A prestige dialect is the dialect spoken by the most prestigious people in a speech community large enough to sustain multiple dialects. The study of prestige in language use is an important are of sociolinguistics.
The most prestigious people are those with the greatest influence on the community. This influence may derive from economic, political, or social power. Prestige is not always overt; covert prestige may be significant too. There may be a tendency to align one's own use of language (idiolect) to that of a favoured dialect (positive prestige), or to move away from a dialect of low esteem (negative prestige). Studies, particularly by Labov, have shown that positive prestige is more often overt, whilst negative prestige is more often covert (avoidance of the unmentionable). Sociologically, women of the lower middle-class are more likely to notice and adopt overt positive prestige. Among working-class men, there may sometimes be a covert preference for negative prestige.
In nations with a colonial history the prestige dialect is often close to the prestige dialect of the colonising community although it may fossilise at the point of secession.
Where creolisation has taken place, the superstrate language operates as an extreme prestige dialect, which may effect great influence, including, in extreme case, the decreolisation of the creole language into the prestige language.
When a prestige dialect is prescribed as the norm by dominant institutions it is also a standard dialect. Broadcast media have been particularly effective at defining standard dialects. In the United Kingdom, the thorough use of a particular prestige dialect in the first decades of broadcasting led to the term BBC English being coined.
According to Wilson, the United States has no single prestige dialect. In practice minority dialects such as ebonics are of lower prestige than the dialect prevalent in network newscasts, federal politics and meetings within nationwide commercial enterprises.
In the United Kingdom, Received Standard Southern British English is the main prestige dialect.
In many parts of the British Commonwealth Standard English is the prestige dialect.
Amongst the Cantonese-speaking community, the prestige dialect is that spoken in Canton. It is widely called Prestige Cantonese. Amongst the Min-speaking community, Amoy is the prestige dialect; it is also called Xiamen.
The prestige dialect of Vietnam is that of Northern Vietnam.
==Notes==Wilson.
References
- Labov, W. (1982). "Objectivity and commitment in linguistic science; the case of the Black English trial in Ann Abor" in Language in Society 11, pp. 165–201
- Wilson, Kenneth G, (1993). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. New York: Columbia University Press