We characterize styles (see Trudgill 1992) as varieties of the English language, viewed from the point of view of formality. Standard English speakers can be found in all English-speaking countries, and it goes without saying that they speak this variety with different non-RP accents depending on whether they come from Scotland or the USA or New Zealand or wherever. It is the variety associated with the Education system in all the English speaking countries in the world and is therefore the variety spoken by those referred to as ‘educated people’ and it is the variety taught to non-native learners. Standard English is not a language since it is only one variety of English among many. More often than not, however, linguists and educationalists attempt to unite all these senses, giving rise to paradoxical and confusing theses.” (Bex & Watts 1999, 86) We will take as a starting point Trudgill’s definition of what Standard English is not:

1 Standard English and Indiaģ As Tony Bex points out: “Since the seventeenth century the concept of Standard English has referred to a ‘common core of language’, an ideal or value to be met, the ‘true’ meanings behind words, the language of the literati, and those items of vocabulary listed in the Oxford English Dictionary. We will then examine what Lecercle has termed the metatext of culture in regards to this story to attempt to elucidate how “Interpreter of Maladies”, and perhaps other Postcolonial or diasporic literature work in many ways like works found in translation. We will examine the characteristics of the two spoken Standard Englishes, paying particular attention to Standard Indian English. These two Englishes work as a complimentary motif against the backdrop of the Standard written English of the main third person narrative voice. 1 Though technically speaking Lahiri is an American author, I have taken the liberty to include “Inte (.)Ģ In this paper, I will examine how Jhumpa Lahiri’s use of two spoken Standard Englishes - American Standard English, and Indian Standard English is at the heart of the narrative tension in her story.

An interpreter of maladies