A bibliography of prescriptivism

We are currently compiling a bibliography of prescriptivism. There are of course various publications we know about, such as the following:

  • Bennett, Karen (2009) ‘English academic style manuals: a survey’, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 8: 43-54.
  • Bex, Tony (1999). “Representations of English in Twentieth-Century Britain: Fowler, Gowers and Partidge”, in: Tony Bex and Richard J. Watts (eds.), Standard English. The Widening Debate. London and New York: Routledge, 89-109.
  • Burchfield, Robert (1991). “The Fowler Brothers and the Tradition of Usage Handbooks”, in: Gerhard Leitner, ed. English Traditional Grammars: An International Perspective. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 93-111.
  • Busse, Ulrich and Anne Schröder (2006). “From prescriptivism to descriptivism? 140 years of English usage guides: Some old and new controversies”, in: Christoph Houswitschka, Gabriele Knappe and Anja Müller, eds. Anglistentag 2005 Bamberg. Proceedings. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 457-473.
  • Finegan, Edward (2001). “Usage.” In: John Algeo (ed.), The Cambridge History of the English Language Vol. 6. Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press. 358-421.
  • Peters, Pam. 2006. “English Usage: prescription and Description”. In Bas Aarts and April McMahon (eds.), The Handbook of English Linguistics.Oxford: Blackwell. 759-780.

But there must be many more that other people know about. So do leave your comment here with additional titles: between us, we will compile a list that will be of use to anyone interested in the topic.

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2 Responses to A bibliography of prescriptivism

  1. Marilyn Hedges says:

    Joan Beal has edited a Peter Lang publication on prescriptivism:
    Beal, Joan C.; Carmel Nocera; Massimo Sturiale (eds.). 2008 “Perspectives on Prescriptivism. (Linguistic Insights. Studies in Language and Communication)”, Peter Lang Pub. Inc.

  2. Matthijs Smits says:

    In the process of doing research I came across a title that focuses on prescriptivism in the United States:

    Drake, Glendon F. (1977). The Role of Prescriptivism in American Linguistics, 1820-1970. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

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