From Haugen’s codification to Thomas’s purism: assessing the role of description and prescription, prescriptivism and purism in linguistic standardisation

Haugen’s model (1972 [1966]) of standardisation has been widely adopted in general histories of particular languages, not least because of its clarity and simplicity. In this article, I focus on its treatment of codification, with a view to suggesting refinements to this part of the model. In particular, I discuss the relationship between codification and prescription on the one hand, and between prescriptivism and purism on the other. Haugen makes no distinction between codification and prescription either in the original version of his model (Haugen 1972 [1966]), or in its revised version (Haugen 1987). Indeed, he seems to consider codification and prescription as broadly interchangeable, suggesting that the typical products of codification are a prescriptive orthography, grammar and dictionary. Whilst Milroy and Milroy (1991) do differentiate codification and prescription, neither model mentions purism, although Deumert and Vandenbussche (2003) argue that it is essential to consider its role in the history of standardisation. I offer definitions of the different terms and argue that, when considering the role of prescriptivism and purism in linguistic standardisation, it is important to distinguish between the author’s/work’s intention, use of metalanguage, and effect. Finally, I adapt George Thomas’s model for assessing purism to the assessment of prescriptivism, thereby avoiding viewing prescription and description as a simple dichotomy.This research, part of the Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies research project, was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) under its Open World Research Initiative

La persistance de l’idéologie linguistique des remarqueurs dans les chroniques de langage de 1925 à nos jours

Dans cet article j’examine dans quelle mesure l’idéologie linguistique des remarqueurs du XVIIe siècle, et notamment celle exprimée par Claude Favre de Vaugelas dans ses célèbres Remarques sur la langue françoise de 1647, persiste dans les chroniques de langage publiées en France ou en Belgique depuis les années 1920. Ces courts articles sur l’usage du français qui apparaissent dans les journaux ou revues ont joué un rôle important dans la presse française au XXe siècle. Je fais l’analyse des chroniques de trois moments représentatifs dans l’histoire de ce genre : les années 1920 et 1930 ; la période 1950-1970, considérée par certains comme « l’âge d’or » du genre ; et les quinze dernières années. Je m’intéresse en particulier à la persistance de certaines notions clés – la pureté, la netteté ou la clarté, et la conception de ce qui constitue le bon usage du français. Abstract: In this article I examine the extent to which the linguistic ideology of the remarqueurs, and notably that expressed by Claude Favre de Vaugelas in his famous Remarks on the French Language of 1647, persists in newspaper and magazine columns on the French language published in France or Belguim since the 1920s. These short articles on the use of French have played an important role in the French press in the twentieth century. I analyse the French language columns from three representative periods in the history of the genre: the 1920s and 1930s; 1950-1970, considered by some as the “Golden Age” of the genre; and the last fifteen years. I consider in particular the persistence of certain key concepts – purity, precision or clarity, and the concept of good French usage

The cool-star spectral catalog: A uniform collection of IUE SWP-LOs

Over the past decade and a half of its operations, the International Ultraviolet Explorer has recorded low-dispersion spectrograms in the 1150-2000 A interval of more than 800 stars of late spectral type (F-M). The sub-2000 A region contains a number of emission lines that are key diagnostics of physical conditions in the high-excitation chromospheres and subcoronal 'transition zones' of such stars. Many of the sources have been observed a number of times, and the available collection of SWP-LO exposures in the IUE Archives exceeds 4,000. With support from the Astrophysics Data Program, we have assembled the archival material into a catalog of IUE far-UV fluxes of late-type stars. In order to ensure uniform processing of the spectra, we: (1) photometrically corrected the raw vidicon images with a custom version of the 1985 SWP ITF; (2) identified and eliminated, sharp cosmic-ray 'hits' by means of a spatial filter; (3) extracted the spectral traces with the 'optimal' (weighted-slit) strategy; and (4) calibrated them against a well-characterized reference source, the DA white dwarf G191-B2B. Our approach is similar to that adopted by the IUE Project for its 'Final Archive', but our implementation is specialized to the case of chromospheric emission-line sources. We measured the resulting SWP-LO spectra using a semi-autonomous algorithm that establishes a smooth continuum by numerical filtering, and then fits the significant emissions (or absorptions) by means of a constrained Bevington-type multiple-Gaussian procedure. The algorithm assigns errors to the fitted fluxes - or upper limits in the absence of a significant detection - according to a model based on careful measurements of the noise properties of the IUE's intensified SEC cameras. Here, we describe the 'visualization' strategies we adopted to ensure human-review of the semi-autonomous processing and measuring algorithms; the derivation of the noise model and the assignment of errors; and the structure of the final catalog as delivered to the Astrophysics Data System

The expansion of the Grand Corpus des grammaires françaises, des remarques et des traités sur la langue: Theoretical and methodological questions

In this article we discuss how the $\textit{Grand corpus des grammaires françaises,}$ $\textit{des remarques et des traités sur la langue}$ (2011) will be expanded by the addition of a large number of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century texts. Following a brief presentation of the existing corpus, the principles governing the second phase are outlined, notably the criteria used for selecting the new texts, as well as the difficulties associated with such an enterprise (choice of temporal limits; heterogeneity of the texts; selection of search tools, etc.).This is the author accepted manuscript. It is currently under an indefinite embargo pending publication by Société d'Histoire et d'Épistémologie des Sciences du Langage

The hidden face of public language policy: a case study from the UK

In which domains and for which language types does language legislation occur and how easy is it to identify it? The United Kingdom (UK) affords a good test bed to answer these questions since it is often considered to be lacking in strong public language policy due to, amongst other things, a lack of a coherent language policy across the UK and its devolved administrations and a perceived societal disinterest in languages. Through analysis of a corpus of primary and secondary legislation from the UK and its constituent jurisdictions that contain stipulations about language(s), this article shows that UK language legislation spans multiple domains, including public health and safety, law and crime, transport and the media. Whilst some of the legislation, such as the Welsh Language Acts, explicitly deals with language(s), the vast majority of the UK's legislation which contains provisions concerning language(s) is hidden in legislation which primarily concerns another domain. Although hidden, at times these language stipulations mark important landmarks in the status of languages. All this has consequences for the UK language policy landscape, potentially diminishing the perceived importance of languages in and to government and affecting policymakers' ability to collaborate across government in a coherent way

Sex differences in tactile defensiveness in children with ADHD and their siblings

Contains fulltext : 71056.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)Tactile defensiveness (TD) is a disturbance in sensory processing and is observed in some children with attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). TD has been examined in male children with ADHD and in children with ADHD without differentiating by sex. As males and females with ADHD may differ in the clinical expression of the disorder and associated deficits, the aim of this study was to examine sex differences in TD in males and females with ADHD. Non-affected siblings were also examined to investigate familiality of TD. The Touch Inventory for Elementary-School-Aged Children was administered to 47 children with ADHD (35 males, 12 females; mean age 9y 8mo [SD 1y 11mo]), 36 non-affected siblings (21 males, 15 females; mean age 8y 10mo [SD 2y 4mo]), and 35 control children (16 males, 19 females; mean age 9y 5mo [SD 6mo]). Results indicated that females with ADHD displayed higher levels of TD than males with ADHD (who did not differ from control males). This suggests that TD is sex specific and may contribute to the identification of ADHD in females, thus improving diagnostic and therapeutic strength in this under-referred group. Non-affected siblings were unimpaired, regardless of sex, which suggests that TD is specific to the disorder and not part of a familial risk for ADHD