0521832195 cambridge university press twentieth century english history variation and standardization dec 2006

This page intentionally left blank Twentieth-Century English Standard English has evolved and developed in many ways over the past hundred years From pronunciation to vocabulary to grammar, this concise survey clearly documents the recent history of standard English Drawing on large amounts of authentic corpus data, it shows how we can track ongoing changes to the language, and demonstrates each of the major developments that have taken place As well as taking insights from a vast body of literature, Christian Mair presents the results of his own cutting-edge research, revealing some important changes which have not been previously documented He concludes by exploring how social and cultural factors, such as the American influence on British English, have affected standard English in recent times Authoritative, informative, and engaging, this book will be essential reading for anyone interested in language change in progress - particularly those working on English, and will be welcomed by students, researchers, and language teachers alike is Chair in English Linguistics at the Universitaăt Freiburg, Germany, with research interests in the corpus-based description of modern English grammar, and in the study of regional variation and ongoing changes in standard English worldwide He is author of Infinitival clauses in English: a study of syntax in discourse (Cambridge University Press, 1990) CHRISTIAN MAIR STUDIES IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE General editor : Merja Kytoă (Uppsala University) Editorial Board : Bas Aarts (University College London), John Algeo (University of Georgia), Susan Fitzmaurice (Northern Arizona University), Richard Hogg (University of Manchester), Charles F Meyer (University of Massachusetts) Twentieth-Century English STUDIES IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE The aim of this series is to provide a framework for original studies of English, both present-day and past All books are based securely on empirical research, and represent theoretical and descriptive contributions to our knowledge of national varieties of English, both written and spoken The series covers a broad range of topics and approaches, including syntax, phonology, grammar, vocabulary, discourse, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics, and is aimed at an international readership Already published in this series Christian Mair Infinitival complement clauses in English: a study of syntax in discourse Charles F Meyer Apposition on contemporary English Jan Firbas Functional sentence perspective in written and spoken communication Izchak M Schlesinger Cognitive space and linguistic case Katie Wales Personal pronouns in present-day English Laura Wright The development of standard English, 1300–1800: theories, descriptions, conflicts Charles F Meyer English Corpus Linguistics: theory and practice Stephen J Nagle and Sara L Sanders (eds.) English in the Southern United States Anne Curzan Gender shifts in the history of English Kingsley Bolton Chinese Englishes Irma Taavitsainen and Paăivi Pahta (eds.) Medical and scientific writing in Late Medieval English Elizabeth Gordon, Lyle Campbell, Jennifer Hay, Margaret Maclagan, Andrea Sudbury and Peter Trudgill New Zealand English: its origins and evolution Raymond Hickey (ed.) Legacies of colonial English Merja Kytoă, Mats Ryden and Erik Smitterberg (eds.) Nineteenth century English: stability and change John Algeo British or American English? A handbook of word and grammar patterns Twentieth-Century English History, Variation, and Standardization CHRISTIAN MAIR CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521832199 © Christian Mair 2006 This publication is in copyright Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press First published in print format 2006 eBook (EBL) ISBN-13 978-0-511-33397-2 ISBN-10 0-511-33397-8 eBook (EBL) ISBN-13 ISBN-10 hardback 978-0-521-83219-9 hardback 0-521-83219-5 Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate Contents List of figures List of tables Acknowledgments Setting the scene page ix xi xv Ongoing language change: problems of detection and verification 2.1 “Visible” and “invisible” changes 2.2 The pitfalls of anecdotal observation 2.3 Documenting change 2.4 Outlook: a plea for methodological pluralism 12 12 15 21 33 Lexical change in twentieth-century English 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Case studies 3.3 Major trends 3.4 Neologizing in its social context 36 36 38 53 69 Grammatical changes in twentieth-century English 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Review of the literature 4.3 Aspect: twentieth-century changes in the structure and use of the progressive 4.4 The going to-future 4.5 Modality: must and shall – two modals on the way out, and possible replacements 4.6 Further developments in tense, aspect, modality: a synopsis of current research 4.7 Current changes in the English voice system 4.8 Nonfinite verb forms: some twentieth-century developments in the field of clausal complementation 82 82 84 88 95 100 108 111 119 vii viii Contents 4.9 Nouns, pronouns, adjectives 4.10 Conclusion 140 154 Pronunciation 5.1 Introduction 5.2 A history of RP in the twentieth century 5.3 “General American”: myth or reality? 156 156 162 173 Language change in context: changing communicative and discourse norms in twentieth-century English 181 6.1 Introduction 181 6.2 The colloquialization of written English in the twentieth century 183 6.3 Americanization? 193 6.4 Analysis of selected sample texts 195 Conclusion 200 Appendix Brief survey of the corpora used for the present study 206 Appendix The OED Baseline Corpora 210 Appendix Estimating text size in the newspaper archives and the World Wide Web 213 Appendix A quarterly update of the OED Online (New Edition) – 13 March 2003: Motswana to mussy 217 References Index 231 242 230 Appendix special interest group (Under supply, n.) supply chain (Under tartan, n.1) tartan tax (Under thin, a [n.] and adv.) thin client (Under third, a [adv., n.]) third rail third wave (Under through-, comb form) throughcare throughfall (Under toast, n.1) you’re (also I’m, we’re, etc.) toast (Under wacky, a.) wacky baccy wacky tobaccy wacky weed (Under zero, n.) to go (etc.) from zero to hero zero-to-hero Finally, new meanings were added to the following entries: alpha, n arse, n bald-head, n bounce, v clock, v.1 convergence, n curvy, a direct, a and adv disappear, v disappearance, n draw, n effect, n factitious, a forever, adv graphic, a and n lone, a raving, n.1 relax, v relaxed, ppl a relaxer, n relaxing, vbl n scag, n scheme, n.1 shark, n.1 shark, v.1 sharking, vbl n.1 special, a., adv., and n walker, n.1 zap, v References Aarts, Flor, and Bas Aarts 2002 “Relative whom: ‘a mischief-maker.’” In Andreas Fischer, Gunnel Tottie, and Hans-Martin Lehmann, eds Text types and corpora Tuăbingen: Narr 123130 Aitchison, Jean 1991 Language change: progress or decay? 2nd edition Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2003 “From Armageddon to war: the vocabulary of terrorism.” In Jean Aitchison and Diana M Lewis, eds New media language London: Routledge 193–203 Algeo, John 1988 “British and American grammatical differences.” International Journal of Lexicography 1: 1–31 ed 1991 Fifty years among the new words: a dictionary of neologisms, 1941–1991 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1998 “Vocabulary.” In Suzanne Romaine, ed The Cambridge history of the English language, vol IV, 1776–1997 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 57–91 Amis, Kingsley 1997 The King’s English: a guide to modern usage London: HarperCollins Ammon, Ulrich 1998a Ist Deutsch noch internationale Wissenschaftssprache? 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Frederick T 1962 Current English usage London: Macmillan Zandvoort, Reinhard W 1957 Wartime English: materials for a linguistic history of World War II Groningen: Wolters Index AAVE see African-American Vernacular English academic writing see science acronym 38, 61–62, 70, 81, 201 African-American Vernacular English age-grading 29, 30, 31, 33, 49 American English 7, 18, 25, 28, 48, 47, 49, 60, 66–68, 89, 95, 98–99, 100–108, 111, 123, 128, 130–137, 140, 154, 160, 161, 168, 181, 182, 183, 186, 188, 189, 204 Americanization 183, 193–195 Americanism 66 Amis, Kingsley 165 analogy 64, 112, 118, 119, 125, 160 apparent-time (investigation of language change) 21, 29–33, 103, 114 archaism 28, 36, 52–53 attitude 7, 172, 201 Australian English 7, 91, 165, 193, 200 collocation 41, 43, 48, 151 colloquialism 39, 72, 73, 95, 107, 113, 134, 137, 183, 203 colloquialization 187–193, 199, 204 competence 12, 13, 83 contraction 31, 99, 100, 182, 189 conversion 37, 45, 53, 65 creativity 37–38, 40, 53–59, 64, 69, 80 Creole/creolized English 7, Bloomfield, Leonard 2, 7, 14, 15, 40 Bolinger, Dwight 100, 205 borrowing see language contact Briticism 102, 131, 133, 135, 203 British Empire 6, 7, 9, 162, 200 British English 18, 25, 31, 47, 49, 54, 66–68, 89, 91, 95, 98–108, 110, 111, 120–123, 130–137, 140, 144, 152, 158, 160, 161, 165, 181, 193–194, 203, 204 Early Modern English 31, 37, 82, 85, 108, 111, 119, 120, 126, 138, 153, 157, 160 educated (usage) 29, 158, 159, 161, 162, 167, 173, 174, 175–176, 200 Edward VIII 143 ethnicity 60, 177, 195, 201 etymology 39, 45, 79, 107, 160 euphemism 72 Canadian English 26 capitalism 80 Caribbean English 7, Chomsky, Noam 12, 83 class (social) 6, 29, 33, 157, 161, 169, 170, 171, 177 Clinton, William J 42 Cockney 156 Cold War 9, 71 242 decolonization 7–8, 158, 162, 200, 201 democracy 182, 186, 201 dialect leveling 176, 194, 201 dictionaries 2, 53–57, 63, 68 discourse 61, 63, 77, 80, 83, 89–95, 97, 100, 103, 107, 110–111, 115, 119, 125, 142, 181, 186–187, 203 discourse marker 30, 31, 33 discourse particle see discourse marker feminism 72, 153 French 6, 122, 159, 160, 168 “General American” (accent) 173–180 genre 62, 69, 100, 108, 118, 142, 147, 150, 184, 193, 197–199, 204 German 39, 122 grammar, analytical 40, 84, 141, 144, 148, 149 grammaticalization 13, 83, 84, 86, 96–98, 100, 106, 114, 194 Index Greek 39, 79, 157, 159 Gulf Wars 43 243 hypercorrection 109, 142, 143 Old English 63, 87, 110, 128, 140, 141, 143, 150, 159, 167 oral see spoken (English) Indian English 201 inflection 84, 141–148, 149, 152 information (structure) 147 innovation 29, 34, 35, 36, 38, 40, 47, 69, 70–71, 83, 87, 94, 95–98, 111, 120, 150, 153, 154, 159, 167, 179, 181–182, 194 Internet see WorldWide Web Irish English 27, 91, 193 parole 182 performance 12, 13, 83, 119, 154 pluricentric (language) 6, 200 “political correctness” 6, 172 prescriptivism 3, 84, 109, 126–127, 142, 153, 155, 162, 169 prestige 7, 29, 156, 157–158, 169, 171, 173, 177–178, 203 productivity 37, 38, 39, 40, 45, 54, 57, 61–68, 79, 119 Jagger, J Hubert 3, 137 Jamaican English James, Henry 173–174 Jespersen, Otto 23, 96, 118–119, 145 Jones, Daniel 160, 161, 162–164, 169, 171 journalism see newspapers real-time (investigation of language change) 21–22, 24, 25, 103, 114 reanalysis 2, 139, 152 Received Pronunciation see RP register 29, 60, 72, 77, 99, 138, 148, 184–185 regularization 84, 148, 194 RP 156, 162–173, 175, 186, 200 koine´(ization) 176 Labov, William 2, 15, 21–22, 29, 179 language contact 53, 54, 59–61, 201 langue 13, 83 Latin 6, 39, 54, 79, 157, 159 Lewis, C[live] S[taples] 71 literacy 38 Matthews, Brander media 69, 169, 171, 186, 188, 201 Mencken, H[erbert] L[ouis] 19 metaphor 40–41, 72, 81, 205 Middle English 37, 38, 63, 87, 96, 119, 138, 140, 141, 143, 148, 149, 153, 159, 168 neologism 29, 36–37, 38, 42, 43, 44, 45, 54, 69, 72 New Englishes 54, 162 New Zealand English 7, 91, 165, 195 newspapers 62, 69, 95, 118, 129, 145, 146–147, 188–190, 193, 204 Nigerian English 201 nonstandard English 12, 54, 137, 143, 153, 173, 195 obsolescence see archaism OED 28, 36, 39, 41, 43, 44–45, 46, 47–50, 51, 52, 54–61, 63–69, 69–71, 72, 74–78, 79, 97–98, 102, 103, 113–114, 123–129, 131, 137, 150, 153, 183, 202 Sapir–Whorf hypothesis 72, 73 Saussure, Ferdinand de 13, 83, 201 science 38, 55, 61, 62, 70, 80, 95, 188–192, 193, 204 Scottish English 156 second-language variety of English sociolinguistics 5, 35, 167, 169, 175, 176, 177, 181 South African English 7, 91, 165, 200 Spanish 8, 59, 61 spoken (English) 6, 13, 27, 29, 30–33, 40, 69, 72, 81, 82, 88, 89, 95, 98, 100, 104–106, 110, 114–117, 118, 129, 136, 142, 145, 147, 151, 154, 156–158, 174, 179, 182, 183–184, 186–188, 189, 198, 203 standard (language) 169, 171, 173, 177, 179, 200–201 standard English 5–7, 11, 33, 36, 54, 72, 84, 93, 130, 131, 137, 142, 143, 150, 152, 153–154, 156, 179, 200, 202 standardization 5, 156–162, 171, 177, 201, 204 stigma 35, 82, 143, 150, 159, 167, 201 style formal 29, 69, 84, 85, 88, 98, 99, 102, 108, 110, 137, 138, 142, 146, 152, 153, 183, 185, 187, 188, 198, 202, 204 informal 6, 29, 60, 72, 88, 99, 104, 110, 112, 113, 115, 137, 138, 142, 143, 182–183, 186, 187, 188–193, 202, 203, 204, 205 244 Index taboo 72–73 technology 6, 38, 70, 72, 80, 158, 186–188, 201 text see genre, register typology 40, 87, 94, 117, 122 varieties of English see American English, Australian English, British English, Canadian English, Caribbean English, etc Williams, Raymond 80, 157–158 World War I 7, 9, 71 World War II 71, 169, 185 WorldWide Web 26–27, 46, 64, 91, 106, 107, 109, 118, 119, 135, 151, 186 written (English) 6, 13, 27, 29, 33, 54, 69, 72, 88, 89, 95, 98, 103, 105, 108, 115–117, 118, 129, 136, 143, 145, 146, 147, 153, 182, 183–193, 204 Yiddish 59–61 war see World War I, World War II, Cold War, Gulf Wars zero-derivation see conversion ... British or American English? A handbook of word and grammar patterns Twentieth- Century English History, Variation, and Standardization CHRISTIAN MAIR CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York,... recent and contemporary English is deluged with data and, in principle, needs to write separate histories of several richly documented standard and nonstandard varieties, and a history of contact and. .. Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www .cambridge. org Information