Taming the Vernacular - Jenny Cheshire

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Résumé :
Taming the Vernacular: From Dialect to Written Standard Language examines the differences between 'standard' and 'nonstandard' varieties of several different languages. Not only are some of the best-known languages of Europe represented here, but also some that have been less well-researched in the past. The chapters address the syntax of Dutch, English, French, Finnish, Galician, German and Spanish. For these languages, and many others, it is the standard varieties on which the most extensive syntactic research has been carried out, with the result that very little is known about the syntax of their dialects or the spoken colloquial varieties. The editors of this volume seek to redress the balance by taking a cross-linguistic perspective on the historical development of the standardised varieties. This allows them to identify some common characteristics of spoken language. It also helps the reader to understand the kinds of filtering processes that are involved in standardization, which result in the syntax of spoken colloquial language being different from the syntax of the standard varieties.Taming the Vernacular: From Dialect to Written Standard Language is suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate students of Linguistics, particularly those taking courses in sociolinguistics, dialectology, and historical linguistics. The focus on a variety of languages also makes this text suitable for students studying courses which cover the linguistic aspects of European languages....

Biographie:
Jenny Cheshire is Professor of Linguistics at Queen Mary, University of London, UK. Her research interests include sociolinguistics, language variation and coversational narrative. Dieter Stein is Professor at Heinrich Heine University, Germany. His research interests include language development, language and communication in the internet, andthe linguistics of Hypertext....

Sommaire:

1. The syntax of spoken language

Jenny Cheshire and Dieter Stein

2. Dialect versus standard language: nature versus culture

Jaap van Marle

3. Syntax and varieties

Dieter Stein

4. Into and out of the standard language: the particle ni in Finnish

Maria Vilkuna

5. Involvement in 'standard' and 'nonstandard' English

Jenny Cheshire

6. This, that, yon: on 'three-dimensional' systems

Gunnel Melchers

7. Grammatical variation and the avoidance of stress clashes in Northern Low German

G?nter Rohdenburg

8. Norms made easy: case marking with modal verbs in Finnish

Lea Laitinen

9. Articles and number in oral or close-to-oral varieties

Brigitte Schlieben-Lange

10. Proscribed collocations with shall and will: the eighteenth century (non-) standard reassessed

Leslie K. Arnovick

11. The genitives of the relative pronouns in present-day English

Aimo Sepp(TM)nen

12. 'Ah'm going for to give youse a story today': remarks on second plural pronouns in Englishes

Susan Wright

13. Strengthening identity: differentiation and change in contemporary Galacian

Johannes Kabatek

14. Left dislocation in French: varieties, norm and usage

Alain Berrendonner and Marie-Jos? Reichler-B?guelin

15. Dialect variation as a consequence of standardization

Dieter Wanner

16. The atternings of nonstandard syntax in German

Beate Henn-Memmesheimer

Contributors