Pub Date : 2023-12-07DOI: 10.1017/s1360674323000497
DOUGLAS BIBER, BENEDIKT SZMRECSANYI, RANDI REPPEN, TOVE LARSSON
Most studies of genitive variation in English have considered only the choice of two variants ('s versus of), based on analysis of only tokens that are judged to be interchangeable. We argue in the present article that research on genitive variation can be usefully extended in both respects: including premodifying nouns as a third variant; and attempting to account for all tokens of the genitive. In addition, we extend the scope of analysis to explore the possibility of contextual constraints having different importance in different registers.
First, we carry out a text-linguistic analysis comparing the rates of genitive variants in texts from three registers (conversation, newspaper reports, academic articles), showing that genitives overall are much more frequent in written registers, with the premodifying noun variant being especially frequent. Then, a variationist analysis is undertaken to account for the choice of genitive variant in particular contexts and registers. A total of 3,425 genitive tokens were coded for ten contextual characteristics (e.g. length of the Modifying NP, semantic category of the Modifying noun and the Head noun, final sibilancy of the Modifying noun). Statistical analyses with random forests and conditional inference trees are triangulated, showing how contextual factors interact in predicting the use of each genitive variant – and how patterns of variation differ across registers.
{"title":"Expanding the scope of grammatical variation: towards a comprehensive account of genitive variation across registers","authors":"DOUGLAS BIBER, BENEDIKT SZMRECSANYI, RANDI REPPEN, TOVE LARSSON","doi":"10.1017/s1360674323000497","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1360674323000497","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Most studies of genitive variation in English have considered only the choice of two variants (<span>'s</span> versus <span>of</span>), based on analysis of only tokens that are judged to be interchangeable. We argue in the present article that research on genitive variation can be usefully extended in both respects: including premodifying nouns as a third variant; and attempting to account for <span>all</span> tokens of the genitive. In addition, we extend the scope of analysis to explore the possibility of contextual constraints having different importance in different registers.</p><p>First, we carry out a text-linguistic analysis comparing the rates of genitive variants in texts from three registers (conversation, newspaper reports, academic articles), showing that genitives overall are much more frequent in written registers, with the premodifying noun variant being especially frequent. Then, a variationist analysis is undertaken to account for the choice of genitive variant in particular contexts and registers. A total of 3,425 genitive tokens were coded for ten contextual characteristics (e.g. length of the Modifying NP, semantic category of the Modifying noun and the Head noun, final sibilancy of the Modifying noun). Statistical analyses with random forests and conditional inference trees are triangulated, showing how contextual factors interact in predicting the use of each genitive variant – and how patterns of variation differ across registers.</p>","PeriodicalId":45748,"journal":{"name":"English Language & Linguistics","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138546639","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-04DOI: 10.1017/s1360674323000515
RHYS J. SANDOW, GEORGE BAILEY, NATALIE BRABER
As a result of an ameliorative shift-to-opposite, the polysemous adjective wicked is an auto-antonym, having two senses opposite in meaning, that is, ‘evil’ and ‘good’. We discuss two studies which explore the social life of this word, with the first focusing on its production and the second on its perception. In the first study, conducted in Cornwall, United Kingdom, we find that young men are most advanced in the use of wicked ‘good’ while young women appear not to contribute to the incrementation, that is, the advancement, of this change. In the second study, conducted online across England, we find wicked ‘good’, relative to its synonym good, to be perceived as less young and to be evaluated positively across disparate characteristics relating to status and solidarity, particularly by older men. We find wicked ‘evil’, in contrast to its synonym evil, to be evaluated higher in status-type characteristics. This newly uncovered indexical field of wicked presents a possible explanation for the observed changes in production, contributing to ongoing questions about the role of social meaning in driving the incrementation of change. More generally, this article adds to the growing yet limited literature which explores semantic variation through the lens of variationist sociolinguistics.
{"title":"Language change is wicked: semantic and social meaning of a polysemous adjective","authors":"RHYS J. SANDOW, GEORGE BAILEY, NATALIE BRABER","doi":"10.1017/s1360674323000515","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1360674323000515","url":null,"abstract":"As a result of an ameliorative shift-to-opposite, the polysemous adjective <jats:italic>wicked</jats:italic> is an auto-antonym, having two senses opposite in meaning, that is, ‘evil’ and ‘good’. We discuss two studies which explore the social life of this word, with the first focusing on its production and the second on its perception. In the first study, conducted in Cornwall, United Kingdom, we find that young men are most advanced in the use of <jats:italic>wicked</jats:italic> ‘good’ while young women appear not to contribute to the incrementation, that is, the advancement, of this change. In the second study, conducted online across England, we find <jats:italic>wicked</jats:italic> ‘good’, relative to its synonym <jats:italic>good</jats:italic>, to be perceived as less young and to be evaluated positively across disparate characteristics relating to status and solidarity, particularly by older men. We find <jats:italic>wicked</jats:italic> ‘evil’, in contrast to its synonym <jats:italic>evil</jats:italic>, to be evaluated higher in status-type characteristics. This newly uncovered indexical field of <jats:italic>wicked</jats:italic> presents a possible explanation for the observed changes in production, contributing to ongoing questions about the role of social meaning in driving the incrementation of change. More generally, this article adds to the growing yet limited literature which explores semantic variation through the lens of variationist sociolinguistics.","PeriodicalId":45748,"journal":{"name":"English Language & Linguistics","volume":"19 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138512270","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-24DOI: 10.1017/s1360674323000552
JAVIER CALLE-MARTÍN, MARTA PACHECO-FRANCO
The apostrophe was introduced into the English orthographic system by the mid sixteenth century as a printer's mark especially designed ‘for the eye rather than for the ear’ (Sklar 1976: 175; Little 1986: 15). Whereas the uses of the apostrophe today are limited to the Saxon genitive construction (the woman's book), to verbal contractions (you'll ‘you will’ or you're ‘you are’) and to other formulaic expressions (o'clock), its early uses also included other cases of elision and some abbreviated words (Parkes 1992: 55‒6; Beal 2010a: 58). Among this plethora of uses, perhaps one of the most distinctive functions of this symbol is the indication of the genitive construction, which has no full form in Present-day English after the progressive extinction of the genitive case affix. Such a development could have also happened in the regular past morpheme, but its outcome differed, as it continues to be spelled out today. The present article is then concerned with the standardisation of the apostrophe in the English orthographic system in the period 1600–1900 and pursues the following objectives: (a) to study the use and omission of the apostrophe in the expression of the past tense, the genitive case and the nominative plural in the period; (b) to assess the relationship between the three uses and their likely connections; and (c) to evaluate the likely participation of grammarians in the adoption and the rejection of each of these phenomena in English. The source of evidence for this corpus-based study comes from A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers (ARCHER 3.2, Denison & Yáñez-Bouza 2013), sampling language use in different genres and text types in the historical period 1700–1900. Additionally, the Early English Books Online corpus (EEBO, Davies 2017) has also been used as material to investigate the early uses of the possessive apostrophe in the late sixteenth century. A preliminary data analysis confirms the second half of the seventeenth century as the period that saw the definite rise of the genitive apostrophe in English, refuting the early assumptions which considered it to be an eighteenth-century development (Crystal 1995: 68; Lukač 2014: 3). The results also suggest that this phenomenon was to some extent associated with the decline of the apostrophe in other environments, more particularly in the expression of the regular past tense forms. Moreover, there seems to be no indication that standardisation emerged from linguistic prescription; instead, grammars seem to have been shaped after use.
{"title":"‘The night before beg'd ye queens's pardon and his brother's’: the apostrophe in the history of English","authors":"JAVIER CALLE-MARTÍN, MARTA PACHECO-FRANCO","doi":"10.1017/s1360674323000552","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1360674323000552","url":null,"abstract":"The apostrophe was introduced into the English orthographic system by the mid sixteenth century as a printer's mark especially designed ‘for the eye rather than for the ear’ (Sklar 1976: 175; Little 1986: 15). Whereas the uses of the apostrophe today are limited to the Saxon genitive construction (<jats:italic>the woman's book</jats:italic>), to verbal contractions (<jats:italic>you'll</jats:italic> ‘you will’ or <jats:italic>you're</jats:italic> ‘you are’) and to other formulaic expressions (<jats:italic>o'clock</jats:italic>), its early uses also included other cases of elision and some abbreviated words (Parkes 1992: 55‒6; Beal 2010a: 58). Among this plethora of uses, perhaps one of the most distinctive functions of this symbol is the indication of the genitive construction, which has no full form in Present-day English after the progressive extinction of the genitive case affix. Such a development could have also happened in the regular past morpheme, but its outcome differed, as it continues to be spelled out today. The present article is then concerned with the standardisation of the apostrophe in the English orthographic system in the period 1600–1900 and pursues the following objectives: (a) to study the use and omission of the apostrophe in the expression of the past tense, the genitive case and the nominative plural in the period; (b) to assess the relationship between the three uses and their likely connections; and (c) to evaluate the likely participation of grammarians in the adoption and the rejection of each of these phenomena in English. The source of evidence for this corpus-based study comes from <jats:italic>A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers</jats:italic> (ARCHER 3.2, Denison & Yáñez-Bouza 2013), sampling language use in different genres and text types in the historical period 1700–1900. Additionally, the <jats:italic>Early English Books Online</jats:italic> corpus (EEBO, Davies 2017) has also been used as material to investigate the early uses of the possessive apostrophe in the late sixteenth century. A preliminary data analysis confirms the second half of the seventeenth century as the period that saw the definite rise of the genitive apostrophe in English, refuting the early assumptions which considered it to be an eighteenth-century development (Crystal 1995: 68; Lukač 2014: 3). The results also suggest that this phenomenon was to some extent associated with the decline of the apostrophe in other environments, more particularly in the expression of the regular past tense forms. Moreover, there seems to be no indication that standardisation emerged from linguistic prescription; instead, grammars seem to have been shaped after use.","PeriodicalId":45748,"journal":{"name":"English Language & Linguistics","volume":"17 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138512260","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-08DOI: 10.1017/s1360674323000461
Moisés Almela-Sánchez
Daniela Pettersson-Traba, The development of the concept of SMELL in American English: A usage-based view of near-synonymy (Applications of Cognitive Linguistics 51). Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2022. Pp. xviii + 270. ISBN 9783110792201.
Daniela Pettersson-Traba，美国英语中气味概念的发展:基于用法的近义词观点(认知语言学应用，51)。柏林和波士顿:De Gruyter Mouton, 2022。Pp. xviii + 270ISBN 9783110792201。
{"title":"Daniela Pettersson-Traba, The development of the concept of SMELL in American English: A usage-based view of near-synonymy (Applications of Cognitive Linguistics 51). Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2022. Pp. xviii + 270. ISBN 9783110792201.","authors":"Moisés Almela-Sánchez","doi":"10.1017/s1360674323000461","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1360674323000461","url":null,"abstract":"Daniela Pettersson-Traba, The development of the concept of SMELL in American English: A usage-based view of near-synonymy (Applications of Cognitive Linguistics 51). Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2022. Pp. xviii + 270. ISBN 9783110792201.","PeriodicalId":45748,"journal":{"name":"English Language & Linguistics","volume":"4 7","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135390719","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-09DOI: 10.1017/s1360674323000369
Florent Perek
Noelia Castro-Chao, Argument structure in flux: The development of impersonal constructions in Middle and Early Modern English, with special reference to verbs of desire (Linguistic Insights 274). Bern: Peter Lang, 2021. Pp. 300. ISBN 9783034341899.
{"title":"Noelia Castro-Chao, Argument structure in flux: The development of impersonal constructions in Middle and Early Modern English, with special reference to verbs of desire (Linguistic Insights 274). Bern: Peter Lang, 2021. Pp. 300. ISBN 9783034341899.","authors":"Florent Perek","doi":"10.1017/s1360674323000369","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1360674323000369","url":null,"abstract":"Noelia Castro-Chao, Argument structure in flux: The development of impersonal constructions in Middle and Early Modern English, with special reference to verbs of desire (Linguistic Insights 274). Bern: Peter Lang, 2021. Pp. 300. ISBN 9783034341899.","PeriodicalId":45748,"journal":{"name":"English Language & Linguistics","volume":"17 4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135094837","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-09DOI: 10.1017/s1360674323000436
ALPO HONKAPOHJA, IMOGEN MARCUS
This article investigates continuities and changes in abbreviation practices from late Middle English to twenty-first-century digital platforms. Adopting a diachronic perspective and lexicological framework, it quantitatively analyses frequency patterns across fifteenth-century memoranda, letters and administrative receipts, seventeenth-century letters and depositions, late nineteenth-century letters, early twentieth-century letters and a subcorpus of WhatsApp instant messages dating from 2018–19. It then presents analyses of the frequencies of various abbreviation forms, such as clippings, and abbreviated lexemes, such as their use for names, over time. The article then provides a qualitative analysis of these lexeme categories over the centuries, with a focus on specific examples. Major changes to overall abbreviation density across time are identified. The forms of abbreviation also go through major change, but the types of lexemes that are abbreviated stay more consistent over time. For example, abbreviations being used for closed-class function words such as the and that are dominant from the earliest data we have looked at to the present day. Overall, the study demonstrates how situating new media abbreviation practices within a historical continuum can enhance our understanding of them.
{"title":"The long history of shortening: a diachronic analysis of abbreviation practices from the fifteenth to the twenty-first century","authors":"ALPO HONKAPOHJA, IMOGEN MARCUS","doi":"10.1017/s1360674323000436","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1360674323000436","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates continuities and changes in abbreviation practices from late Middle English to twenty-first-century digital platforms. Adopting a diachronic perspective and lexicological framework, it quantitatively analyses frequency patterns across fifteenth-century memoranda, letters and administrative receipts, seventeenth-century letters and depositions, late nineteenth-century letters, early twentieth-century letters and a subcorpus of WhatsApp instant messages dating from 2018–19. It then presents analyses of the frequencies of various abbreviation forms, such as clippings, and abbreviated lexemes, such as their use for names, over time. The article then provides a qualitative analysis of these lexeme categories over the centuries, with a focus on specific examples. Major changes to overall abbreviation density across time are identified. The forms of abbreviation also go through major change, but the types of lexemes that are abbreviated stay more consistent over time. For example, abbreviations being used for closed-class function words such as the and that are dominant from the earliest data we have looked at to the present day. Overall, the study demonstrates how situating new media abbreviation practices within a historical continuum can enhance our understanding of them.","PeriodicalId":45748,"journal":{"name":"English Language & Linguistics","volume":"55 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135095620","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-28DOI: 10.1017/s1360674323000382
Sabina Nedelius
Bettelou Los, Chris Cummins, Lisa Gotthard, Alpo Honkapohja and Benjamin Molineaux (eds.), English historical linguistics: Historical English in contact (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 359). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2022. Pp. vi + 185. ISBN 9789027210654.
Bettelou Los, Chris Cummins, Lisa Gotthard, Alpo Honkapohja and Benjamin Molineaux (eds.), English historical linguistics：英语历史语言学：接触中的历史英语》（Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 359）。阿姆斯特丹和费城：约翰-本杰明，2022 年。第 vi + 185 页。ISBN 9789027210654。
{"title":"Bettelou Los, Chris Cummins, Lisa Gotthard, Alpo Honkapohja and Benjamin Molineaux (eds.), English historical linguistics: Historical English in contact (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 359). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2022. Pp. vi + 185. ISBN 9789027210654.","authors":"Sabina Nedelius","doi":"10.1017/s1360674323000382","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1360674323000382","url":null,"abstract":"Bettelou Los, Chris Cummins, Lisa Gotthard, Alpo Honkapohja and Benjamin Molineaux (eds.), English historical linguistics: Historical English in contact (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 359). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2022. Pp. vi + 185. ISBN 9789027210654.","PeriodicalId":45748,"journal":{"name":"English Language & Linguistics","volume":"61 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135345096","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-12DOI: 10.1017/s1360674323000199
BAS AARTS
English has an oblique predicative construction in which the prepositions for and as license an oblique predicative complement that is predicated of a noun phrase, as in We took her for a friend and I regarded her as a genius . The construction with for is the oldest, and is found in many other languages. This article traces the history of oblique predicative constructions involving for and as , and a number of other prepositions, from Old English to Present-Day English (PDE). Visser (1963–73) has suggested that predicative for and as were rivals, and that in PDE as is now dominant at the expense of for . I will argue instead that since around 1900 predicative for and as can clearly be distinguished semantically as expressing the meanings qua (‘as being’) and qualitate qua (‘in the capacity of’), respectively, and that the existence of these distinct meanings explains why constructions with both prepositions still survive in PDE.
{"title":"Oblique predicative constructions in English with <i>for</i> and <i>as</i>: <i>qua</i> vs <i>qualitate qua</i>","authors":"BAS AARTS","doi":"10.1017/s1360674323000199","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1360674323000199","url":null,"abstract":"English has an oblique predicative construction in which the prepositions for and as license an oblique predicative complement that is predicated of a noun phrase, as in We took her for a friend and I regarded her as a genius . The construction with for is the oldest, and is found in many other languages. This article traces the history of oblique predicative constructions involving for and as , and a number of other prepositions, from Old English to Present-Day English (PDE). Visser (1963–73) has suggested that predicative for and as were rivals, and that in PDE as is now dominant at the expense of for . I will argue instead that since around 1900 predicative for and as can clearly be distinguished semantically as expressing the meanings qua (‘as being’) and qualitate qua (‘in the capacity of’), respectively, and that the existence of these distinct meanings explains why constructions with both prepositions still survive in PDE.","PeriodicalId":45748,"journal":{"name":"English Language & Linguistics","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135878044","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-11DOI: 10.1017/s1360674323000424
Laetitia Van Driessche
{"title":"Susanne Flach and Martin Hilpert (eds.), Broadening the spectrum of corpus linguistics: New approaches to variability and change (Studies in Corpus Linguistics 105). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2022. Pp. vi + 321. ISBN 9789027212665.","authors":"Laetitia Van Driessche","doi":"10.1017/s1360674323000424","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1360674323000424","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45748,"journal":{"name":"English Language & Linguistics","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135981045","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1017/s1360674323000448
JANE HODSON
This study uses the Dialect in British Fiction 1800–1836 database to chart the changing representation of the language of the labouring poor during the early nineteenth century. It finds that, broadly speaking, while the voices of the labouring poor are sometimes represented in novels at the start of the period, most novels evince little interest in either the linguistic nuances of these characters’ speech, or the access to their lives and thoughts that this speech provides. Around the middle of the period, there is a rapid increase in the fictional representation of the voices of the labouring poor specifically in novels set in rural Scotland and Ireland and – at least in some novels – this is connected to a greater interest in the lives and perspectives of these characters. By the end of the period, while there is a broadening out into extraterritorial varieties and a continuing interest in the voices of the rural labouring poor of Scotland and Ireland, these developments have not translated in any substantial way to an interest in either the rural labouring poor of England or Wales, or the urban labouring poor of any nation or region. Overall, the study demonstrates how fiction can be used to provide an insight into changing attitudes towards speakers and language varieties.
{"title":"Talking to peasants: language, place and class in British fiction 1800–1836","authors":"JANE HODSON","doi":"10.1017/s1360674323000448","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1360674323000448","url":null,"abstract":"This study uses the Dialect in British Fiction 1800–1836 database to chart the changing representation of the language of the labouring poor during the early nineteenth century. It finds that, broadly speaking, while the voices of the labouring poor are sometimes represented in novels at the start of the period, most novels evince little interest in either the linguistic nuances of these characters’ speech, or the access to their lives and thoughts that this speech provides. Around the middle of the period, there is a rapid increase in the fictional representation of the voices of the labouring poor specifically in novels set in rural Scotland and Ireland and – at least in some novels – this is connected to a greater interest in the lives and perspectives of these characters. By the end of the period, while there is a broadening out into extraterritorial varieties and a continuing interest in the voices of the rural labouring poor of Scotland and Ireland, these developments have not translated in any substantial way to an interest in either the rural labouring poor of England or Wales, or the urban labouring poor of any nation or region. Overall, the study demonstrates how fiction can be used to provide an insight into changing attitudes towards speakers and language varieties.","PeriodicalId":45748,"journal":{"name":"English Language & Linguistics","volume":"75 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135690579","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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