SPOKEN ENGLISH

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 421, 18 July 1947, Page 5

SPOKEN ENGLISH

Sir,-I would like to congratulate A. R. D. Fairburn for providing’ in his article on "Spoken English," real help for New Zealanders who want to improve their speech. A good deal has been written in The Listener about New Zealand pronunciation, but mostly it has been of the kind which leaves the reader who is uncertain of his speech, just as muddled. as ever, and in addition, often resentful and rebellious, But Mr. Fairburn, as well as explaining how Speech faults can be analysed and cor- | rected, shows that "Standard English" is | defensible on aesthetic grounds, and has ‘nothing to do with snobbish preference. Broadcast « taiks, rene hie ideas, might be a further h

M. M.

ATKINSON

(Eastbourne)

a ae Sir,-Perhaps I should .not intrude till the end of.,Mr. Fairburn’s series of articles on "Spokep English," but I feel I must join issue on his idea of "Standard English." I doubt very much that there is such a thing as "Standard English" in the sense of one form of Educated English, To my mind, there are two kinds of Educated English-Public School English (P.S.E.) and Educated English proper, The first is the speech of the Upper and part of the Middle Classes of the United Kingdom. The ‘conclusive test of what constitutes P.S.E. is whether or not it is affected by local speechie., whether or not by listening to a speaker one can determine what part of the country he comes from, There is no variation in P.S.E. between Norta and South England. or Wales, Ireland and Scotland. (Parenthetically, nearly all the Highland chiefs speaking to their clans over the BBC spoke P.S.E.) The urge to adopt this form of speech by sections of the middle and working classes is undoubtédly the result of the social stratification of England. It is often a handicap to obtaining a job not to speak P.S.E. To speak it serves to conceal lowly social origins. It is, thus, largely wound up with snobbery, though ‘not all P.S.E, speakers are snobs. It is not pretended that there are no variation in P.S.E. Obviously there: are. On the one hand men like Winston Churchill speak P.S.E. in a quite unaffected way and on the other we have "more self-conscious-lah-di-dah, ‘if you like-speakers like Professor Joad, Bertrand Russell, some parsons, BBC an--nouncers, and Oxford dons, But these are idiosyncratic variations and’ not a result* of: the influence of local speech, P.S.E. is not merely free from grammatical solecisms (Educated English is that also) but must conform to certain cadences and intonations. There are certain turns of phrase, clichés even, which are considered desirable, and, more important still, certain words or phrases (e.g., "serviette" for "table napkin") considered quite damning. Many speakers of Educated English on the other hand, though grammatically correct and free from the broader pronunciations of dialect, do betray their ‘place of origin in their speech. No one could fail to recognise Col. Walter Elliott, M.P., or Professor Gryffyd, M.P., as Scottish or Welsh respectively, any more than BBC commentators like Alistair Cook, Joseph Harsch, and Raymond could be anything but "American. Yet all of them speak "Educated English." If the speech of such diverse speakers as the above is to be

called standard then the standard must be very elastic indeed. It is not only that there must be considerable differences of accent, pronunciation and cadence, but also of idiom. Let us in New Zealand not worry about Standard or P.S. English, Let us teach our children Educated New Zealand English with emphasis on good grammar, clear articulation from, well-opened lips, pure vowels (we- ought to be able, for example, to improve on the horrible New Zealand and P.S.E. "O") and pure diphthongs. Let cadence and intonation look after themselves. S

R. G. B.

LAWSON

(Kerikeri).