Linguists are largely concerned with describing language, whereas authors of usage guides present norms of correctness to the general public (Beal 2009:35). Bridging the Unbridgeable, a project conducted at Leiden University, investigates...
moreLinguists are largely concerned with describing language, whereas authors of usage guides present norms of correctness to the general public (Beal 2009:35). Bridging the Unbridgeable, a project conducted at Leiden University, investigates the relationship among the three players in the field of prescriptivism, linguists, prescriptivists and the general public, by applying a multi-method approach.
In this talk, I address the linguists’ current attitudes towards prescriptivism, and present the steps taken in creating inventories of usage problems by investigating a single usage problem: the split infinitive.
Two approaches to corpus-based research of prescriptivism will be presented, investigating prescriptivism by examining a database of usage guides, and a database of articles on language usage in Letters-to-the-Editor sections of newspapers written by the general public, commonly referred to as the “complaint tradition” (Milroy and Milroy 1991:37). The Hyper Usage Guide of English, compiled hitherto as part of the Bridging the Unbridgeable project, consists of 60 usage guides, published in the period between 1770 and 2010. This database will provide insight into the diachronic development of usage issues in English, and enable future research on prescriptivism. ProQuest is a historical newspaper database enabling research of usage issues across time, as will be demonstrated on the split infinitive example. Such an overview of the general public’s attitudes towards questions of usage also assists in identifying the origins of stigmatisation of a particular usage item and the groups of people who form the targets of such criticism.
Beal, Joan C. 2009. Three hundred years of prescriptivism (and counting). In Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade and Wim van der Wurff (eds.), Current Issues in Late Modern English. Bern etc.: Peter Lang. 2556.
Milroy, James and Lesley Milroy. 1991. Authority in Language. Investigating Language Prescription and Standardisation [2nd ed.]. London etc.: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
