The Influence of the Spoken Language

Abstract

The various rebellions of the twentieth century sketched out in the short history in chapter 1 have given poets the freedom to try representing their own speech, and that of their communities, without worrying about using Standard English or ‘acceptable’ spelling conventions. It would be wise at this point to consider the nature and definition of Standard English. It is very easy to make simplistic equations between, for example, Standard English and ‘The Queen’s English’ or ‘BBC English’ but the picture worldwide is more complicated than this.