In a recent item largely addressing using dialect in writing, author Elizabeth Bear asserted the following:
...standard or "proper" English is a social construct intended as a measure of class control and segregation. It doesn't exist as a real, unconstructed thing. The linguist's viewpoint is that "correct" language is any language as spoken by a fluent native speaker. The end.
I'm a little fascinated by the suggestion that "proper English" is directly related to class discrimination, but I haven't been able to find much to support the idea via Google (mostly I get guides to proper English).
I've certainly seen some of this anecdotally: I have acquaintances that have directly asserted the people that mispronounce certain words (particularly "nuclear" as "nuke-you-ler" or "ask" as "axe") are less intelligent than people that pronounce such words correctly.
Is Ms. Bear's assertion correct? From a linguistic/anthropological perspective, is the insistence on proper English widely considered to be driven by the desire to discriminate or segregate?
