Dictionary

nonstandard variety en · NOUN

Meanings

1. Any form or dialect of a language that deviates from the established standard.
   • Geneva Tisdale speaks a nonstandard variety of English that is spoken by many black people in the South and throughout the United States. 2001, Maurice Cogan Hauck, Kenneth MacDougall, David Isay, Twelve American Voices, An Authentic Listening and Integrated-Skills Textbook, page 106:
   • Finally, many children speak a nonstandard variety of their native language even though they understand the standard variety, which is the language of wider communication. 1975, United States Commission on Civil Rights, A Better Chance to Learn - Bilingual Bicultural Education, Volume 51, page 112:
   • Clearly, however, children who speak a nonstandard variety encounter a different set of problems from those who do not, and the extent to which this affects their educational progress will depend on whether the teacher recognizes the nature of the problem. 1984, Peter Trudgill (author), Language in the British Isles, page 553:
   • It is important to remember that the so-called English speakers came predominantly from areas where nonstandard varieties of English were spoken, either in the British Isles, the Caribbean, or North America. 2015, Daniel Schreier, Edgar W. Schneider, Jeffrey P. Williams, Peter Trudgill (editors), Further Studies in the Lesser-Known Varieties of English, page 201:
   • The contents of this booklet are the results of a unified effort by experienced teachers and sociolinguists to "help students whose native tongue is a nonstandard variety of English." 1969, Educational Research Information Center (U.S.), Educational Resources Information Center (U.S.) (contributors), “Nonstandard Dialect”, in Research in Education, volume 4, page 20:
   • Also it has been shown that nonstandard varieties may be typologically “more well-behaved” than the standard varieties with regard to typological hierarchies. 2012, Elizabeth Closs Traugott, Terttu Nevalainen (editors), The Oxford Handbook of the History of English, page 613:
   • That we refer to a certain type of language as “nonstandard” presupposes that there is a standard language against which this nonstandard variety can be judged. 1999, Gunnel Melchers, Irma Taavitsainen, Päivi Pahta, Writing in Nonstandard English, page 123:
   • Even if there is not a variety of English spoken exclusively by Negroes, the fact is the great majority of culturally disadvantaged Negro pupils speak a nonstandard variety of English. 1977, Glendon F. Drake, The Role of Prescriptivism in American Linguistics 1820–1970, page 80:

Forms

Antonyms

standard language

Synonyms

vernacular variety