You're right that I didn't address that. But I will now. If I were checking a technical document you wrote using the language we're using right now, I would bleed red ink all over it. If I read a technical paper you wrote in language that we're using right now, I would probably be less likely to take you seriously. When you write formal technical documents, you should use formal English which has a lot more influence from Latin, Greek, and Anglo-Norman French. If you feel strongly that that needs to change, then you're feeling a little bit of what it's like to deal with implicit biases against your own dialect.
That does not make the way we're writing right now incorrect, though. It's just informal.
So, I'm a little confused now. The language that I'm using to type at this moment is standard Canadian English (which is largely British English with a few alternate spellings borrowed from America). If I were writing a technical document, a resume, or anything else I would use the same standard English.
You appear to be arguing that a special language exists for writing formal technical documents. That sounds like nonsense to me. The syntax, grammar, and spelling of words is constant between what I'm currently writing and how a technical paper should be written. It's true that I'd probably choose slightly different words from standard English while writing a technical document as context depends . . . but that doesn't change that standard English would be used.
Could you provide an example of language used in technical documents that is not standard English and contrast it to the standard English used in this conversation? Specifically, highlight the areas of grammar, spelling, and syntax which differ. I suspect that you'll find both conform to the rules of standard English.
And no, standard English is not appropriate in all places English is used. If you went up to your friends and started speaking in the formal language I was talking about, they'd think you were pretty pompous. Formal English isn't appropriate there, or in other words "incorrect" under the circumstances. In the same way, using standard English could come off wrong in a situation where you should speak in your native dialect. That's about the best I can do to explain it if you don't have any intuitive experience with diglossia.
Again, I need a better understanding of what 'formal English' is and how it differs from standard English to really respond to this. At first blush it sounds like you're drawing distinctions where none exist though.
As you said, though, he had a small amount more trouble being taken seriously than if he talked like he had been raised in Toronto. If you hadn't already known he was a respected aerodynamics professor, you might have dismissed his intelligence based on implicit biases about Newfoundlanders. (I honestly don't know how serious the negative stereotype of Newfies is, so that may or may not be a good example.)
Also, give him credit that he's trying to teach you in what amounts to a foreign language. Yes, he should learn better Standard Canadian English if he's going to teach a class in it, the same as a non-native English speaker, but you should recognize you're saying that from a place of being born into the privilege of being a native speaker of the prestige dialect.
I don't think that he was fighting against a negative Newfoundlander stereotype as much as he experienced difficulties in expressing himself clearly. And for someone who is in a position where expressing yourself clearly is a vital part of the work, obviously having difficulty doing that indicates a lack of preparation for the work. That was indeed my point. When someone chooses to use a non-standard vernacular inappropriately, this alone is reason for poor first impressions. This doesn't occur because of race/background but because of the choices they've made.
(FWIW, I liked him about as much as any of our other professors - but I tended to skip most lectures and just read the textbook to learn the complicated stuff. :P )
Calling a dialect "incorrect" is just a mild form of the same culture that thought indigenous Canadians would be better off speaking only English.
I don't think I'd ever argue that speaking only one language is for the best. Languages help a persons mind develop in a variety of different, beneficial ways. Languages themselves expose a person to wider cultural differences and ways of thinking. Learning more languages is better in pretty much all the cases I can think of.
The white Christians who thought that indigenous Canadians would be better off speaking only English didn't care at all about the English language. They were very clear about their goals - to eradicate native religion and culture to enforce dependence so that they could be controlled more easily. The Canadian government (assisted by Christian churches) went out of their way to build some very specific and horrific ways of going about doing that with impacts that have damaged native communities to this day. The goal didn't have anything to do with correct usage of the English language, or dialects . . . and it's a little odd to see you somehow try to equate the two.
There are a lot of similarities to what speakers of AAVE have been through.
But yes those examples are extreme. Nonetheless, people from places like West Virginia still face an uphill battle to be taken as seriously as people like you who were born into learning the prestige dialect of North American English.
Speakers of AAVE didn't experience their hardships because of AAVE, just as native speakers didn't experience their hardships because of their native tongue. This is completely unrelated.
As far as not being taken seriously - I mean, yeah. If you need to convey information in a particular language, not learning the language you need to use correctly tends to create barriers. That's natural and expected.