Language Standardization and Language Change
Language Standardization and Language Change

Author: Ana Deumert

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2004-03-31

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 9027295794

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Language Standardization and Language Change describes the formation of an early standard norm at the Cape around 1900. The processes of variant reduction and sociolinguistic focusing which accompanied the early standardization history of Afrikaans (or ‘Cape Dutch’ as it was then called) are analysed within the broad methodological framework of corpus linguistics and variation analysis. Multivariate statistical techniques (cluster analysis, multidimensional scaling and PCA) are used to model the emergence of linguistic uniformity in the Cape Dutch speech community. The book also examines language contact and creolization in the early settlement, the role of Afrikaner nationalism in shaping language attitudes and linguistic practices, and the influence of English. As a case study in historical sociolinguistics the book calls into question the traditional view of the emergence of an Afrikaans standard norm, and advocates a strongly sociolinguistic, speaker-orientated approach to language history in general, and standardization studies in particular.

Ideologies of Language
Ideologies of Language

Author: John E. Joseph

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-02-03

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1134741391

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Is the study of language ideologically neutral? If so, is this study objective and autonomous? One of the most cherished assumptions of modern academic linguistics is that the study of language is, or should be, ideologically neutral. This professed ideological neutrality goes hand-in-hand with claims of scientific objectivity and explanatory autonomy. Ideologies of Language counters these claims and assumptions by demonstrating not only their descriptive inaccuracy but also their conceptual incoherence.