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Norm, standard, deviationRichard Hudsonlast changed 2 August 2009 Bibliographical informationThis paper is rather loosely based on a paper presented at the workshop " Norms in Educational Linguistics - Linguistic, didactic and cultural perspectives " held in Giessen 1-2 September 2008, organised by members of the postgraduate working group ‘Educational Linguistics’ in the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture. The paper is intended for a published collection of papers presented at this workshop. AbstractA language is a collection of norms shared by the members of a community, so different communities have different norms. These differences matter because shared language norms don’t only allow efficient communication but also the signalling of shared social identities. As communities get larger, new norms evolve including standard languages, which may develop either by “natural” processes or by deliberate official intervention. I question the anglophone preference for “natural” market forces rather than planned intervention. I also explain why it’s important to distinguish different kinds of deviation from any linguistic norm according to whether they’re caused by ignorance or carelessness. I then turn to specifically educational issues. Language is central to education, so education needs a policy on language education. I outline two recent changes in this area of the UK’s education: towards greater tolerance of diversity, and towards more explicit teaching about language, including grammar. But these very healthy trends in official policy are seriously undermined by weaknesses in teachers’ knowledge about language. Finally, I turn to educational linguistics. I explain why linguists need to know more about how education affects language, then I pose two research questions for each of the three subject-areas covered by the conference. For linguistics: what is the standard language (in contrast with non-standard alternatives) and how does language mature during the school years? For didactics: how should teachers teach languages, and how should they themselves learn more about educational linguistics? And for cultural studies: how does the target language relate, in teaching, to the target culture, and how are language learners influenced by the culture they live in? |