Book Notice: Linguistic Purism in the Germanic Languages

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Forwarded from LINGUIST List 16.1336
Tue Apr 26 2005

Title: Linguistic Purism in the Germanic Languages
Series Title: Studia Linguistica Germanica 75
Published: 2005
Publisher: Mouton de Gruyter                http://www.mouton-publishers.com


Editor: Nils Langer, University of Bristol
Editor: Winifred V. Davies, University of Wales
Hardback: ISBN: 3110183374 Pages: viii, 374 pages Price: Europe EURO 98.00
Comment: Walter de Gruyter
Abstract:

Purism is an aspect of linguistic study which appeals not only to the
scholar but also to the layperson. Somehow, ordinary speakers with many
different mother tongues and with no formal training in linguistics share
certain beliefs about what language is, how it develops or should develop,
whether it has good or bad qualities, etc. The topic of linguistic purism
in its many realisations is the subject of this volume of 19 articles
selected from the contributions presented at a conference at the
University of Bristol in 2003.

In particular, the articles deal with the relationship of purism to
historical prescriptivism, e.g. the influence of grammarians in the 17th
and 18th centuries, to nationhood, e.g. the instrumentalising of purism in
the standardisation of Afrikaans or Luxembourgish, to modern society, e.g.
the existence of puristic tendencies in computer chatrooms, to folk
linguistics, e.g. lay perceptions of different varieties of English, and
to academic linguistics, e.g. the presence of puristic notions in the
historiography of German or English.

Nils Langer is a Lecturer in German Linguistics at the University of
Bristol, UK.

Winifred Davies is a Senior Lecturer in German at the University of Wales
Aberystwyth, UK.

TO ORDER, PLEASE CONTACT

SFG Servicecenter-Fachverlage
Postfach 4343
72774 Reutlingen, Germany
Fax: +49 (0)7071 - 93 53 - 33
E-mail: deGruyters-f-g.com


For USA, Canada, Mexico:

Walter de Gruyter, Inc.
PO Box 960
Herndon, VA 20172-0960
Tel.: +1 (703) 661 1589
Tel. Toll-free +1 (800) 208 8144
Fax: +1 (703) 661 1501
e-mail: degruytermailpresswarehouse.com

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics
                            Sociolinguistics
Language Family(ies): Germanic
Book URL: http://www.degruyter.de/rs/bookSingle.cfm?id=IS-3110183374-1&l=E