Spoken English and Broken English

 G.B. Shaw starts off by assuming he is addressing the foreign student

of the English.
 He surmises that the reason the foreign student of English language
may labour after learning perfect English is because he wants to speak
it well enough to be understood while travelling anywhere within the
British Commonwealth (i.e. England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales).
 The other two reasons why he might be motivated to learn perfect
English is that he is ashamed of the cockney or provincial dialect
which he speaks as a result of hailing from those areas.
 Sometimes, this may become a hindrance to securing a good job
which requires a person to speak “perfect English.”
 Thus, he may try to hide his provincial dialect because he is ashamed
of it and tries to speak “perfect English”.
 The BBC Committee and why there is no
“perfect English”
 He goes on to say that there exists no such thing as ideally
“correct or perfect English”. This is because no two British
subjects speak exactly alike.
 He then goes on to say that he is the member of a committee
established by the British Broadcasting Corporation for the
purpose of fine-tuning and standardizing the speech of the
radio presenters.
 All the members of the committee, which include the Poet-
Laureate, himself as well as famous British actor Sir Johnston
Forbes Robertson (known for his acting prowess as well as the
beauty of his speech) are men who are distinguished by their
vast knowledge of the English language.
Why Shaw is a member of the committee

As for himself, he had been selected as a

member of the committee because he is not
just a playwright, but also a director of those
plays.
 As such he is accustomed to listening to
various kinds of dialects and pronunciations of
the actors who deliver dialogues on stage.
 He is also a skilled public speaker of long
experience.
 Why ideally correct English does not exist
 That committee knows as much about the English language as anyone, but
they still would not be able to agree upon the correct way to pronounce the
two simplest English words: yes and no.
 No two members can pronounce them exactly alike because they come from
all parts of Britain. All of them are distinguished by their typical accent- Irish,
Scottish, Oxonian, and so on.
 They all speak English well enough to be understood in anywhere in the world.
 Thus, none of them can be taken as the model of “perfect or correct English”.
 They also speak English in a cultivated way, that differentiates them from an
ignorant or illiterate person.
 This is what he means by “presentable or good English”- the type of standard
English which is understandable to all people.
 Thus, there is no such thing as ideally correct English.
 How manner of speaking varies according
to audience
 He says that the kind of English he himself speaks varies
according to the person or people he is addressing.
 As he addresses thousands of gramophonists in this
lecture (the essay is a monograph from a lecture
delivered by him to a gallery full of gramophonists), he
says that he has to keep in mind several things.
 Gramophonists would try to follow every word, every
syllable carefully. Hence he has to speak to them
carefully, taking pauses, modulating his voice, making
sure it reaches even those seated at the very back of
the hall.
 How he speaks to his wife
However, if he were to speak to his wife in
such a manner, she would think he had gone
mad.
Sitting within six feet distance of her, his
English is careless, casual and informal when
addressing his wife.
Thus, the way one speaks English, varies
according to the people one is addressing.
 Company manners vs. Home manners
 This brings him to his discussion about company and home manners.
 The way a person addresses members of his family is informal, casual
and careless. These are his home manners.
 However, his way of speaking changes once there are guests or
company at home.
 It becomes formal, careful, business-like and proper, following
certain codes of behaviour and social interaction. These are his
company manners.
 It is enough to just say “cloxst!” if he needs to ask his wife the time
because she is habituated to his informal, rapid English.
 However, if he were to ask a stranger the same question, it would
have to be framed out as “What o’clock is it?”.
 Why one should speak broken English
 He then goes on to specifically address foreign
students of the English language.
 He says that those trying to learn perfect English
because they wish to travel in Britain should give up
those attempts.
 Because if they try to speak perfectly, no one will
understand them.
 He then goes on to say that most Londoners speak
very bad English themselves. But they can
understand when a native speaks standard English.
 Merits of Broken English
 But a foreigner trying to mimick “perfect English” makes things nearly
impossible to understand since the foreigner can never stress the
syllables or make the voice rise and fall while speaking exactly as a
native does.
 Thus, the first thing he asks the foreign student of the English language
to do is to speak “broken English” : that is, English without any grammar,
and to speak with a “strong foreign accent”.
 This ensures that every native the foreigner addresses immediately
knows that he is a foreigner because of his accent and broken English
and tries hard to help him.
 The native will not expect the foreigner to use elaborate grammatical
phrases but will only be interested in him because he is a foreigner.
 He will also be pleased by his cleverness to help out a foreigner
successfully.
The danger from speaking perfect English
 If a foreigner tries to speak perfectly, with elaborate grammar,
he may be suspected by the native to be a confidence
trickster.
 A confidence trickster is a person who cheats other people by
gaining their trust and tricks them into believing something
that is not true.
 If someone asks for directions to Charing Cross station in
London using very convoluted language, they may be
suspected of being a fraud.
 But a simple “Please! Charing Cross! Which way! will serve the
purpose beautifully and many people will immediately offer to
help.
 Pedantic Affectation
 He ends the essay by asking foreign students to apply this approach
while learning just about any foreign language.
 Even among natives, to speak the native language too well is considered
to be pedantic affection- a way to show off one’s learning of obscure,
bombastic words, and formal rules of grammar in an artificial way.
 A pendant is a person who tries to show off their obscure learning in a
boastful way. Such people usually appear to be artificial or fake. Such an
approach can be termed as “pedantic affection”.
 A foreigner trying to mimic the supposedly “perfect English” of the
natives might be accused of having the same attitude.
 When such an approach is adopted by a foreigner, it is an insult to the
native who cannot understand his own native language when it is too
well spoken.