ABSTRACT
Traditionally, research on second language acquisition has “tended to assume that standardised varieties are the target of learning” (Nestor, Chasaide, & Regan, 2012, p. 328). However, for many language learners, standardised varieties are not the only target (Goldstein, 1987). Migrant learners living in the United Kingdom enter into a complex new sociolinguistic environment, in which many languages and linguistic varieties are spoken. The dominant language, English, itself comes in many forms. Migrants may be explicitly taught the rules of formal English in the classroom, but outside of the classroom they are also likely to encounter local, nonstandard vernacular varieties of English. These varieties are not enshrined in textbooks, but they have important social value for the communities that use them. Although the use of vernacular forms may be officially stigmatised, it is also tightly bound with identity and used to create social bonds between speakers. McGonigal and Arizpe (2007) write that “immigrant pupils must learn to read and write Standard English in the classroom, but also have to learn to understand a different accent and lexis in the playground” (p. 6). In order to become part of the new linguistic community, they have to understand both standardised norms and local vernacular norms.
