LISTSERV 14.4 18-08-2006, 12:54 PM Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 23:17:55 -0000 Reply-To: [log in to unmask] Sender: The LINGUIST Discussion List <[log in to unmask]> From: LINGUIST List <[log in to unmask]> Subject: 15.2387, Review: Socioling/Hist Ling: Deumert & Vandenbussche Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 LINGUIST List: Vol-15-2387. Wed Aug 25 2004. ISSN: 1068-4875. Subject: 15.2387, Review: Socioling/Hist Ling: Deumert & Vandenbussche Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Wayne State U.<[log in to unmask]> Helen Dry, Eastern Michigan U. <[log in to unmask]> Reviews ([log in to unmask]): Sheila Collberg, U. of Arizona Terence Langendoen, U. of Arizona Home Page: http://linguistlist.org/ The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, Wayne State University, and donations from subscribers and publishers. Editor for this issue: Naomi Ogasawara <[log in to unmask]> ========================================================================== What follows is a review or discussion note contributed to our Book Discussion Forum. We expect discussions to be informal and interactive; and the author of the book discussed is cordially invited to join in. If you are interested in leading a book discussion, look for books announced on LINGUIST as "available for review." Then contact Sheila Dooley Collberg at [log in to unmask] =================================Directory================================= 1) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 12:15:57 -0400 (EDT) From: Stephan Elspass <[log in to unmask]> Subject: German Standardizations: Past to Present -------------------------------- Message 1 ------------------------------- Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 12:15:57 -0400 (EDT) From: Stephan Elspass <[log in to unmask]> Subject: German Standardizations: Past to Present EDITORS: Deumert, Ana; Vandenbussche, Wim TITLE: German Standardizations SUBTITLE: Past to Present SERIES: Impact: Studies in language and society 18 PUBLISHER: John Benjamins YEAR: 2003 Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/14/14-3122.html Stephan Elspaß, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (Germany) OVERVIEW http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0408D&L=linguist&P=R5188 Pagina 1 van 13 LISTSERV 14.4 18-08-2006, 12:54 PM OVERVIEW This book is intended to provide ''a comprehensive and comparative introduction to the standardization processes of the Germanic languages''; it thus presents an exercise in ''comparative standardology'' (p. 1). The editors of the present volume, Ana Deumert (Monash University, Melbourne) and Wim Vandenbussche (Vrije Universiteit Brussel/FWO-Vlaanderen), have brought together sixteen contributions on Germanic languages and varieties: twelve articles on the various Germanic standard languages, plus articles on Low German, Scots and Pacific and Caribbean Germanic Creole languages, each written by (an) authoritative scholar/authoritative scholars of the respective languages and varieties. The sixteen chapters, organized in alphabetical order of the languages, are framed by an introduction and a résumé by the two editors. In their introduction, ''Standard languages: Taxonomies and histories'', Ana Deumert and Wim Vandenbussche outline the idea and concept behind the volume. The initiative for the present book was taken at the 2002 standardization conference in Sheffield (cf. Linn/McLelland 2002, see the review of Mark Pierce in Linguist List 14.1738), where not only the lack of cross-border and comparative studies on standardisation was deplored but also the lack of an authoritative and up-to-date work on the processes and problems of standardization in a wide range of languages. While most other works on standardisation focus on a few languages only and take a variety of perspectives, the editors of the present volume wanted to concentrate on a single language family, i. e. the Germanic, and took Einar Haugen's four-step model of standardization as a starting point for the portrayals of individual standardization histories: The contributors were asked to outline the standardization process of the respective languages according to Haugen's model, i. e. ''norm selection -- norm codification -- norm implementation -- norm elaboration'' (Haugen 1966) or ''selection -- codification -- elaboration -- acceptance'' (Haugen 1972) respectively. Haugen's concept of standardisation is intrinsically linked with ''a form of writing'', thus not explicitly including any form of 'spoken standard' (Haugen 1994: 4340). In the following account of the individual chapters of this heavy volume, I will concentrate on Haugen's four aspects of standardisation. ACCOUNT OF INDIVIDUAL CHAPTERS In the first chapter, PAUL T. ROBERGE depicts the standardization history of 'Afrikaans'. Afrikaans is one of the fairly small and only recently standardized Germanic languages. Based on his own research and a recent study by Ana Deumert, Roberge challenges the ''standard view'' that between 1750 and 1775, a spoken vernacular of Dutch had developed in the Cape colony which was elevated to modern Standard Afrikaans. Roberge and Deumert have revealed, however, that ''well into the early twentieth century'', the language situation was not characterized by a structural polarity between a ''metropolitan Dutch'' and a ''standard Afrikaans'', but by a linguistic continuum with distinctive patterns of variation. Codification of Afrikaans can only be traced back to the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Roberge identifies the years of the Anglo-Boer War (1899 -- 1902) and after as the period of intensive norm elaboration, which culminated in the political recognition of Afrikaans in 1925. Afrikaans had been widely accepted as a national language in the 20th century. As it became more and more associated with the 'apartheid' regime, however, the recent development may be more aptly http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0408D&L=linguist&P=R5188 Pagina 2 van 13 LISTSERV 14.4 18-08-2006, 12:54 PM labelled 'diminishing acceptance', and in recent years it has lost much ground to English in the public sector. Although the language contact history leading to the development of the 'Caribbean Creoles', which are portrayed by HUBERT DEVONISH, goes back to Columbus' landing on the Bahamas in 1492, the creoles are unquestionably to be counted among the languages with the shortest standardization history. Devonish focuses on Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles, as Caribbean Dutch Creoles are almost extinct. The Caribbean Creoles are not to be confused with Caribbean varieties of standard European languages like Surinamese Dutch or Caribbean Standard English. In a commonly held opinion about the diglossic situation in the Caribbean states, however, Caribbean English-lexicon Creoles are often viewed as broken forms of English. -- The standardization process of the Caribbean Creoles is not only young but also unfinished. As for norm selection, recent proposals aim at ''identifying a common variety which could be used to greatest communicative effect'' (p. 49) and selecting ''the most intelligible'' variety as the norm (p. 52). Sociolinguistically, the standardization of Caribbean Creole is intertwined with an attempt to create and maintain a distance between English and Creole, which in Jamaican Creole manifests itself primarily at the level of the lexicon. This faces practical problems, however, as lexicographical efforts are apparently not coordinated with the language use in the new media, the public domain where the acceptance of Caribbean Creoles has shown most progress. 'Danish' by contrast, is one of the ''old'' standardized Germanic languages. Although Denmark was never ruled by a foreign power for a longer period of time, as TORE KRISTIANSEN writes, its language history has seen the influence and dominance of ''exoglossic standards'' in various domains, in particular Latin, Low German, High German and French. When the standardization process of Danish was ''accelerated'' from around 1500, the polycentric language situation with basically three regional varieties was gradually replaced by centripetal tendencies towards the new centre, Zealand and the capital city Copenhagen. As for the aspect of norm selection, Kristiansen elaborates on the ongoing debate about the ''Copenhagenness'' of Standard Danish. While he stresses that the ''reconstruction'' of the national norm ''continues to be negotiated'', he makes clear that in his view there is no denial of the fact of the Copenhagenness of the standard norm and that the debate ''should be seen as an ideological phenomenon'' (p. 74). A prerequisite for the processes of codification and elaboration was the introduction of printing and the victory of the Protestant Reformation in the early fifteenth century. Due to its early codification -- first efforts can be traced back to the sixteenth century -- Danish in its written form is fairly conservative and still close to Swedish and Norwegian. Spoken Danish, however, has moved away from other languages of Nordic origin, ''to the extent of disturbing the mutual intelligibility between Danes and their Nordic neighbours'' (p. 78). Particularly after the end of the dominance of German at court and in government offices in the early nineteenth century, Danish became widely and fully accepted, ending in the abandonment of Gothic script (after 1860) and majuscule writing of nouns (1948). In recent years English has appeared as a new exoglossic standard. Fears of looming ''destandardization tendencies'' in Danish are not shared by Kristiansen; in his view, public language debates on orthographic