nonstandard variety

English

Noun

nonstandard variety (plural nonstandard varieties)

  1. (sociolinguistics) Any form or dialect of a language that deviates from the established standard.
    Synonym: vernacular variety
    Antonym: standard variety
    • 1975, United States Commission on Civil Rights, A Better Chance to Learn - Bilingual Bicultural Education, Volume 51, page 112:
      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.
    • 1977, Glendon F. Drake, The Role of Prescriptivism in American Linguistics 1820–1970, page 80:
      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.
    • 1999, Gunnel Melchers, Irma Taavitsainen, Päivi Pahta, Writing in Nonstandard English, page 123:
      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.
    • 2001, Maurice Cogan Hauck, Kenneth MacDougall, David Isay, Twelve American Voices, An Authentic Listening and Integrated-Skills Textbook, page 106:
      Geneva Tisdale speaks a nonstandard variety of English that is spoken by many black people in the South and throughout the United States.
    • 2015, Daniel Schreier, Edgar W. Schneider, Jeffrey P. Williams, Peter Trudgill (editors), Further Studies in the Lesser-Known Varieties of English, page 201:
      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.
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