Monthly Archives: October 2011

Prescriptivism in the French-speaking world

Posted on October 12, 2011 by remysenwim

The French-speaking world is a rather ‘monocentric’ linguistic community and prescriptivism has been an important part of the discourse on the French language for centuries. My contribution to this blog will be to share some information about purism in France … Continue reading →

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A bibliography of prescriptivism

Posted on October 11, 2011 by BtU Admin

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 … Continue reading →

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Fowler, Garner or …?

Posted on October 7, 2011 by BtU Admin

Which usage guide do you normally consult? We’d be interested in finding out about readers’ preferences for particular usage guides. What do you consult them for (that is, if you do consult them …), and how frequently? Do you always find … Continue reading →

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Earlier use of the new “like”?

Posted on October 6, 2011 by BtU Admin

Mesthrie et al. (Introducing Sociolinguistics 2nd ed., 2009:117-8) discuss “three newer uses” of like, the “quotative” use (I’m like why did you do that), the use of like as a hedge (My parents like hate you) and the use of like as … Continue reading →

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Attitudes to usage: second poll

Posted on October 5, 2011 by BtU Admin

This poll asks for your attitudes to the acceptability of the next five items in Attitudes to English Usage, by W.H. Mittins, Mary Salu, Mary Edmonson, and Sheila Coyne (OUP, 1970). If you haven’t done the first poll yet, please do … Continue reading →

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Prescriptivism in different linguistic fields

Posted on October 4, 2011 by BtU Admin

Lynne Truss’s Eats Shoots and Leaves (2003) deals with punctuation, while Fowler’s Modern English Usage (1926 and later editions) deals with grammar and lexis. Do we find usage guides in fairly equal numbers for all linguistic fields, spelling, punctuation, grammar, … Continue reading →

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Prescriptivism and sociolinguistics

Posted on October 4, 2011 by BtU Admin

One of the few introductions to sociolinguistics that includes a discussion on prescriptivism is Mesthrie et al.’s Introducing Sociolinguistics (2nd ed. 2009, Edinburgh University Press). On p. 110, the book defines prescriptivism as “the dominant ideology in language education [which] … Continue reading →

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More linguistic interest in prescriptivism?

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Ingrid Tieken

Whether more linguists are getting interested in prescriptivism is hard to say as I have no baseline data so to speak. But during the Helsinki Corpus Festival the term prescriptivism occurred quite a number of times. To begin with, there … Continue reading →

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Phrasal verbs and informal usage

Posted on October 2, 2011 by Ingrid Tieken

The question whether phrasal verbs are typical of informal usage was raised by Paula Rodríguez-Puente at the Helsinki Corpus Festival yesterday. The title of her paper was “”Talking ‘private’ with phrasal verbs: A corpus-based study of English phrasal verbs from 1650 to … Continue reading →

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