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Don’t ditch standard English. Teach it better
提高标准英语的教学品质，不要无视它
Teaching English as a first language is not easy—many youngsters leave school feeling they never quite mastered its finer points. Recently some commentators have been wondering whether the standard version of English really deserves to be singled out as “proper” and worthy of teaching at all. The debate they set off has been unedifying because of entrenched views that have as much to do with politics as with language.
把英语作为第一语言进行教授并不容易，很多年轻人在离开学校时觉得自己从未完全掌握英语的精髓。最近一些评论人士提出质疑，标准英语是否真的值得被认为是“恰当的”，它到底值不值得教授。由于他们根深蒂固的观点受政治因素影响，当然也和语言本身有关，所以他们引起的争论是无益于教化的。
Speaking recently to the Daily Telegraph, Willem Hollmann of Lancaster University argued that standard English is not uniquely “correct”. This view is common among linguists. Today’s standard English just happens to descend from the dialect prevailing near the seats of power (London) and learning (Oxford and Cambridge) at the critical time when printing took off. It uses “you were”, and not “you was”, only because that dialect did so—not because “you were” is more logical. (If standard English were logical, “to be” would have a single past-tense form, as every other verb does.)
兰卡斯特大学(Lancaster University)的威廉•霍尔曼(Willem Hollmann)近期在接受《每日电讯报》(Daily Telegraph)采访时表示，标准英语并非唯一“标准”的英语。这种观点在语言学家中很普遍。如今的标准英语，恰好在印刷术兴起的关键时期，在英国权力中心(伦敦)和教育学术中心(牛津和剑桥)附近流行的方言演变而来的。它用的是“you were”，而不是“you was”，因为这种方言就是这么说的，而不是因为“you were”更符合逻辑。(如果标准英语符合逻辑的话，“to be”就会像所有其他动词一样，只有一个过去式。)
Linguists know perfectly well, though, that standard English does have a social superiority, if not a grammatical one. It is the language of serious writing (including Linguistics Journals) and formal speech. It binds together Dorset, Kent, Yorkshire and London, as well as Alabama, Massachusetts and California. It can be spoken with any accent, allowing a speaker from Belfast to talk to one from Johannesburg or Auckland with little misunderstanding.
然而，语言学家们非常清楚，标准英语虽然没有语法优势，但确实社会地位更胜一筹。正式写作（包括语言学期刊）以及正式演讲都会使用这种语言。它将各种不同口音的地区紧密联系在一起，无论是多塞特、肯特、约克郡、伦敦，还是阿拉巴马州、马萨诸塞州或是加利福尼亚州。无论是任何口音，都可以用它交流，就算来自贝尔法斯特的人和来自约翰内斯堡或奥克兰的人交流也几乎不存在障碍。
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