Banning Slang In School Debate

Plan B (Live Once Lyrics); ‘I’m from the east end with peeps, used to speak cockneyNow its multicultural no one speaks properly,Rhyming slang was invented on the docks to put a block on policeNow the docks ain’t there and no one cares ‘cus they shottin' BBut still talking code like morse, it ain’t no mockerny,But educated people still see it as a mockery,That’s why they use our slang against us to be derogatory ….’

Plan B refers to multiculturalism leading to colloquialisms and slang, will the growth of borrowings and code switching informalise the language (Fairclough)? Or will it have the reverse affect, for example their are 1.5 billion English speakers globally of which 75% use it as a second language, they will most likely learn it in its standard form (as we are taught foreign languages) so will this not lead to formalisation? 

Workers in the London Docklands used rhyming slang to confuse prying police officers. An example is “brown bread” meaning “dead”. This was so effective that a translation had to be published in law enforcement manuals. For your own translation, see Smiley Culture’s “Cockney Translation” Smiley Culture - Cockney Translation

Mockney is an artificial, affected accent used by some privileged Londoners to feign working class origins. Linking with Giles's accommodation theory.

‘It's yes not aye, it's child not bairn, it's nothing not nowt.

It is I'm going home and not Am gannin yem.

It's not howay it's come along.’

Policing children’s language encourages them to think nonstandard English is substandard. Linguistic diversity should be celebrated, not banned – Stan Carey

On the one hand (prescriptive):

• 'Ongar Academy says it’s not banning words, but “evolving” its pupils’ speech – a description with classist implications.' 
• Slang is a result of society and yet despised by society and used as a classification tool to group social classes (Grant describes this as stemming from those brought up with 'ivory tower, rolls-royce humanity's education)
• Slang was the talk of the working class
• Bidialectalism. : facility in using two dialects of the same language; also : the teaching of Standard English to pupils who normally use a nonstandard dialect.
• Regard standard English as desirable 
• Accentism suggests that certain accents impose an aura of intelligence and that RP suggests to an audience that the speaker holds high levels of education whereas slang presents an image of lacking knowledge (it is said that within an interview the decision in made within the first three seconds)
• Synchronic attitude to ban language to create immediate change, as with political correctness

On the flip side (descriptive):

• • Idiosyncrasy a mode of behaviour or way of thought peculiar to an individual - communicating with someone on their level will aid their learning (much like Bruner's idea of local topic & Vygotsky's assimilation) links to the idea of inner monologue (inate speech, that is more internalised with age - Freud)
  • We teach children using diminutive forms so we are cultivating idiosyncrasy from the beginning and encouraging colloquialisms
  • The ability to code-switch according to context, call upon skills such as bidialect & cultural relativism 
  • The interactionalist, developmentalist and behavourist theories of language learning would support the use of slang as it is the state in which language is first learnt
  • Montessori methods encourage children to use their own language to explore, making these connections is said to deepen understanding (prescribing standard English will inhabit progress as the emphasis shifts)
  • Aitchison's Development Process involves 'packaging' and 'network building' which appreciate polysemes (much of which originate from slang)
  • Does slang develop language? for example, additions to the dictionary often start on the street and are deemed colloquial until their are defined in the dictionary and ease their way into more formal publications over time e.g, 2015 added 'wine o'clock' which is easing its way onto advertisement 
  • James Sledd once wrote: “To use slang is to deny allegiance to the existing order … by refusing even the words which represent convention and signal status.” 
  •  Sociolinguist Julia Snell argues that “to learn and develop, children must participate actively in classroom discussion; they must think out loud, answer and ask questions”. When the focus is on the forms of speech instead of its content, she writes, “children may simply remain silent in order to avoid the shame of speaking ‘incorrectly’, and miss the interactions crucial to learning”.