Standard language

A standard language is a widely spread linguistic variety, and generally understood by all speakers of the same language, being frequently the form used in formal education and the most widely used by the media Communication. Also called linguistic standard or standard variety. It should not be confused with linguistic norm, written language or literary language.

In many cases, but not always, the standard form may be a language planned from the diasystem of a language, in order to obtain a unitary language model for teaching, official uses and written and formal uses, which in turn allows the political and social cohesion of the territory where it is the official language.

The standardization process is included in the part of the linguistic policy related to the formal modeling of a language, the assignment of a legal and administrative status, and the promotion of its acquisition, known in sociolinguistics as language planning.

Standardization process

The standardization process requires selecting certain features of the diasystem to be standardized, according to the application of restrictive screening criteria. It also requires the formalization and consensus of certain forms that can be used as a convention that marks the limits of what is considered and what is not considered forms of the standard variety. Some non-exclusive characteristics that usually identify a standard variety are:

• A writing system that sets the orthographic conventions that will be used to write the language and fix common and stable forms.
• A dictionary or group of standard dictionaries, which corporates a vocabulary and will use the previously defined standardized spelling.
• A recognized prescriptive grammar that records the forms, rules and structures of language and recommends certain forms and punishes others.
• A standard pronunciation system, which is regarded as "educated" or "appropriate" by the speakers and is considered free of regional markers.
• An institution or people that promote the use of the language and possess certain authority, formal or informal, in the definition of its rules of use, such as, in the case of the Spanish language, is the Association of Spanish Language Academys, which presides the Royal Spanish Academy.
• A statute or constitution that gives it an official state in the legal system of a country.
• The use of language in public life, for example in the judiciary and the legislature.
• A literary canon.
• Translation into the language of sacred texts, like the Bible.
• School teaching of standardized spelling and grammar.
• The preference of this particular variety, above other varieties mutually understandable with the previous one, for learning the language as a second language.

When the standard is the official teaching language, there may be a coercive political regulation, which makes it necessary to apply it exclusively in the educational field. For example, the Moyano Law of Public Instruction, promulgated in 1857, in its article 88, established that "The Grammar and Spelling of the Spanish Academy will be mandatory and unique text for these subjects in public education [in Spain]".

Standardization typologies

For standardization, one or more of the following types of varieties of a diasystem are usually selected at a given historical moment:

1. Sociolectal varieties.
2. Functional varieties.
3. Geolectal varieties.

From among the various sociolectal varieties, it is common to select the variety of cultural, social, economic, and political elites, also called prestige varieties. Among the various functional varieties, or registers, for grammatical and lexical codification, it is common to select the variety that is most fixed and traditionally related to the uses of educated social classes (and at the same time closest to the standard): the written language. Among the various geolectal varieties, it is common to select the variety of the geographical area where the political or economic power of a country or linguistic region is located.

Depending on the geographical variety(s) that serve as the basis for the standard, there are three types of standard: monocentric unitary, polycentric unitary (or compositional) and pluricentric:

• His name is monocentric unit standard a developed by a single regulatory body, for which it selects a single geographical variety. Until the application of the new Pan-Hispanic linguistic policy, the Spanish standard was monocentric. In addition to selecting a single geographical variety (north-nine apple), it was also made from the written record of the culte classes.
• His name is unit standard polycentric (or compositional) the one developed by a single normative body or by a coordinated body of normative organisms, which selects and merges some or all geographical varieties of the same diasystem. This is the case of the new polycentric Pan-Hispanic standard of Spanish, formed from the selection of culte varieties and preferably from written records of the whole Spanish speaking field, or also that of the unified Basque, or euskera batúa.
• It's called multicentered standards to the different standards developed by different organisms, from the same linguistic diasystem. This is the case of the Catalan language, which adds to the original polycentric unit standard, or compositional standard (based on all the geographical varieties of Catalan), a new polycentric unit standard developed only from the cultas varieties spoken in the Valencian Community.

Characteristics of standards

The standard variety must be known, shared and accepted by the linguistic community to fulfill its tasks, since its objective is to become a variety that overcomes diversity, a utilitarian common language.

Standards, as elaborate, constrained, and fixed languages, cannot be considered natural variants of a language. In addition, as artifices that they are, conventionally formed by linguistic planning agents (linguistic authorities: academies [for Spanish, the RAE and the 22 academies of associated Hispanic countries (the American, Filipino and Equatorial Guinean) or grammarians, spellers and lexicographers normativistas), are not created by social convention of a community of speakers, but as a consequence of an express action on the language.

As fixed language models, they have minimal internal variation and are not subject to the natural laws of language change. To mutate, it is necessary for a normalizing agent to modify them expressly, often to adapt them to the changes that have settled in the natural language or to adapt them to new political, educational, economic or social needs.

As elaborate, artificial language models, they are learned after long years of instruction. Thus, the standard of Spanish, as a supradialectal norm, is not a dialect of Spanish, nor a diasystem. Neither is it a social norm or usual norm, understanding by usual norm the particular way of using the language in a certain group, be it social, geographical or functional. If it were a usual norm, there would be a multitude of standards, since «“There will be as many 'norms' as dialects and sociolects can be identified. Since such 'norms' are the speech of certain socially delimited collectivities, each individual will have a 'norm' according to the dialectal approach that is applied to him."

Apart from the standard or official standards of a language, the mass media (press, radio, television and publishers) can create their own standards, according to their own communication needs and the specific characteristics of the target groups of speakers. These particular standards are collected in the style books of each medium. Linguistic features of the diasystem may be present in these standards that are not recognized in the official standard.

Standard and linguistic conflict

The creation of a standard language often represents the triumph of a certain functional, geolectal or sociolectal variety. Their selection usually causes other varieties that differ from the standard to lose social prestige. For this reason, in some countries, the selection of a standard language can generate a social and political conflict, as it is understood as an exclusive attitude. In Norwegian, for example: there are two parallel standards, bokmål, based partly on the local pronunciation of Danish at the time Denmark ruled Norway, and nynorsk, based in western Norwegian dialect forms. For its part, Italian includes dialects whose variation is greater than that exhibited by the two versions of Norwegian.

Standard varieties of modern languages

Standard Italian, for example, derives from the literary vernacular variant used in Florence during the Middle Ages (also known as toscano letterario), and adopted as an administrative and literary language, beginning in the 18th century. 16th century and in mainly written form, in all the former pre-unit Italian states. Standard German is not based on a specific city or region but has been developed in a process that lasted several hundred years, during which writers tried to express themselves in such a way as to be understood in as wide an area as possible. Until the beginning of the 19th century, Standard German was an exclusively written language, learned almost like a foreign language by the inhabitants of the north of the country, whose dialects were very different. The result was that these speakers tried to pronounce Standard German by carefully following the spelling; this form of speech later spread to the south.

Other standard languages have fewer complications. In British English, the standard pronunciation (Received Pronunciation) is based on the sociolect of private boarding schools. In America, the standard approximates the northern dialects of the Midwest.