Non-Standard Grammar

Non-Standard Grammar

One of the foundational principles of A-Level English Language is that there is no single "correct" form of English grammar in any absolute, linguistic sense. What a society treats as "correct" or "standard" is a matter of social convention and prestige, not of inherent linguistic superiority. Every dialect of English — regional, social or ethnic — has its own internally consistent, rule-governed grammatical system; non-standard forms are not failed attempts at the standard but the regular output of a different set of rules. For AQA 7702, where grammar is a method integrated across Paper 1, Paper 2 and the NEA, you must be able to identify non-standard grammatical features, explain how they work, and analyse them descriptively and without prejudice. Naming a feature secures AO1 (terminology), within the full grid of AO1 26 · AO2 26 · AO3 23 · AO4 15 · AO5 10; but this topic is also where AO2 (understanding linguistic concepts and issues, including the descriptivism–prescriptivism debate) and AO3 (the influence of contextual factors such as region, class and identity) become central. The single most important anchor is the linguist Peter Trudgill's insistence that "Standard English is itself a dialect" — one variety among many, distinguished by social status rather than correctness.

Standard English and Non-Standard English

Standard English (SE) is the prestige variety used in education, government, law, the media and most published writing. The crucial conceptual point, easily muddled, is that Standard English is a dialect, not an accent. A dialect is defined by its grammar and vocabulary; an accent is purely a matter of pronunciation. Standard English can therefore be spoken in any accent — in Received Pronunciation, in a Geordie accent, in a Scottish accent — because accent and dialect are independent dimensions of variation. Confusing the two (assuming, say, that a regional accent means non-standard grammar) is a common and damaging error.

Key Definition: Standard English is the prestige dialect of English used in formal, institutional and published contexts, defined by its grammar and vocabulary rather than by accent. It is not inherently "better" or more "correct" than non-standard dialects; it has acquired its status through social, political and historical forces — the rise of printing, the codification of the language in dictionaries and grammars, mass education and centralised government — that elevated one regional variety (broadly that of the East Midlands and London) into a national standard. As Trudgill argues, it is simply the dialect that happens to carry prestige.

Non-Standard English (NSE) is any variety whose grammar or vocabulary differs from Standard English. The defining claim of modern sociolinguistics is that non-standard features are systematic and rule-governed, not random "mistakes": a speaker who says we was does so consistently, according to the agreement rules of their dialect, just as a Standard English speaker consistently says we were. They are features of a dialect — a regional or social variety — and the work of the analyst is to describe them, not to correct them.

Descriptivism vs. Prescriptivism

This topic cannot be discussed without the debate that frames it. Prescriptivism is the view that there are correct and incorrect forms of language and that the correct (standard) forms should be upheld and the rest condemned as errors or signs of laziness or ignorance. Descriptivism, the position of academic linguistics, holds that the linguist's task is to describe how language is actually used by its speakers, without value judgement, and that all dialects are equally valid, rule-governed systems. The whole analytical stance of this lesson is descriptivist: you describe a non-standard form, explain how it differs from the SE equivalent and what it does for the speaker, and you never label it "wrong". Being able to discuss the prescriptivism–descriptivism opposition explicitly — and to recognise prescriptivist attitudes when a text expresses them — is itself a key AO2 skill.

Common Non-Standard Grammatical Features

What follows is a working catalogue of widespread non-standard grammatical features in British English dialects. For each, learn the feature, the Standard English equivalent, and at least a rough sense of where or among whom it occurs, so you can describe rather than merely spot it.

Verb Forms

• Non-standard past tense and participle forms: I done it (SE: I did it); She seen him (SE: She saw him); We come home late (SE: We came home late). These typically use a past-participle form where SE uses the simple past, or level the two forms together — a systematic simplification of English's irregular verb paradigms, not a random slip.
• Non-standard subject–verb agreement: We was there (SE: We were there); They was happy. Many dialects level the be paradigm — generalising was across all persons, or in some northern varieties generalising were (I were going, he were late). This is regularisation: replacing an irregular split (was/were) with a single consistent form.
• Non-standard ain't: a single negative form covering be, have and sometimes do: I ain't going (SE: I'm not going); She ain't got any (SE: She hasn't got any). Ain't is extremely widespread across British and American dialects and is one of the most stigmatised — yet most systematic — non-standard forms.
• Non-standard do as a habitual marker: in some South West dialects, do marks habitual aspect: He do go there every day (meaning he goes there regularly). This expresses a meaning — habituality — that Standard English has no dedicated grammatical form for, illustrating that dialects can be grammatically richer than the standard in particular respects.

Negation

• Multiple negation (negative concord): I don't know nothing (SE: I don't know anything); She never said nothing to nobody (three negatives). Prescriptivists object that "two negatives cancel out" — but that is a borrowing of a rule from formal logic and Latin, not a fact about English dialects, where the additional negatives reinforce rather than cancel the negation. The technical term is negative concord: the negation is marked redundantly across several elements, exactly as it is in many of the world's languages (and in French ne...pas...rien). Critically, multiple negation was standard in Old and Middle English, so its present stigma is a historical accident, not a logical necessity.
• Never as a past-tense negator: I never did it (SE: I didn't do it) — denying a single specific past action rather than meaning "at no time in my life". The dialect never here is functionally equivalent to SE didn't, not to the universal-time never.

Key Definition: Negative concord (multiple negation) is a grammatical system in which two or more negative elements within a clause combine to express a single negation, each reinforcing rather than cancelling the others. It is the regular pattern in many non-standard English dialects, was standard in earlier English, and is common cross-linguistically — strong evidence that it is a legitimate, rule-governed feature rather than a logical error.

Pronouns and Determiners

• Non-standard demonstratives: them books (SE: those books) — the form them used as a demonstrative determiner. This is one of the most widespread non-standard features in England.
• Non-standard relative pronouns: the man what came (SE: the man who came); the thing as I told you about. Dialects regularly use what, as or zero where SE uses who/which/that.
• Regularised reflexive pronouns: hisself (SE: himself); theirselves (SE: themselves). These are arguably more regular than the standard forms, since they build every reflexive transparently on the possessive (my-self, your-self, his-self, their-selves), whereas Standard English inconsistently switches to the object form for himself/themselves.
• Second-person plural pronouns: youse (Liverpool, Scotland, Ireland), y'all (American South), you lot (informal British), yinz (Pittsburgh). Standard English lost its singular/plural you distinction (the old thou/you contrast) and so has no dedicated plural; these dialect forms fill a genuine gap in the standard system, again showing dialects supplying distinctions SE lacks.

Other Widespread Features

• Adjective forms used as adverbs: she ran quick (SE: quickly); he did it proper (SE: properly). The -ly suffix is variably dropped — historically, many such adverbs lacked it.
• Preposition variation: I went round the shop; different to versus different from/than.
• Non-standard sat and stood: she was sat on the bench (SE: sitting); he was stood in the doorway (SE: standing). These past-participle-for-progressive forms are now so widespread in British English, across class and region, that they are arguably entering the standard — a useful live example of language change in progress.

Researching Real Dialect Grammar: Cheshire and Trudgill

Two genuine, citable studies anchor this topic and protect you from vague generalisation. Jenny Cheshire's research on the dialect grammar of adolescents in Reading documented non-standard features — non-standard -s on verbs, multiple negation, ain't, non-standard what as a relative — as systematic, rule-governed parts of the children's grammar, and showed that their use correlated with the degree to which speakers were integrated into vernacular peer-group culture: the more a child was embedded in the local youth culture, the more consistently they used the dialect forms, demonstrating that non-standard grammar carries social meaning and identity, not deficiency. Peter Trudgill's Norwich study similarly showed that the frequency of non-standard features correlated with social class and was sensitive to the formality of the context, with all speakers using more standard forms in more careful styles. You can cite these by name and broad finding; do not invent figures, dates or details you are unsure of, as fabricated attribution is penalised.

Eye Dialect

Eye dialect is a written technique that uses non-standard spelling to suggest non-standard or colloquial speech — even when the spelling represents a pronunciation that does not actually differ from the standard. The term was coined by the American linguist George Philip Krapp.

• sez for says; woz for was; enuff for enough; wimmin for women

The key analytical point is that the spelling sez represents exactly how almost everyone pronounces says — so the non-standard spelling does not record a real difference in speech; it signals, to the eye, that the speaker is to be read as uneducated or low-status. Eye dialect can serve legitimate ends — establishing a character's voice or region, or creating informality — but it can also be used pejoratively, to mock or stigmatise speakers of non-standard varieties. Analysing it therefore demands sensitivity to its ideological loading: ask whose speech is rendered in eye dialect and whose is left in standard spelling, since the choice often encodes a hierarchy of prestige.

Code-Switching

Code-switching is the practice of alternating between two or more language varieties within a single conversation, utterance or text — between Standard English and a regional dialect, between two languages, or between formal and informal registers:

• Situational code-switching: changing variety according to the social setting — Standard English at work, dialect at home or with friends.
• Metaphorical code-switching: changing variety within a single interaction for communicative effect — slipping into dialect for humour, solidarity or emphasis, then back to the standard for a serious or formal point.

Far from being a sign of confusion or incompetence, code-switching demonstrates speakers' sophisticated linguistic competence: it requires fluent command of more than one grammatical system and the social skill to deploy each appropriately. It is also a powerful resource for constructing and signalling identity — a recurring AO3 concern.

Sociolectal Variation

A sociolect is a variety of language associated with a particular social group, defined by class, age, gender, ethnicity or occupation. Non-standard grammatical features frequently correlate with such social variables:

• Social class: Trudgill's Norwich study found that the frequency of non-standard features (such as the non-standard third-person -s, multiple negation and ain't) correlated with social class, working-class speakers using more non-standard forms, and that all speakers shifted towards the standard as the situation became more formal.
• Age: some non-standard features cluster among younger speakers — for instance the quotative be like (She was like, "no way!"), a relatively recent innovation for reporting speech and inner thought — while other forms are receding among the young, making age a window onto change in progress.
• Gender: studies including Trudgill's have found that, in comparable conditions, women often use a higher proportion of standard forms than men of the same class and region, though this is context-dependent and much debated; it should be presented as a tendency, not a law, and never essentialised.

Historical Non-Standard Forms

A powerful argument against the prescriptivist stance is that many features now branded "non-standard" were once perfectly standard:

• Multiple negation was standard in Old and Middle English. Chaucer's portrait of the Knight piles up negatives approvingly: He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde / In al his lyf unto no maner wight — multiple negation in the mouth of his most admired character.
• The aspectual prefix a- (a-going, a-hunting) survives in some dialects but was once widespread in the standard.
• Thou/thee, now confined to a few northern dialects and to archaic or religious registers, were once the ordinary singular second-person pronouns of everyone.

The historical dimension drives home the central lesson: what counts as "standard" is historically contingent and constantly changing, so today's stigmatised form may be tomorrow's standard, and yesterday's standard is today's dialect relic.

The Analytical Method

To analyse non-standard grammar rigorously, follow four moves, the first of which is an attitude. (1) Adopt a descriptive stance — never "incorrect", "wrong" or "lazy"; always "a feature of X dialect/sociolect". (2) Identify the feature precisely and name the Standard English equivalent, so the difference is explicit (e.g. "negative concord, where SE uses single negation with any"). (3) Explain how it works as a system — what rule it follows, and ideally where or among whom it occurs, citing Trudgill or Cheshire where apt. (4) Analyse its function and context — what it reveals about the speaker's regional or social identity, its solidarity or in-group value, and, if the feature appears in a written text, whether it is used authentically or stereotypically. This last point is where AO2 and AO3 marks concentrate.

Model Answer Paragraph

Task: Analyse the non-standard grammatical features in this line of reported speech from a regional speaker: "We never done nothing wrong, and them lot what come round here, they was the ones causing trouble."