No English-speaking country has a body that controls the 'purity' of the English language
English language teachers working in Russia encounter students who are convinced that these two variants of English are so different that there may be cases when an American and an Englishman will not understand each other at all. Because of this, students firmly demand to be taught either 'British' or 'American' English.
'Correct' English is the language of the elite
Doctor of sciences, independent linguist and author of the book 'English with an Accent: Language, Ideology and Discrimination in the United States' Rosina Lippi states that linguistics lacks a clear concept of 'normative American' and 'normative British' English. 'Language standard is an idea that usually refers to how the intellectual elite speaks. The norm is clearly based on differences between social and economic classes,' she says.
Lippi cites as an example the tendency of Americans to call 'correct' the English language heard in schools or on television news: 'There is not a gram of logic in this, since teachers and news anchors come from different parts of the United States, they speak different dialects of English.'
In Britain, too, there is a wide range of different dialects, says Doctor of Sciences, senior lecturer in English language and linguistics at University of Portsmouth Mario Saraceni.
English poet and theatre director Martin Cook, living in Moscow, believes that prejudice against one or another variant of English is just an excellent marketing ploy. 'We understand that in reality it hardly matters. Good English will always be good English,' he adds.
What Russians want
'Russian students have traditionally developed a complex that there is some ideal English language and, in particular, pronunciation,' says Dmitry Psurtsev, associate professor of the English translation department at Moscow State Linguistic University. Most often, he says, they want to learn British pronunciation.
'Students listen to Tony Blair and David Cameron, but do not take into account that on the street or at home these politicians speak quite differently. A nonexistent variant of the language arises that everyone imitates,' says the linguist. 'And it is believed that if a person has not learned to speak like Thatcher, then he should not even open his mouth.'
'I am surprised that the beliefs of Muscovites about which English is better or 'more correct' are so firm. The only conclusion I can come to is that these beliefs formed as a result of public discussion of these two countries,' says Lippi, who is studying the relationship between linguistic preferences and how they are perceived by society. 'Teachers are capable of transmitting many stereotypes and prejudices, especially at the middle and high school level.'
According to experts, such preferences are related to what an idealized variant of a particular English means to each student.
'But most often, those students who think about this would be unable to distinguish an American, a Briton, an Australian, an Irishman, etc., based on their speech,' says Saraceni. This, he says, is not surprising, since even Britons and Americans are not always able to determine where their English-speaking interlocutor is from.
Who decides what English should be like
In Italy and France, for several centuries the main academic institutions on linguistic matters remained the Accademia della Crusca (L’Accademia della Crusca) and the Académie française (L’Académie française).
Unlike these countries, neither the United Kingdom, nor the United States, nor any other English-speaking country has an official body with the right to carry out language reforms or in any way regulate the English language.
Many experts believe that it is precisely because of the absence of such a department that English develops 'naturally'.
'One of the undeniable advantages of English is that it is a democratic and constantly changing language, meanings evolve due to widespread use, not by order of a committee. This is a natural process that has been going on for centuries. Trying to somehow influence this process is perhaps arrogant and pointless,' notes American writer and former editor of the British newspapers Times and Independent Bill Bryson in his book 'The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way'.
Consequently, it is those who speak the language who themselves determine what 'real' English is. Not even the Oxford Dictionary has the right to set the norm.
Read on: ENGLISH WITH AN ACCENT (part 2)