The myth of ‘proper’ English

First and foremost, there isn’t exactly a ‘proper’ or ‘correct’ way of speaking English. To quote
Betty Birner, the author of “Is English Changing?” Even Standard English is just one of the many
dialects of English. Growing up in an environment where Malaysian English (Manglish) is used
extensively, I do question the use of lexical words like “power/terror” which is used to describe
how great someone is and also the word “slumber”, which is used to describe a person who
appears calm and unconcerned. Words like these, in the Manglish context, have a completely
different meaning compared to the actual definition in Standard English. Before learning about
Sociolinguistics and reading the article written by Birner, I perceived Manglish, not entirely in a
negative light, however, for some reason it doesn’t feel like Manglish is the ‘proper’ or ‘correct’
way of speaking English,what is meant by ‘proper’ & ‘correct’ refers to the Standard English
spoken by native speakers of English in the UK and America. I strongly feel that this article has
helped me increase a degree of awareness about the existence of numerous varieties of the
English language and among many localised varieties of English, Manglish is also one of them.
The misconception of ‘proper’ English is also supported by Oliver Kamm, a British journalist
from TheArticle.com who argues that Standard English just happens to be the dominant variant
of the language, but some people inaccurately view it as ‘proper’ English and that is simply not
true. In parallel with Birner’s claim, Kamm also asserts that Standard English is just one dialect
among many. He also adds that it’s essential to be fluent in Standard English, but not because it
is the ‘proper’ and ‘correct’ form of the language, but because it is useful. In relation to
sociolinguistics, Kamm explains the crux of this issue by saying, “it’s linguistically false and
socially destructive to treat non-Standard varieties of English as inferior forms of the language.”
Those were his exact words and it has truly transformed my perspective on non-standard
varieties of English. I did some self-reflection and realized that the use of Manglish, as part of
the non-standard variety of English, has always been condemned by the people around me,
myself included, despite being our means of communication, and as Mohd Khairul and his
associates claim, Manglish is a language of solidarity among the speakers who speak the
language, it also plays the role as a social identity marker. At the end of the day, Manglish holds
covert prestige, to me and the people around me and the reason for its usage should be
appreciated more, just like how other non-standard varieties of English should be treated. It is
also crucial for schools to not stigmatise and try to “correct” non-Standard English but instead,
convey when its use is appropriate and when it isn’t. To conclude the first issue, the Standard
English may be the dominant variant of the language, however, other localised dialects of
English should never be considered ‘improper’ and ‘wrong’.