This volume explores changing norms and conventions in the English language, as displayed in a broad range of historical data from more than five centuries. The contributions discuss the interplay of ...sociocultural conditions, specific discourse traditions and structural aspects of language, paying special attention to the communities where norms and conventions are displayed and shaped in verbal interaction. The volume is enriched by systematic terminological clarifications, interdisciplinary approaches and the introduction of new methods like network analysis and advanced analytical tools and forms of visualisation into the diachronic investigation of historical texts.
Contemporary Slovenian language standardisation includes the revision of the normative guide, a process taking place since 2013 within the Commission on Orthography. This article presents an overview ...of the scientific basis of this process as well as describes the systematic inclusion of different segments of the public in the phase of assessing the suitability of current orthographic rules and formulating new ones. This is due to an awareness that a normative guide can be accepted by the wider language community only through a convergence of differing opinions and codification based on arguments.
This article examines the racialized relationship between ideologies of language standardization and what I term “languagelessness.” Whereas ideologies of language standardization stigmatize ...particular linguistic practices understood to deviate from prescriptive norms, ideologies of languagelessness call into question linguistic competence–and, by extension, legitimate personhood–altogether. Throughout the article I show how these ideologies interact with one another, and how assessments of particular individuals' language use often invoke broader ideas about the (in)competence and (il)legitimacy of entire racialized groups. I focus specifically on dimensions of the racialized relationship between ideologies of language standardization and languagelessness in contemporary framings of U.S. Latinas/os and their linguistic practices. I draw on a range of evidence, including ethnographic data collected within a predominantly Latina/o U.S. high school, institutional policies, and scholarly conceptions of language. When analyzed collectively, these sources highlight the racialized ways that ideologies of language standardization and languagelessness become linked in theory, policy, and everyday interactions. In my examination of these data through the lens of racialization, I seek to theorize how ideologies of language standardization and languagelessness contribute to the enactment of forms of societal inclusion and exclusion in relation to different sociopolitical contexts, ethnoracial categories, and linguistic practices.
Este artículo examina la relación racializada entre las ideologías de estandarización lingüística y lo que llamo “languagelessness.” Mientras que las ideologías de estandarización lingüística estigmatizan prácticas lingüísticas específicas consideradas como ajenas a normas preceptivas, las ideologías de languagelessness ponen en duda la competencia lingüística – y por extensión, la persona legítima – por completo. A lo largo del artículo, se muestra cómo estas ideologías interactúan entre sí, y cómo las evaluaciones de la práctica lingüística de ciertas personas proyectan a menudo ideas más generales sobre la (in)competencia y la (i)legitimad de grupos racializados. El artículo se focaliza en ciertas dimensiones de la relación racializada entre las ideologías de estandarización lingüística y de languagelessness en los marcos contemporáneos de l@s Latin@s y sus prácticas lingüísticas. Para esto, este trabajo se basa en un corpus que incluye datos etnográficos recogidos en un instituto estadounidense predominantemente Latin@, programas institucionales, y teorías académicas del lenguaje. Al analizarlos conjuntamente, estos datos resaltan la manera racializada en que las ideologías de estandarización lingüística y de languagelessness se relacionan con los ámbitos de la teoría, la política, y las interacciones diarias. Al examinar estos ejemplos mediante el concepto de la racialización, se pretende teorizar cómo las ideologías de estandarización lingüística y de languagelessness contribuyen a la reproducción de formas de inclusión y exclusión social en relación con distintos contextos sociopolíticos, categorías etnoraciales, y prácticas lingüísticas.
This intellectual history of Standard Swahili explores the long-term, intertwined processes of standard making and community creation in the historical, political, and cultural contexts of East ...Africa and beyond. Morgan J. Robinson argues that the portability of Standard Swahili has contributed to its wide use not only across the African continent but also around the globe. The book pivots on the question of whether standardized versions of African languages have empowered or oppressed. It is inevitable that the selection and promotion of one version of a language as standard—a move typically associated with missionaries and colonial regimes—negatively affected those whose language was suddenly deemed nonstandard. Before reconciling the consequences of codification, however, Robinson argues that one must seek to understand the process itself. The history of Standard Swahili demonstrates how events, people, and ideas move rapidly and sometimes surprisingly between linguistic, political, social, or temporal categories.Robinson conducted her research in Zanzibar, mainland Tanzania, and the United Kingdom. Organized around periods of conversation, translation, and codification from 1864 to 1964, the book focuses on the intellectual history of Swahili’s standardization. The story begins in mid-nineteenth-century Zanzibar, home of missionaries, formerly enslaved students, and a printing press, and concludes on the mainland in the mid-twentieth century, as nationalist movements added Standard Swahili to their anticolonial and nation-building toolkits. This outcome was not predetermined, however, and Robinson offers a new context for the strong emotions that the language continues to evoke in East Africa. The history of Standard Swahili is not one story, but rather the connected stories of multiple communities contributing to the production of knowledge. The book reflects this multiplicity by including the narratives of colonial officials and anticolonial nationalists; East African clerks, students, newspaper editors, editorialists, and their readers; and library patrons, academic linguists, formerly enslaved children, and missionary preachers. The book reconstructs these stories on their own terms and reintegrates them into a new composite that demonstrates the central place of language in the history of East Africa and beyond.
The starting point for this issue of Skriftkultur is the 150th anniversary of Ivar Aasen’s launch of a national language, which at the time lacked freedom of choice in form and conjugation, but has ...since developed, for specific historical reasons, into today’s Nynorsk, characterized by great freedom of choice compared to the vast majority of other official written languages in the world. Constant changes to the language’s orthography throughout the 20th century led to both resistance to and difficulties in implementing the reforms. Publishers and newspapers created their own house rules, and a number of studies have shown that students at all levels and even teachers have had difficulty keeping track of what is correct in Nynorsk at any given time. Likewise, students probably have greater exposure to Bokmål than Nynorsk, even in the core area for Nynorsk in Western Norway, which can create challenges for Nynorsk users. In the six scholarly articles, the authors discuss the challenges and opportunities linked to the use of, exposure to and instruction in written Nynorsk. The articles include questions related to the use of house styles in Nynorsk organisations, deviations from standard Nynorsk orthography in student texts, and exposure to and instruction in Nynorsk in educational settings. In a broader perspective, the question of Nynorsk’s continuing evolution also concerns the place and functions the language fills, that is to say, the kinds of social practices that are at the foundation of Nynorsk. This publication will be relevant for students, researchers and others who are interested in written Nynorsk practices.
Utgangspunktet for dette nummeret av Skriftkultur er at det no er 150 år sidan Ivar Aasen lanserte landsmålet, som den gongen var utan valfridom i form- og bøyingsverket, og at dette skriftspråket av bestemte historiske årsaker har utvikla seg til eit nynorsk skriftspråk som er kjenneteikna av stor valfridom jamført med dei aller fleste andre offisielle skriftspråk i verda. Stendig nye rettskrivingar gjennom det 20. hundreåret medførte både motstand mot og vanskar ved implementeringa av reformene. Forlag og avishus laga sine eigne husnormer, og ei rekkje studiar har vist at elevar, studentar og jamvel lærarar har hatt vanskar med å halde styr på kva som til ei kvar tid er tillatne former i nynorsk. Samstundes blir norske elevar og studentar truleg eksponerte for meir bokmål enn nynorsk jamvel i kjerneområda for nynorsken på Vestlandet, noko som kan skape utfordringar for nynorskbrukarar. Gjennom seks vitskaplege artiklar diskuterer forfattarane utfordringane og moglegheitene som knyter seg til bruk av, eksponering for og opplæring i det nynorske skriftspråket. Artiklane inkluderer spørsmål knytt til bruk av husnormer i nynorskorganisasjonar, avvik frå nynorskrettskrivinga i elevtekstar og eksponering for og opplæring i nynorsk i utdanningsinstitusjonar. I eit vidare perspektiv handlar spørsmålet om tradering av nynorsk også om kva plass og funksjonar språket fyller, det vil seie kva slags sosial praksis som ligg til grunn for nynorsken. Publikasjonen rettar seg mot studentar, forskarar og andre som er opptekne av det den nynorske skriftkulturelle praksisen.
Copy-editors are important agents of language standardisation, yet Following Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory, as well as Michel Foucault’s power/knowledge dichotomy, in this article I am analysing ...data from semi-structured interviews with 21 Lithuanian copy-editors to determine how they negotiate their often-opposing professional notions on editing ethics and practice. The analysis has shown that in terms of ethical notions, copy-editors maintain that editing “too much” is unethical. This is likely based on the rules of the game of the literary field. It has been noticed, that the editors who also have other roles in the literary field, more strongly oppose the practice they called “author production”. Some copy-editors, however, who did not have such high stakes in the literary field, seemed to sometimes take on this work of “too much” editing, but in an interview situation, they claimed that such practice is different from copy-editing.
•Environmental noise, brain structure and language skills were measured in children.•Higher noise levels were associated with reduced cortical thickness in the L IFG.•Levels of noise exposure were ...not related to SES or children’s language skills.
While excessive noise exposure in childhood has been associated with reduced language ability, few studies have examined potential underlying neurobiological mechanisms that may account for noise-related differences in language skills. In this study, we tested the hypotheses that higher everyday noise exposure would be associated with 1) poorer language skills and 2) differences in language-related cortical structure. A socioeconomically diverse sample of children aged 5–9 (N = 94) completed standardized language assessments. High-resolution T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans were acquired, and surface area and cortical thickness of the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and left superior temporal gyrus (STG) were extracted. Language Environmental Analysis (LENA) was used to measure levels of exposure to excessive environmental noise over the course of a typical day (n = 43 with complete LENA, MRI, and behavioral data). Results indicated that children exposed to excessive levels of noise exhibited reduced cortical thickness in the left IFG. These findings add to a growing literature that explores the extent to which home environmental factors, such as environmental noise, are associated with neurobiological development related to language development in children.
The decades around 1800 constitute the seminal period of European nationalism. The linguistic corollary of this was the rise of standard language ideology, from Finland to Spain, and from Iceland to ...the Habsburg Empire. Amidst these international events, the case of Dutch in the Netherlands offers a unique example. After the rise of the ideology from the 1750s onwards, the new discourse of one language–one nation was swiftly transformed into concrete top-down policies aimed at the dissemination of the newly devised standard language across the entire population of the newly established Dutch nation-state. Thus, the Dutch case offers an exciting perspective on the concomitant rise of cultural nationalism, national language planning and standard language ideology. This study offers a comprehensive yet detailed analysis of these phenomena by focussing on the ideology underpinning the new language policy, the institutionalisation of this ideology in metalinguistic discourse, the implementation of the policy in education, and the effects of the policy on actual language use.
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