LL-L: "Hypercorrection" (was "Pronouns")" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 27.JUN.1999 (01)

[R. Hahn]

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From: "Urban Lindqvist" <urban.lindqvist at telia.com>
Subject: Hypercorrection (was "Pronouns")


> From: "john feather" <johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk>
> Subject: Pronouns
>
> "Hyper-correction" is simply an explanation of why a particular form,
> contrary to standard usage, is used by a particular speaker.
>
> As regards usages being "wrong", how about the thought that
> "mentally-unimpaired, unstressed, adult native-speakers do not make
> grammatical errors"? Hyper-correction is then a manifestation of stress -
> the speaker is uncomfortable in the situation and is trying to impress
> someone.

The term hypercorrection is even more technical than that. For the sake of
simplicity I quote from R. L. Trask's _Historical Linguistics_ (1996), p.
122 (ISBN: 0-340-60758-0):

"[Hypercorrection] occurs when a speaker deliberately tries to adjust his or
her own speech in the direction of another variety perceived as more
prestigious but 'overshoots the mark' by applying an adjustment too broadly.
Sporadic hypercorrection is very common. A British speaker trying to acquire
an American accent will carefully insert non-native /r/s into words like
_dark_ and _court_, but may overdo it and produce things like _avocardo_. I
myself, being American, lack the British contrast between _do_ and _dew_:
attempting to acquire the British diphthong in _dew_ and _new_, I
occasionally overdo it and produce things like _What shall we dew?_ [---]
On occasion such hypercorrections may establish themselves in the language.
In Middle English, the word for 'throne' was _trone_, borrowed from French.
But this word derives ultimately Greek _thronos_, and English-speakers
apparently re-formed their word to _throne_ in order to show the Greek
connection, or perhaps just to sound more erudite. But then they did the
same thing to _autour_, which is not of Greek origin at all, producing as a
result the modern form _authour_, in which the dental fricative derives
purely from hypercorrection."

Urban


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