can be predicted is the fact that listeners will make assumptions
about the speaker on the basis of language markers that signal alliance to
certain social groups, primarily those having to do with race, ethnicity and
economic factors.
Written language and spoken language are historically,
structurally, and functionally fundamentally different creatures
In the history of mankind, widespread literacy is a relatively new
development, one that trailed along behind technological advances in
printing and the manufacture of paper.
Early printers had some things to work out, including the question of
norms and standardization. If Caxton had to print the Bible in ten different
dialects of English, there would be little or no profit in the venture, which
was, of course, not acceptable. The solution was to print the Bible in one
variety of English, and then to convince everybody that that was the best
kind of English. Thus began the movement toward language norms and
standardization of the printed (and then, written) language.
It seems a matter of logic and convenience from a business perspective,
but this narrowing-down and standardizing process was a long and arduous
one. Who was going to make decisions about spellings and grammatical
structures? Who was going to teach them, who would impose them, and
how?
As it became possible to make key religious, literary and legal
documents available on a wider basis, the standardized written language
became a commodity of increasing value. In the first line, the control of
this commodity was in the hands of those who were on the front line of
teaching reading and writing. Trained clerks and lowly teachers claimed
authority, and began to make a living out of telling people what their