Patterns of Change in 18th-century English. A sociolinguistic approach

Eighteenth-century English is often associated with normative grammar. But to what extent did prescriptivism impact ongoing processes of linguistic change? The authors of this volume examine a variety of linguistic changes in a corpus of personal correspondence, including the auxiliary do, verbal -s...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Minna Palander-Collin (auth)
Other Authors: Tanja Säily (auth), Terttu Nevalainen (auth)
Format: Book Chapter
Published: John Benjamins Publishing Company 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:Get Fullteks
DOAB: description of the publication
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
LEADER 02355naaaa2200301uu 4500
001 doab_20_500_12854_55829
005 20210211
020 |a ahs.8 
020 |a 9789027263834 
020 |a 9789027201034 
024 7 |a 10.1075/ahs.8  |c doi 
041 0 |a English 
042 |a dc 
100 1 |a Minna Palander-Collin  |4 auth 
700 1 |a Tanja Säily  |4 auth 
700 1 |a Terttu Nevalainen  |4 auth 
245 1 0 |a Patterns of Change in 18th-century English. A sociolinguistic approach 
260 |b John Benjamins Publishing Company  |c 2018 
300 |a 1 electronic resource (323 p.) 
506 0 |a Open Access  |2 star  |f Unrestricted online access 
520 |a Eighteenth-century English is often associated with normative grammar. But to what extent did prescriptivism impact ongoing processes of linguistic change? The authors of this volume examine a variety of linguistic changes in a corpus of personal correspondence, including the auxiliary do, verbal -sand the progressive aspect, and they conclude that direct normative influence on them must have been minimal. The studies are contextualized by discussions of the normative tradition and the correspondence corpus, and of eighteenth-century English society and culture. Basing their work on a variationist sociolinguistic approach, the authors introduce the models and methods they have used to trace the progress of linguistic changes in the "long" eighteenth century, 1680-1800. Aggregate findings are balanced by analysing individuals and their varying participation in these processes. The final chapter places these results in a wider context and considers them in relation to past sociolinguistic work. One of the major findings of the studies is that in most cases the overall pace of change was slow. Factors retarding change include speaker evaluation and repurposing outgoing features, in particular, for certain styles and registers. 
540 |a Creative Commons  |f https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/  |2 cc  |4 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 
546 |a English 
653 |a Sociolinguistics 
653 |a English linguistics 
653 |a Historical linguistics 
856 4 0 |a www.oapen.org  |u https://doi.org/10.1075/ahs.8  |7 0  |z Get Fullteks 
856 4 0 |a www.oapen.org  |u https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/55829  |7 0  |z DOAB: description of the publication