The Standarization Process Of English

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THE STANDARIZATION PROCESS The standarization process of the English language has permited, since its birth and during its development, the “creation of a relatively focussed variety of the English language which is used as the written medium and as a medium felt to be appropiate to formal contexts.” The history of this process begins before the Norman Conquest, with the West Saxon dialect. This became the official language of the crown and it rested prestige to Latin, which was the language of the church and the scholarship: so the high language. The fact is that West Saxon adopted some of the functions of Latin because due to the Government influence as it played an important role in this. Moreover, in the Xth C. a written literature emerged from this society, which tended to be an oral litarary traditional one. However, after this diglossic situation it became a turning point when, in 1066, the Norman Conquest introduced the French language and, therefore, it changed to be a triglossic society. In that moment, French and Latin were the higher languages and English regressed to a lower counterpart. This trilingualism could remind the division of a Medieval society in the three estates. Later on, in the Middle English another standarization process began. It is essetial to mention here the book Authority in Language (1991), by Lesley and James Milroy. They both define standarization as “the suppression of optional variability in language, observing that ‘the various stages that are usually involved in the development of a standard language may be described as a consequence of a need for uniformity that is felt by influentional portions of society at a given time’ (1991: 27).” So, according to the Milroys, there are seven stages in the implementation of the development of the standarization process: Firstly, the selection; as an example of this, we can
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