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Academic and public attitudes to the notion of ‘standard’ Canadian English

On Standard Canadian English, those who speak it, those who study it, and those who discuss it

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2011

Stefan Dollinger
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Extract

This paper reflects on ‘standards’ in Canadian English in scholarly research and the public debate about English in Canada from a number of viewpoints. The goals of these reflections are three-fold. First, I aim to characterize the chasm between scholarly and public debates about a language ‘standard’ in Canadian English (CanE). While this debate is not new (e.g. Kretzschmar, 2009: 1–5 for a recent example), its application in the Canadian context is a desideratum. Second, I aim to characterize the standard in CanE from a demographic point of view: what is this standard and, above all, which Canadians (and, more importantly, how many) presently speak it? And third, what can linguists who research Canadian English offer to the public, and how can the perceived gap in knowledge be bridged?

Type
Original Article
Information
English Today , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , December 2011 , pp. 3 - 9
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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