27.1498, Review: Historical Ling; Socioling; Syntax: Yáñez-Bouza (2014)

Thu Mar 31 15:19:01 UTC 2016

LINGUIST List: Vol-27-1498. Thu Mar 31 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.1498, Review: Historical Ling; Socioling; Syntax: Yáñez-Bouza (2014)

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Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2016 11:18:43
From: Carmen Ebner [c.ebner at hum.leidenuniv.nl]
Subject: Grammar, Rhetoric and Usage in English

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/26/26-167.html

AUTHOR: Nuria  Yáñez-Bouza
TITLE: Grammar, Rhetoric and Usage in English
SUBTITLE: Preposition Placement 1500–1900
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
YEAR: 2014

REVIEWER: Carmen Ebner, Leiden University Centre for Linguistics

Reviews Editor: Robert Arthur Cote

SUMMARY

The book “Grammar, Rhetoric and Usage in English: Preposition Placement
1500–1900” by Yáñez-Bouza. (2015) represents a detailed and careful analysis
of preposition placement in the early Modern English (EModE) and late Modern
English (LModE) periods. Yáñez-Bouza conducts a contrastive analysis of
preposition stranding (The house which I live in) and pied-piping (The house
in which I live) but focusses on the stigmatisation and use of the former by a
thorough large-scale investigation of precept and usage data. An interesting
aspect of this book, which consists of six chapters and a conclusion, is the
inclusion and discussion of rhetoric treaties and their role in the
prescriptive approach against preposition stranding.

In the Introduction, Yáñez-Bouza provides the necessary background for her
analysis of preposition placement by discussing the different contexts in
which preposition stranding and pied piping can occur as well as an overview
of previous syntactic variation studies in English focusing on this linguistic
feature. Despite the existing body of literature dealing with preposition
placement, the author highlights the lack of a “corpus-based approach within
the framework of normative linguistics and linguistic historiography” (9)
which she hopes to contribute to with her study. She further positions her
study by describing the normative linguistic framework and the standardisation
process drawing on Milroy and Milroy (2012: 19–22). The underlying research
questions driving the study are clearly stated in the introduction as is the
author’s main aim for this study, which is to reassess “the effect and
effectiveness of the normative tradition on the history of P-stranding, with a
special focus on – thought not limited to – eighteenth century precept works”
(19–20).

Chapter 2, “Methodology”, contains a description of the study’s methodology
for which Yáñez-Bouza compiled two corpora: a precept data corpus and a usage
data corpus. Since a focus is placed on the eighteenth century, the so-called
“age of prescriptivism” (154), the author did not only identify grammar books
published in this period but also identified relevant grammars included in
works such as dictionaries and letter-writing manuals. For the usage corpus, a
selection of data was made from two diachronic English corpora – the Helsinki
Corpus (HC) and A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers
(ARCHER) – to incorporate various different registers such as diaries,
sermons, and legal texts to enable an analysis of register variation.
Furthermore, this chapter contains a detailed analysis of the linguistic
variation of preposition stranding and pied-piping by providing a
classification of types of phrase as well as “four main syntactic-semantic
criteria” including “[o]bligatoriness” and “[a]rgumenthood/thematic role” of
the prepositional phrase (40–41). 

In Chapter 3, “Eighteenth-century precept”, Yáñez-Bouza tackles a detailed
analysis of attitudes expressed towards preposition stranding in the
eighteenth-century precept data corpus. By including both a qualitative and
quantitative analysis of how many authors published how many works on this
topic containing how many comments towards preposition stranding, a clearer
picture of the development of proscriptive and prescriptive strictures is
gained. Yáñez-Bouza classified her collected precept data into four
categories: containing no comments about preposition stranding, a neutral
comment, advocating preposition stranding, or criticising it. Furthermore, the
labels used in connection with comments on preposition stranding were examined
by drawing on Sundby et al.’s (1991) A Dictionary of English Normative Grammar
1700–1800 (DENG). This chapter also includes a section on plagiarism of
quotations in the eighteenth century, which, Yáñez-Bouza argues, hints at the
existence of a discourse community of grammar writers.

Chapter 4, “Usage in Early and Late Modern English”, contains a discussion of
preposition stranding in the usage corpus. After providing an overview of the
different types of clauses found in the corpus, the author conducts a
fine-grained diachronic analysis of syntactic and register variation and
provides numerous examples from her usage corpus. Her findings show an
interesting change in trends concerning the use of preposition stranding.
While preposition stranding was already frequently used by 1500 (106), the
author was able to show a decrease in frequency in the late eighteenth century
and concludes that “the stigmatisation of P-stranding cannot have originated
in the late eighteenth century, because of the lack of a time gap between
precept and usage” (151). This is further discussed in Chapter 5.

Chapter 5, “Grammar, rhetoric and style”, constitutes the main part of this
book. Yáñez-Bouza succeeded in identifying “a transition period” (1700–1749)
which is essential in the stigmatisation development of preposition stranding
and which she argues is a period of latent awareness (153–154). The EModE
period and grammars published in this period are discussed to identify the
beginning of preposition stranding stigmatisation. Since early English
grammars relied heavily on Latin grammars, the role of Latin syntax and
grammatical correctness is discussed by the author by drawing on John Dryden
and the collected precept data. 

In Chapter 6, “Latent awareness”, Yáñez-Bouza continues to discuss the role of
John Dryden and other prominent figures during the seventeenth and early
eighteenth century, the so-called period of latent awareness, in which she
argues “language norms were ‘hibernating’” and “yet to be strengthened as
‘more definite awareness’ as the century progressed” (284). Dryden’s influence
on figures such as Joseph Addison and Elizabeth Montagu is discussed in more
detail.

The conclusion highlights the main points of Yáñez-Bouza’s study and answers
her research questions stated in the introduction. She also manages to bridge
the findings of her study by briefly discussing contemporary attitudes towards
preposition stranding which is still negatively viewed in some contexts.

EVALUATION

Yáñez-Bouza’s “Grammar, Rhetoric and Usage” is a significant contribution to
the socio-historical study of prescriptivism and adds an interesting
perspective to the study of preposition stranding by including rhetoric
treaties. One of the merits of this book is the author’s ability to show the
interconnectivity of grammar works and rhetoric treaties. Thus, she managed to
highlight the importance of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries for
the stigmatisation of preposition stranding and to provide evidence for the
effects of normative traditions on the actual usage of preposition stranding.
The many examples taken from the compiled usage and precept corpora help to
illustrate the different attitudes towards preposition stranding.

Despite numerous studies on this particular linguistic feature, Yáñez-Bouza’s
large-scale corpus-based approach towards preposition stranding adds a new
perspective to the subject matter, and the author succeeds in her goal of
reassessing the effects of prescriptivism on preposition stranding. According
to the author, the precept data compilation does reflect the “general
diachronic trends” of increased publishing rates in the second half of the
eighteenth century (25–26). Yáñez-Bouza also does not fail to mention the
connection between the rising number of grammar publications and the social
mobility of the rising middle classes (25), which is an important aspect in
the study of the standardisation process of English (Tieken-Boon van Ostade,
2008: 10). Details such as these are necessary to illustrate the social
context of the period investigated by the author and to further a better
understanding of preposition stranding stigmatisation. 

Yáñez-Bouza manages to include 285 works of 148 authors in her precept corpus
(26). However, no distinction is made between the geographical origin of the
authors in her analysis. Despite stating that the majority of authors was
British, it would be interesting to see whether there are any differences
between the British majority and the relatively small number of American or
Irish authors. However, Yáñez-Bouza discusses the topic of female authors of
grammar books and highlights their somewhat difficult task of gaining
authority, which is an aspect that enriches the study from a sociolinguistic
point of view. Furthermore, Yáñez-Bouza discusses John Dryden’s role in the
stigmatisation process of preposition stranding and successfully illustrates
his influence on other prominent figures such as Joseph Addison, father of the
Spectator (291).

All in all, Yáñez-Bouza’s “Grammar, Rhetoric and Usage” fits in nicely with
other research in the field and adds an important piece to the
socio-historical study of effects of prescriptivism on actual language use. It
is a well-structured study which benefits greatly from a combination of
qualitative and quantitative approaches. This book is suitable for researchers
as well as students with a background in syntax. 

REFERENCES

Milroy, James & Lesley Milroy. 2012. Authority in Language. London: Routledge.

Sundby, Bertil, Anne Kari Bjørge & Kari E. Haugland. 1991. A Dictionary of
English Normative Grammar 1700–1800 (DENG). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid. 2008. Grammars, grammarians and
grammar-writing: An introduction. In: Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade (ed.).
Grammar, Grammarians and Grammar-Writing in Eighteenth-Century England.
Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 1-14.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Carmen Ebner is a Ph.D. candidate at the Leiden University Centre for
Linguistics, (Leiden, the Netherlands), and obtained her M.Litt. in English
Language Teaching at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. For her Ph.D.
project she investigates attitudes towards usage problems in British English,
which is part of the wider-research project Bridging the Unbridgeable:
Linguists, Prescriptivists and the General Public. Her main academic interests
are sociolinguistics, language and identity, and language in the media.

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