{"title":"Sociolinguistic typology and the speed of linguistic change","authors":"P. Trudgill","doi":"10.1515/jhsl-2019-0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jhsl-2019-0015","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Speed of linguistic change is not constant: it differs as between different language and dialects, and between different chronological periods. These differences are, at least to some extent, conditioned by social parameters. Two major social factors are involved in producing these different rates of linguistic change. There is, first, the role of the relative degree of contact versus isolation which speech communities have experienced: a good example is provided by the contrast between Faroese and Icelandic as opposed to the continental Scandinavian languages. There is, secondly, an important role for relative social stability versus social instability in the histories of communities. There is considerable evidence to suggest that conservative language varieties generally tend to be the ones which are relatively more geographically isolated than rapid-change varieties, as well as being relatively more stable as this paper illustrates, through a study of the linguistic consequences of social upheavals involving different historical periods, different continents, and different languages.","PeriodicalId":29883,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics","volume":"453 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77719857","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Borrowing. Loanwords in the Speech Community and in the Grammar","authors":"R. Hickey","doi":"10.1515/jhsl-2018-0028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jhsl-2018-0028","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29883,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83790564","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
T. Nevalainen, Tanja Säily, Turo Vartiainen, A. Liimatta, Jefrey Lijffijt
{"title":"History of English as punctuated equilibria? A meta-analysis of the rate of linguistic change in Middle English","authors":"T. Nevalainen, Tanja Säily, Turo Vartiainen, A. Liimatta, Jefrey Lijffijt","doi":"10.1515/JHSL-2019-0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/JHSL-2019-0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this paper, we explore the rate of language change in the history of English. Our main focus is on detecting periods of accelerated change in Middle English (1150–1500), but we also compare the Middle English data with the Early Modern period (1500–1700) in order to establish a longer diachrony for the pace at which English has changed over time. Our study is based on a meta-analysis of existing corpus research, which is made available through a new linguistic resource, the Language Change Database (LCD). By aggregating the rates of 44 individual changes, we provide a critical assessment of how well the theory of punctuated equilibria (Dixon, Robert M. W. 1997. The rise and fall of languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) fits with our results. More specifically, by comparing the rate of language change with major language-external events, such as the Norman Conquest and the Black Death, we provide the first corpus-based meta-analysis of whether these events, which had significant societal consequences, also had an impact on the rate of language change. Our results indicate that major changes in the rate of linguistic change in the late medieval period could indeed be connected to the social and cultural after-effects of the Norman Conquest. We also make a methodological contribution to the field of English historical linguistics: by re-using data from existing research, linguists can start to ask new, fundamental questions about the ways in which language change progresses.","PeriodicalId":29883,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80428167","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Language planning as nation building: Ideology, policy and implementation in the Netherlands, 1750–1850. (Advances in historical sociolinguistics, 9)","authors":"J. Joseph","doi":"10.1515/jhsl-2019-0022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jhsl-2019-0022","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29883,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90419262","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Learning Languages in Early Modern England","authors":"Weiao Xing","doi":"10.1515/jhsl-2020-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jhsl-2020-0003","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29883,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80699521","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sociolinguistics and history: An interdisciplinary view of bilingualism in imperial Russia","authors":"D. Offord","doi":"10.1515/jhsl-2018-0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jhsl-2018-0019","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Using a study of the historical phenomenon of Franco-Russian bilingualism in imperial Russia as its point of departure, this article has three interlocking aims. First, it reflects on the common interest that historical sociolinguists and certain types of historian have in language use and language choice. Secondly, building on recent work by historical sociolinguists, it considers the ways in which historians’ and historical sociolinguists’ investigation of such matters as the social, political, cultural and literary functions of the French language in lands where French was not the mother tongue can be broadened and deepened by familiarity with each others’ findings. Thirdly, it seeks to illuminate the role of linguistic meta-discourse in the sort of grand narratives about the history and culture of national communities in which historians may be interested. In the specific case I examine, the narratives concern the relationship of Russia to the West, the wholeness or fragmentation of the Russian nation, the effects of cultural borrowing, the nature of Russian national identity and culture and the degree to which Russia is historically and culturally exceptional. In pursuit of these aims, I hope to illustrate the importance of linguistic matters in the history of societies, polities, and cultures and the potential that an interdisciplinary approach has to lend scholarship on these matters richer context and finer nuance than work which falls purely within either the historical or the historical-sociolinguistic domain tends to yield.","PeriodicalId":29883,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics","volume":"75 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78990453","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Nevalainen, Terttu, Minna Palander-Collin and Tanja Säily: Patterns of Change in Eighteenth-Century English","authors":"C. Claridge","doi":"10.1515/jhsl-2019-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jhsl-2019-0003","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29883,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics","volume":"37 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75697370","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Auer, Anita, Denis Renevey, Camille Marshall and Tino Oudesluijs: Revisiting the Medieval North of England: Interdisciplinary Approaches","authors":"K. Wales","doi":"10.1515/jhsl-2019-0021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jhsl-2019-0021","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29883,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics","volume":"75 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83834773","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Cornish revival? The nascent iconization of a post-obsolescent language","authors":"Stuart S. Dunmore","doi":"10.1515/jhsl-2018-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jhsl-2018-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article considers the case of Cornish, a Celtic language that was in decline in the south-west of Great Britain from the early medieval era until the end of the eighteenth century, when its last recorded native speakers died out. At the point when a language under pressure eventually succumbs to forces of language shift, its role in representations of a distinct sociocultural identity might be expected to die with the medium itself. Yet a sense of cohesion at the group level has been observed to endure long after a shift to another language has occurred, with the obsolescent variety retaining a role in the maintenance of group boundaries. In situations of language shift, the meanings of such social constructions can change considerably, and the obsolescent variety may retain ideological associations with the group as an iconized symbol of identity. The analysis presented in this paper is based on an examination of the historical record as well as a synthesis of recent sociological research on Cornish. Attention will be drawn specifically to the manner in which the language has functioned as an icon of identity since the nadir of its decline as a spoken vernacular, through the ‘Cornish Revival’ of the twentieth century to the present day.","PeriodicalId":29883,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics","volume":"117 3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77143252","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Havinga, Anna D: Invisibilising Austrian German. On the Effect of Linguistic Prescriptions and Educational Reforms on Writing Practices in 18th-Century Austria (Lingua Historica Germanica 18)","authors":"Spiros A. Moschonas","doi":"10.1515/jhsl-2018-0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jhsl-2018-0018","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29883,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics","volume":"96 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77447091","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}