Authority in Language: Investigating Standard English (Routledge Linguistics Classics)

This Routledge Linguistics Classic is here reissued with a new preface, a new final chapter and a revised bibliography. Authority in Language explores the perennially topical and controversial notion of correct and incorrect language. James and Lesley Milroy cover the long-running debate over the teaching of Standard English in Britain and compare the language ideologies in Britain and the USA, involving a discussion of the English-Only movement and the Ebonics controversy. They consider the historical process of standardisation and its social consequences, in particular discrimination against low status and ethnic minority groups on the basis of their language traits. In the new final chapter, James and Lesley Milroy look at the histories created over some centuries for English, considering the scholarly activity itself as ideologically loaded. Authority in Language is indispensable reading for educationalists, teachers and linguists and a long-standing text for courses in sociolinguistics, modern English grammar, history of English and language ideology.