Should this be a Standard English only forum?

Originally Posted by Flash

Yes, I know. If they speak with an accent or use English which may seem strange to natives it's just because their English is not perfect. My family have been living in Canada for over 30 years, so their English is perfect. It must be! Where have you been? You seem to have visited a lot of countries to be able to claim that you cannot argue well enough unless you have experienced much.

<You seem to have visited a lot of countries to be able to claim that you cannot argue well enough unless you have experienced much.>

And you seem to be looking for a sparring partner. I said that if you base your experience of regionalisms and learners on only ONE Italian family, your argument is weak.

[Francois]

The academic debates are beyond my grasp, but it seems to stir up quite a bit of misunderstanding and tensions. I guess it's fine if your audience can handle your regionalisms, which is far from granted on this forum, but that's just my opinion. Though, that would be utterly foolish for me to pass judgment on regional usage -- this is more of a question for the natives I guess. Just don't get offended by the "????" of the ESL speakers.

FRC

[Mags]

Oh Really M8 Stop being so argumentative.I agree with Flash as people who live in India (some of them) have been taught English as American Engish EG color instead of colour.
If you fall into regionalisationing then I was taught "The Queens English "at school . Being Scottish , I can , when with my Scottish dialect speak a slightly different Eglish. Did you know that there is a Scots Dictionary? TRUE

[Tdol]

I have nothing against the use of regional varieties and don't mind anyone expressing themselves in any way. The only question is to me is whether the other people will understand. Most regional variations will be fairly minimal- expressions, etc. As it stands, we have native speaker posters from many countries and they use their own spelling systems, etc and there are good arguments for exposing learners to examples of regional varieties- they will come across them in the real world.

I have yet to see anyone transcribing the sounds of a regional English here. If they did, they might find it a bit hard to get their message across to many non-native speakers. If someone from an area where they say 'he were' (not as a subjunctive) started using that form, it might cause some confusion to learners, so it would probably be a good idea to let them know it was regional.

Originally Posted by Mags

Oh Really M8 Stop being so argumentative.I agree with Flash as people who live in India (some of them) have been taught English as American Engish EG color instead of colour.
If you fall into regionalisationing then I was taught "The Queens English "at school . Being Scottish , I can , when with my Scottish dialect speak a slightly different Eglish. Did you know that there is a Scots Dictionary? TRUE

If you feel wholly comfortable using the Queen's English here, why not. Each must use what best feel comfortable.

Originally Posted by tdol

I have nothing against the use of regional varieties and don't mind anyone expressing themselves in any way. The only question is to me is whether the other people will understand. Most regional variations will be fairly minimal- expressions, etc. As it stands, we have native speaker posters from many countries and they use their own spelling systems, etc and there are good arguments for exposing learners to examples of regional varieties- they will come across them in the real world.

I have yet to see anyone transcribing the sounds of a regional English here. If they did, they might find it a bit hard to get their message across to many non-native speakers. If someone from an area where they say 'he were' (not as a subjunctive) started using that form, it might cause some confusion to learners, so it would probably be a good idea to let them know it was regional.

I agree. Just wanted to know if any users would prefer a regionalisms ban here. I've come across forums that do have a ban.

[edinohio]

Regarding the original question, I guess that I would agree that we should post using whichever "english" we feel more comfortable with. On the other hand I would like to state that NNES do have regionalisms that end up being unique to a particular group of speakers.
I grew up in a non english-speaking country and I learned BE at school since I was 7. I have friends who were raised bilingual in half british households and we used to speak in english. On the other hand, we have so much influence from the USA that we incorporate a lot of "americanisms" into our speech. I think we ended up having this regional midatlantic english. I have heard myself saying "cheers mate" and "way to go dude" in the same conversation. On top of that we incorporated some expressions that we created just because of where we were living and because of our own culture.
Personally, now that I live in the US my english is more of a mixture. For instance I ended up saying "fuel" since nobody would understand when I said "petrol" and "gas" doesn't quite fit in my vocabulary . The same when it comes to accents.
I guess my point is that whenever a groups of speakers, native or non native go through similar cultural experiences, they end up with some particularities in their speech that originate a regional form of the language.
Cheers
Ed

[Mags]

Edinohoho
I totally agree with you . Sorry if I have misread or offended in anyway

[Tdol]

There's no ban here on regionalisms. People should use what they are happy with and what works. We get a lot of questions from learners who are genuinely trying to come to grips with the stuff they hear in songs, films, conversations, etc, and I don't know the answer to some of the questions about AE regionalisms. There's more to learning English than passing exams, though this is still; the main aim for many.

[Mags]

Thanks TDOL
That explains a lot for me