Haagse Harry, a Dutch chav from The Hague? The enregisterment of similar social personas in different speech communities

This paper presents two remarkably similar characterological figures who are stereotyped embodiments of working-class personas: Haagse Harry in The Hague and chavs in England. The two figures have similar attires, class positions, attitudes, and associated attributes. We compare and contextualize the indexical links between their linguistic features and their social characteristics. Firstly, while chavs can be both men and women, the fictional persona Haagse Harry represents an all-male lower-working-class subculture. Secondly, while Haagse Harry consistently speaks Broad Haags, the language of chavs is not rooted in any single regional dialect but invariably indexes working-class features. Thirdly, Haagse Harry, and his sociolect, has a higher social status compared to the language and persona of chavs, who embody British class prejudice. We demonstrate that the repertoire of linguistic features deployed in the stylisation of characterological figures is strongly dependent on patterns of variation and ideas that are prevalent in the local speech community

Non-sexist Language Policy and the Rise (and Fall?) of Combined Pronouns in British and American Written English

This paper focuses on the use of combined pronouns (s/he, his or her, him/her, etc.) as an example of late twentieth-century non-sexist language reform which had an overt democratizing aim. Within the scope of second-wave feminism, the use of combined pronouns increased the visibility of women in discourse by encouraging the use of feminine pronouns (she, her, hers) alongside masculine pronouns (he, him, his). Despite their promotion, however, the use of combined pronouns is relatively rare. This paper uses the LOB and Brown families of corpora to diachronically and synchronically study patterns in the use of combined pronouns in written American (AmE) and British English (BrE) from the 1930s to the early 2000s. The analysis not only determines what forms these patterns take, but questions whether combined pronouns are influenced by (a combination of) syntax and/or semantics, and questions whether combined pronouns are really democratic at all

OF SOCIAL NETWORKS AND LINGUISTIC INFLUENCE: THE LANGUAGE OF ROBERT LOWTH AND HIS CORRESPONDENTS

Analysing the unpublished correspondence of Robert Lowth, author of A Short Introduction to English Grammar (1762), this article attempts to find evidence of linguistic influence between people belonging to the same social network. Such evidence is used to try and determine where Lowth found the linguistic norm he presented in his grammar. Adding to the data presented by Nevalainen and Raumolin Bmnberg (2003) on the basis of their study of fourteen morphosyntactic items in the Corpus of Early English Correspondence, a detailed analysis is presented of eighteenth-century English. One of the results is an explanation for the presence in Lowth's grammar of the stricture against double negation at a time when double negation was no longer in current use

Of social networks and linguistic influence: the language of Robert Lowth and his correspondents

Analysing the unpublished correspondence of Robert Lowth, author of A Short Introduction to English Grammar (1762), this article attempts to find evidence of linguistic influence between people belonging to the same social network. Such evidence is used to try and determine where Lowth found the linguistic norm he presented in his grammar. Adding to the data presented by Nevalainen and Raumolin Bmnberg (2003) on the basis of their study of fourteen morphosyntactic items in the Corpus of Early English Correspondence, a detailed analysis is presented of eighteenth-century English. One of the results is an explanation for the presence in Lowth's grammar of the stricture against double negation at a time when double negation was no longer in current use

Flat adverbs: acceptable today?

Language Use in Past and Presen

Eighteenth-century English letters: In search of the vernacular

Questo studio presenta un modello di ricerca per lo studio degli stili di scrittura vernacolari nell’inglese del diciottesimo secolo. Focalizzando l’attenzione sulle lettere prodotte spontaneamente, è possibile studiare gli stili più informali di un soggetto. Tali lettere, tuttavia, non sono facilmente reperibili: nel Settecento, infatti, scrivere lettere era considerata un’arte, con regole che dettavano esattamente che cosa poteva essere considerato una buona lettera. L’articolo enuncia un gruppo di criteri sulla base dei quali una lettera può essere considerata valida per l’analisi socio-linguistica; l’approccio proposto parte dal concetto che l’autore opera nel contesto di una rete sociale: sulla base di ciò, ci si può concentrare su vari temi importanti in sociolinguistica, da analisi di micro- e macro-livello a studi di sociopragmatica. Viene presentato un repertorio di carteggi del Settecento attualmente disponibile al pubblico attraverso internet, con i criteri proposti per nuove iniziative analoghe; si ritiene infatti che nella pubblicazione di corrispondenza si dovrebbe dare attenzione alle esigenze degli studiosi di sociolinguistica storica, oltre che di un pubblico di lettori più tradizionale.This paper presents a research model for the study of vernacular writing styles in eighteenth-century English. By focussing on spontaneously produced letters it will be possible to study an individual’s most informal styles of writing. Such letters are not easily found, due to the fact that during the eighteenth century letter writing was considered an art, with rules dictating the requirements for what were considered good letters at the time. The paper sets out a number of criteria that have to be met for letters to be suitable for sociolinguistic analysis. The approach advocated proceeds from the individual writer, as part of a larger social network. From this perspective, it is possible to concentrate on various topical issues in sociolinguistics, including macro as well as micro-level analyses as well as socio-pragmatic studies. An inventory of currently available editions of eighteenth-century correspondence collections is presented, published as an open-access online database, with requirements for new enterprises in this respect. It is argued that when new correspondence collections are published, attention should be given to the needs of historical sociolinguistic researchers alongside the more traditional reading public

Prescriptivism in English literature?

Language Use in Past and Presen