Standardising English

Norms and Margins in the History of the English Language
Erscheinungsjahr 2018
ISBN: 978-1-107-19105-1
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 298 Seiten, Format (B × H): 164 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 535 g

This path-breaking study of the standardisation of English goes well beyond the traditional prescriptivism versus descriptivism debate. It argues that the way norms are established and enforced is the result of a complex network of social factors and cannot be explained simply by appeals to power and hegemony. It brings together insights from leading researchers to re-centre the discussion on linguistic communities and language users. It examines the philosophy underlying the urge to standardise language, and takes a closer look at both well-known and lesser-known historical dictionaries, grammars and usage guides, demonstrating that they cannot be simply labelled as 'prescriptivist'. Drawing on rich empirical data and case studies, it shows how the norm continues to function in society, influencing and affecting language users even today.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Pillière, Linda

Andrieu, Wilfrid

Kerfelec, Valérie

Lewis, Diana

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Part I. Norms and Margins: Ideology and Concepts: Introduction: the norms and margins of English Linda Pillière, Wilfrid Andrieu, Valérie Kerfelec and Diana Lewis; 1. Approaching norms and margins on different levels: going beyond the standard/non-standard divide Sandrine Sorlin; 2. Prescriptive grammar and the rationalist cultural model of standardization Natalia Guermanova; Part II. Norms and Margins: A Historical Perspective: 3. Norms and rules in the history of grammar: French and English handbooks in the seventeenth century Wilfrid Andrieu and Valérie Raby; 4. The end of toleration? Language on the margins in Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language Lynda Mugglestone; 5. Eighteenth-century pronouncing dictionaries: reflecting usage or setting their own standard? Véronique Pouillon; 6. Setting a standard: authors and sources in the OED Charlotte Brewer; 7. Conflicting linguistic norms in the letters of Virginian soldiers during the American Civil War Gaëlle Le Corre; 8. Correcting English: Josephine Turck Baker and the early American usage guide tradition Viktorija Kostadinova; Part III. Norms and Margins: Moving into the Twenty-First Century: 9. The grammatical margins of class Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade; 10. Concepts of correctness and acceptability in British English: exploring attitudes of lay people Carmen Eber; 11. Maori English in Maori literature: standardising the margin into a norm Sonia Dupuy; 12. Imposing a norm: the invisible marks of copy editors Linda Pillière.

Über Autor(innen)

Pillière, Linda
Linda Pillière is Professor of English Language and Linguistics at Université d'Aix-Marseille and a member of the Lerma Research Centre. After completing a Ph.D. on the linguistic aspects of Virginia Woolf's style, she has focussed on language variation and change, and stylistics. Her recent publications include articles on normative editorial practices and varieties of English.

Lewis, Diana
Diana Lewis is Associate Professor of English linguistics at Université d'Aix-Marseille and a member of the Lerma Research Centre. She has published in the areas of semantic and morphosyntactic change, markers of discourse relations, and contrastive linguistics. She is currently working on adverbial grammaticalization in English and co-editing a volume on contrastive genre analysis.

Kerfelec, Valérie
Valérie Kerfelec is Associate Professor in English Linguistics at Université d'Aix-Marseille and a member of the Lerma Research Centre. Her research interests are in the interface between syntax and prosody, and in contrastive linguistics. She has a special interest in exclamatives and is the author of a monograph on the topic, L'exclamation en français et en anglais: formes, sens, effets (2009).

Andrieu, Wilfrid
Wilfrid Andrieu is Associate Professor of English Language and Linguistics at Université d'Aix-Marseille and a member of the Lerma Research Centre. His published and current research focuses on the history of linguistic concepts and particularly on the development of the analysis of the complex sentence.