The role of standardization

So I would like just to write some things about the standardization of the language and the role it plays in the creation of identity. As Le Page and Tabournet-Keller write, making one dialect the norm, makes people believe that one way of speaking is better than the other. It creates groups whose dialect becomes the norm as the group with prestige and the other group whose dialect is marginalized as the powerless and uneducated group. Do the people who speak bokmål have more prestige than those who speak other dialects of Norwegian? I haven't noticed anything about this, on the contrary people who speak other dialects of Norwegian have told me that they don't attach any more importance to bokmål than to the other variations of Norwegian. Is this true? Maybe that explains the attitude that “meeuh” has to different variations of Norwegian that he uses.

Philip Riley in his book “Language, culture and identity” (not pensum, but relevant to the issue of standardization) writes about the importance of the issue of standardization of a language:

“Of all the linguistic factors contributing to the formation and expression of social identities probably the most prevasive is the complex social and historical process of standardization, whereby one or more language variety is codified and for that,... is considered as superior in many ways to non-standard variations.” (page 234)

He continues by saying that the standard language becomes the main language of the institutions, therefore it will be linked with power. What he emphasizes is that making one language standard compared to the other is the social and political conditions, and not something regular or special about the language that is standardized.

p.s This is one of the posts in the discussion I am doing at school.