Problems Of Standardization And Linguistic Variation In Present Day English

Standard English draws together the leading international scholars in the field, who confront the debates surrounding 'Standard English', grammar and correctness head-on. These debates are as intense today as ever and extend far beyond an academic context. Current debates about the teaching of English in the school curriculum and concerns about declining standards of English are placed in a historical, social and international context. Standard English: * explores the definitions of 'Standard English', with particular attention to distinctions between spoken and written English * traces the idea of 'Standard English' from its roots in the late seventeenth century through to the present day. This is an accessible, seminal work which clarifies an increasingly confused topic. It includes contributions from: Ronald Carter, Jenny Cheshire, Tony Crowley, James Milroy, Lesley Milroy and Peter Trudgill.

Variability is characteristic of any living language. This volume approaches the ‘life cycle’ of linguistic variability in English using data sources that range from electronic corpora to the internet. In the spirit of the 1968 Weinreich, Labov and Herzog classic, the fifteen contributions divide into three sections, each highlighting different stages in the dynamics of English across time and space. They show, first, how increase in variability can be initiated by processes that give rise to new patterns of discourse, which can ultimately crystallize into new grammatical elements. The next phase is the spread of linguistic features and patterns of discourse, both new and well established, through the social and regional varieties of English. The final phase in this ebb and flow of linguistic variability consists of processes promoting some variable features over others across registers and regional and social varieties, thus resulting in reduced variation and increased linguistic homogeneity.

Professor Devitt offers a new view of the linguistic process of standardization, the movement of specific language features towards uniformity. Drawing on theoretical arguments and empirical data, she examines the way in which linguistic conformity develops out of variation, and the textual and social factors that influence this process. After defining and clarifying the general theoretical issues involved, the author takes as a specific case study the standardization of written English in Scotland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and shows that standardization is a gradual process, that it occurs at significantly different rates and times in different genres, that it encompasses periods of great variation, and that it occurs concurrently with sociopolitical shifts. The interrelationship of linguistic features, genres, and social pressures shape the nature and direction of standardization.

Taming the Vernacular: From Dialect to Written Standard Language examines the differences between 'standard' and 'nonstandard' varieties of several different languages. Not only are some of the best-known languages of Europe represented here, but also some that have been less well-researched in the past. The chapters address the syntax of Dutch, English, French, Finnish, Galician, German and Spanish. For these languages, and many others, it is the standard varieties on which the most extensive syntactic research has been carried out, with the result that very little is known about the syntax of their dialects or the spoken colloquial varieties. The editors of this volume seek to redress the balance by taking a cross-linguistic perspective on the historical development of the standardised varieties. This allows them to identify some common characteristics of spoken language. It also helps the reader to understand the kinds of filtering processes that are involved in standardization, which result in the syntax of spoken colloquial language being different from the syntax of the standard varieties. Taming the Vernacular: From Dialect to Written Standard Language is suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate students of Linguistics, particularly those taking courses in sociolinguistics, dialectology, and historical linguistics. The focus on a variety of languages also makes this text suitable for students studying courses which cover the linguistic aspects of European languages.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE brings to students, researchers and practitioners in all of the social and language-related sciences carefully selected book-length publications dealing with sociolinguistic theory, methods, findings and applications. It approaches the study of language in society in its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches, theoretical and empirical, supplement and complement each other. The series invites the attention of linguists, language teachers of all interests, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians etc. to the development of the sociology of language.

A comprehensive, scholarly and systematic review of modern English in one volume. It presents a description of both the linguistic structure of present-day English and its geographical, social, gender and ethnic variations.