Written English has a certain standard.

We do not normally spell words however we want, make

up our own words or use structures which are grammatically strange since that would make
communication more difficult. In the 15th century, William Caxton was also aware of this issue.
Caxton claims that there’s a lack of an agreed standard in the Middle English period and that
variation occurs at every linguistic level. Caxton's wish for some kind of standard had an economic
dimension. Clearly, it would be very costly to print a different version of a book for every variety
of English. So, Caxton needed to pick one variety of English that was widely understood and was
socially valued.
® Let’s consider some of the possible choices. London has had an enormous influence on the
development of dialects since it had the prestige of being the capital city, the political centre and
the centre administration. By the 15th century, the administrative system needed an efficient
medium for communication, not a language understood by a very small elite. The Chancery or
government scribes adopted a variety of English that was based on London, but with some central
Midland elements, and this variety has been called the CHANCERY STANDARD. The
significance of this is that at that point we have an institution producing masses of paperwork in
one variety of English which is then sent all over the country. Caxton set up his printing press in
Westminster in 1476. His adoption of a London-based variety of English, including some features
of the English of official circles, was the obvious choice.
® The fact that printers, like Caxton, adopted a particular variety of English obviously did much
to promote it. But other factors were involved in the creation of a recognised national standard of
written English. For example, one of the most prestigious domains of written language usage -
religion - was still dominated by an entirely different language, namely Latin. A political move
that led to change here was the Reformation: Henry VIII's split from the Roman Catholic Church
in 1533. One way of challenging the power of the Catholic Church, which operated in Latin
throughout Europe, was to produce texts in English. The first licensed English Bible appeared in
1537 and the Book of Common Prayer in 1549. The most famous English Bible, promoted by
James I, appeared in 1611.What finally fixed the standard in the minds of users was the growth of
dictionaries, grammar books, spelling books, and so on from the These were adopted in schools
and became arbiters of the language. They CODIFIED the standard by offering an authoritative
consensus about what the standard consisted of.
® Now, we need to consider the possibility of a spoken standard. There is not one single accent
used by the majority of speakers. However, we can talk about a prestige form, namely the Queen's
English, BBC English or simply 'talking posh'. Linguists sometimes refer to this accent as
RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION (RP). From the 16th century onwards, a growing number of
writers designated the speech of the upper classes and, in particular, of the court in London as a
prestige form. In the 19th century, this form was firmly established as the accent of the ruling
classes through the public-school system. Two other factors played a role in establishing the
dominance of RP. With the advent of radio broadcasting in the 1920s, the BBC needed to formulate
a policy as to what variety of spoken English they would use, and they chose RP. The second factor
was that RP was codified by British linguists in the 20th century. It is the pronunciation given in
dictionaries of English and taught to foreign learners of British English.
® Today, RP has less authority than it used to have in the first half of the 20th century. People
still strongly associate it with high social status, but it does not have quite the prestige it once had.
MODIFIED RP, a mixture of RP and regional features, is becoming more common. The notion of
'standard' is very problematic. Clearly, the 'standard' in writing is different from the 'standard' in
speech, and what the general public understand by 'standard' may yet be something else.