33.1119, Books: The emergence of American English as a discursive variety: Paulsen

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-33-1119. Mon Mar 28 2022. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 33.1119, Books: The emergence of American English as a discursive variety: Paulsen

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Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2022 21:50:31
From: Sebastian Nordhoff [Sebastian.Nordhoff at langsci-press.org]
Subject: The emergence of American English as a discursive variety: Paulsen

 


Title: The emergence of American English as a discursive variety 
Subtitle: Tracing enregisterment processes in nineteenth-century U.S. newspapers 
Series Title: Language Variation  

Publication Year: 2022 
Publisher: Language Science Press
	   http://langsci-press.org
	

Book URL: https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/341 


Author: Ingrid Paulsen

Electronic: ISBN:  9783961103386 Pages: 460 Price: Europe EURO 0 Comment: Open Access


Abstract:

Do speakers’ identity constructions influence the emergence of new varieties
of a language? This question is at the heart of a debate about how the process
of the emergence of postcolonial varieties of English can best be modeled.
This volume contributes to the debate by linking it to models and theories
proposed by anthropological linguists, sociolinguists and discourse linguists
who view identity as a social and cultural phenomenon that is produced through
linguistic and other social practices. Language is seen as essential for
identity constructions because speakers use linguistic forms that index social
‘personae’ as well as specific social practices and values to convey an image
of self to other speakers. Based on the theory of enregisterment that models
the cultural and discursive process of the creation of indexical links between
linguistic forms and social values, the argument is made that any model of the
emergence of new varieties needs to differentiate carefully between a
structural level and a discursive level. What emerges on the discursive level
as a result of processes of enregisterment is a ‘discursive variety’. The
volume illustrates how the emergence of a discursive variety can be
systematically studied in a historical context by focusing on the
enregisterment of American English as it can be observed in nineteenth-century
U.S. newspapers. Using a discourse-linguistic methodological framework and two
large databases containing close to 78 million newspaper articles, the study
reveals a complex pattern of indexical links between the phonological forms
/h/-dropping and -insertion, yod-dropping, a lengthened and backened bath
vowel, non-rhoticity, a realization of prevocalic /r/ as a labiodental
approximant as well as the lexical items baggage and pants on the one hand and
social values centering around nationality, authenticity and non-specificity
on the other hand. Qualitative analyses uncover the social personae associated
with the linguistic forms (e.g. the American cowboy, the African American
mammy and the ‘Anglo-maniac’ American dude), while quantitative analyses trace
the development over time and show that the enregisterment processes were
widespread and not restricted to a particular region.
 



Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics
                     Sociolinguistics
                     Text/Corpus Linguistics

Subject Language(s): English (eng)


Written In: English  (eng)

See this book announcement on our website: 
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/books/get-book.cfm?BookID=160633




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