The importance of developing the market of medical services in an innovative economy

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Mukaddas Khamzayeva, EFL teacher Uzbekistan State World Languages

University,

IS STANDARD SUPERIOR WHILE LEARNING LANGUAGE?

M. Khamzayeva

Abstract: Language is considered to be a tool helping people to

communicate with each other. It can be developed throughout the years in
parallel with society due to diverse factors. In consequence, different
variations of the same language may occur. With a range of different
variation people may have to decide on a model as a standard to use in mass
media or to educate at different educational institutions. How do people
choose a variation as a standard? Are there any criteria for a language to be
considered as a standard? While teaching a language which one is supposed
to be taught? This article will provide some answers regarding to these
questions.

Keywords: Variations, dialect, standard, systematically structured,

hypercorrection, idealized speech, superior, inferior,

Each language has its own systematic peculiarities that differ one from

another. However, there is also a systematic difference within the language
that refers to sharing one language, yet using different words to express the
same meaning. This kind of variation is called as an internal variation.

Everything tends to change throughout the years, so does language.

With the development of technology neologisms, borrowings enter the
language.

One of the main reasons causing this kind of systematic change is

geographical division. Since people living in the same place and speaking the
same language moved far away from each other they lost communication
and their language also developed on its own way. Another reason for this
is language contact. If two people speaking different language will contact
they tend to produce and use similar language. These are only some reasons
for appearing the variations and dialects. Despite the fact that all language
dialects are linguistically equal, there is a standard utilized in media, schools,
or by political leaders and higher socio-economic classes as being something
that is generally accepted as “true” or “sample”. However, in linguistics it
does not mean that standard dialect is superior and others are considered
to be inferior.

According to Mihalic̆ek and Wilson (2001) standard dialect is the option

of a language that is often preferred to be used by higher classes of society
including politics, media. It is acknowledged that almost all existing
languages have standard dialect that usually serves to teach the language for
both native and non native learners of a language. It gives us a clear

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understanding that standard tends to be a model of a language and idealized
by people since it is generally used in media or by politics. Moreover, the
language which we learn or are taught at school is also standard. For
example, in Uzbekistan we have different variations of the Uzbek language
in diverse regions. However, the language used to be taught in schools or
used in mass media and publications around the republic is the Uzbek
academic language which was created on the basis of the dialects of
Tashkent and Fergana.

The authors further state that even if standard is generally accepted,

one is not to consider standard to be superior and other non standard
dialects to be inferior. Standard gained its status due to its utilization by
prestigious people but other variations are used by people in their daily
lives. That is to say, many other variations of a language serving as a tool of
communication between people and their status of being non standard does
not necessarily mean that this variation is a wrong way of communication.
Moreover, sometimes even non acceptable grammar mistakes may occur in
standard and cause this type of dialect to be unsystematic in terms of
grammar. Thus, the hypercorrection can sometimes be witnessed while
listening that idealized speech of politics.

Higgins (2017) asserts that the language mistakes made by the current

president of the USA Donald Trump in social media cause us to use our red
pens more and more to correct these mistakes. As a vivid example, she
provides several statements including grammar and syntax mistakes made
by current president of the USA, and criticized the following statement ”.

..she

gave us ISIS. Because her and Obama created this huge vacuum and a small
group came out of that huge vacuum.” Here, we can see that the statement is
not correct judging by prescriptive standard due to the wrong usage of
possessive pronoun instead of personal pronoun and this can be considered
as grammatically unsystematic. However, some linguists may argue that
these kinds of mistakes intuitively tend to be correct and some may accept
this as a right way of speaking just because of the usage by prestigious
politics.

This kind of examples gives us a clear understanding that there is no

any right or wrong variation and both of them may include some
grammatically unsystematic or systematic structures.

Stamper (2013) criticizes the president Obama for his grammar. The

usage of comparative adjective in the following statement made by him was
considered as grammatically incorrect:

“

No one is madder than me about the fact that the website isn’t working

as well as it should…”

Unlike the grammar mistake made by president Trump, we can

acknowledge that this statement seems to be grammatically systematic- as

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the word “mad” has one syllable and comparative forms of adjectives having
one syllable are formed with adding suffix “er”. Nevertheless, according to
prescriptive rule the word “madder” is supposed to be used as “more mad”.

Having analyzed the topic, we can consider that both standard and non

standard variations can be considered equal and both may sometimes have
systematic or unsystematic structure which means the idea that standard is
free from mistakes and always grammatically correct is not true.

In addition, while teaching foreign language to L2 learners, we as

facilitator are supposed to help our students enhance their communicative
skills and be able to use the language they are learning in both formal and
informal situations while interacting. That is to say, they are not likely to
need standard dialect while communicating with their friends from different
parts of oversea country in a friendly atmosphere. Or, vice versa when they
are writing an academic paper such as articles, reports, they have to follow
the rules of standard dialect. In both cases language learner should be able
to understand the information intended to be acquired, and of course be
understood while interacting in L2. That means while teaching L2 one of the
tasks of facilitator is to make learners aware of different dialects and
standard language and to emphasize that standard language may sometimes
possess grammatically systematic or unsystematic structure. Moreover, in
our modern world it is essential to utilize authentic materials and language
using for example, British or Michigan Corpora that can provide learners
with a huge amount of words and word collocations which learners may
come across in real life situations.

References:
1. Higgins, P. (2017, March 10). Donald Trump`s grammar, syntax

errors: Times when the English language took a hit. Retrieved from
https://www.amny.com/news/donald-trump-grammar-syntax-errors-
times-when-the-english-language-took-a-hit-1.12471317

2. Mihalic̆ek, V. &Wilson, C.(eds.). (2011).

Language files: Materials for

an introduction to language and linguistics (11th ed.). Columbus, OH: Ohio
State University.

3. Stamper, K. (2013, October 29). Obama didn’t use improper grammar.

Cut him and other figures a break.

The Guardian. Retrieved from

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/29/obama-
improper-grammar-presidential-language