Linguistic Purism in the Germanic Languages PDF Download

Author: Nils Langer
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110901358
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Purism is an aspect of linguistic study which appeals not only to the scholar but also to the layperson. Somehow, ordinary speakers with many different mother tongues and with no formal training in linguistics share certain beliefs about what language is, how it develops or should develop, whether it has good or bad qualities, etc. The topic of linguistic purism in its many realisations is the subject of this volume of 19 articles selected from the contributions presented at a conference at the University of Bristol in 2003. In particular, the articles deal with the relationship of purism to historical prescriptivism, e.g. the influence of grammarians in the 17th and 18th centuries, to nationhood, e.g. the instrumentalising of purism in the standardisation of Afrikaans or Luxembourgish, to modern society, e.g. the existence of puristic tendencies in computer chatrooms, to folk linguistics, e.g. lay perceptions of different varieties of English, and to academic linguistics, e.g. the presence of puristic notions in the historiography of German or English.

Author: Nils Langer
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 9783110183375
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
The text is a product of a conference held at the University of Bristol in April 2003.

Author: Nils Langer
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110881101
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
The auxiliary do (tun) is one of the most-discussed constructions in West Germanic. In German, there is a striking opposition between modern standard German, where the construction is virtually ungrammatical and considered to be "sub-standard" by most speakers, whilst, as this book shows, the construction is attested in all modern dialects as well as historic stages since 1350. In answering why auxiliary tun is ungrammatical in modern standard German, it is shown that the stigmatization of tun was caused by prescriptive grammarians in the 16th-18th century. Furthermore it is shown that the stigmatization of tun as "bad" German occurred in clearly discernible stages, from bad poetry (1550-1680), to bad written German (1680-1740) and finally to "bad" German in general (after 1740), thus providing evidence that the history of the standardization of German needs to take into account direct metalinguistic comments from prescriptive grammarians. The effectiveness of linguistic purism is also shown by evidence from two other constructions, namely polynegation and double perfect.

Author: Gijsbert Rutten
Publisher: Historical Sociolinguistics
ISBN: 9783034318532
Category : Germanic languages
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In what ways has language been central to constructing, challenging and reconfiguring social and political boundaries? This volume focuses on how language functions as a marker of identity, drawing on case studies across Europe.

Author: Patrick Stevenson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134792859
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
This accessible textbook offers students the opportunity to explore for themselves a wide range of sociolinguistic issues relating to the German language and its role in societies around the world. It is written for undergraduate students who have a sound practical knowledge of German but who have little or no knowledge of linguistics or sociolinguistics. It combines text with practical exercises and discussion questions to stimulate readers to think for themselves and to tackle specific problems. In Part One Patrick Stevenson invites readers to investigate and reflect on issues about the status and function of the German language in relation to its speakers and to speakers of other languages with which it comes into contact. In Part Two the focus shifts to the forms and functions of individual features of the language. This involves, for example, identifying features of regional speech forms, analysing similarities and differences between written and spoken German, or looking at the 'social meaning' underlying different forms of address. Part Three explores the relationship between the German language and the nature of 'Germanness'. It concentrates on people's attitudes towards the language, the ways in which it is changing, and their views on what it represents for them.

Author: Professor of French Philology and Linguistics Wendy Ayres-Bennett
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198754957
Category : Linguistics
Languages : en
Pages : 673

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Book Description
This volume offers a ground-breaking investigation into women's contribution to the description, analysis, and codification of languages across a wide range of linguistic and cultural traditions. The chapters explore a variety of spheres of activity, from the production of dictionaries and grammars to language teaching methods and language policy.

Author: Sally Johnson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139472275
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
If we want to understand how German speakers think about themselves and the world in which they live, then a useful place to begin is by looking at the language they use. This fully revised and updated edition provides a systematic approach to the study of the German language and an introduction to the social aspects of the language, including its dialects, its history and the uses of the language today. No previous knowledge of linguistics is assumed, and each chapter is accompanied by a series of practical exercises. This edition includes a brand new section on gender, purism and German unification, fresh examples for analysis and an updated chapter on the geography of Germany today. The book will help students not only to find new ways of exploring the German language, but also of thinking and talking about German-speaking cultures.

Author: Thomas Gloning
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134671903
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
Written in a lively and accessible style, the book looks at the history of German through a wide range of texts, from medical, legal and scientific writing to literature, everyday newspapers and adverts.

Author: Olivia Walsh
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027266735
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
This book represents the first in-depth, comparative investigation of linguistic purism in modern French. It investigates the relative prevalence of purist ideology in France and Quebec. Both experience influence from English and have similar language legislation, but they differ in their social, political and economic history. Three different levels of society are examined (official, group and individual), allowing a comparison of the ‘voice from above’ and the ‘voice from below’. This is a key element in recent discussions of language planning but is rarely provided in studies of French. The study is also the first to apply to empirical data Thomas’s widely cited theoretical framework for describing linguistic purism (1991), and has evaluated and refined this, enhancing the theoretical underpinnings of the field. The book will be of interest not only to French scholars and sociolinguists, but also to scholars of language planning, language policy and language ideologies in all languages.

Author: Ekkehard Konig
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317799585
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 648

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Book Description
Provides a unique, up-to-date survey of twelve Germanic languages from English and German to Faroese and Yiddish.