The author clarifies their use of “standard English” as “the most commonly-accepted and widespread variant of English in a wider society,” and acknowledges that the term varies depending on the nation, region, community, socio-economic class, and so forth—which is exactly what the article is about.
“What you want now, lah? You finish homework yet? No? Ahh, you killing me!”
That, right there, is a perfectly understandable set of sentences. There are real subjects, objects, and action verbs; the punctuation works well and the tone of each word comes across with bright (and slightly-vicious) alacrity. It’s a simple bit of English, and can be expanded upon with a little rearrangement, addition, and subtraction—What do you want now? Have you finished your homework yet? You haven’t? Ahh, you’re killing me!—yet it’s expressed just fine, even though Google Docs insists on the presence of grammatical errors with several squiggly blue underlines beneath a few phrases.
It’s not standard English (“Chinglish”), but it’s the English many second-gen Chinese-Americans grew up with—the English many children spent time checking over for their ESL parents, adjusting capitalization and spelling for Christmas cards and letters to teachers; the English their parents spoke to them when their Cantonese skills failed and they wordlessly hung their heads and waited for them to translate their own scoldings. This way of speaking is familiar to a wide range of immigrant children’s experiences, but they quickly learn that it isn’t the “right” way of speaking.
Many native English-speaking teachers have a hard time understanding ESL parents, even if they slow down their speaking and simplify their vocabulary. Other parents may be confused by the way a Mexican-born mother’s accent cut some sounds short and dragged out others, like she didn’t give presentations all the time at her workplace to great effect. Strangers may underestimate a Nigerian immigrant father’s intelligence because his grammar comes off as awkward, although English may be his third or fourth fluent language. Each snide snicker and amused comment at a foreign-seeming family’s expense sticks with its children stubbornly, and it’s evident that such an experience isn’t rare in the slightest: people tend to condescend what they can’t comprehend, and laugh at others for what they consider low-brow, primitive, or uncivilized… even if they might fall into the same mannerisms themselves (come on, you’re telling me no native English speaker ever asked someone “you done yet?”).
There is oftentimes an insidious racism when it comes to criticizing someone’s “broken” English, even more so because it’s usually completely understandable without further explanation and solely hinges on humiliating the speaker. This can run anywhere from mocking a noticeable foreign accent (though, notably, only some foreign accents) to deriding even full dialects.
African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), for example, has frequently and historically been derided as “less than” common American English; it was considered mere “slang” rather than a legitimate vernacular, despite its long history and widespread prevalence in Black American communities and music. Even nowadays, there are those who laugh at casual use of AAVE between fluent speakers and mock its grammar as “broken” despite its undeniable logic and fluidity—most fluent English speakers are able to comprehend “ain’t nobody talking to you!” and respond in kind (“You’re talking to me!”).
Having a certain accent or alternative way of speaking doesn’t make someone more or less intelligent, no matter the type—and the belief that it does is rooted in not only racism, but in classism. Various American Southern accents are mocked in jokes as being lowbrow or “bad English,” with many parodying the accent to make jokes about American Southerner stereotypes, and clearly envisioning a very specific kind of American Southerner: a hillbilly, hick, or redneck; a brazen nonce without a drop of literacy or common sense. This even stretches to Appalachian accents—from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania, country folk are the butt of a joke; all idiots or bigots, so long as they have that voice. Maybe you think this, too.
Well, imagine this: you’re a job recruiter looking for someone to fill the position of a senior sales representative in a major company that, like most, primarily trades in English. You have several potential hires on your roster, all very qualified and all fluent in English to the same degree; you don’t know what they look like, nor do you know their names, but you have had several phone calls with each interviewee, and know each one of their accents and ways of speaking. How much do you think your decision would be affected by an interviewee’s accent?
If you think yourself impartial and the world the same, you may assume that it wouldn’t affect you at all, and this sentiment would be shared in your profession—but the truth is that accent bias is extremely prevalent, especially in the workplace, even if it’s condemned socially or legally: working-class English accents are considered less prestigious than posher ones, applicants with Afro-Caribbean or Indian accents are considered unsophisticated, job candidates in Maine with African accents are assumed to be untrustworthy, unintelligent refugees with few skills.
The truth is that a person’s manner of speaking can indicate the native tongue and upbringing of a certain person (and, perhaps, political party—but in the sense that it reflects certain qualities of a person that may or may not be more common in a certain party’s beliefs) and little else; someone with a strong Texan accent isn’t automatically stupid, nor is someone with a lifetime of training an Old Hollywood Trans-Atlantic accent necessarily elegant. This doesn’t even take into account the existence of code-switching—changing linguistic codes, like a language or dialect, depending on the context of a conversation—which many people partake in, consciously or subconsciously, from their more personal variant of English to the standard. This means that the person who sits next to you in class or just joined your workplace may not speak standard English all the time; at home, with friends, or with a specific community, they may just be letting out the language or dialect that truly reflects themself and their background—not the sanitized version they give out to others.
Many dialects, accents, and languages receive derogatory treatment in their “brokenness,” regardless of the actual literacy and legitimacy of their manners and speakers. Naijá, Konglish, Singlish, Spanglish, Krio, Native American English, Jamaican Patois, Bahamian Creole, and more tend to blend the alien feeling of standard English on a person’s tongue with the warmth of home and the familiarity of shared circumstance. This blend is natural, a second skin to connect with others both in and out of your communities and groups, an “I see you! You’re just like me!” when you’re out on your own in untouched waters, a slipping-into-soft-old-sheets feeling when you finally come home. It is a balm to the suffering of a family, of the recent migrations of struggling groups; it is a taste of home when you aren’t home, communicated in the way you know best—it’s a wonderful thing, to have that connection with the people around you, and it never deserves to be ridiculed.
This is so eloquently and beautifully written. I can tell so much thought was put into this. Incredible!!