'Standardization: Myth or Reality?'

Abstract:     
This paper deals with the problems of standardization in connection with the industrialized or technocratic society, where one externalized linguistic variety is selected, appropriated, codified and approximated at the 'cost' of 'other' 'defeated' and 'captive' varieties (so-called dialect) within the stipulated boundary of an imagined linguistic nation state. By taking cue from Ray, P. (1968), the author shows that the term 'standard (tool)' is a term used in the technocratic market economy and it is borrowed in the realm of linguistic epistemology along with other terms like, 'language management', 'language development', 'language planning' etc. The author also shows, by analyzing the discourse of Labov (1972), the commoditization of externalized linguistic varieties in the all-pervading market economy. The author further extended the problems of standardization in the domain of grammaticalization as grammar, as a school textbook, a packaged commodity or a tool for linguistic colonization, extends and transmits a particular selected standard variety by captivating 'other' varieties. The process of standardization, in the context of print capitalistic nation building process, helps to create internal colonies as captive speakers of peripheral varieties or 'dialects' are colonized by the 'standard' variety. The author uses the term 'myth' in the Bertheian sense of the term to refer to something, which is at a time 'true and unreal'. Standardization is a 'truth' of a particular ideology and it is 'unreal' in the context of freedom of creative speaking subject.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 10

Keywords: commoditization, grammaticalization, standard tool in industrialized society

Accepted Paper Series