Dynamics of Language Changes: Looking Within and Across Languages [1st ed.] 9789811564291, 9789811564307

Citation preview

Keith Allan   Editor

Dynamics of Language Changes Looking Within and Across Languages

Dynamics of Language Changes

Keith Allan Editor

Dynamics of Language Changes Looking Within and Across Languages

123

Editor Keith Allan Monash University Melbourne, VIC, Australia

ISBN 978-981-15-6429-1 ISBN 978-981-15-6430-7 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6430-7

(eBook)

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Dedication

The authors of Dynamics of Language Changes: Looking Within and Across Languages are all colleagues, friends and, in a couple of cases, ex-students of Kate Burridge FAHA, Prof. of Linguistics at Monash University to whom this work is dedicated.

Fig. 1 Kate Burridge in 19911

Kate completed her undergraduate training in Linguistics and German at the University of Western Australia and travelled to the University of London where, in 1983, she was awarded her Ph.D. on syntactic change in Medieval Dutch. She taught at the Polytechnic of Central London before joining the Department of Linguistics at La Trobe University in 1984. In 2003 she took up the Chair of Linguistics in what is now the School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics at Monash University.

1

Photo copyright held by the Editor.

v

vi

Dedication

For many years Kate has been a regular presenter of language segments on Australia’s ABC Radio. For its six seasons (2006–2011) she appeared weekly as the linguistic expert on ABC TV’s lifestyle program ‘Can We Help?’ Kate is an excellent communicator, familiar to the general public (including schoolkids) as well as to the academic community. Through her consistently high level of community engagement, Kate seeks to apply the well-researched principles of linguistics to everyday life, explicating notions about the ways people speak. Kate has won many awards for her expertise in research and teaching. Her research has illumined Pennsylvania German-speaking communities in Canada, grammatical change in Germanic languages, the nature of euphemism and dysphemism, linguistic taboo, and English grammatical structure in general. In recent times she has engaged with the impact of language attitudes in criminal justice proceedings, with communication in health interactions, with cultural models of ageing in Australia and with mental health communication among older Australians. Kate’s published output is far too extensive to list here (see https://research. monash.edu/en/persons/kathryn-burridge). A sample of just ten items from her corpus is: • 1991 (with Keith Allan) Euphemism and Dysphemism: Language Used As Shield and Weapon (Oxford) • 1993 Some Aspects of Syntactic Change in Germanic (Benjamins) • 2002 (with Margaret Florey) ‘Yeah-no he’s a good kid’: A discourse analysis of yeah-no in Australian English, Australian Journal of Linguistics 22: 149–71 • 2004 Blooming English: Observations on the Roots, Cultivation and Hybrids of the English Language (Cambridge) • 2006 (with Keith Allan) Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language (Cambridge) • 2008 (with Bernd Kortmann) Varieties of English 3: The Pacific and Australia (Mouton) • 2015 (with Réka Benczes) Current attitudes to ageing as reflected in the names of Australian aged care facilities, Names: A Journal of Onomastics 63(3): 127–45 • 2016 (with Tonya Stebbins) For the Love of Language: An Introduction to Linguistics (Cambridge) • 2017 (with Alex Bergs) Understanding Language Change (Routledge) • 2019 (with Kersti Börjars) Introducing English Grammar. Third, substantially revised edition. First edn 2001. (Routledge) This volume, Dynamics of Language Changes: Looking Within and Across Languages, is a collection of essays by distinguished international scholars on many different aspects of changes within and across languages. Because the book is not a monograph but a collection of essays by a host of authors, the placing of the chapters in relation to each other was challenging and some readers may conceive

Dedication

vii

of preferred alternative arrangements. Even so, we hope they will esteem the content of each chapter and so appreciate the merit of the volume as a whole. Dynamics of Language Changes comprises 17 chapters grouped into three parts. Part I, ‘Language Changes: Looking Within a Language’ consists of eight chapters. Chapter 1 explains how in an Oceanic language of Papua New Guinea addressee-based deictics develop discourse functions to mark information status. Chapter 2 investigates the differing usages of never in Australian conversation. Chapter 3 focuses on the revitalization of Indigenous Australian languages. Chapter 4 studies the place and functions of youse in Australian English. Chapter 5 assesses ways in which usage guides and interested lay folk react to emphatic literally. Chapter 6 surveys attitudes to closing salutations in emails. Chapter 7 argues from idiomatic expressions that Australian English forms ‘the perfect sandbox for historical linguistics’. Chapter 8 evaluates several lexical semantic analyses of the English word cup, incidentally showing its extension to a variety of denotata. Part II, ‘Language Changes: Looking Across Languages’, consists of six chapters. Chapter 9 scrutinizes translations of ‘semantic false friends’ in half a dozen languages: words that have a common origin but have developed different meanings. Chapter 10 examines borrowing into the English lexicon and the export of English vocabulary into other languages. Chapter 11 examines words that have gone into and out of English at different times and with different motivations. Chapter 12 looks at periodization across Romance languages to assess the merit of descriptions like ‘Old’, ‘Middle’ and ‘Modern’. Chapter 13 appraises cultural keywords in Philippine English, showing their adaptation to profound changes in the core values of social structures in the speech community. Chapter 14 looks at the outcomes of language contact in one language of the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea. Part III, ‘Language Changes: Other Aspects’ has three chapters. Chapter 15 considers how people who are born deaf and lose their sight later in life go about adapting Australian sign language for tactile delivery and reception. Chapter 16 is an essay on sound symbolism in English that leads to semantic change. Chapter 17 analyses the poetic and musical structure of some traditional songs in a minority language of Northeast India. We the contributors all hope that much-loved Kate will enjoy this book, our humble offering of essays on aspects of changes within and across languages.

Contents

Part I 1

2

3

4

5

6

Language Changes: Looking Within a Language

Different Sources, Same Path—From Addressee-Based Deictics to Markers of Discourse Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anna Margetts

3

The Punctual Never in Australian English: The Mysterious Case of the Missing Vernacular Universal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Isabelle Burke

23

Standardise This! Prescriptivism and Resistance to Standardization in Language Revitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vicki Couzens, Alice Gaby, and Tonya Stebbins

37

Here’s Looking at youse: Understanding the Place of yous(e) in Australian English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jean Mulder and Cara Penry Williams

57

Language Literally Changes: Usage Guides and Their Influence on Language Attitudes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alyssa A. Severin

73

Closing Salutations in Email Messages: User Attitudes and Interpersonal Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Simon Musgrave

89

7

What Do You Think This Is, Bush Week? Construction Grammar and Language Change in Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Alexander Bergs

8

On Cups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Keith Allan

ix

x

Contents

Part II 9

Language Changes: Looking Across Languages

Partial Semantic False Friends and the Indeterminacy of Translation in Philosophical Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Pedro J. Chamizo-Domínguez

10 Both a Borrower and a Lender Be: English as Importer and Exporter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Barry J. Blake 11 What’s the Score? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 Kersti Börjars and Nigel Vincent 12 Old, Middle, and Modern: Temporality and Typology . . . . . . . . . . 183 John Charles Smith 13 Cultural Keywords in Philippine English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 Pam Peters 14 Language Contact and Language Change in the Sepik Region of New Guinea: The Case of Yalaku . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald Part III

Language Changes: Other Aspects

15 From Seeing to Feeling: How Do Deafblind People Adapt Visual Sign Languages? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 Louisa Willoughby, Howard Manns, Shimako Iwasaki, and Meredith Bartlett 16 Sound Symbolism and Semantic Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 Réka Benczes 17 The Singpho Water Flowing Song: Searching for the Poetics in a Rich Maze of Linguistic Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 Stephen Morey Appendix: The Arrival of Chau Alawng at the Home of His Lover, Ing—Text and Translation (Lines 139–180) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Editor and Contributors

About the Editor Keith Allan MLitt, Ph.D. (Edinburgh), FAHA. Emeritus Professor, Monash University. Selected books: Linguistic Meaning (Routledge, 1986; 2014); Euphemism and Dysphemism: Language Used as Shield and Weapon (with Kate Burridge, OUP, 1991); Natural Language Semantics (Blackwell, 2001); Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language (with Kate Burridge, CUP, 2006); Concise Encyclopaedia of Semantics (Elsevier, 2009); The Western Classical Tradition in Linguistics Second Expanded Edition (Equinox, 2010); Cambridge Handbook of Pragmatics (with Kasia Jaszczolt, CUP, 2012); Oxford Handbook of the History of Linguistics (OUP, 2013); Routledge Handbook of Linguistics (2016); Oxford Handbook of Taboo Words and Language (OUP, 2018) Homepage: http://users. monash.edu.au/*kallan/homepage.html.

Contributors Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald LCRC JCU, Cairns, QLD, Australia Keith Allan Monash University, Peregian Springs, QLD, Australia Meredith Bartlett Monash University, Melbourne, Australia Réka Benczes Institute of Communication and Sociology, Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest, Hungary Alexander Bergs Osnabrück University, Osnabrück, Germany Barry J. Blake La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia Isabelle Burke Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

xi

xii

Editor and Contributors

Kersti Börjars St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, England Pedro J. Chamizo-Domínguez University of Malaga, Málaga, Spain Vicki Couzens RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia Alice Gaby School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia Shimako Iwasaki Monash University, Melbourne, Australia Howard Manns Monash University, Melbourne, Australia Anna Margetts Monash University, Melbourne, Australia Stephen Morey Department of Languages and Linguistics, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia Jean Mulder University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia Simon Musgrave School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monsah University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia Cara Penry Williams University of Derby, Derby, UK Pam Peters Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia Alyssa A. Severin Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, Australia John Charles Smith University of Oxford, St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, UK Tonya Stebbins La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia Nigel Vincent The University of Manchester, Rude, Denmark Louisa Willoughby Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

Part I

Language Changes: Looking Within a Language

Chapter 1

Different Sources, Same Path—From Addressee-Based Deictics to Markers of Discourse Status Anna Margetts

Abstract Saliba-Logea, an Oceanic language of Papua New Guinea, has two types of spatial deictics: directionals and demonstratives, which both make a spatial distinction between speech act participants. The directional suffixes express orientation towards the speaker or the addressee; the demonstratives make a three-way distinction between speaker-proximal, addressee-proximal, and distal reference. This chapter describes the grammaticalization of the addressee-based elements of these two deictic form classes. The addressee-based directional and the addressee-proximal demonstrative show strikingly parallel developments towards markers indicating the discourse status of constituents. This brings further evidence to the fact that the semantics of the source element may be as indicative of a grammaticalization path as the form class to which it belongs. Keywords Person deixis · Topicalization · Grammaticalization · Presupposition · Clause linking

1.1 Introduction Saliba-Logea, an Oceanic language of Papua New Guinea, has two main classes of spatial deictic: on the one hand a pair of verbal suffixes indicating directionality towards the speaker and the addressee, on the other hand a person-based demonstrative system with a three-way split between speaker-proximal, addressee-proximal, and distal. This chapter explores evidence that the addressee-based deictic forms of both paradigms function as the source morphemes for markers indicating the discourse status of constituents. Both forms encode aspects of the mental engagement of the speaker and the addressee with an entity—that is the kind of functions which Evans et al. (2017a, b) describe as ‘engagement’. The chapter describes parallel developments which originate in different syntactic contexts involving two addresseeanchored deictics—one modifying verbs, one modifying nouns. This parallelism A. Margetts (B) Monash University, Melbourne, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 K. Allan (ed.), Dynamics of Language Changes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6430-7_1

3

4

A. Margetts

is of interest for linguistic typology and theories of grammaticalization as it brings further evidence to the fact that the semantics of the source element may be as indicative of a grammaticalization path as the form class and construction from which it originates.

1.2 Directionals as Source Many Oceanic languages have directional morphemes which can mark the deictic orientation of activities or states expressed by the verb. These forms go back to the Proto Oceanic directional verbs *ma(i) “come towards speaker” and *ua “go towards addressee” which Ross (2004: 194) suggests occurred phrase-finally in serial verb constructions. The Saliba-Logea forms are the suffixes-ma “towards speaker” and-wa “towards addressee”. Consider examples (1) to (3) (and see Margetts 2002, 2008)1 : (1)

Kwa-lao-ma! 2PL-go-towards.SPKR ‘Come!’

(2)

Ka-m

keyaka

ya-hai-ya-wa

POSS1-2SG

coconut.shell.cup

1SG-get-3SG.OBJ-towards.ADDR

‘I’ll give you your cup.’ (Beyabeyana_02CZ_0596)

(3)

I-wane

“ya-hedede-lao-wa-ko”

3SG-say

1SG-talk/tell-go-towards.ADDR-already

‘She said “I told you already” …’ (Bagi_02EO_0062)

1.2.1 Anaphoric wa Saliba-Logea also has a marker wa which occurs at the end of the noun phrase and which is in a paradigmatic relation with three other post-nominal determiners. While wa is a dedicated anaphoric form, the other members of the paradigm have spatial deictic meanings: te/ta “close to speaker”, me “close to addressee”, and ne “distal/definite”, mirroring the distinctions in the demonstrative paradigm discussed in Sect. 1.3 (Margetts 2004, 2018). The anaphoric marker is homophonous with the 1 Commas

and full stops indicate pause unit boundaries. In addition to the Leipzig glossing rules the following abbreviations are used: addr, addressee; ana, anaphoric; comp, complementizer; conj, conjunction; interj, interjection; np, noun phrase; obli, obligation, intention; onom, onomatopoetic; pp, postposition; red, reduplication; spkr, speaker; tam, tense, aspect, mood.

1 Different Sources, Same Path—From Addressee-Based Deictics …

5

addressee-based directional -wa and derived from the same etymological source, the Proto Oceanic verb *ua “go towards addressee” (Ross 2004: 194). Once a referent is introduced into the discourse it is typically referred to by person markers on the verb or by NPs marked by wa. However, as discussed by Cleary-Kemp (2006), the given status of an NP can also remain morphologically unmarked and wa is not grammatically obligatory. Examples (4) and (5) show how a referent is first introduced into the narrative by an indefinite NP (marked by hesau “an/other”) and how it is later referred back to with wa. (4)

ye-bahe-i2

Bagete

hesau

bucket

an/other 3SG-carry-TR

ye-laoma

ka

…

3SG-come

TAM

‘It carries a bucket and comes along. …’ (Mouse8_05BQ_0003) bagete

wa

unai

pwalawa

loaves

labui ye-usai-di

bucket

ANA

PP.SG

bread

loaves

two

3SG-insert-TR-3PL

‘It puts two loaves of bread into the bucket.’ (Mouse8_05BQ_005) (5)

Sinebaa

hesau bagodubalabala

old.woman an/other big.wave

dagugu-na

ye-lapui …

sound-3SG

3SG-hear

‘A woman heard the sound of the waves.’ (Bagodu01AH_0013-14) Na

Sinebada wa

ye-dobi

CONJ

old.man

3SG-go.down

ANA

…

‘The woman went down …’ (Boneyawa_12AH_0038)

A clause can contain several noun phrases marked by wa, as shown in (6). (6)

Na

saliaya

loha-loha-na

wa

bolo

i-usa-i

CONJ

hight

RED-long-3SG

ANA

ball

3SG-insert-TR

to

hesau-na

wa

i-hai-gabae

CONJ

other-3SG

ANA

3SG-take-out

‘Then the tall one put balls in and the other one took them out (again).’ (Abs-Rel3_02DO007-008)

Anaphoric wa is in complementary distribution with the definite form ne, both marking identifiable referents (Cleary-Kemp 2006). Wa is an anaphoric tracker and predominantly occurs in narrative clauses. By contrast, ne occurs in non-narrative clauses, including procedural and conversational discourse and direct speech within narratives. While wa indicates referents which are given or inferable from the preceding discourse, ne marks referents which are identifiable via the extra-linguistic situation, or entities which are unique and identifiable at first mention, such as “the sun” or “the moon” (Cleary-Kemp 2006: 70–72; Margetts 2015: 791). As mentioned, anaphoric wa is cognate to the addressee-based directional -wa and derived from the Proto Oceanic directional verb *ua “go towards addressee”. Ross

6

A. Margetts

(2004: 199) suggests that this recategorization of an originally verb-based directional to an adnominal determiner may have occurred by one of the following two routes. In the first potential pathway, the directional “towards addressee” was reinterpreted as an adverb “over there”, which could then be used as a nominal modifier. The alternative pathway is that *ua “towards addressee” was used in an unmarked relative clause which became grammaticalized as an adnominal demonstrative. The grammaticalization path from a motion verb to an anaphoric morpheme is not unique. Similar processes of category shifts are detailed by Frajzyngier (1987) and Bowden (2014).

1.2.2 Clause-Combining wa In addition to its determiner function, anaphoric wa also occurs with scope over a preceding clause. It functions as a connective which marks the preceding clause as given and presupposed information in relation to the following clause. If the two predications are distributed over two intonation units, wa occurs at the end of the first rather than the beginning of the following unit and it can be described as a clausal clitic. Wa marks the semantic rather than syntactic relation between clauses and the constructions are not structurally hierarchical (there are hardly any hypotactic constructions in the language). Translations into English can render them as coordinated clauses or as hypotactic constructions, where the first clause is translated as the subordinate clause and the second as the main clause. The clauses can have a range of semantic relationships, but essentially the first serves as the background and presupposition to events described in the second clause. The Saliba-Logea example in (7) shows simultaneity of events, (8) and (9) show temporal and causal sequences. De Vries (2006) describes such thematic clausal constituents as an areal discourse-pragmatic feature of Papuan languages of New Guinea. I will return to this in Sect. 1.3.3. (7)

Kepo ye-usu-usu

na

ye-kita-dobi

wa

ye-kita.

oyster 3SG-RED-sharpen

CONJ

3SG-look-down

ANA

3SG-look

‘As he was sharpening the black-lip shells and was looking down he saw it’ (Boneyawa_21DL_0020) (8)

Se-niuli-sae wa

mwalo-mwaloi-na

3PL-pull-up

RED-dead-3SG

ANA

‘When they pulled him up he was dead.’ (Boneyawa_18DL_0030) (9)

Kwasinawa

se-didi

wa,

iya

e-na

nuwatu

bena …

bood

3PL-flow

ANA

3SG

POSS1-3SG

thought

COMP

ANA

‘Because the blood was tickling he thought that …’ (Boneyawa_22DS_0031)

1 Different Sources, Same Path—From Addressee-Based Deictics …

7

As a clause connective wa can also indicate unsuccessful efforts. In this pattern the first clause describes an intention or attempted activity, while the second clause indicates that the agent was not able to achieve this goal, as shown in (10) and (11): (10)

Ye-lu

na

bena

ye-kamposi

wa

nige

gonowa-na

3SG-enter

CONJ

OBLI

3SG-jump

ANA

NEG

ability-3SG

‘It entered and it wanted to jump but couldn’t.’ (Mouse1_05BQ_0006-7) (11)

Na

ye-lau

ye-kaipate-i

CONJ

3SG-go 3SG-try-TR

wa

nige

gonowa-na

ANA

NEG

ability-3SG

‘It went to try but couldn’t do it.’ (Mouse1_05BQ_0024)

Wa is also attested in constructions which are the functional equivalent of relative clauses, where it can occur both after the head noun and the modifying clause. Again, these constructions are not clearly structurally hierarchical and there is no sign of formal embedding. (12)

Wau

leiyaha

wa

se-yese

wa

now

pandanus

ANA

3PL-spread

ANA

…

‘The pandanus mat which they spread out…’ (Lit. The pandanus, they have spread it)’ (BudoiNualele_01CY_100) (13)

E-gu

buluka wa

ya-wase-wase-nei wa

POSS1-1SG

pig

1SG-RED-search

ANA

haka

ANA INTERJ

siya

se-kaiwahali

3PL

3PL-steal

‘They stole my pig which I have been looking for.’ (Lit. My pig, I have been looking for it, they stole it.) (BwalaDoini_01CO_0121)

In Papuan languages clause connectives commonly occur in similar constructions which are functionally akin to relative clauses. De Vries (2006) notes that they are not technically relative clauses but thematized clauses meaning “given that X” which can be translated as relative or adverbial clauses depending on the context (see also Enk et al. 1997: 114). The use of deictics as both post-nominal modifiers and clause connectives marking presupposed information is well attested in languages of New Guinea. However, while Saliba-Logea wa is of verbal origin, the elements more commonly attested in these contexts have demonstratives as their source. And in fact this is the second grammaticalization scenario towards such markers attested in the language, to which I now turn.

8

A. Margetts

1.3 Demonstratives as Source The second type of spatial deictics in Saliba-Logea consists of several interrelated paradigms of demonstratives and determiners (Margetts 2004, 2018). The demonstratives show a tripartite system with the base forms ina “near speaker”, meta “near addressee”, and nem “distal”. From these base forms demonstratives and place adverbs are derived. The free demonstratives which can function as pro-forms or adnominal modifiers are composed of the base forms and a prefix te-, as in (14). Place adverbs are derived by a locative suffix -(a)i, as in (15). (14)

A:

Kaputi

ku-hai-ya-ma.

cup

2SG-get-3SG-hither

‘Get me the cup.’ B:

Te-ina? TE-NEAR.SPKR

‘This one?’ A:

Ah,

te-meta.

INTRJ

TE-NEAR.ADDR

‘Yes, that one.’ (15)

Nem-ai3

ye-miya.

there.DIST-LOC

3SG-stay

‘He stayed there.’ (Ulawa_01DG_0249)

1.3.1 Clause-Final Demonstratives The only context in which the underived demonstrative base forms ina “near speaker”, meta “near addressee”, and nem “distal” occur is in clause-final position. These clause-final forms are more commonly attested in conversations; in narratives they seem to be restricted to direct speech. Because of this they are comparatively rare in the corpus data which predominantly consists of monological texts.2 They are attested following both verbal clauses, as in (16) and (17), and non-verbal clauses, as in (18).

2 For

this reason the data presented here draws both on corpus data and field notes on observed conversations.

1 Different Sources, Same Path—From Addressee-Based Deictics …

(16)

Te-ina

ya-kasiyebwa

ina.

Nige

TE-NEAR.SPKR

1SG-sick

NEAR.SPKR NEG

9

gnowana

ya-lau.

possibility

1SG-go

‘I’m being sick here. I can’t go (to fetch water).’ (Gesila01_BC_0226-227) (17)

Ka-duwui-kasayai

nem.

1EXCL-dive.for-in.vain

DIST

‘We dived for him there to no avail (he had drowned).’ (Conversation_01AN_0057) (18)

Kaiteya

natu-na

nem?

who

child-3SG

DIST

‘So, whose child is that?’ (Bagi_02EO_0107)

In (19) and (20) they mark questions about activities of the addressee. (19)

Saha katen-na

ku-bahe-i

meta?

what carton-3SG

2SG-carry-TR

NEAR.ADDR

‘So, what’s in the carton you are carrying there?’ (Conversation_01AN_0087) (20)

I-dohagi

meta?

Ko-saha?

3SG-how

NEAR.ADDR

2SG-what

‘What's going on? What are you doing?’ (Boneyawa_01AI_0055-56)

While the free demonstrative pronouns in (14) above, generally refer to nominal referents, the clause-final forms have scope over the whole situation expressed by the preceding utterance. It appears that clause-final demonstratives express a state of affairs which is presented as a presupposition for a statement or judgement which may be explicitly expressed in the discourse, as in (16) (‘I can’t go’), or only be implied, as in (17) (‘he had drowned’). In some cases the clause-final demonstratives mark the speaker’s negative response to an assertion or fear that was expressed by the addressee. Again, such responses provide a presupposition to a statement or judgment (You are wrong, stupid!) which may or may not be overtly expressed. There is a Saliba anecdote about a woman who had never experienced ice. She accidentally touches the inside of a shop freezer and, in (21), cries out that she has received an electric shock. A bystander responds with the comment in (22):

10

(21)

A. Margetts

… ye-siliata 3SG-shocked

nima-na

wa

ye-hai

ye-lau-isini

meta

ye-wane

hand-3SG

ANA

3SG-get

3SG-go-raise

TOPIC

3SG-say

"Aiyooi!" ye-wane

"pawa ye-hai-gau!"

3SG-say

INTRJ

power

3SG-get-1SG

‘ … she was shocked and threw her hands up into the air and said “Aiyooi! I got an electric shock”.’ (PowerGotMe_01AQ_0026) (22)

Ye-wane

‘Eh

te-meta

aisi

meta!’

3SG-say

INTRJ

TE-NEAR.ADDR

ice

NEAR.ADDR

‘She said “Eh, that’s ice!” (That wasn’t an electric shock, stupid!)’ (PowerGotMe_01AQ_0038)

In another story a man gets scared after hearing dogs bark. His companion responds with the famous last words in (23): (23)

Ye-wane 3SG-say

‘Eeiiy

taba

INTRJ

IRR

nige

se-kai-da

meta!

NEG

3PL-bit-1INCL

NEAR.ADDR

Na

kabo

ta-lau

meta!’

CONJ

TAM

1INCL-go

NEAR.ADDR

‘He said “Eeiiy, They won’t bite us (contrary to what you fear)! We will go past them (and nothing will happen)!”’ (Boneyawa_15AO_0012-14)

In some cases the clause-final demonstratives mark negative responses to request and again the statements function as a presupposition to an implied or overt judgement (I can’t do it! How can you ask this of me!?). Example (24) (and also (16) above) come from a story where a woman is asked at several occasions to fetch water, but she always has excuses. (24)

Ya-hasali

palapa

1SG-hungry really

ina.

Bena ta-lauliga

NEAR.SPKR

OBLI

1INCL-cook

ya-kai-kai … 1SG-RED-eat

‘I’m really hungry here. We need to cook and eat … (I can’t go and fetch water).’ (Gesila_01BC_0231)

While the demonstratives do not formally function as subordinators, utterances with the clause-final demonstratives show a strong similarity to what Evans (2007) describes as insubordinate constructions, i.e. constructions which occur as independent main clauses but have formal features of subordinate clauses and which generally signal presupposed material. Evans suggests that the starting point of the insubordination process are constructions with a main and a subordinate clause in which the main clause becomes conventionally ellipsed, leading to the original subordinate clause occurring independently. The Saliba-Logea clause-final demonstratives share with insubordinate construction the pragmatic function of marking presupposed material whose implications may or may not be made explicit. As discussed further in Sect. 1.3.3, demonstrative base forms also play a role as clause connectives

1 Different Sources, Same Path—From Addressee-Based Deictics …

11

following presupposed clauses, and in this way clause-final demonstratives also share with insubordination construction a connection to subordination-like constructions. Clause-final demonstratives with similar functions as in Saliba-Logea are also found in Ambonese Malay and Kupang Malay and, again, they tend to mark presuppositions (van Minde 1997; Steinhauer 1983). Van Minde (1997) notes for Ambonese Malay that the demonstrative “present the state-of-affairs as an indisputable, given fact from the point of view of the speaker”. The translation in (25) spells out an implied message in parentheses. (25)

Dia

su

eheehe

tu!

3SG

TAM

ONOM

DEM

‘He clears his throat (so watch out, he is irritated)!’ (van Minde 1997:253)

All three deictic distinctions of the Saliba-Logea demonstrative paradigm appear in clause-final position. However, the addressee-based form meta is attested in two further contexts where ina “near speaker” and nem “distal” apparently cannot occur, namely as a topic marker following nominal constituents, discussed in Sect. 1.3.2, and as a clause connective, discussed in Sect. 1.3.3.

1.3.2 Topic Marker meta The base form of the addressee-proximal demonstrative frequently occurs as a postnominal morpheme which marks the preceding NP as a new discourse topic or subtopic, that is as the aboutness topics of the following stretch of discourse. As discussed by Dawuda (2009 Chap. 3), meta is not grammatically obligatory and the topical status of an NP can also remain morphologically unmarked. Texts themselves are commonly referred to by meta as speakers introduce them. Example (26) is from a recording session where the speaker told several funny stories in a row. In the example, she introduces the new story with ‘this one’ followed by meta. (26)

Teina

ta

meta

boneyawa

labui.

NEAR.SPKR

NEAR.SPKR

TOPIC

funny.person

two

‘This one is about two funny fellows.’ (Boneyawa_02AJ_0001)

Examples (27) to (30) come from procedural texts about basket weaving. In (27) the overall topic of the text is introduced by meta and in the following examples the materials, uses, and different types of baskets are each marked as subtopics by meta.

12

A. Margetts

(27)

Bosa

meta,

basket

TOPIC

ena bosa if

sina-mai, mother-1EXCL kabi-na

ye-kata

kabo

sina-mai

basket nature-3SG 3SG-know will

ye-hekata-gai

mother-1EXCL 3SG-teach-1EXCL

‘Baskets, our mother, if she knows (how to make) baskets, she will teach us.’ (BasketWeaving_05AA_0096-98) (28)

Bosa

yo-na

kabalaoma

meta

niu

basket

POSS1-3SG

origin

TOPIC

coconut leaf-3SG

lugu-na.

‘The basket comes from coconut leaves.’ (BasketWeaving_05AA_0148-149) (29)

Bosa

ne

ka-na

paisowa

meta

ye-bado

kalili

basket

DET

POSS2-3SG

work

TOPIC

3SG-plenty

very

‘The basket has very many uses.’ (BasketWeaving_04CX_0036) (30)

Teina

bosa

NEAR.SPKR

basket true-3SG

mamohoi-na,

bosa

hesau

basket other

meta

maigele.

TOPIC

basket.type

‘This one is the real basket and another basket type is maigele.’ (BasketWeaving_03CW_0033-34)

While post-nominal wa always marks given information, post-nominal meta can mark given or new referents. As shown in (4) and (5) in 1.2.1, new referents are commonly introduced by hesau ‘an/other’ and then tracked by anaphoric wa. Postnominal meta can co-occur with either of these morphemes to mark both types of referents. Where they co-occur, meta follows these markers. In (31) and (32) meta marks new referents as topic: in (31) the story itself, in (32) a character in a story. (31)

Boneyawa

hesau

meta tamowai

funny.story an/other

TOPIC

person

hesau-na. an/other-3SG

‘Another funny story is about a man.’ (Boneyawa_04AJ_0001) (32)

Taubada hesau

meta hinage baela

old.man an/other

TOPIC

also

daba-na

banana bunch-3SG

ye-bahe-i

buina-na.

3SG-carry-TR ripe-3SG

‘A man was carrying a bunch of bananas, ripe ones.’ (Boneyawa_07BC_0093)

In (33) and (34) meta follows given referents marked by wa.

1 Different Sources, Same Path—From Addressee-Based Deictics …

(33)

Wawaya

wa

meta

ye-laki

ye-lau.

child

ANA

TOPIC

3SG-big

3SG-go

13

‘As for the child, it grew big.’ (BudoiNualele_01CY_251) (34)

Na

walata

wa

meta

ye-nuwaluluhi-yei.

CONJ

clay.pot

ANA

TOPIC

3SG-forget-TR

‘And the clay pot, she had forgotten.’ (Bagodu_01AH_0046)

The topicalized NP can but need not have an argument role in the clause. In (29) and (33) above meta marks the subject, in (34) the object of a verbal clause. In (28), (30), and (26) it marks the subject of non-verbal clauses. In (27) and also in the first clause of (35) the topicalized NP does not have an argument role in the clause. In narratives as in procedural texts meta marks topic shifts. In (35) each body part in the description of a monster is introduced by meta. (35)

Teina

beya-na

te

udiyedi

meta

bayobayo

se-kini

na

NEAR.SPKR

ear-3SG

near-SPKR

PP.PL

TOPIC

plant.type

3PL-grow

CONJ

‘From his ears grew bayobayo plants.’ Mata-na

ne

meta

woiyawa

udoi-di

eye-3SG

DET

TOPIC

scary.thing other-3PL

‘His eyes were huge’ na

kabo

teina

kulu-na

ne

meta

ka

naniwa …

CONJ

TAM

NEAR.SPKR

head-3SG

DET

TOPIC

false.start

thingy

‘and his head was thingy – what’s-it …’ (Bagodu_01AH_0099-100)

In another narrative an earlier topic is resumed in (36) which is followed by three clauses about this topic. Then another old topic is resumed in (37). In both cases meta follows wa as it marks a given referent as topic. (By comparison, in (37) the noun wawaya ‘child’ is given but not topical and is marked by wa alone.) (36)

Lolo

wa

meta

nuwa-na

ye-yababa. …

bird

ANA

TOPIC

mind-3SG 3SG-bad

‘The bird was sad.’ (BudoiNualele_01CY_0232) (37)

Taubada

wa

iya

meta

wawaya

wa

ye-bahe-i

old.man

ANA

3SG

TOPIC

child

ANA

3SG-carry-TR

na

ye-gwauyala.

CONJ

3SG-happy

‘As for the man, he had carried away the child and he was happy.’ (BudoiNualele_01CY_0236)

While the literature on European languages suggests that topics are not available as antecedents of demonstratives (e.g. Comrie 1997; Hinterwimmer 2017; Kaiser and

14

A. Margetts

Trueswell 2004), the Saliba-Logea pattern is not unusual in that demonstratives as trackers of topical referents are well attested in Papuan languages (see e.g. De Vries 1985, 1995, 2006; Diessel and Breunesse 2020; Farr et al. 1982; Farr and Whitehead 1981; Margetts 2016, 2019; Reesink 1987, 1994, 2014).

1.3.3 Clause-Combining meta As mentioned in Sect. 1.3.1, the addressee-based demonstrative meta also serves as a clause connective. In this context it marks the preceding clause as background information. Meta is again not obligatory and, as with wa, there is no formally hierarchical relationship between the clauses. They can be translated as coordinated clauses, but the clauses preceding meta are also commonly rendered as adverbial clauses in English. If the two clauses are distributed over separate intonation units, meta can appear either at the end of the preceding clause or at the beginning of the following clause. Unlike in the post-nominal uses, as clause linkers wa and meta are not attested to co-occur. Dawuda (2009: 69, 103–4) notes that clause-combining uses of meta coincide with changes in core arguments (e.g. change of subject, introduction of an object) and they commonly indicate thematic alternations such as shifts of place or time or changes of participants. As discussed in Sect. 1.3.1, Saliba-Logea clause-final demonstratives show similarities with insubordination constructions (Evans 2007). The clause-combining uses of meta essentially fit the description of the bi-clausal source constructions described by Evans (except that in Saliba-Logea they do not show syntactic embedding). It is the clause after the demonstrative which corresponds to the main clause in Evans’ insubordination scenario. As mentioned the clauses preceding the demonstrative are commonly rendered as adverbial clauses in the translation and they are the closest functional equivalent to adverbial subordination in the language. So, it is possible that constructions with clause-combining meta gave rise to the utterance-final uses described in 1.3.1 through the diachronic process of insubordination. However, the directionality of change and the diachronic link between these constructions is not obvious. While all three deictic forms, ina “near speaker”, meta “near addressee”, and nem “distal”, occur in the clause-final uses described in Sect. 1.3.1, only meta is attested in the clause-combining constructions. In this sense clause-combining meta can be said to show a higher degree of grammaticalization than the clause-final demonstratives. It is possible that both types of patterns derive from demonstrative constructions which have fallen out of use, where all three members of the paradigm could function as clause connectives. Like with the clause-combining uses of wa, clauses linked by meta show a range of semantic relations but they all share that the preceding clause acts as a presupposition for the following discourse (Given X, therefore Y or Having done X, they did Y ). Most commonly they express temporal or conditional relations. Examples (38) to (40) show sequential and temporally overlapping events.

1 Different Sources, Same Path—From Addressee-Based Deictics … (38)

Taubada heasu

ma

old.man other

with spouse-3SG 3PL-go.down

mwane-na

se-dobi

15

meta, dinigi TOPIC

dinghy

ena

se-gelu

PP.SG

3PL-board

‘A man and his wife went down and got into a boat.’ (Boneyawa_30DP_0004-5) (39)

Ye-ginauli

ye-gehe

meta

ye-mose

3SG-make

3SG-finished

TOPIC

3SG-give

‘After he had built it he gave it to him.’ (BudoiNualele_01CY_0262) (40)

… ye-lau-lau 3SG-RED-go

meta

yau tubu-gu,

meta,

gado-na

se-boli.

TOPIC

1SG grandparent-1SG

TOPIC

throat-3SG

3PL-cut

‘While this was going on, my grandmother, they cut her throat.’ (FamilyOrigin_07CM_0013-16)

The functional relationship between conditionals and topics and the commonalities in their formal marking is well established (e.g. Haiman 1978). In (41) the first clause is introduced by ena “if”, but as shown in (42) and (43) conditional relationships can also be expressed by meta alone. (41)

Sina-mai

ena bosa

kabi-na

mother-1EXCL

if

nature-3SG 3SG-know

meta

iya

kabo

ye-he-kata-gai

TOPIC

3SG

TAM

3SG-CAUS-know-1EXCL

basket

ye-kata,

‘If our mother knows baskets then she’ll teach us. (BasketWeaving_05AA_0170) (42)

Ka-henuwa… gulewa, meta

kabo labiya ka-kabi,

1EXCL-want

TAM

clay.pot

TOPIC

sago

kai

bosa-na, …

1EXCL-make food basket-3SG

‘If we want clay pots, we make sago, baskets of food, … (to exchange with the Ware people who make the clay pots)’ (Gulewa_01AH_0012-13) (43)

Ka-henuwa

ka-kabi

leiyaha

1EXCL-want

1EXCL-make pandanus

meta

ka-lau

ka-boli.

TOPIC

1EXCL-go 1EXCL-cut

‘When we want to make pandanus (mats), we go and cut (some)’ (Leiyaha_01AA_0001-2)

The functions of demonstrative-derived clause connectives have been discussed beyond the context of conditional clauses. Like their post-nominal use as topicalizers, connectives which mark thematic clausal constituents have been noted as a common syntactic and discourse-pragmatic feature in Papuan languages (see e.g. De Vries 1985, 1995, 2006; Diessel and Breunesse 2020; Farr et al. 1982; Farr and Whitehead 1981; Foley 1986: 201; Reesink 1987, 1994, 2014). They have also been observed in some Oceanic languages (Cooper 1992; François 2001, 2005; Margetts 2019).

16

A. Margetts

1.4 Conclusion Saliba-Logea has two addressee-based spatial deictics, one originally modifying the verbal complex, one a demonstrative occurring in nominal contexts. The two elements, -wa “towards addressee” and meta “close to addressee” show striking parallels in their development. After recategorization of -wa from its verbal uses to a nominal modifier both elements occur as post-nominal markers which indicate a referent’s discourse status. Both also occur as clause-connectives, indicating the semantic relationship between clauses. In both contexts there are fine semantic distinctions between the two forms. As nominal modifiers the markers are clearly functionally distinct. Post-nominal wa marks referents as given and identifiable for the addressee. Post-nominal meta indicates topic changes. It marks a referent’s status as topic which the discourse is about and such entities can be given or new. In the context of nominal modification, wa and meta can co-occur to mark given referents as discourse topics. In contrast, discourse-new referents can be marked by meta but not by wa. Neither marker is grammatically obligatory and both givenness and topicality can also remain morphologically unmarked. While both markers have leftward scope over the preceding NP, wa indicates the relation between this NP and referents that were mentioned or evoked earlier. Therefore wa links a referent anaphorically to the preceding discourse, but it does not indicate the referent’s further relevance for the following discourse. In contrast, meta indicates a referent’s status as important for the following discourse, but is silent on its relation to referents that were previously mentioned. Table 1.1 summarises these points. As clause connectives, both wa and meta mark the preceding clause as presupposed information. Both markers occur between two predications, but show slight differences in their positioning. This can be observed when the two predications are distributed over separate intonation units: wa is a clausal enclitic, bound to preceding Table 1.1 Post-nominal uses of wa and meta

wa

meta

Scope over preceding NP

✓

✓

Grammatically obligatory

––

––

• Given referents

✓

✓

• New referents

––

✓

• Topical referents

✓

✓

• Non-topical referents

✓

––

• Preceding discourse

✓

––

• Following discourse

––

✓

Marking

Linking to

1 Different Sources, Same Path—From Addressee-Based Deictics …

17

clause, while meta is flexible and can alternatively occur as the first element of the following clause. In their uses as clause connectives the functional distinction between wa and meta is less clear. They mark semantic relations between clauses and, in both cases, this has a subordination-like effect without showing formal features of clausal embedding. In this use wa and meta do not co-occur and they functionally overlap in the range of semantic relations they can indicate. As a connective, wa commonly marks temporal or causal relations between events (when, as, since, once, because, etc.), but it also occurs in relative-clause-like structures and in constructions expressing unsuccessful attempts with nige gonowana “not able to”. Like wa, meta frequently indicates temporal relations between events, but it also commonly occurs with conditional clauses, which are not attested with wa. Unlike wa, meta does not typically mark causal relations, relative clauses, or unsuccessful attempts. In addition to marking a preceding clause as given information which provides a background for what follows, meta marks thematic alterations in the discourse, such as shifts of place or time, or changes in the expression of arguments (including discontinuity of the subject and introduction of object arguments). In this sense meta can be described as having an effect and semantic scope beyond the linked clauses, as it flags changes in the structure and organisation of the following discourse. By comparison, wa has a more local effect which seems to be restricted to the two linked predications. Table 1.2 provides an overview. Table 1.2 Clause-connecting uses of wa and meta

wa

meta

Position (if separate intonation units) • End of preceding clause

✓

✓

• Beginning of following clause

––

✓

• Syntactic relation between clauses

––

––

• Semantic relation between clauses

✓

✓

Marking

• Preceding clause as given

✓

✓

• Thematic changes in following discourse

––

✓

• Temporal sequence

✓

✓

• Simultaneity

✓

✓

• Causal sequence

✓

✓

• Unsuccessful attempts

✓

––

• Relative clauses

✓

––

• Conditional clauses

––

✓

Semantic relation

18

A. Margetts

A number of theoretical implications arise from the Saliba-Logea data. All of the diachronic connections discussed here are attested in other languages: the development of verbal elements to anaphoric markers, the grammaticalization of demonstratives to markers of topicality, and the connection between adnominal modifiers and clause connectives. What is noteworthy about the Saliba-Logea case is the parallel development of two spatially deictic elements which are semantically related but belong to different form classes and occur in different syntactic environments. Previous studies have shown and sometimes focused on the importance of the syntactic make-up of the source constructions in the analysis of grammaticalization pathways. By contrast, or rather in addition, the current study suggests that the specific semantics of the source element is as indicative of a grammaticalization path as the syntactic context in which it originates and the form class to which it belongs. Both aspects have been acknowledged in the literature, however authors do not always pay equal tribute to them. For instance, despite the extensive literature on the grammaticalization of demonstratives, there is little agreement on the semantics and use of the demonstrative source morphemes. We still know surprisingly little about which member of a paradigm tends to grammaticalize towards certain functions. There are conflicting observations about which demonstrative is most commonly attested in anaphoric use and suggestions range from proximal, medial or addresseebased to distal. Neither is there agreement whether demonstratives in anaphoric or in recognitional use are the source morphemes grammaticalizing to third person pronouns and definite articles respectively. (On both of these points see Frajzyngier 1996; Greenberg 1978; Himmelmann 1996; Lehmann 1995; Reesink 1987).3 What the Saliba-Logea source morphemes share is their addressee-anchored deictic meaning. They express directedness towards or position close to the addressee and they both develop discourse functions around marking information as given, presupposed, and/or important. The two markers are semantically similar and they functionally overlap. There is a tension in the coverage of both given (and in that sense backgrounded) information on the one hand, and important, topical (and in that sense foregrounded and highlighted) information on the other hand. Yet both types of meaning, givenness (old-hat, you already know this) and discourse-topicality (watch out, don’t miss this) convey a discourse status which is triangulated with reference to the addressee. This is what may make addressee-based deictics susceptible to enter grammaticalization paths towards discourse markers of both types. The tendency of addressee-based deictics to develop into anaphoric markers (which indicate that a constituent is, as it were, already with the addressee) is found in other languages beyond Saliba-Logea (see e.g. Margetts 2019). In addition there is cross-linguistic evidence of addressee-based deictics to function as attention-getting devices which highlight important information and structure the discourse (e.g. Margetts 2015; 3 While

several authors suggest that demonstratives in anaphoric use grammaticalize into definite articles (e.g. Greenberg 1978: 61; Vogel 1993; Frajzyngier 1996: 169; Lehmann 1995), Himmelmann (1996: 243) argues that definite articles grammaticalize from demonstratives in recognitional use and that demonstratives in anaphoric use are the source of third person pronouns. Also see Himmelmann (1997) and Löbner (1985) on the distinction between definite and anaphoric articles.

1 Different Sources, Same Path—From Addressee-Based Deictics …

19

Zariquiey 2015). Such tendencies are of interest for theories of grammaticalization and show how both syntax and semantics of the source constructions are crucial for our understanding of their diachronic development. Acknowledgements I would like to thank and acknowledge the Saliba and Logea communities who have supported my research. I also wish to thank Keith Allan for putting this volume together and two anonymous reviewers for insightful comments. But my special thanks go to Kate Burridge for being her wonderful self! Example references refer to the texts title and number of intonation units in the archived Saliba-Logea DoBeS corpus: http://dobes.mpi.nl/projects/saliba/.

References Bowden, J. (2014). Mental deixis in Taba. In A. Jukes (Ed.), NUSA: Deixis and spatial expressions in languages in and around Indonesia (Vol. 56, pp. 79–100). Cleary-Kemp, J. (2006). Givenness, definiteness, and specificity in a language without articles: The use of NP markers in Saliba, an Oceanic language of Papua New Guinea. Honours thesis, Monash University. Comrie, B. (1997). Pragmatic binding demonstratives as anaphors in Dutch. In M. L. Juge & J. L. Moxley (Eds.), Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on Pragmatics and Grammatical Structure (pp. 50–61). Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society. Cooper, R. E. (1992). That’s what i’m talking about: Discourse level deixis in Buhutu. Language and Linguistics in Melanesia, 23(2), 95–106. Dawuda, C. (2009). Discourse functions of demonstratives and place adverbs with exophoric reference in Logea, an Oceanic language of Papua New Guinea. Ph.D. thesis, Monash University. De Vries, L. (1985). Topic and focus in Wambon discourse. In A. Machtelt Bolkestein, C. De Groot, & J. Lachlan Mackenzie (Eds.), Syntax and pragmatics in functional grammar (pp. 155–180). Dordrecht: Foris. De Vries, L. (1995). Demonstratives, referent identification and topicality in Wambon and some other Papuan languages. Journal of Pragmatics, 24(5), 513–533. De Vries, L. (2006). Areal pragmatics of New Guinea: Thematization, distribution and recapitulative linkage in Papuan narratives. Journal of Pragmatics, 38(6), 811–828. Diessel, H., & Breunesse, M. (2020). A typology of demonstrative clause linkers. In Å. Næss, A. Margetts, & Y. Treiss (Eds.), Demonstratives in discourse, topics at the grammar-discourse interface. Berlin: Language Science Press. Enk, V., Gerrit, J., & De Vries, L. (1997). The Korowai of Irian Jaya: Aspects of their language and oral tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Evans, N. (2007). Insubordination and its uses. In I. Nikolaeva (Ed.), Finiteness: Theoretical and empirical foundations (pp. 366–431). New York: Oxford University Press. Evans, N., Henrik, B., & Leila, R. S. (2017a). The grammar of engagement I: Framework and initial exemplification. Language and Cognition, 10, 110–140. Evans, N., Henrik, B., & Leila, R. S. (2017b). The grammar of engagement II: Typology and diachrony. Language and Cognition, 10, 141–170. Farr, C. J. M., & Whitehead, C. R. (1981). This, that, and the other: A study of Korafe demonstratives. Language and Linguistics in Melanesia, 13, 1–2. Farr, C. J. M., Lowe, I., & Whitehead, C. R. (1982). Topic, contrast and control in Korafe. Dallas, TX: SIL. Foley, W. A. (1986). The Papuan languages of New Guinea. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

20

A. Margetts

Frajzyngier, Z. (1987). From verb to anaphora. Lingua, 72(2), 155–168. Frajzyngier, Z. (1996). On Sources of demonstratives and anaphors. In B. A. Fox (Ed.), Studies in anaphora (pp. 169–204). John Benjamins: Amsterdam/Philadelphia. François, A. (2001). Contraintes de Structures et Liberté Dans l’organisation Du Discours: Une Description Du Mwotlap, Langue Océanienne Du Vanuatu. Ph.D. thesis, Université de Paris-IV, Sorbonne. François, A. (2005). A typological overview of Mwotlap, an Oceanic language of Vanuatu. Linguistic Typology, 9, 115–146. Greenberg, J. H. (1978). How does a language acquire gender markers?. In J. H. Joseph (Ed.), Universals of human language (Vol. 3, pp. 47–882). Stanford: Stanford University Press. Haiman, J. (1978). Conditionals are topics. Language, 54(3), 564–589. Himmelmann, N. P. (1996). Demonstratives in Narrative Discourse: A Taxonomy of Universal Uses. In Barbara A. Fox (Ed.), Studies in Anaphora (Vol. 33, pp. 206–254). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Himmelmann, N. P. (1997). Deiktikon, Artikel, Nominalphrase: zur Emergenz syntaktischer Struktur. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Hinterwimmer, S. (2017). Prominent protagonists. Journal of Pragmatics. https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.pragma.2017.12.003. Kaiser, E., & Trueswell, J. C. (2004). The role of discourse context in the processing of a flexible word-order language. Cognition, 94(2), 113–147. Lehmann, C. (1995). Thoughts on grammaticalization. München: Lincom Europa. Löbner, S. (1985). Definites. Journal of semantics, 4(4), 279–326. Margetts, A. (2002). The linguistic encoding of three-participant events in Saliba. Studies in Language, 26(3), 613–636. Margetts, A. (2004). Spatial Deixis in Saliba. In G. Senft (Ed.), Deixis and demonstratives in Oceanic languages (pp. 35–57). Pacific Linguistics: Canberra. Margetts, A. (2008). Learning verbs without boots and straps? The problem of ‘give’ in Saliba. In M. Bowerman & P. Brown (Eds.), Cross-linguistic perspectives on argument structure: Implications for learnability (pp. 111–137). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Margetts, A. (2015). Person shift at narrative peak. Language, 91(4), 755–805. Margetts, A. (2016). Addressee-based demonstratives as topic markers. In Presented at the Annual Conference of the Australian Linguistics Society, Melbourne, 5–7 December 2016. Margetts, A. (2018). Exophoric demonstratives in Saliba. In S. Levinson et al. (Eds.), Demonstratives in cross-linguistic perspective (pp. 257–81). Culture & Cognition Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Margetts, A. (2019). Demonstratives in topic-related functions. In Presented at 11th Conference of Oceanic Linguistics, Noumea, New Caledonia, 7–11 October 2019. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=mp3SOhZ-wVk and at the colloquium “Current trends in Papuan linguistics” Langues et civilisations à tradition orale (Lacito), CNRS Paris, 10–11 December 2019. Reesink, G. P. (1987). Structures and their functions in Usan. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Reesink, G. P. (1994). Domain-creating constructions in Papuan languages. In G. P. Reesink (Ed.), Topics in descriptive Papuan linguistics (pp. 98–121). Vakgroep Talen en Culturen van ZuidoostAzië en Oceanië: Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden. Reesink, G. P. (2014). Topic management and clause combination in the papuan language Usan. In R. van Gijn, et al. (Eds.), Information structure and reference tracking in complex sentences (pp. 231–262). John Benjamins: Amsterdam/Philadelphia. Ross, M. (2004). Demonstratives, local nouns and directionals in Oceanic languages: A diachronic perspective. In G. Senft (Ed.), Deixis and demonstratives in Oceanic languages (pp. 175–204). Pacific Linguistics: Canberra. Steinhauer, H. (1983). Notes on the Malay of Kupang (Timor). In J. T. Collins (Ed.), Studies in Malay dialects, Nusa, Linguistic Studies of Indonesian and other languages in Indonesia (pp. 42–64). Jakarta: Universitas Atma Jaya.

1 Different Sources, Same Path—From Addressee-Based Deictics …

21

van Minde, D. (1997). Malayu Ambong: Phonology, morphology, syntax. Leiden: CNWS. Vogel, P. M. (1993). Über Den Zusammenhang von Definitem Artikel Und Ferndeixis. Sprachtypologie Und Universalienforschung, 46(3), 222–233. Zariquiey, R. (2015). The encoding of addressee’s perspective in Kakataibo (Panoan, Peru). Language Typology and Universals = Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung, 68(2), 143–64.

Anna Margetts Studied in Cologne, Buffalo, and Nijmegen. She is based in the Linguistics Program at Monash University. Her special interests are languages of the Pacific, language documentation, linguistic typology, language change, grammar, and the discourse-syntax interface. She has published extensively on Saliba-Logea, an Oceanic language of Papua New Guinea. Her research focus also includes crosslinguistic investigations on person deictics as discourse markers and the syntax-semantics mapping in event representation. Email [email protected].

Chapter 2

The Punctual Never in Australian English: The Mysterious Case of the Missing Vernacular Universal Isabelle Burke

Abstract The punctual never is a classic vernacular universal, widespread among varieties of English across the globe. However, corpus data from the UWA Corpus of English in Australia (2012–2015) reveals its surprising rarity in Australian English. Where could this vernacular universal be hiding? Drawing on the categorisation established in Lucas and Willis (2012), this chapter argues that the punctual never is mostly restricted to the ‘window of opportunity’ usage in Australian English, where its punctuality is better camouflaged than in classic nonstandard use. In addition to drawing on corpus data, this chapter investigates acceptability survey data from 170 linguistics students, which indicates the social stigmatization of the nonstandard punctual never among Australian English speakers, as well as the importance of formulaic chunks like never get around to, in which the punctuality of never remains unanalysed and therefore more acceptable. Keywords Punctual never · Simple negator never · Australian English · Vernacular universal · Window of opportunity

2.1 Introduction and Background One of the best-known non-standard negators in English is the ‘punctual’ or ‘simple negator’ never, as in example (1). (1) (J) Was that at school you made that? (M) No, I never went to school today. (Cheshire 1998: 38)

The emphatic value of simple negator never derives from what is called a punctual reading, rather than a universal temporal or universal quantificational reading. In standard usage, never is used to deny multiple occurrences of an event over time and is not emphatic, as in I never go to the footy on Saturdays. However, in punctual occurrences, just one single event is negated: a point in time, rather than a period I. Burke (B) Monash University, Melbourne, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 K. Allan (ed.), Dynamics of Language Changes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6430-7_2

23

24

I. Burke

of time, as in I never went to the footy last Saturday. Thus the emphasis derives from a special negation ‘overdose’ effect: there is more negation than necessary (see Cheshire 1985). Never used as a simple negator is an astonishingly widespread phenomenon. In the precursor to eWAVE (the Electronic World Atlas of Varieties of English), which surveys the spread of morphosyntactic variation in Englishes around the world, Kortmann and Szmrecsanyi (2004: 1186) rated it the number one non-standard morphosyntactic feature across all twenty varieties of English surveyed: it was attested in an astounding nineteen. eWAVE confirms its presence in 83% of all Englishes (Kortmann and Lunkenheimer 2013: Feature 159). This is the vernacular universal par excellence: it flourishes in Englishes all around the globe, and Australia appears to be no exception. eWAVE classifies it as ‘pervasive’ in Aboriginal English and Torres Strait Creole, and more pertinently here, it is ‘neither pervasive nor particularly rare’ in Australian English and ‘Australian Vernacular English’, the variety described by Pawley (2008) as spoken by working-class men in Tasmania. This makes its rarity in Australian English corpus data all the more surprising. Drawing on a broad range of Australian English corpora, including ICE-Aus, Burke (2014) found very little evidence of the punctual never in the nonstandard mould (e.g. I never went to school today). Similarly, the analysis of the UWA Corpus of English in Australia undertaken in this paper uncovered only two frank tokens of the nonstandard punctual never in this frame: this accounts for just 0.2% of all tokens of never in the UWA Corpus. In sharp contrast, Palacios Martinez (2011) recently performed a quantitative study into negation in London teenagers’ speech: out of a sample size of 340 nevers, he found that 16.5% were punctual, revealing it to be a robust feature. Why would such a classic vernacular universal be so rare in Australian English corpus data? This discrepancy comes down to a fine-grained distinction that is seldom made explicit in the scholarship: some forms of the punctual never are ‘more punctual’ than others. The punctual never is often conceptualized as a monolithic (and non-standard) entity. As it turns out, this is an inaccurate picture: scholars such as Lucas and Willis (2012) have convincingly differentiated two distinct usages of the ‘punctual never’. One is indeed entirely nonstandard (Cheshire 1998), as in uses like I never went to school today. But there is another usage, one that slyly avoids the searchlights of prescriptive attention: Lucas and Willis (2012) have dubbed this the ‘window of opportunity’ never. Or, as I have referred to this usage in previous work, the ‘contextual’ punctual never, as it predominantly relies on contextual factors rather than explicit time adverbials to deduce its punctuality (see Burke 2014). This ‘window of opportunity’ never successfully evades normative scrutiny by slipping into English through a circumscribed set of predicates, chiefly those that are dynamic, iterable, and telic, occurring in the preterit (see Lucas and Willis 2012: 468 for full details). Essentially, the window of opportunity never creates a flimsy pretext that multiple occurrences are negated: on further inspection, this assumption crumbles, and it becomes apparent that only one instance is negated. Classic examples of this usage are he was supposed to pick me up at lunchtime, but he never came (Lucas and Willis 2012), or I meant to grade that essay over the weekend, but I never

2 The Punctual Never in Australian English: The Mysterious Case …

25

got around to it. This usage creates a window of time in which the relevant event could have occurred, but in fact, did not. On closer inspection, only one event is negated: in normal circumstances, people do not arrive multiple times for a single appointment. The punctuality in this form is better camouflaged, and better protected from social stigmatization. Although Lucas and Willis (2012) appear to be among the first to explicitly single out and reframe the window of opportunity punctual never with special nomenclature and analysis, this is certainly not the first discussion of more acceptable punctual never usages. Cheshire (1998: 45) referred to fuzzier and more subtle tokens of the punctual never: ‘it is not always clear whether [never] is used as a straightforward negative or whether its temporal meaning comes into play.’ She also goes on to state that never is more acceptable in ‘indeterminate’ periods of time (1998: 33), which in turn I have identified as the locus of reanalysis of the ‘not on any occasion’ never (i.e. universal temporal) to an emphatic simple negator (Burke 2014). Indeed, Cheshire even cited one of these ‘indeterminate’ instances from The Hobbit (he never leaped), demonstrating its use in highly literary contexts (1998: 33). This usage is far more prevalent in the UWA Corpus of English in Australia, totalling a healthier 13% of all tokens of never, from 876 total instances. The higher frequency of the window of opportunity usage appears to be due to a number of factors. Firstly, the window of opportunity usage has a historical background that better coheres with the date of Australian settlement, following the development charted in Lucas and Willis (2012), as examined in Sect. 2.2.2 here. Another important factor is the level of social stigmatization of the nonstandard punctual never. Acceptability survey data from 170 linguistics students reveal a disparity between indirect acceptability results (i.e. other people using the construction) and direct acceptability results (i.e. admitting to using the construction). Written comments from the students indicate the stigma attached to the construction, and its nonstandard nature, frequently describing it as ‘wrong’ or ‘bogan’, an Australian slang term for a vulgar and unsophisticated person. Students also rated the window of opportunity usage as much more acceptable than the nonstandard punctual never, with particular formulaic chunks like never get around to rated as the most acceptable. It appears that the better concealed the punctual never is, whether within the window of opportunity, or inside unanalysed formulaic chunks, the more favourably it is received. The punctual never is not missing in Australian English: rather, it is undercover, camouflaged within the window of opportunity. This chapter investigates the use of the punctual never in the UWA Corpus of Australia (Sect. 2.2.1), and its relative acceptability in survey data (Sect. 2.3), with the aim of mapping the differing usages of never across modern Australian English conversation.

26

I. Burke

2.2 Corpus Data 2.2.1 The UWA Corpus of English in Australia The UWA Corpus of English in Australia was collected by University of Western Australia (UWA) linguistics students in casual dialogue with friends and family in Perth between 2012 and 2015. The corpus consists of 1,144,980 words and has been transcribed by the linguistics students themselves, with audio available. There is a broad range of ages represented in the corpus: both the elderly and children are included. Examples presented from the UWA Corpus are labelled according to the following convention: UWA Year: Code. To preserve the privacy of the participants in this corpus, a code has replaced the identifying surname that forms the title of the transcript (e.g. Smith = S1). Where this is appropriate and assumed to hold some interest for the reader, the gender and the age of the speaker is also added (UWA Year: Code: Gender: Age).

2.2.2 Corpus Results and Discussion Four main categories are established for never here, based on Lucas and Willis (2012). The first is the most common and well-known usage, in which never quantifies over a span of time and negates multiple instances: this is the universal temporal (or ‘quantificational’) use. This is abbreviated to UT and is further broken down into past, present and future instances. The next two categories encompass the punctual never: distinguishing the window of opportunity never from the nonstandard never requires a careful analysis of the predicate type, contextual factors, and time adverbials (e.g. this morning). Finally, idiomatic expressions are classified separately from universal temporal and punctual never. These expressions have become fossilized and are only very rarely combined with a full clause (e.g. you never know, or never again). Table 2.1 shows the breakdown of each category of never and its occurrence in each year of the UWA Corpus. The most immediately striking aspect of these results is the rarity of the classic nonstandard punctual never in the UWA Corpus. It consists of just two tokens, forming only a tiny fraction of uses of never in the corpus. The first token, example (2a), comes from a man in his sixties: it is a nonstandard punctual never due to the time adverbial that night, which immediately narrows the frame of reference to one possible occasion: i.e. the absence of one confrontation (‘saying something’) on a particular night. (2a) [02] - I remember once, it was a really cold, shitty night and Dad wanted me to go out and get some firewood, and I said “Nah, I’m right.” [1] – (laughs)

2 The Punctual Never in Australian English: The Mysterious Case …

27

Table 2.1 Occurrences of never in the UWA Corpus Year [words]

Past (UT)

Present (UT)

Future (UT)

Idiom/set phrase

‘Window of opportunity’

Clear punctual

Sub-totals

2012 [378,359]

134

42

34

5

39

1

255

2013 [246,654]

121

23

24

8

27

0

203

2014 [287,526]

145

28

25

6

31

0

235

2015 [232,441]

116

25

20

3

18

1

183

Total [1,144,980]

516

118

103

22

115

2

876

%

58.9

13.5

11.8

2.5

13.1

0.2

100

[02] – And he said, “No, go and get some fire-” – “Nah, I’m-I’m good, I’m not going to get it”, and ah, he never said anything that night, that night, but the next morning, he, ah, told me if I ever did that to him again he was gonna knock my bloody block off. Mmm. (UWA 2012: B9: Male: 60)

The nonstandard nature of the second token (2b) is quite different. This time, there are no time adverbials to immediately flag that there is only one occasion that is being negated. Instead, what breaks this never from its protective concealment is the nature of the verb: move. Here move acts as an action verb, and as such, it is atelic: there is clearly no point at which moving can be considered complete, which prima facie rules out multiple completions within a small space of time (although intuitions may differ on this point). In this narrative, speaker B has fallen out of the tray of a moving ute and onto the road: his brother is frightened that he is dead, because B ‘never moved’. This example is parallel to (15) from Lucas and Willis (2012: 469), in which another stative verb is negated with never i.e. I never had nothing on me. (2b) B: I could’ve broken me neck, I went straight over… ’n they’d gone… they’ve kept goin’ ’cause they didn’t know ‘n next minute me brother realized… ’n he… ’cause he.. he must sorry… he must’ve seen it happen after… ‘cause he’s… aw I remember him bangin’ on the, screamin’ at me old father “Stop!”… ’cause I didn’t move… “Ya killed me brother, ya killed Warran, ya killed me…!”… ’n they’ve come, ’cause they shat themselves yeah, ’cause I never moved… I just lay there laughin’ ’n laughin’ (UWA 2015: D1: Male: 52)

In addition to the rarity of the nonstandard punctual never, another remarkable factor is the uniformity of its users. Only two speakers used the construction in the UWA Corpus: both were men between fifty and sixty and both left school at the age of fifteen. Although this is a very small sample indeed, if we speculate that it appropriately indicates the typical user of the construction in Australian English (i.e. middle-aged working-class men), then, given that the Monash and Griffith corpora target teenagers and speakers in early adulthood (see Burke 2014), it may account for the rarity of the construction in the corpora that have so far been examined.

28

I. Burke

The window of opportunity use proved far more popular, consisting of around 13% of all instances of never in the UWA Corpus. In these instances, particular predicates and contextual factors such as the presence or absence of particular adverbials (e.g. today) provide a kind of ‘plausible deniability’. Here, it is certainly possible that multiple instances are being negated, which allows never to conceal itself from prescriptive scrutiny: however, upon closer inspection, this camouflage disappears and the assumption that multiple instances were possible proves untenable. For example, in (3a), it becomes clear that only one instance of putting the car into the garage is negated (never put his car into the garage), particularly when we compare this to the action that the speaker’s brother did take instead (he left it in the driveway), which is clearly one instance. Similarly in (3b), one incident of an actor accidentally spilling the beans on his character’s future on Game of Thrones is negated. (3c) in particular is a classic example of this usage, where there is a broad window where the speaker’s workplace could have received an insurance payout for his car accident, but only one occasion is being negated within this window. The verb phrase is a particularly common one for this usage, too (never ended up getting the money). Again in (3d), contextual factors make it clear that only a single instance of the speaker flirting with an English backpacker’s girlfriend (cracking onto) is being negated, as the speaker was only given a limited window for this before he was unceremoniously thrown out into the gutter by the manager. (3a) [02] I was living in… Elenbrook then, yeah, and, but my cars were in a drive-, were in undercover. But my brother’s car was outside… in between he’d gone- gone somewhere and never put his car into the garage, and he left it in the driveway and his car was totally wrecked. (UWA 2014: K1) (3b) [1] Like the guy, the guy’s agent, the guy who originally played Jaqen, his agent accidentally spoiled it like “oh yeah we’re back in Game of Thrones wait no shhhh” [2] “No wait no that never happened shhh”. (UWA 2014: M1) (3c) M: I kind of just didn’t deal with it and then apparently I found out a few months ago like that like, they never ended up getting the money or the insurance from the guy that hit me. (UWA 2014: S4) (3d) [DF] I’m lying there in the gutter. And then the- the manager guy… comes over. And he says “is this the guy? This is the fucking guy?” And one of the English guys says “yeah that’s the one mate. He was cracking onto my girlfriend.” He was doing all this. [TR] Oh! [DF] Which I never did obvi- obviously. (UWA 2015: R1)

These tokens are characteristic of the use of the window of opportunity never in the UWA Corpus: the verbs obey all the properties outlined in Lucas and Willis (2012), all being dynamic, telic, non-chance and occurring in the preterite, and there are no particular time adverbials that break cover and reveal that only one possible instance is negated. For the most part, the 115 tokens found in the UWA Corpus mapped well to this kind of predicate type, and cohered well to the Lucas and Willis account, indicating its wider applicability to other varieties of English.

2 The Punctual Never in Australian English: The Mysterious Case …

29

Why does the window of opportunity usage eclipse the nonstandard never in Australian English, particularly when parallel British English corpus studies reveal such a different story? The answer may lie in the historical development of both usages of never: Lucas and Willis (2012) trace this extensively, and argue that this appears to be one of those occasions where the old assumption proves true: the nonstandard usage is recent, and the standard usage is old (2012: 482). The authors examined the Early Modern section of the Helsinki Corpus (1500–1710) and the Corpus of English Correspondence (1418–1680), but found no uses of never that parallel the nonstandard usage in present day English. Most notably, they found no parallel usages in Dickens novels (d. 1870), although many tokens of never were in the context of nonstandard dialogue—precisely where it would be expected (and, indeed, where it would be common in the London vernacular in the present day). The earliest examples that the authors found cited in the OED are from novels published in 1896 and 1909: afterwards, it becomes much more popular (2012: 476). They concluded that the modern punctual never ‘had been innovated by the third quarter of the nineteenth century, but it does not appear to have become widespread until slightly later.’ (2012: 476). In short, we could view the punctual never as a respectable literary figure ‘moonlighting’ in more recent years as a nonstandard London tough. Overall, the conservative picture shown in the UWA Corpus accords with the historical account presented in Lucas and Willis (2012). If the entirely nonstandard punctual never was an innovative development in British English during the latter part of the nineteenth century, as the authors hold, then this was too late to arrive to Australian shores with the first free settlers during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. This would mean the nonstandard punctual never does not have the same tradition in Australian English: it may result from a parallel spontaneous innovation from the window of opportunity usage, or from the later arrival of nonstandard punctual never users (which would not only include speakers of British English). However, it is clear that the nonstandard punctual never does not share an identical historical development with British English: it does not have the same history, which coheres with its comparative rarity in the UWA Corpus.

2.3 Survey Data 2.3.1 Survey Participants and Procedures Acceptability judgement tasks were performed with three different groups of linguistics students at a prominent Australian university, totalling 170 participants (excluding non-native speakers). The students were presented with audio recordings of the sentences over a loudspeaker. Audio recordings were chosen, as there is likely normative pressure involved in seeing conversational structures written down and therefore ‘out of their natural habitat’: speakers have different syntactic expectations for written sentences than spoken (Cowart 1997: 64). The students were asked to

30

I. Burke

Table 2.2 Stimulus sentences and their relative ordering Punctual never N.1.1 Sorry there’s no milk, I never went to the supermarket today #1 #1 #3 N.1.2 Sorry Kate, I never got around to doing my homework last week

–

N.1.3 When I was three or four, my older sister came out of her – room with tomato sauce all over her, and pretended to be bleeding, and told Mum that I bit her. I got in so much trouble, but I never actually did it!

#2 #2 –

#1

rate the sentences on a Likert scale, from 1 to 5, with 1 being the worst rating (i.e. ‘totally unacceptable’) and 5 the best (i.e. ‘no problem’.) This is called an indirect acceptability (or grammaticality) judgement task. Students were also asked if they would use the construction in an everyday conversation (yes or no). This is a direct grammaticality (or acceptability) judgement task. Finally, space was provided for comments, and the students were encouraged to write down why they felt the sentences were unacceptable, or ‘sounded odd’. As the surveys were performed successively, there was the opportunity to add different tasks and additional stimulus sentences, in accordance with initial results. The direct acceptability task was added after the first survey (and hence was not present for the first instance of the task being run). The stimulus sentences and their relative ordering are presented in Table 2.2. The first stimulus is the classic nonstandard punctual never: this example was the most unambiguous in its reference to one point in time, as it combines never with today, a time adverbial: sorry there’s no milk, I never went to the supermarket today (N.1.1). The second stimulus is a window of opportunity never: this example also contained a time adverbial (last week), but this was larger period of time, creating the illusion of multiple instances being negated. Here, never is combined with a verb (get around to) that was indicated by corpus data to be a particularly popular partner for never: sorry Kate, I never got around to doing my homework last week (N.1.2). The third stimulus contains no explicit reference to time via adverbials and the predicate type was not especially amenable to the window of opportunity; it was merely the conversational context that indicated that only one point in time was being negated. This was the short narrative retrieved from the UWA corpus: when I was three or four, my sister came out of her room with tomato sauce all over her and pretended to be bleeding and told Mum that I bit her! I got in so much trouble… but I never did it! (N.1.3).

2.3.2 Survey Results Unsurprisingly, the nonstandard punctual never was the most poorly received, as can be seen in Fig. 2.1a, b, and as can be contrasted to the more ambiguous examples (e.g. Fig. 2.2a, b). These differences appear most striking in the direct grammaticality

2 The Punctual Never in Australian English: The Mysterious Case …

31

Fig. 2.1 a Sorry there’s no milk, I never went to the supermarket today (indirect acceptability) (The three bars in each graph represent each instance of the task being run.). b Sorry there’s no milk, I never went to the supermarket today (direct acceptability)

Fig. 2.2 a Sorry Kate, I never got around to doing my homework last week (indirect acceptability). b Sorry Kate, I never got around to doing my homework last week (direct acceptability)

32

I. Burke

judgement task: the percentage of speakers who claimed to use the nonstandard never in casual conversation hovered a little below 30%. But when never is combined with a particularly amenable verb (get around) and the time period is extended, the acceptability skyrockets. For instance, in the third survey, every single speaker indicated that they used the construction (100%). Such unison is all the more striking when we consider the highly varied indirect grammaticality judgements towards the unambiguous punctual never: this construction elicits a wide range of responses, which then become entirely homogeneous when never occurs in combination with a particular verb. The combination of both an indirect and a direct acceptability judgement task provides a glimpse into the attitudes surrounding this construction. As Buchstaller and Corrigan (2011: 34) describe, ‘[Speakers] are not losing face if they say that people in their area are using these features while simultaneously not claiming to use them themselves.’ Decoupling ‘features that are productive in my community’ and ‘features I am comfortable to admit using’ allows a glimpse into the stigmatization of the construction. When we compare the direct acceptability ratings for the nonstandard punctual never (around 30% for both surveys) and the window of opportunity never got around to (100% in the third survey, around 80% for the second), it is clear that informants are much more reluctant to admit to using the nonstandard and unambiguous version. Qualitative responses are also useful in gauging social stigmatization. The nonstandard punctual never attracted overtly prescriptive comments, decrying the construction as ‘wrong usage of grammar’, or ‘wrong past tense’. One student memorably described the construction as ‘sounding like a fake bogan impersonation’. This is particularly notable, as the idea of ‘impersonation’ seems to indicate that this is a classic non-standard variable for some speakers, to the point of being caricature. Aside from overtly prescriptive vocabulary, for example, ‘uneducated’, there are other kinds of responses that indicate that the given sentence is unacceptable in some manner. In this case, it was the provision of an alternative construction. Students would often rephrase the stimulus sentence using the standard negator (here, the dummy do in past tense, didn’t), explaining that this ‘fixed’ the sentence. Many informants also seemed keenly aware of precisely what made the sentence unacceptable; namely, the presence of a time adverbial explicitly limiting the negation to one event. Students would often attempt an account of what led to the ungrammaticality, for instance, ‘never feels more long-term rather than within a day’. Interestingly, another kind of construction was suggested by students: never ended up at the supermarket, rather than never went. This plays on a similar principle to the stimulus sentence N.1.2 I never got around to doing my homework, in which the never is paired with a verb with which it frequently appears (never ended up, never got around to, never got there, etc.), creating a chunk of syntax. This construction was proposed at least once in all three surveys, which suggests that the presence of the chunk never get around in a different stimulus sentence is not the motivation for this suggestion (or at least, not the sole motivation, as this stimulus was not present for the first survey).

2 The Punctual Never in Australian English: The Mysterious Case …

33

Why do these combinations prove so successful? Here we can appeal to the notions of frequency and repetition espoused so effectively by Bybee (2003): she describes an important aspect of grammaticization as being ‘the process by which a frequently used sequence of words or morphemes becomes automated as a single processing unit’. It seems as though the punctual never ceases to become a separate unit with individual meaning in such sequences, reduced to an indivisible part of a syntactic chunk. In such cases, the punctuality and emphatic force of the never is drained, and much of what makes it so stigmatized becomes effectively invisible. As Wray (2002: 49) describes, the ‘effect of bypassing an examination of the internal composition of a string… can be to protect the meaning from the normal pressures of language change.’. Speakers seem aware of the close association between never and these verbs: for instance, when presented with the stimulus sentence never got around to doing my homework, one student wrote that ‘the never here makes sense, because it’s part of got around’. Although phonological comments were overall very rare for these surveys, another student advised that phonetic reduction would have made the sentence sound more natural (‘Sounds normal, but I would shorten around to round’). This is another nod to the process of automatization, in which Bybee describes phonological reduction as highly important. Thus, it seems, frequency and automatization are behind the success story of never get around: never loses its unsavoury punctual and emphatic associations when it becomes part of this chunk. These phrases have a certain kind of protective autonomy from the punctual never, and are therefore safe from stigmatization. Indeed, the time adverbial of last week was mostly ignored. This proves to be a very powerful process: it had been assumed that the contextual punctual never (N.1.3) would be the most acceptable of all three examples, as this had been reasonably popular throughout corpus data. This proved inaccurate: never got around was received more positively. What could be behind this? Firstly, it must be stated the contextual punctual never was still well-received: Fig. 2.3a, b show that a little over 60% of speakers claimed they would use the construction in a conversation, and nearly 55% of speakers gave the construction the highest rating of 5: this is not vastly behind never get around. It appears that part of what may have detracted from the construction was the length of the sentence and its early position in the survey: this sentence was only presented to one group of students, and it was the second sentence that they heard. Most of the critical comments revolved around the length, rather than the construction; the exciting nature of the narrative also seemed to distract a few students (e.g. ‘people shouldn’t bite their siblings’; a view that this author also supports). Curiously, only one student suggested an alternative negator for this stimulus sentence, or made any syntactic comment (‘I’d say, but I didn’t do it!’). This suggests that the punctuality of never in such contextual examples is also difficult for speakers to discern: the never remains undercover, shielded by the absence of time adverbials. Thus it seems that the contextual punctual never is simply another way for the construction to fly under the radar: while this is not on a par with automatized

34

I. Burke

Fig. 2.3 a When I was three or four, my sister came out of her room with tomato sauce all over her and pretended to be bleeding and told Mum that I bit her! I got in so much trouble… but I never did it! (indirect acceptability). b When I was three or four, my sister came out of her room with tomato sauce all over her and pretended to be bleeding and told Mum that I bit her! I got in so much trouble… but I never did it! (direct acceptability)

chunks such as never get around, it is also a highly effective way for the construction to stay viable without drawing unwanted attention to its stigmatized punctuality.

2.4 Never Better: Conclusion The punctual never is far from absent from Australian English, and indeed may not be particularly rare. Rather, it is safely ensconced in the window of opportunity usage, hiding out from the fierce prescriptive scrutiny that the punctual never often incurs. UWA Corpus data reveals that the window of opportunity usage is much healthier in modern Australian English, hovering around 13% of all tokens of never, in sharp contrast to the 0.2% total for the nonstandard punctual never. The nonstandard punctual never does appear much rarer in Australian English corpus studies than in parallel British studies. Here, I have argued that the conservative picture built up by the UWA Corpus, particularly in contrast to the British context, can be traced back to the historical development of both usages of never. If the nonstandard punctual never was indeed an innovative development in British English during the latter part of the nineteenth century, as Lucas and Willis (2012) hold, then this was too late to arrive to Australian shores with the first free settlers.

2 The Punctual Never in Australian English: The Mysterious Case …

35

Consequently, the nonstandard punctual never has a markedly different tradition in Australian English than it does in British English: it does not share an identical historical development. The Australian English use may result from a parallel spontaneous innovation from the window of opportunity usage, or from the later arrival of nonstandard punctual never users. Acceptability survey data from 170 linguistics students also disclose the high degree of social stigmatization of the punctual never, revealing a marked disparity between indirect acceptability results (i.e. other people using the construction) and direct acceptability results (i.e. admitting to using the construction). Written comments from the students also indicate the stigma attached to the construction, describing it as ‘wrong’ or ‘bogan’. Survey data reveals that formulaic chunks like never get around to are rated as the most acceptable use of the punctual never: here, never acts as an indivisible part of a syntactic chunk. Perhaps we could regard the punctual never as a roguish master of disguise: it appears that the better concealed the construction is, whether within the window of opportunity, or inside unanalysed formulaic chunks, the more favourably it is received. However, the moment that it sheds its cloak and reveals its true identity, it draws gasps of prescriptive horror. Acknowledgements I wish to thank Dr. Celeste Rodriguez Louro, who kindly granted me access to the UWA Corpus of English in Australia in December 2013. Many thanks to Dr. Simon Musgrave and Dr. Colleen Holt for assistance in conducting the surveys in class, and also to the students themselves. Most of all, thank you to Professor Kate Burridge, to whom this paper is dedicated. As a first-year student at Monash University, I sat in the Rotunda lecture theatre and listened in awe as Kate introduced me to linguistics. She inspired in me a lifelong love of grammatical change, and guided me through a Ph.D. Thank you to a wonderful teacher and friend.

References Buchstaller, I., & Corrigan, K. (2011). How to make intuitions succeed: Testing methods for analysing syntactic microvariation. In W. Maguire & A. McMahon (Eds.), Analysing variation in English (pp. 30–48). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Burke, I. (2014). ‘Giving a rat’s’ about negation: The Jespersen Cycle in modern Australian English. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 34, 443–475. https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2014.929085. Bybee, J. (2003). Mechanisms of change in grammaticization: The role of frequency. In B. D. Joseph & R. Janda (Eds.), The handbook of historical linguistics (pp. 602–623). Blackwell Publishing. Cheshire, J. (1985). “Never” and the problem of where grammars stop. Polyglot, 6(fiche 1), A3–18. Cheshire, J. (1998). English negation from an interactional perspective. In I. T.-B. van Ostade, G. Tottie, & W. van der Wurff (Eds.), Negation in the history of English (pp. 29–54). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Cowart, W. (1997). Experimental syntax: Applying objective methods to sentence judgements. United States of America: Sage Publications. Kortmann, B., & Lunkenheimer, K. (2013). The electronic world atlas of varieties of English. Retrieved from https://ewave-atlas.org. Kortmann, B., & Szmrecsanyi, B. (2004). Global synopsis: Morphological and syntactic variation in English. In B. Kortmann, K. Burridge, R. Mesthrie, E. Schneider, & C. Upton (Eds.), A handbook

36

I. Burke

of varieties of English: Vol II: Morphology and syntax (pp. 1142–1202). Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110175325.2.1142. Lucas, C., & Willis, D. (2012). Never again: The multiple grammaticalization of never as a marker of negation in English. English Language and Linguistics, 16(3), 459–485. Palacios Martinez, I. (2011). The expression of negation in British Teenagers’ language: A preliminary study. Journal of English Linguistics, 39, 4–35. https://doi.org/10.1177/007542421036 6905. Pawley, A. (2008). Australian Vernacular English: Some grammatical characteristics. In K. Burridge & B. Kortmann (Eds.), Varieties of English: The Pacific and Australasia (pp. 362–397). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110208412.2.362. Rodriguez Louro, C. 2012-2015. UWA Corpus of English in Australia. Discipline of Linguistics. The University of Western Australia. Wray, A. (2002). Formulaic language and the lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Isabelle Burke is a Teaching Associate at Monash University. She completed her BA (Hons) in the Dean’s Scholars program at Monash University in 2013, obtaining the University Medal. She was awarded her Ph.D. in linguistics at Monash University in 2017, which investigated grammatical changes in modern Australian English, and was supervised by Professor Kate Burridge and Associate Professor Alice Gaby. Her research interests include negation, grammatical change, and the intersection between discourse and syntax. Email [email protected].

Chapter 3

Standardise This! Prescriptivism and Resistance to Standardization in Language Revitalization Vicki Couzens, Alice Gaby, and Tonya Stebbins

Abstract As a relatively new phenomenon, languages redeveloped through revitalization pose a range of descriptive challenges to linguists, not least because they are researched and developed at the same time as they are learned and used. Successful language revitalization depends crucially on people in communities regaining authority over their languages as well as developing the ability to use them in a wide range of contexts. In this process of language reclamation, tensions can develop around the need for and implementation of standardization practices. In particular, these speakers may wish to set targets of pronunciation, lexicon and grammar defined by the norms of the language as it was spoken before contact with English. Exactly what these targets should be, how they are to be identified, taught and upheld are crucial considerations for any community reclaiming their language. We draw upon interview data with language activists from the eastern states of Australia to consider how those doing the work of language revitalization are grappling with questions of standardization and prescriptivism. We identify nonstandardized practices, which deflect and/or decline the use of standardization, and unstandardizable practices focused on language as personal or community identity-building. Keywords Language revitalization · Standardization · Prescriptivism · Collaboration

V. Couzens RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia e-mail: [email protected] A. Gaby (B) School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University, 20 Chancellors Walk, Melbourne, VIC 3800, Australia e-mail: [email protected] T. Stebbins La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 K. Allan (ed.), Dynamics of Language Changes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6430-7_3

37

38

V. Couzens et al.

3.1 Introduction1 The Meeting Point Project was initiated to identify strategies of rapprochement between community priorities and concerns about language revitalization and academic linguistics-based approaches.2 At the time there were simmering tensions relating to how linguists could or should contribute to language revitalization work, along with questions around how much linguistics expertise community members themselves ought to have. These tensions clustered around a series of issues relating to how the project of language revitalization was expected to be pursued and came to prominence most clearly in questions about what would count as ‘real’ language. One example of the type of tension that the project sought to address was the difficulty in reconciling the desire for historical accuracy (insofar as that could be established) with the often-divergent word forms and meanings that had been maintained through family memory. In effect, this is a problem of establishing standards: what is acceptable, to whom, and under what conditions? The need for high standards and the desire for historical accuracy are shared values. The tools of linguistics are valued because they do allow people to establish historical accuracy. The need to honour language that has been maintained through the years is also shared. This chapter explores the ways in which the power that accrues to linguistics as a discipline impacts on language revitalization in practice. This is not a new problem—it was recognized at least as early as Collins (1992)—but it is persistent and, we3 argue, deserves to be better understood. There continue to be numerous ways in which the discipline of linguistics imposes its perspectives and expectations about how language should be developed on the language revitalization movement. These practices can create significant barriers to participation for community members and undermine aspects of the language revitalization program as it is understood by language revitalization practitioners themselves. Barriers to participation include institutionalized demands for linguistics expertise in language revitalization programs that attract government funding. Conflicts around the goals and methods of the movement include struggles over what constitutes ‘good’ language revitalization practice. There are also tensions between the need to modernize the language to keep it relevant and the importance of honouring the past (Stebbins et al. 2018: 66). 1 An earlier version of this chapter, prepared by Tonya Stebbins and Kris Travers Eira, was presented

to the 7th Annual Roundtable, Monash University Language and Society Centre, in 2015. Meeting Point project was initiated in 2008 and ran until 2014. It was carried out by Vicki Couzens, Kris Travers Eira and Tonya Stebbins. Outputs from the project included a range of community-oriented resources such as a poster (Couzens et al. 2016) and factsheets (Eira et al. 2015), as well as academic publications, most notably Stebbins et al. (2018). Couzens et al. (2014) contains a series of interviews with Language practitioners and is relevant to both groups. 3 First person pronouns are used in this chapter to refer to a variety of combinations of authors and/or possible readers. In some cases, ‘we’ is used with reference to the originators of the Meeting Point Project, which includes Couzens and Stebbins (as well as Kris Travers Eira), but not Gaby. In other cases, ‘we’ is used with reference to academically-trained linguists, including both Indigenous and non-Indigenous linguists, though we are aware that these two groups can have very different experiences of their academic training and contribution to language revitalization activities. 2 The

3 Standardise This! Prescriptivism and Resistance …

39

All highly standardized languages rely on conceptions of language as a rulegoverned set of behaviours that are driven by systematic relations among forms and meanings, founded in large and powerful communities. The process of standardizing a language may be understood to maintain or expand the domains of use the speakers of that language have access to (see, for example, Achugar 2008). Large mainstream standardized languages like English ‘may be defined more by ideologies than by their internal structures’ (Milroy 2001: 530), deriving their strength in part from the conventions and sanctions against incorrect usage that are associated with them. Alongside other highly standardized languages, they can be enacted to reproduce a whole range of social practices promoted by mainstream institutions. In the broader community their proper use indexes perceived moral status and intellectual capacity (see for example Chew et al. 2015). Standardized languages of all kinds are typically codified (e.g. in dictionaries, style guides, …), constrained (they are difficult to change), established (over long periods in many cases), and restrictive (you can only legitimately break the rules if you can simultaneously show that you know them). They exist (and especially, they are maintained) by speakers’ willingness to conform to established practices and to subscribe to highly moralized forms of evaluation around language use. Their acquisition is a means to access power by gaining merit in various systems (such as education systems). For instance, academic papers such as this one adhere to (and contribute to) the conventions of standardized English in order to exploit the perceived authority, seriousness, intellectual rigour and merit that accrue to the form. Language communities characterized by very low levels of language standardization may seek standardization for purposes of attaining analogous status, for practical purposes, and/or for formal security in the goals of preservation of the linguistic aspects of their language. Such communities may also have standardization thrust upon them as a result of others’ ideological agendas (Peery 2012), or because speakers have internalized the dominant language ideology that standardization is the natural and/or desirable state of language (especially in colonial and/or diglossic contexts). Emerging speakers of languages undergoing revitalization must (re)claim space for their language(s), which have been denied their traditional domains of use. These revitalization languages may be used to re-assert personal experiences of identity (I am a X person, I speak (some) X), re-establish personally supportive cultural practices (e.g. birth poem), establish new mainstream practices (e.g. welcome to Country), foster more cohesive communities (e.g. through language camps) (see also Chew et al. 2015). They are ends in themselves. In the context we are studying, revitalization languages reflect conceptions of language as an expression of deeply rooted systems of meaning and culture, inter-connection (between people, land, other creatures,…), and individual and collective behaviour. Languages undergoing revitalization are also contingent, emergent, responsive, and relational. They are direct expressions of resilience and hope for the future. They exist precisely (though not only) because the people who are nurturing them are branching out and away from established mainstream practices (Stebbins et al. 2018: 66–67). In addition to exploring processes of standardization, this chapter identifies a range of practices associated with language revitalization that do not readily lend

40

V. Couzens et al.

themselves to the process of language standardization (Sect. 3.4.1). These nonstandardized practices are critical to the larger social project of language revitalization. It is useful to identify them so that they do not become the unnecessary target of standardization efforts. Nonstandardized practices are frequent in the small communities that characterize language revitalization efforts. They include practices which deflect and/or decline the use of standardization, such as the maintenance of personalized approaches to spelling. Since language revitalization is a social and a political movement it is useful to be able to reflect critically on the roles that linguistics and linguists can have and how these relate to the goals of the movement as a whole as well as the goals of individual programs and practitioners (cf. Woods 2017, Gaby & Woods in press). By reflecting on the roles and resources that different participants bring to language revitalization projects, and the objectives and priorities set in a particular community, it may be possible to get beyond superficial conflicts and work towards our common goals (Stebbins et al. 2018: 235). Our focus is on exploring what the processes and meanings of standardization, including roles in decision-making, have to tell us about working together for greater social aims.

3.2 Language Revitalization as Political The data presented in this chapter are drawn from the Meeting Point Project. The first phase of the Meeting Point project involved interviewing 31 participants in language revitalization programs from around the eastern states of mainland Australia (see Stebbins et al. 2018: 95ff for additional discussion of the project methods). The goal of the interviews was to ground the study of revitalization languages in the understanding of the Aboriginal people reclaiming them. This approach assumed that language revitalization could only be adequately understood through the epistemologies of the people doing the work. Linguistics would then provide a complementary perspective, heightening the complexity of particular areas of the developing picture. In addition, the emergent status of a language undergoing revitalization means that it is simply ‘not available for “objective” academic study outside of communityinternal motivations, processes, and analyses’ (Couzens et al. 2014: 317). The interviews also reflected a desire to develop a deeply collaborative research process in which all contributions were valued, and everyone could benefit from the enriched analysis that we hoped would result. One of the things that shone through in the interviews was the power of language revitalization work to reconnect people to culture, to family and to Country. In the context of Aboriginal Australia, these potentials are inevitably also understood to be political in nature. As Jeanie Bell says in the preface to the book of published interviews (Couzens et al. 2014: 1–2): The stories contained in these ‘yarning’ conversations demonstrate the strength and resilience of the Land and the spiritual Ancestors, who give us guidance and direction, as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, to working on and with the revival and maintenance of

3 Standardise This! Prescriptivism and Resistance …

41

our traditional languages… doing Language revival is defending our sovereignty, and as fellow rebels, we are exercising our right to retain and use our traditional custodianship and ownership of our Language, our Culture and our Land.

Other language revitalization practitioners interviewed in the book expand on their motivations for engaging in this work: It’s like the Ancestors, the old wise people, saw a vision that once again the power of our people would live again. I’m reclaiming them. I’m calling them all back to take a stand. (Carolyn Briggs in Couzens et al. 2014: 28) Getting your Holden cars and your penicillin injections won’t revive your language. But Language can ensure the health of the community. (Bruce Pascoe in Couzens et al. 2014: 46)

The connection between language and community health drawn by Pascoe above is supported by research that shows language knowledge to be protective in relation to a range of indicators for health and well-being. For example, an Australian Bureau of Statistics report published in 2011 noted that: In 2008, 47% of young people living in remote areas (10,700) spoke an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander language and 53% (12,300 people) did not speak an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander language (including 20% who only spoke a few words). According to the 2008 NATSISS [National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey (ABS 2008)], young people living in remote areas who spoke an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander language were less likely than those who did not to: • report binge drinking in the previous fortnight (18% and 34% respectively) • report that they had used illicit substances in the past 12 months (16% and 26% respectively) • have been a victim of physical or threatened violence in the last 12 months (25% and 37% respectively).

In Canada, where Hallett et al. (2007) demonstrated a majority of people are able to conduct a conversation in their traditional language, youth suicide rates are drastically reduced In language revitalization situations the ability to conduct a conversation in Language may be limited and the positive effects of access to language may be more visible in relation to language teaching in schools. But the NATSISS data (ABS 2008) also noted that there was a bias against access to language learning activities in non-remote areas: 12% of people in non-remote areas have access to language learning, as opposed to 33% in remote areas. The work of language revitalization thus has social and political foundations that emerge from the needs of individuals and families to find healthier and safer ways of living by restoring culture to the community. But foregrounding the social, political and spiritual context of language revitalization can be deeply troubling to the goals of descriptive, typological, historical or theoretical linguistics. Both linguists and language revitalization practitioners may struggle to find rapprochement between their respective epistemologies. The cost of imposing linguistics disciplinary perspectives on language revitalization practitioners and the communities in which

42

V. Couzens et al.

they work is potentially significant. At the very least, when experienced as an imposition, norm enforcing activities are another enactment of the expression of power by self-defined expert outsiders that has characterized so much of Indigenous-settler relations in the past two centuries. Avoiding this pattern of interaction is difficult. The systems currently in place for assigning funding and the means by which both Aboriginal people and others can access education and attain the status of experts are skewed in ways that devalue Indigenous perspectives (Stebbins et al. 2018: 43). There are also strong personal feelings on all sides. Asserting that language revitalization is social, political and spiritual business may be taken by outsider linguists as an indication that silence born of political correctness is required. This implies a ‘take it or leave it’ stance in relation to linguistics knowledge in community contexts. It becomes difficult to negotiate relationships when one side or the other feels disempowered. A lack of respectful, engaged relationships in which these issues are acknowledged make discussion about rapprochement between academic and community perspectives difficult to navigate. Open interaction and balanced reflection are required to identify how more cooperative thinking and working might occur and when this would be worthwhile. In this chapter we argue for a more considered approach to applying disciplinary knowledge in the context of language revitalization. We suggest that there is much that a study of language revitalization can contribute to descriptive, typological, historical, and theoretical linguistics when the revitalization process is viewed without disciplinary expectations pre-emptively obscuring the data. There is also much to be learned about how the discipline can best function today in the context of both widespread language loss and increasingly sophisticated community-led responses. To clarify this problem and point towards more constructive responses, we review the existing literature on language ideology and apply concepts that have been developing in that area to some examples of language revitalization in progress.

3.3 Prescriptivism An important insight into the role of linguists and the discipline of linguistics in prescriptive practices was made by Taylor (1990). He observed that a view of language focused on seeing language as an institution that exists independently of the will or agency of individual speakers, assigns great power to linguists because of our position as experts in understanding how the institution of language works, and what it is comprised of. The information we provide about language through our professional activities is held to be objectively true, without any connection to issues of power or authority. Because expertise is the result of training, other types of people must rely on us for information about their language (1990: 10). The troubling nature of this approach is clarified by Joseph and Taylor who note that ‘any enterprise which claims to be non-ideological and value-neutral, but which in fact remains covertly ideological and value-laden, is the more dangerous for this deceptive subtlety’ (1990: 2). Linguists are often wont to make ideological claims against

3 Standardise This! Prescriptivism and Resistance …

43

standardization—declaring that linguists describe grammar, rather than judging it— while at the same time reinforcing the valorization of the standard, for example by eschewing non-standard forms in academic writing such as this. Linguists can also impose a covert standardizing ideology on projects of language revival and revitalization (see Sect. 3.3.1). Milroy (2001) considered the implications of these observations in the context of standardization, noting that ‘This charge of covert ideological influence apparently applies here to the whole of linguistics; yet, without necessarily going quite this far, we may well suspect that there are covert ideological influences on some aspects of linguistic thinking and that many of these are not recognized or acknowledged’ (2001: 531). Milroy contrasts the ideal represented by standardization in theory (complete uniformity of structures and objects) with the realities of use ‘there cannot be in practical use any such thing as a wholly standardized variety, as total uniformity of usage is never achieved in practice’ (2001: 534). He also notes that linguistics as a discipline is far from consistent in its approach, ‘the neglect of “orderly heterogeneity” by language theorists is a major theme of Weinreich et al. (1968) and is one of the basic motivations for undertaking quantitative variationist studies’ (2001: 532). Language revitalization practitioners also have their own, distinct motivations for prescriptivism in a revitalization context (see Sect. 3.3.2).

3.3.1 Prescriptive Linguists As Taylor (1990) flagged, one of the challenges of talking about ideologies operating within linguistics as a discipline is the perception that linguistics is a scientific pursuit free of political values. A conceptual framework that positions individual linguists as only being objective observers in our day to day professional practice belies the fact that we are also agents in a political context. As a consequence, academic training rarely prepares linguists for engagement with political issues in the communities where we later work and often has the effect of making these aspects of language and language work less visible to linguists than they are to others. A number of people have explored the relationship between description and prescription in linguistics and in language-related decision making more generally (for example, Cameron 2012; Taylor 1990; Harris 1980, 1981). A very useful preliminary distinction drawn in some of this work is between descriptive linguistics, which is presented as being norm observing, and prescriptive linguistics, which is treated as norm enforcing. Every first-year linguistics student is taught that the business of descriptive linguistics is to identify rules that underlie the workings of language. This approach is supported by the idea that linguistics is scientific and objective—it documents the rules that shape language but it does not normally claim to make them. This is a powerful approach in many ways and allows linguists to amass enormous amounts of analyzed data about individual languages and patterns of structure that are shared

44

V. Couzens et al.

in various ways between languages. Descriptive practices within linguistics are associated with the production of norm observing statements that perhaps reach their most comprehensive expression in the descriptive grammar—a document that describes observed rules for using a particular language. Prescriptive linguistics, on the other hand, involves norm enforcing statements, ideas about what ‘proper’ language ‘should’ be like. Linguists tend to align themselves against more conservative, prescriptive voices, in public debates about major standard languages. In this context, they tend to argue that non-standard varieties of English are not lazy or sloppy and should not be criticized as such. Cameron observes (2012: 4): The ‘folk’ version [of prescriptivism] valorises some unspecified quality of ‘perfection’, and advocates to protect it, while the ‘expert’ version valorises what linguists regard as ‘natural’ – variability – and therefore advocates leaving languages alone.… [L]inguists and non-linguists each defend what they consider to be the natural order of things.

In the context of language revitalization the inverse positions are sometimes held. Where the main sources are not speakers but archival records, linguists may view a regularized reconstruction as the more valid form of the language. As Cameron shows in this quote, there are norm enforcing statements being made on both sides. Both the promotion of conservatism and the defense of variation are positions founded on social values. Trouble arises then when linguists take the norms they have observed and attempt to use them to enforce the model of language they identify on others without recognizing or acknowledging that this is what is happening. As Cameron notes (2012: 5), linguists tend to assume that ‘language change is only healthy when it comes … without the conscious agency of language users’ and keep the privilege of making conscious choices about language for themselves. In other words, she identifies a double standard in which expert linguists allow themselves the right (and hence the power) to impose their perspective on others. For example, doing research on the historical forms of a language provides linguists with a set of observations about historical norms. Delivering them to the community can be empowering information that allows for well informed decision making by the community. However, providing them to the community with the expectation that they will be used as a model to emulate is a norm enforcing and therefore prescriptive practice. If linguists are to stay true to the avowed descriptive mission, relevant sources of data for revitalization languages must be what emerging speakers are doing with historical records of their languages, rather than the records themselves. Many communities have hired linguists to conduct historical research into conservative forms of their language and to provide information about past language norms. This practice becomes problematic only when the linguist seeks to enforce the norms they have observed. The cultural frameworks that support the implementation of decisions and identity of the person who decides how the language is to be developed matters. Indeed, some of our interviews with language revitalization practitioners reveal how difficult the processes of enforcing newly-decided norms can be (Stebbins et al. 2018: 45).

3 Standardise This! Prescriptivism and Resistance …

45

It should be no surprise that these are challenging issues given the history of the discipline and the training we have received and continue to offer. In order to avoid slipping from observing norms into enforcing norms, Cameron called for critical reflection by linguists (2012: 11): instead of asking ‘should we prescribe?’ … we pose searching questions about who prescribes for whom, what they prescribe, how, and for what purposes.

These questions can be illustrated by the example of the word-initial velar nasal. A linguist assisting the revitalization of an Aboriginal language may observe from historical records and/or reconstruction that a word would historically have been pronounced with an initial [ŋ]. This observation might be supported by cognate words in related languages, areal patterns, and so on. The linguist might then share these facts with the community, who may well have explicitly sought advice on interpreting the historical records. But tensions can arise if these facts move from being contextual observations (‘this is how we think the word would have been pronounced when it was first written down’) to enforceable expectations policed by outsiders (‘to speak this language properly means using initial velar nasals’). There can be no more profound a subversion of the decolonizing agenda of language revitalization than the efforts of linguists from outside the community to impose their vision on people hoping to reclaim lost knowledge and reassert broken authority over their own cultural affairs.4

3.3.2 Prescriptive Practitioners One thing that everyone involved in language revitalization seems to agree on is that it is important that things are done ‘right’. Rightness matters because the work of language revitalization has the potential to make a significant difference to the wellbeing of Aboriginal people (see Sect. 3.2) as well as being a way of directly addressing past injustices and honouring the culture of Aboriginal communities as it has been carried through difficult times by Elders. For Aboriginal people engaged in language revitalization work, there are various clear and pressing measures of and motivations for ‘rightness’. Our interviews with language revitalization practitioners revealed extensive thinking about and exploration of appropriate ways to meet expectations around doing things properly. In general terms, these expectations can be grouped into two sets of concerns. The first relates to who has the authority to make decisions and what protocols should be followed in order to ensure that these decisions are made through acceptable processes. Protocols delineate the onthe-ground practice of respect for the appropriate authority systems. As such, they 4 An

analogy might be drawn between linguists attempting to control the form and use of revitalization languages—e.g. making prescriptive judgments that favour conservative forms and structures—and environmental activists who advocate for the return of land to Aboriginal control but only so long as the Traditional Owners exercise their control in accordance with the environmental principles of the activists (banning uranium mining, for instance).

46

V. Couzens et al.

can release or inhibit particular directions for almost any aspect of the language. The need for appropriate protocols is a significant factor in the flow of achievements in a program, so it must be taken very seriously in the development of timelines and budgets. The second relates to the imperative that the language should be right or true to the Ancestors, to their country, and to itself, honouring the ancientness of the language, and the knowledge and culture it carries with it. In both community and academic perspectives, the location of authority and the selection of particular processes, sources, or individuals for aspects of the work embody deep-lying principles of what is important, what is valid, and the accepted lineage of knowledge (Stebbins et al. 2018: 156). In traditional Aboriginal ways of thinking, the culture, law and language are handed on from Elders and Ancestors/Old People who are the ultimate authority. This may translate into relying on a particular Elder or group of Elders, one or more Ancestors or lines of descent, a reference group, or an internalized sense of ‘rightness’. Elders may hold roles of decisionmaking or at least approval of directions chosen as part of their cultural authority, independently of their level of active language knowledge. Compare this to standard practice within the academy, where it is a requirement to validate research findings in the context of previous research accepted as credible. Both forms of validation constitute a culturally-defined lineage of authority (Eira and Stebbins 2008). In terms of questions of pronunciation, for example, the authority of Elders reinforces the validity of the pronunciations they are able to recall and their contribution to language revitalization activities. Elders are likely to be called on to deliver public speeches in language, for example a welcome to Country. In a language revitalization situation, even when Elders have participated in a process that elects to reintroduce historical pronunciations, their ability to produce these in a public performance may be limited. It is sometimes necessary for participants in a language revitalization program to navigate a pathway through the tensions between status and pronunciation skill in order to support Elders in their work and to continue to develop the language in ways that meet the goals of the program. It is therefore not unusual for there to be multiple approaches to pronunciation of a revitalization language in circulation. Tensions develop in relation to how something might be deemed to be right and where the authority for determining rightness sits in practice. As we have just noted, in linguistics historical continuity is generally valued over discontinuity. At the same time, the discipline’s stated preference for description over prescription means that unconscious developments are typically valued over conscious language planning. Interestingly, however, there is resistance among linguists to the use of current, heavily anglicized versions of Aboriginal words that have been transmitted intergenerationally. Many linguists remain dubious at best about anything but reconstructed pronunciations. It seems that here, the valuation of historical continuity takes precedence over the valuation of unconscious development and different types of deliberate variation in the present. This example shows just how complex competing perspectives can be. Among the various stakeholders involved, people in different roles tend to view these competing systems differently. In this case, perhaps surprisingly given

3 Standardise This! Prescriptivism and Resistance …

47

typical patterns in other contexts, the linguistics preference is for the conscious, learned pronunciation over ‘natural’, unconscious development. It is also useful to consider how Aboriginal people participating in language revitalization less directly—such as people attending language classes, or perhaps preparing to give a welcome to Country—feel about how things should be measured in terms of rightness. As Florey (2004) observes, prescriptive attitudes are just as likely to create difficulties when they are promoted by members of the community themselves as when they are promoted by linguists. In the environment of cultural recovery, much care is needed to ensure that assertions about correctness do not become absolute barriers to participation. If we take the issue of pronunciation as an example, we can identify a whole range of different parameters that impact on what is viewed as ‘right’ in relation to pronunciation and whether or not this is even an important area for concern: • preference for inherited versus reconstructed pronunciations • competing orthographies, more or less predictable orthographies, the impact of the English orthography • understanding the phonetics represented by the orthography (if it is predictable) • identifying sounds as having a spiritual significance (or not) • having developed the relevant fine motor skills in the articulatory organs • viewing pronunciation as an appropriate focus of effort and concern in the present moment. Linguists individually and as a group have preferences in relation to these different parameters—in some cases disciplinary group preferences are likely to be more consistent than others. The important point to make is that in their daily engagement with language revitalization, in the speaking and writing in the language that constitutes language revitalization in action, it matters more what individual community members think and do about these issues, informed in many cases by the perspectives developed by language revitalization practitioners and the authority systems that guide them.

3.4 Challenges to Standardization in Language Revitalization We turn now to consider how language revitalization practitioners navigate the practical goals of their work in ways that challenge linguistics assumptions about language and practices of standardization. We begin by examining some unexpected sources of language from the Meeting Point project (Sect. 3.4.1) before identifying the importance of nonstandardizing practices within language revitalization (Sect. 3.4.2).

48

V. Couzens et al.

3.4.1 Legitimate Sources of Language In our research, we have observed that the emergent nature of revitalization languages is a key characteristic that challenges traditional linguistic perspectives. Languages under revival involve significant discontinuities and a very high level of engagement with conscious language planning. For example, Paton et al. (2008) emphasize the breadth of scope of planning for language revitalization, organized into five key areas: People and planning, Research and analysis, Educational materials, Training and support, Community language opportunities (Notably, linguistics itself figures strongly in only the second area.). The process and outcomes of language planning enacted by language revitalization practitioners may look very different to what linguists might expect. Each community takes a different combination of approaches to creating new words, embracing new technologies, utilizing texts and genres from English language culture, maintaining cultural knowledge and practices, relearning traditional language structures and sounds, incorporating language from neighbours and/or Aboriginal English, adapting traditional practices to new contexts (such as the formal processes of traversing Country boundaries: foreigners are already here but wish to formally recognize our status in the country) and so on. One of this chapter’s co-authors, Vicki Couzens, is a Keerray Woorroong Gunditjmara woman working on language revitalization in her family and community.5 Vicki understands the development of the lexicon of the language as a process of redreaming. This approach emphasizes how languages choices resonate with my intuitive or spirit sense of what is appropriate to the language as an expression of Country. Dreaming then is an active and creative process involving long and deep reflection and incorporating whatever active knowledge is available from past learning—including but not limited to knowledge about different areas of linguistics. Calling out new or revived words on Country as a way of testing them to see if they feel right is a practice Couzens shares with a few other language revitalization workers in Australia. In linguistics, words are understood in connection to their earlier forms and in relation to other words. The discipline does not have space for exploring the connections between language, spirit and the land that are expressed through sensibility towards sound shape, meaning and experience. I might go out bush and yell it out in Dhudhuroa, you know. They can hear you yelling out in their Country, in their Language, I say, Look, listen Ancestors, you can hear that? Can you hear that? Am I on the right track? (Tom Kinchela in Couzens et al. 2014: 206)

For communities, lexical development is a particularly strong focus. Here communities must balance the need for contemporary language against concerns of authenticity and the desire to reclaim the form of language that was lost (Amery 2000, 2001; Fainberg 1983; Jernudd 1989). Golovko (2003) rejects the view that languages with a high level of lexical innovation are inauthentic, much as Picone (1994) argues that lexicogenesis is evidence of the health of a language. Nonetheless, the question of 5 South

Western Victoria.

3 Standardise This! Prescriptivism and Resistance …

49

how the lexicon of the language under revival should be expanded—and what are legitimate sources for new vocabulary and structures—remains. Let us consider one way this question has been answered, which offers a striking example of how language revitalization can challenge the normative assumptions of linguistics. The following Butchulla passage exhibits two different strategies for addressing gaps in the lexicon, involving bula “two, too” and buranga li nj balumi “feeling confused”: (1)

Bula biralunbar doolinge. Ngai burangalinj balumi. two

many

shell

I

[Butchulla]

feeling:REFL die:PAST

‘There’s too many shells. I’m feeling confused’ (Bonner and Bonner 2007)

The more straightforward example, from a linguistic perspective, is the use of semantic extension via metaphor, such that the expression burangalinj balumi “feeling myself [as if] dead”, can be the translation for feeling confused. The second, more surprising strategy involves a calquing of the pattern of homophony in English—two and too—such that the word bula “two” now has a parallel homophonous adverb bula “too” in Butchulla. The semantic structure associating these two meanings via homophony is thus brought into alignment between the two languages. While it is easy to imagine this strategy being employed accidentally, the experience and training of these particular writers suggests that in this case it was done consciously, perhaps even with an awareness that a conventional linguistic approach would have called for another strategy. How do we as linguists respond to such an example? While our gut instinct might be to assume that this is a mistake (notwithstanding the training of the writers), this response closes off for us a range of other thoughts and responses that are both more supportive of language revitalization practitioners as authorities in their own business and have the potential to lead to new insights within the discipline. These include questions like when and why homophones might serve as the basis for lexical expansion, and whether semantic structural parallelism between L1 and L2 aid learners in their acquisition of a revitalization language. Another example of calquing patterns of co-expression is seen in the example below. Whereas the Butchulla example of bula “two, too” involved the calquing of a coincidental relationship of homophony, the Wathaurong example below involves calquing a more semantically motivated co-expression of meanings: (2)

Ngobeeyt wooloorn nyoorran bengadak? water

back

how

[Wathaurong]

1PLINC

‘How will we get our water back?’ (Tournier 2007)

In the historical records for Wathaurong, wooloorn “back” is recorded as a body part term only. But in the form of Wathaurong currently undergoing revitalization, wooloorn also has the adverbial meaning of “in the reverse direction”, mirroring the co-expression of these two meanings by English back. Linguists are trained to

50

V. Couzens et al.

privilege traditional forms and meanings, as evidenced, for example in the historical record. Deliberate and recent language development by language workers such as calquing of patterns of co-expression can be uncomfortable for linguists because intentional language choices can seem less natural than changes in the more distant past. These issues raise larger methodological questions for the discipline too, since we are a long way from having a complete picture of what might be encompassed within the structures of human language. The development of linguistic understanding of the role of, e.g., homophones in language, their sources and effects in language contact and language change, will only be possible if we avoid dismissing examples like those above as errors. This is especially significant in light of the social, political and interpersonal implications of accusing a committed, experienced language practitioner, who has been authorized by the community to do this work, of making a mistake.

3.4.2 Nonstandardized Practices Language practices have variant relationships with standardization. Standardized practices range from dictionary promotion through to ‘correction’ of the language use of speakers of a non-standard variety. Nonstandardized practices deflect and/or decline the use of standardization; they include preferential use of nonstandard spelling and contestation of the authority of a reference grammar. Some nonstandardized practices may in fact be unstandardizable, being practices that focus on the personal or community identity-building functions of language, including the renewal of dance intertwined with the development of songs, or the production of culturally significant items such as possum skin cloaks. Nonstandardized practices can have multiple purposes, such as claiming rights to particular domains of usage for the language. In the use of an emergent or dislocated language, like a revitalization language or refugee language, claiming one’s right to knowledge of words and their meanings, or one’s own preferential spelling strategy, can be crucial to the survival of unstandardizable goals of identity and control over one’s own heritage. Nonstandardized practices can also be critical to the process of language re-emergence, whether from a gap in transmission, as in the case of language revitalization, or from the development of language in a new context, as in the case of some refugee languages. In the case of a highly standardized language, nonstandardized practices can have an intentional, creative and/or subversive function which makes use of the standardized language as ground against which to highlight the variant practice as figure. Particular sets of practices are community-building in specific communities of practice which know and value their own language usage, developing practices which effect important unstandardizable cultural, personal and spiritual goals. We take the view that nonstandardized aspects of language are crucially important to language practitioners because they provide insights into the nature of human language needs. We therefore contest the assumption that standardization of language

3 Standardise This! Prescriptivism and Resistance …

51

is the only priority for minority languages and instead support the inclusion of nonstandardized practices within the study and practice of revitalization. Standardization is effected by individuals, systems and structures. It matters who is doing the standardization: standardization imposed by linguists or others from outside the heritage community replicates and reinforces the colonial legacy of linguistic disempowerment, standardization from within can be a decolonial process, involving a reclamation of authority. The type of context in which a language is primarily used has implications for the ways in which it is able to relate to other spaces. Schooling is often structured to accommodate (and indeed foster) standardized languages such that in many education systems grammars, dictionaries and the like are required prerequisites for language programs. Language documentation—particularly the more highly codified forms such as grammars and dictionaries—assume that the language is stable, and that the characterization of the language as recorded in these sources is somehow broadly representative of and, indeed, defines the community concerned.

3.5 Issues and Possible Directions A paradox in language revitalization is the need for community members to authorize language development and decisions, while at the same time very few have enough background knowledge to be able to do so. This knowledge gap is the reason why linguists are often sought out in language revitalization projects. It is noteworthy how many times in the course of the Meeting Point interviews that damning statements about linguists in general were made in the same breath as some individual linguist was singled out and praised. This kind of talk points both to constructive work by linguists in particular communities and to a widespread awareness of the power imbalance, and perhaps an overarching sense of bad history, that holds between these two groups as a whole. As the group in the more powerful position, linguists are challenged to learn how to listen carefully to the communities they seek to serve. Language revitalization practitioners sometimes face an uphill battle getting linguists to understand what sorts of support they need because linguists tend to think they already know what it should be. This means that even as we acknowledge the need to share information and skills via training, we may be reinforcing existing power structures (Eira 2007). One way to address these issues would be for language revitalization practitioners to determine for themselves what training they require. In a targeted Language Centre context, such as at the Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages, this can work well in an ongoing dialectic. The movement of a language program in a particular direction gives rise to questions that, given the ongoing relationship that exists between the community and the Language Centre (and its resident linguist/s), can be addressed through training at various levels. Another way, based on the idea that the power differential will be significantly reduced, is for Aboriginal linguists to have a still greater role in this work. But we want to stress that we are not saying that only

52

V. Couzens et al.

Aboriginal people with extensive linguistics training are somehow fit to work as support linguists in language revitalization. Moreover, Aboriginal linguists will face complex sets of challenges in supporting language revitalization, overlapping with those faced by non-Aboriginal linguists. There are also a whole range of conceptual and methodological issues to explore. We have noted how language revitalization practices demonstrate the many different ways in which people engage with and plan for their languages. In order to begin to dismantle the records/memories dichotomy and avoid the pitfalls of linguists responding to community—initiated language development with a prescriptivist approach, it may be useful to consider the following questions (among many others): • what valued methods for establishing historical accuracy are available to linguists, language revitalization practitioners, Elders, other community members? • what valued methods for ensuring high standards are available to linguists, language revitalization practitioners, Elders, other community members? • what valued methods for honouring language that has been maintained through the years are available to linguists, language revitalization practitioners, Elders, other community members? The role of two of this chapter’s co-authors in the language revitalization arena as non-Aboriginal linguists has led them to consider their own positions—how can non-Aboriginal linguists engage with the task and journey of language revitalization communities most usefully, and what aspects of the discipline’s discourse are most important to be critically aware of in this process? Another approach we all take together is to view the collaborative relationship in terms of meeting points—where are our shared goals, and to what extent is it possible to locate these values underneath points of difference? For example, we have become keenly aware of the centrality of people and relationships to the directions of language revitalization. Relationships are also acknowledged to be important to linguists in their work with communities. Beyond their obvious role as a precondition for ethical engagement, they are also vital methodologically, because data quality is better when there is active cooperative engagement from key individuals within the community. Clearly everyone benefits from relationships built on trust over time. This is a shared perspective that functions as a meeting point. An example more directly pinned to language data is the connection between language and culture. Consider our earlier example of calling out words on Country as a way of testing them to see if they feel right. While practices such as this are difficult to accommodate within a disciplinary framework, they emerge from the shared principle that language is a way of viewing the world. Language when viewed synchronically reflects generations of development in a particular place by a particular people. Thinking about language in this way, as part of people’s experience of themselves and social and physical beings, connects to wider writings around the functions of discourse in the creation of social worlds. Within descriptive linguistics, it is ultimately this same set of concerns which is explored through semantic networks and paradigms.

3 Standardise This! Prescriptivism and Resistance …

53

3.6 Conclusion Real living languages live in real communities. Language revitalization is powerful partly because it recognizes this fact. It contributes to healing and cultural reclamation on many levels, both for individuals and for communities. The path to truly ‘revitalized’ languages, spoken in many contexts and passed between generations through normal child rearing practices, is clearly a long one. Language revitalization in this fuller sense can only be achieved by empowered people from within the community. Depending on one’s perspective, languages under revitalization may either pose a challenge to linguistics norms or provide exciting new data. The Meeting Point project took the latter perspective; we have been developing principles with which to analyze the new language data that is emerging as languages undergoing revitalization emerge, in ways that avoid prescriptivism but take the language as it stands, in all its forms and variations (Stebbins et al. 2018). Accordingly, unexpected language forms and usages present as exciting opportunities to learn about the nature and possibilities of human language. Linguists can make important contributions to the process of language revitalization by providing expertise, access to materials and training. However, to be effective, it is necessary that the information and skills provided to communities through norm-observing descriptive methods and reporting is clearly distinguished from norm-enforcing expectations. The covert imposition of norm-enforcement by linguists undermines the decolonizing purposes of language revitalization and the ownership of language within the community. Because the slide between normobserving and norm-enforcing can be difficult for linguists to identify and avoid, it is useful for us to reflect critically on questions like the ones raised by Cameron (2012). How are decisions about language development being made in language revitalization programs? Who is making these decisions? Whose values and goals are being reflected? How effective are these decisions in the short and longer term? Language revitalization programs receive limited funding and often rely on intensive work from a small number of people from each community. The social and psychological costs of having to manage norms imposed by outside experts is an additional effort they could well do without. Asking these types of questions is a way for language revitalization practitioners and the linguists who seek to work in partnership with them to overcome the systemic and social barriers that can otherwise divide us from each other in our work towards language revitalization and community healing.

References Achugar, M. (2008). Counter-hegemonic language practices and ideologies creating a new space and value for Spanish in Southwest Texas. Spanish in Context, 5, 1–19. Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2008). National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey (Report 4714.0) Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics.

54

V. Couzens et al.

Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2011). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander wellbeing: A focus on children and youth, April 2011 (Report 4725.0) Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics. Amery, R. (2000). Warrabarna Kaurna: Reclaiming an Australian language. Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger. Amery, R. (2001). The right to modernize. Paper presented at AFMLTA Canberra, Indigenous Languages Panel, 10 July 2001. Bonner, J., & Bonner, K. (2007). Walalbai nalwar (Small crab). Wide Bay: Inkworks. Cameron, D. (2012). Verbal hygiene. New York: Routledge. Chew, K. A., Greendeer, N. H., & Keliiaa, C. (2015). Claiming space: An autoethnographic study of indigenous graduate students engaged in language reclamation. International Journal of Multicultural Education, 17(2), 73–91. Collins, J. (1992). Our Ideologies and theirs. Pragmatics, 2, 405–416. Couzens, V., Eira, C., & Stebbins, T. (Eds.). (2014). Tyama-teeyt yookapa: Interviews from the meeting point project. Melbourne: Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages. Couzens, V., Eira, C., & Stebbins, T. N. (2016). Tyama-ngan, koong meerreeng watnanda, malayeetoo (We know, body and country together, long time), Melbourne: Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages. Poster: A1 (59.4 × 84.1 cm). Eira, C. (2007). Addressing the ground of language endangerment. Working together for endangered languages: Research challenges and social impacts. In Proceedings of Foundation for Endangered Languages Conference XI, Kuala Lumpur October 26–28, 2007 (pp. 82–90). Bath: The Foundation for Endangered Languages. Eira, C., Couzens, V., & Stebbins, T. (2015). Language revival factsheets (pp. 1–33). Melbourne: Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages. Eira, C., & Stebbins, T. (2008). Authenticities and lineages: Revisiting concepts of continuity and change in language. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 189, 1–30. Fainberg, Y. A. (1983). Linguistic and sociodemographic factors influencing the acceptance of Hebrew neologisms. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 41, 9–40. Florey, M. (2004). Countering purism: Confronting the emergence of new varieties in a training programme for community language workers. In P. K. Austin (Ed.), Language documentation and description (Vol. 2, pp. 9–27). London: SOAS. Golovko, E. V. (2003). Language contact and group identity: The role of ‘folk’ linguistic engineering. In Y. Matras & P. Bakker (Eds.), The mixed language debate: Theoretical and empirical advances (pp. 177–208). Mouton De Gruyter: Berlin/New York. Hallett, D., Chandler, M. J., & Lalonde, C. E. (2007). Aboriginal language knowledge and youth suicide. Cognitive Development, 22(3), 392–399. Harris, R. (1980). The language-makers. London: Duckworth. Harris, R. (1981). The language myth. London: Duckworth. Jernudd, B. H. (1989). The texture of language purism: An introduction. Contributions to the Sociology of Language, 57, 1–19. Joseph, J. E., & Taylor, T. J. (Eds.). (1990). Ideologies of language. London: Routledge. Milroy, J. (2001). Language Ideologies and the consequences of standardization. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 5(4), 530–555. Paton, D., Pascoe, B., & Eira, C. (2008). Peetyawan Weeyn: A guide for language planning. Paper presented at WIPCE, Melbourne 2008 (available on CD). Peery, C. (2012). New deal Navajo linguistics: Language ideology and political transformation. Language & Communication, 32(2), 114–123. Picone, M. D. (1994). Lexicogenesis and language vitality. Word, 45, 261–285. Stebbins, T. N., Eira, K., & Couzens, V. L. (2018). Living languages and new approaches to language revitalization research. New York: Routledge. Taylor, T. J. (1990). Which is to be master? The institutionalization of authority in the science of language. In J. E. Joseph & T. J. Taylor (Eds.), Ideologies of language (pp. 9–26). New York: Routledge.

3 Standardise This! Prescriptivism and Resistance …

55

Tournier, D. (2007). The story of Dyeerrm (as told by the Indigenous students of Iramoo Primary School) (DVD) Iramoo, VIC: Iramoo Primary School. Weinreich, U., Labov, W., & Herzog, M. (1968). Empirical foundations for a theory of language change. In W. P. Lehmann & Y. Malkiel (Eds.), Directions for historical linguistics (pp. 95–189). Austin: University of Texas Press. Woods, L. (2017). Ethics in linguistic research and working with indigenous communities: Redefining collaborative linguistic research: Indigenous and non-indigenous perspectives. MA Thesis. Melbourne: Monash University. Gaby, A., & Woods, L. (In press). Towards linguistic justice for Indigenous people: A response to Charity Hudley, Mallinson and Bucholz. Language.

Vicki Couzens Ph.D., is a Gunditjmara citizen from the Western Districts of Victoria. Vicki acknowledges her Ancestors and Elders who guide her work. She has worked in Aboriginal community affairs for almost 40 years. She is Senior Knowledge Custodian for Possum Cloak Story and Language Reclamation in her Keerray Woorroong Mother Tongue. Vicki’s contributions in the reclamation, regeneration and revitalisation of cultural knowledge and practice extend across the arts and creative cultural expression spectrum including language revitalisation, ceremony, community arts, public art, visual and performing arts, and writing. Vicki is a Vice Chancellors Indigenous Research Fellow at RMIT University. Email [email protected]. Alice Gaby is Associate Professor of Linguistics at Monash University, Australia. Her publications explore the relationship between grammar, culture and cognition, as well as topics in semantic and structural typology. She has collaborated with speakers of Kuuk Thaayorre and other Paman languages spoken in and around the community of Pormpuraaw (Cape York Peninsula, Australia) since 2002. Through her role on the Board of Living Languages, she has supported language reclamation and revitalisation projects around Australia, as well as in Pormpuraaw (Qld). A Grammar of Kuuk Thaayorre was published by Mouton De Gruyter in 2017. Email [email protected]. Tonya Stebbins is Professor at La Trobe University. Her contributions to the field include innovative partnerships with communities who speak minority and endangered languages, ensuring communities have access to resources that support language revitalisation. Research in decolonising linguistics includes a recent book on decolonising methods and practice in language revitalisation, focussing on six case studies from eastern Australia. She is currently conducting research on intersections between language policy and system responses to family violence. She also has an interest in the impact of the National Disability Insurance Scheme roll out on culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Email [email protected].

Chapter 4

Here’s Looking at youse: Understanding the Place of yous(e) in Australian English Jean Mulder and Cara Penry Williams

Abstract This chapter further documents the place of yous(e) in Australian English (AuE) by analyzing occurrences in Australian literature taken from the Macquarie Dictionary’s OzCorp. Firstly, we substantiate that in AuE yous(e) has developed a singular usage alongside the plural. Analysis of the reference in 308 tokens within our subcorpus of literature finds 40% clearly have a singular referent and that such forms occur in just over half of the texts. Secondly, we provide an analysis of its social evaluation as a stigmatized form by examining its utilization in the voices authors give to their characters. Focussing on texts with high use, we uncover yous(e) is linked both to particular ‘types’ and to certain fictional worlds/milieus. In both cases, the authors draw on understandings of it as Australian and working class, with recognition of its claimed Irish origins only (potentially) indirectly indexed. Keywords Australian English · Second person pronouns · Folklinguistics · Australian fiction · Indexicality

4.1 Introduction While the second person plural pronoun (2ndPL) form youse (or yous)1 is recorded in a number of contemporary Englishes, where in each case it is most likely to have entered via historical Irish immigration and Irish English influence (Hickey 2003), within Australia youse is often considered amongst non-linguists to be uniquely Australian (Penry Williams 2011). This study builds on previous research on youse in Australian English (AuE) by considering in detail its occurrence in Australian literature, drawing on data from OzCorp, the Macquarie Dictionary’s in-house database. 1 Henceforth

youse stands for either spelling.

J. Mulder (B) University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia e-mail: [email protected] C. Penry Williams University of Derby, Derby, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 K. Allan (ed.), Dynamics of Language Changes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6430-7_4

57

58

J. Mulder and C. Penry Williams

It contemplates its form(s), stigmatization, and indexicality, and how these are employed in constructed dialogue. The study begins with a sketch of present understandings about youse’s origins, use and social evaluation (Sect. 4.2). This is followed by a discussion of how insights can be gained through investigating the voices authors give to their characters (Sect. 4.3), along with a description of the data and analysis (Sect. 4.4). We then validate that youse has developed a singular (SG) usage in AuE (Sect. 4.5) and examine the indexicalities evoked in this type of data by studying the details of use in characterization (Sect. 4.6) before briefly concluding (Sect. 4.7).

4.2 Background As it is widely acknowledged, going back at least to Trudgill (1986), the distinctive 2ndPL forms in many Englishes are recompense for the historical loss of a 2nd SG/PL distinction. The conundrum has been accounting for the prevalence of such forms across varieties of English; namely, whether the widespread occurrence of distinctive 2ndPL forms is due to a tendency to fill paradigm gaps by innovating on existing forms, or to historical language/dialect influences, or some combination of such factors (Wright 1997). In the case of AuE, the origins of youse have generally been considered to ultimately lie in Irish English (e.g. Lonergan 2003; Moore 2008; Wright 1997), with the Irish language feature of distinctive 2ndSG and 2ndPL pronouns assumed to have motivated the analogical development of the plural form youse from you + -s (and yez from archaic Irish English ye + s) (Corrigan 2010; Hickey 2003). Subsequently, Irish English, as well as Irish itself, and various northern English varieties in which youse was established, were transported to Australia with its speakers (cf. Hickey 2003; Leitner 2004; Trudgill 1986). Thus, as both Hickey (2003) and Burridge and Musgrave (2014) establish, ‘Irishinspired’ youse was present in the formative period for AuE. However, Burridge and Musgrave’s investigation of 337 texts in COOEE (Corpus of Oz Early English) from 1788–1900 and written by Australians of Irish origin, and 116 literary representations of Irish characters in 19th and 20th century Australian novels from the AusLit corpus, provided little evidence for a transfer of youse from Irish English (both corpora are part of the Australian National Corpus collection, see www.ausnc. org.au for details). Thus, they conclude, it can be difficult to assess if forms in AuE are truly indicative of Irish inheritances or if they are independent developments, especially with a form like youse which uses a standard plural process for paradigm regularization. In addition to providing a distinctive 2ndPL form, in AuE, youse appears to have developed a singular usage. This has been recognized by the Australian National Dictionary (Ramson 1988) and the Macquarie Dictionary, 3rd edition (Delbridge 1997) onwards; The Cambridge Australian English Style Guide (Peters 1995) and The Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage (Peters 2004); also the rare linguistic study, such as Wright (1997), and commentary on contemporary AuE usage, such

4 Understanding the Place of yous(e)

59

as Modern Australian Usage (Hudson 1993). A Macquarie Dictionary Blog post (Pluralising ‘You’ to ‘Youse’ 30 August 2013), gives four examples of singular usage, including (1) from a 1913 newspaper cartoon by Norman Lindsay: (1) Rev. Foodle: ‘Why is it, my boy, that your father always avoids me? You should tell him not to be afraid of me.’ Young Bill (amazed): ‘Afraid o’ youse! I’d take yer on meself.’ (Wingrove 1987: 183)

This development might seem counter-intuitive or counter-productive to some as it would seem to contradict the motivation for the development of a distinctive 2ndPL form. Despite such noticings, singular youse remains virtually unacknowledged in both folklinguistic commentary (e.g. The Aussie Slang Dictionary (Stewart 2017); The Mudcat Café: Aussie Glossary n.d., https://mudcat.org/aussie) and linguistic studies (e.g. Burridge and Musgrave 2014; Hickey 2003; Pawley 2004; Penry Williams 2019). Curiously, some studies even give examples that seem to require a singular reading; perhaps singular reference is not being documented, because it is not being considered.2 In terms of social position in AuE, youse, in-line with reporting in other varieties of English, is understood as a stigmatized feature. This is so much so that dictionary and guide entries include restrictive labels or cautionary notes (e.g. Peters 1995, 2004), and the Macquarie Dictionary has had to repeatedly defend its inclusion (Butler 2014). Furthermore, the stigmatization of youse was likely originally reinforced by associations with Irish people, who were locally stigmatized both linguistically and socially (https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/blog/article/148/). There is reference in the literature to it being associated with traditionally stigmatized groups, those commonly considered as the keepers of ‘bad language’ and attributes associated with them. For instance, Peters (2004: 589) notes it is ‘still associated with a shortage of education’. Pawley (2004), in discussing youse (and yiz), comments on the role of covert prestige, especially amongst men socializing or working together. These accounts can be understood as part of one picture via indexical orders (Silverstein 2003), with Irishness being reinterpreted in Australia via evaluations of this minority population. However, as with many ‘nonstandard’ features, this enregisterment (Agha 2007) and the strong association with informality and ‘Australianness’ also provide a resource in identities some speakers want to claim for themselves. Interestingly, Pawley (2004: 365) also observes that ‘The emergent Australian working-class vernacular had probably stabilised by the mid-19th century, some two generations after the British colonisation of Australia.’ As he firmly places youse within this vernacular, this suggests a time frame by which the reinterpretation of associations of youse would likely have taken place. In turn, this may account for why Burridge and Musgrave (2014: 33) found that a number of their youse examples from the AusLit corpus ‘appear to be used to index uneducated speech in general 2 Comparatively,

in discussions of singular y’all/yall in Southern American English, it has been observed that some linguists (e.g. Butters 2001) are insisting on no singular usage in the face of data which show community variability in singular/plural use (Tillery and Bailey 1998).

60

J. Mulder and C. Penry Williams

without any other stereotypical Irish features.’ These associations of youse are further supported by studies of social evaluations of youse within AuE (viz. Ferguson 2008; Mulder and Penry Williams 2014; Penry Williams 2011, 2019; Severin 2017; Sheard 2019). Severin (2017), based on questionnaire data from 307 participants, had 8.8% report that they did use sentences like Yous shouldn’t have done that. A further 19.9% indicated that it was ‘acceptable’ but it was rated as ‘unacceptable’ by the remaining 71.3%, making it fifth most unacceptable of the 25 items surveyed and just (0.3%) more unacceptable than the highly stigmatized example of negative concord (I don’t know nothing). In interviews, Penry Williams (2011, 2019) found her young-adult participants discussed the form without prompting (4/15). In these data, it was noted as incorrect but further stigmatized and linked to undesirable social types, low education, being less intelligent, Frankston, Broadmeadows and the western suburbs of Melbourne (and implicitly, via these suburbs, social class (Penry Williams in preparation)). These evaluations and associations tally with accounts of ‘bad language’ more generally amongst young Melbournians (Penry Williams 2011, 2019). In Sydney, Sheard (2019) asked her young participants directly about youse, like Severin (2017), presenting them with an example sentence. She found that while some interviewees from Western Sydney did state that they or their friends used the form, those from the more prestigious and socio-economically advantaged Northern Beaches area did not (6/9 vs. 0/9) (see Sheard (2019) regarding socio-economic advantage data). Based on her analysis of the metapragmatic discussion, she creates an indexical field (Eckert 2008) for self-reported youse users (n = 6), with the form both normal and linked to their local regional identities. For those who reported that they and their friends did not use the word (n = 12), youse indexed negatively evaluated characteristics, places, social and regional types, or linguistic incorrectness. As Sheard notes, the findings echo Penry Williams’s and, combined, they illustrate that youse is stigmatized for many young speakers. In addition, Sheard’s research shows that for some speakers youse is unmarked. The two interview-based studies also demonstrate that it is not frequent in speech, at least in some contexts, with no examples of use within the interviews.

4.3 Insights via Literary or Scripted Dialogue When a feature is rare in speech, or the speech usually captured in linguistic research, insights may be gained from other sources. Works of fiction are often a source of stigmatized language forms, as writers use them as a quick way to establish character via (assumed) reader/viewer evaluations (Lippi-Green 1997; Mulder and Penry Williams 2018). Leitner (2004: 250) has suggested that while in some literatures this may be achieved through regional varieties, in AuE, due to the lack of such clearly-recognized differences, ‘nonstandard’ forms are used to create ‘localness’. While this is important for establishing ‘Australianness’, as he has argued, differentiation between characters within a work of fiction is also key (Mulder and Penry Williams 2018).

4 Understanding the Place of yous(e)

61

Of course, fiction is fiction, and linguists are warned that representations of AuE may be far from ‘natural’ and restricted by authors’ experiences with different varieties of AuE (see Taylor 1997). On the other hand, writers may be trying to add a ‘flavour’ the implied reader/viewer will recognize rather than targeting reproduction, with accessibility for an unfamiliar audience a consideration (Blake 1981; Leech and Short 2007: 135–6). Importantly, in the hunt for distinctiveness, representations may underestimate other elements (White 1981). We argue, based on analyses around final but (Mulder et al. 2009), that while such data does have limitations, and it is certainly not speech, representations of speech can provide insights into language variation and its sociocultural life (Mulder and Penry Williams 2018), as well as into the world of a film, piece of literature (Hodson 2014), or television program (Bednarek 2017). This works through implied readers’ (or viewers’) understandings of constructed dialogue, against the diversity of speech in communities and other possible ways of speaking (Agha 2007; Bakhtin 1981; Blake 1981). Given its level of stigmatization, but understanding as essentially Australian, an examination of uses of youse within a corpus of Australian literature may not tell us about everyday use but it could reveal authors’ interpretations of everyday understandings.

4.4 Data and Method OzCorp currently sits at around 24 million words, including 12.5 million words of fiction, ranging in date of publication from 1788 to 2004 (Susan Butler, personal communication, 23 October 2019). The interrogation of OzCorp was limited to the strong form youse/yous as this is the form referred to in social comment; however, authors also employ forms such as yez, yehs, yuhs, and yahs, as in (2): (2) “How yuhs goin’?” I said, still a bit upset at Croker. (Dick 1965: 237)3

These alternate forms were not included in the final analysis. The initial search provided 371 ‘hits’; that is, extracts containing at least one token of yous/youse. For the purposes of comparability, analysis was limited to prose hits from the fiction genre (n = 323). Out of these, titles with five or more hits were then considered by publication date, and titles with lower numbers of hits were added in to create a corpus with at least two titles published in each decade and as many potential youse tokens as possible (n = 263 hits). The extract contained in each OzCorp hit was then examined as to whether there was more than one token of youse (n = 39 hits), and whether each was an actual instance of second person pronoun use, with instances in which it was a contraction (n = 30 tokens), as in (3), excluded: (3) You’d soon show’em what yous worth as a fitter, and be boss of the shop in no time. (Herbert 1938: 337) 3 Details

for the works of literature cited can be found in Table 4.1.

62

J. Mulder and C. Penry Williams

Another three tokens which appear in the third novella in Pig’s Blood and Other Fluids were excluded, as the novella is set in Brazil with no connections (including characterization) to Australia and ‘Australianness’. Finally, where feasible, texts were also examined for additional tokens of youse and in one case, Rusty Bugles, two additional tokens were found and included in the analysis. This manual inspection supports the overall accuracy of the corpus search. As summarized in Table 4.1, the final number of second person pronoun tokens of youse analysed was 308; youse was found to occur in the speech of 120 different characters across 25 titles, attributed to 26 authors. (Note that Across Country, the sole collection of short stories by different authors, was counted as a single title and that two authors—Xavier Herbert and John Clark—each have two title entries.) Authors included in our analysis were Australian-born, with the exception of Lewis, Jolley and Stone, who were born in England. The only criticism of linguistic authenticity we are aware of is Taylor (1997), which asserts that Stone’s representation of Sydney working-class speech in Jonah has been unduly influenced by his UK origins, and that Stone has misinterpreted the function of youse when he uses it in a singular context (1997: 268–9). However, this may be another instance of dismissing possible singular use. For the analyses, each token of youse was coded for singular/plural reference and any sociolinguistic characteristics available from the text such as sex, age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status of character and location.

4.5 Singular and Plural As stated in Sect. 4.3, much of the discussion of AuE, whether academic or popular, does not acknowledge singular youse. However, citations such as that in (1), argue that the possibility of youse with a singular reference in AuE cannot be ignored.4 To learn more about the occurrence of singular youse, each of the 308 tokens was examined in terms of reference. With the exception of one token which was a metalinguistic comment about youse not being American or English, the tokens could be analysed into one of four categories for reference: – plural (as in (4)); – singular non-specific (where, like ‘indefinite’, ‘impersonal’ or ‘generic’ you, it is nonreferential and an informal substitute for one, as in (5)); – singular → plural (where it appears to be used to address one person, but it can also be taken as representing others as well, as in (6))5 ; or

4 To

support the occurrence, we note further that the first author has recently heard Happy birthday to youse, happy birthday to youse and Remember when youse ran off by yourself with one referent. 5 Peters (1995, 2004) observes that ‘Webster’s Dictionary [of American English] notes [youse’s] occasional use to address one person as representing “another or others”’ (2004: 878).

4 Understanding the Place of yous(e)

63

Table 4.1 Distribution of youse by year of publication, title, attributed author and character Year

Title

Attributed author

Text type

youse tokens

Characters using youse

1898

Below and on Top: Below and on Top

Edward Dyson

Short stories

1

1

1901

My Brilliant Career Miles Franklin

Novel

1

1

1902

Bush Studies

Barbara Baynton Short stories

2

2

1911

Jonah

Louis Stone

Novel

47

9

1913

A Curate in Bohemia

Norman Lindsay Novel

2

1

1921

Back to Billabong

Mary Grant Bruce

Novel

18

1

1923

The C. J. Dennis C. J. Dennis Collection: Bowyang is Candid

Newspaper fiction

10

1

1933

Stories by ‘Kodak’

Ernest O’Ferrall Newspaper fiction

4

3

1938

Capricornia

Xavier Herbert

Novel

10

6

1944

We were the Rats

Lawson Glassop Novel

17

6

1948

Rusty Bugles

Sumner Locke Elliott

Play

18

8

1957

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll

Ray Lawler

Play

6

3

1958

The Pea-Pickers

Eve Langley

Novel

28

8

1963

Legends from Benson’s Valley

Frank Hardy

Short stories

5

2

1965

The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea

Randolph Stow

Novel

5

5

1965

A Bunch of Ratbags

William Dick

Novel

11

9

1973

Crow on a Barbed Wire Fence

Harold Lewis

Novel

20

13

1975

Tim

Colleen McCullough

Novel

55

6

1975

Poor Fellow My Country

Xavier Herbert

Novel

7

4

1981

Jack Rivers and Me Paul Radley

Novel

4

3

1983

Mr. Scobie’s Riddle Elizabeth Jolley

Novel

2

1

1990

The Kadaitcha Sung

Sam Watson

Novel

7

7

1991

Cloudstreet

Tim Winton

Novel

11

9 (continued)

64

J. Mulder and C. Penry Williams

Table 4.1 (continued) Year

Title

Attributed author

Text type

youse tokens

Characters using youse

1998

Across Country: The Wool Pickers

Alf Taylor

Short story

1

1

1998

Across Country: Snow Domes

Janice Slater

Short story

1

1

1998

Across Country: The Black Rabbit

John Clark

Short story

3

3

1998

Across Country: Johnny Cake Days

John Clark

Short story

1

1

1999

Pig’s Blood and Other Fluids

Peter Robb

Novellas

11

5

Total

25

26

308

120

– singular (where the referent is definite and unambiguously singular, as in (7)), including one token of youse used as a second person possessive pronoun with singular reference.6 (4) “If youse care to wait around here till spring,” Jim told us, that night, as we sat around the fire at Wilson’s, “I’ll get a job for both of youse and me down at Metung on the Gippsland Lakes, pickin peas.” (Langley 1958: 38) (5) OT: How’d it be to go crackers? Would yous know you was nuts or would yous think every other joker was? GIG: Yous’d think every other friggin’ joker was troppo but yourself. (Elliott 1948: 87) (6) The cop behind the desk spoke. “O.K., boys, what can I do for you?” … “Well, sir,” (I thought I had better call him sir) “we’ve found a bloke we think’s dead and we thought we orta come and tell youse about it.” (Dick 1965: 75) (7) ‘Hey, Tim, what youse got on yer sandwiches this morning?’ Mick asked, winking heavily at the others. (McCullough 1975: 16)

The results are summarized in Table 4.2, with the number of characters using singular or plural forms given in parentheses. As this table shows, 122 tokens, that is 40%, have singular reference, of which 91 (75%) are unambiguously singular; although heavily distributed across two titles, Jonah (Stone 1911)7 and Tim (McCullough 1975), the singular tokens occur in the ‘speech’ of 32 different characters, across 13 titles (52%) from 1911 onwards. Overall, the data from OzCorp authenticate that there is a perception that youse has a singular usage in AuE and provide evidence that this usage has been used in writing since at least the early 20th century.

6 The Australian National Dictionary (Ramson 1988) also recognizes the use of youse as a possessive

pronoun, giving two illustrative citations. discussed in Sect. 4, the results for Jonah (Stone 1911) may need to be treated judiciously.

7 As

4 Understanding the Place of yous(e)

65

Table 4.2 Distribution of youse by singular/plural reference and number of characters Year

Title

Plural

Singular Sg-non-specific

Sg → Pl

Sg definite

Total

1898

Below and on Top: Below and on Top

1

(1)

0

0

0

0

(0)

1901

My Brilliant Career

1

(1)

0

0

0

0

(0)

1902

Bush Studies

2

(2)

0

0

0

0

(0)

1911

Jonah

4

(3)

0

1

42

43

(9)

1913

A Curate in Bohemia

2

(1)

0

0

0

0

(0)

1921

Back to Billabong

18

(1)

0

0

0

0

(0)

1923

The C. J. Dennis Collection: Bowyang is Candid

1

(1)

0

7

2

9

(1)

1933

Stories by ‘Kodak’

4

(3)

0

0

0

0

(0)

1938

Capricornia

8

(4)

0

0

2

2

(2)

1944

We were the Rats

13

(5)

1

3

0

4

(2)

1948

Rusty Bugles

12

(8)

4

2

0

6

(4)

1957

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll

6

(3)

0

0

0

0

(0)

1958

The Pea-Pickers

25

(7)

0

1

2

3

(2)

1963

Legends from Benson’s Valley

5

(2)

0

0

0

0

(0)

1965

The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea

5

(5)

0

0

0

0

(0)

1965

A Bunch of Ratbags

10

(9)

0

1

0

1

(1)

1973

Crow on a Barbed Wire Fence

19

(11)

0

0

1

1

(1)

1975

Tim

7

(2)

2

6

40

48

(6)

1975

Poor Fellow My Country

6

(3)

0

1

0

1

(1)

1981

Jack Rivers and Me

3

(2)

0

0

0

0

(0)

1983

Mr. Scobie’s Riddle

0

(0)

0

0

2

2

(1)

1990

The Kadaitcha Sung

7

(7)

0

0

0

0

(0)

(continued)

66

J. Mulder and C. Penry Williams

Table 4.2 (continued) Year

Title

Plural

Singular Sg-non-specific

Sg → Pl

Sg definite

Total

1991

Cloudstreet

11

(9)

0

0

0

0

(0)

1998

Across Country: The Wool Pickers

0

(0)

0

1

0

1

(1)

1998

Across Country: Snow Domes

1

(1)

0

0

0

0

(0)

1998

Across Country: The Black Rabbit

3

(3)

0

0

0

0

(0)

1998

Across Country: Johnny Cake Days

1

(1)

0

0

0

0

(0)

1999

Pig’s Blood and Other Fluids

10

(4)

0

1

0

1

(1)

185

(99)

7

24

91

122

Total

(32)

Although interpreting fictional dialogue as language requires caution (see Sects. 4.3 and 4.4), the results in Table 4.2 suggest two avenues for future investigation. Firstly, the analysis of singular/plural reference suggests that the grammaticalization pathway from 2ndPL to 2ndSG will likely include non-specific reference and singular → plural as significant waypoints, with contractions with singular verb agreement (youse < you + is/has) also being a contributing factor. Secondly, the development of singular youse alongside plural youse within AuE calls into question the original motivation for a distinctive 2ndPL form and suggests that, for some speakers, the use of youse may have less to do with being able to tell whether one or more than one person is being addressed, and more to do with the social meanings of youse and the informality it signals (Hickey 2003) and, via these, potentially indexing solidarity or intimacy.

4.6 Social Evaluation Through Characters The analysis of characters ‘using’ youse revealed that it was attributed to a range of ‘people’: in relation to sex, there was a stronger association with male characters (78.6%) but there were also many more males across the texts (in fact, some had no female characters); it was used by children, teenagers, and adults of all ages; and in texts that included Indigenous Australian characters, they used the form but not exclusively. Furthermore, there were not clear associations with Irishness or Irish people, suggesting that this is not understood as the source of the form by the authors; that is, it appears that the reinterpretation of associations of youse had taken place by the beginning of the early-20th century, which would support Pawley’s (2004)

4 Understanding the Place of yous(e)

67

timelines (see Sect. 4.2). Youse was employed particularly by authors who seemed to be trying to capture something unique in Australia or casual ways of speaking, often found alongside other stigmatized features such as possessive ‘me’ and ain’t, as well as, in the company of spellings reproducing fairly standard pronunciations but implying ‘nonstandardness’ via respelling, and noting ‘missing’ elements, a common strategy due to the re-constructability of apostrophes at the beginning or end of words (Blake 1981).8 Reduced form spellings are interpreted as indicators of lower social class (Preston 1985). Examples (8)–(10) briefly illustrate these tendencies in works from the early-, mid-, and late-twentieth century with informal lexis also reinforcing the imagery. (8)

I dunno ’ow I’d get down to orderin’ the pair of yous about. An’ I ain’t got no ’comodation for yous; an’ the tucker’s not what yous ’ave bin used ter. (Bruce 1921: 124)

(9)

He don’t uphold the camp spirit. I got no time for them that don’t uphold the camp spirit. What I say is, no matter where you are yous can still behave like a sport. (Elliott 1948: 40)

(10) If youse blokes, Damion began firmly, want a bit of help finding your way about, why don’t youse just lay off the bar staff and let them geddon with their job? (Robb 1999: 80)

There is some support for Blake’s (1981: 13) assertion of ‘nonstandard’ language in general that, when it not used for comedy, is often used to indicate lower social class, but this can be difficult to separate from other elements and the contrast between narrator and speaker, and between speakers is not always so clear cut. In a more detailed examination of who uses youse, we concentrate on texts which contained more than 10 tokens, to allow for meaningful discussion within our space limitations (note though that one use could achieve a lot, and the works of fiction were of varying lengths). This reduces the focus to 11 texts published from 1911 to 1999. In an effort to explore what youse is seen to index, we ordered the higher-instance text-based distribution across characters, as shown in Table 4.3. While this table does not attempt to account for the total number of characters in a text, those texts at the top would seem to show youse as part of the speech of some specific AuE speakers while those at the bottom, more likely see it as a general feature amongst the types of people who inhabit the fictional world. Due to limitations of space, we discuss the extreme points of this distribution as exemplified in two texts each, beginning with the top two, both of which were written in the 1920s. In Back to Billabong (Bruce 1921), there is one character who is a youse user: Joe Howard, an old farmer. While the characters Jim Linton and Bob Rainham go to work for ‘Old Joe’ as farm hands, they are there for the experience and the unusualness of the situation is highlighted by Joe as shown in (8) previously. The social inversion is negotiated in fact with Joe no longer addressing Mr. Jim as such so that he can feel comfortable issuing him orders in the way he usually would those working for him (wot am I to call yous? I can’t order you about as Mr. Jim. It 8 Note

that ain’t is not a feature of contemporary AuE.

68

J. Mulder and C. Penry Williams

Table 4.3 Distribution of youse by frequency in relation to number of characters Year

Title

youse tokens

1921

Back to Billabong

18

Characters using youse 1

1923

The C. J. Dennis Collection: Bowyang is 10 Candid

1

1975

Tim

55

6

1944

We Were the Rats

17

6

1938

Capricornia

10

6

1948

Rusty Bugles

18

8

1958

The Pea-Pickers

28

8

1965

A Bunch of Ratbags

11

9

1991

Cloudstreet

11

9

1911

Jonah

47

9

1973

Crow on a Barbed Wire Fence

20

13

wouldn’t seem to come natural (1921: 120)). Joe’s speech is markedly differentiated from that of the young men as illustrated in (11) which relates to the two returning to the Linton’s grander and more comfortable home after their ‘education’ with Joe. (11) “Well, we’re off to-morrow, Mr. Howard,” said Jim on Saturday night. They were seated round the fire, smoking. “I s’pose so. Didn’t think yous’d stick it out as long,” the old man said. “We’ve had a very good time,” said Bob; and was astonished to find himself speaking truthfully. “Jolly good of you to have me; I know a new-chum isn’t much use.” “Well, I wouldn’t say as how you weren’t,” said old Joe deliberately. “I ain’t strong on new-chums, meself – some of them immy-grants they send out are a fair cow to handle; but I will say, Captin, you ain’t got no frills, nor you don’t mind puttin’ your back into a job. I worked you pretty ’ard, too.” (Bruce 1921: 124)

In this text, youse is one of a number of ‘nonstandard’ features and respellings that position Joe as of a different social background, in addition to numerous explicit references to this by Joe. As the extracts show, youse is very common in Joe’s speech, with the 18 tokens occurring over about seven pages and no further tokens elsewhere in the novel. Jim’s family lives in the same area so this difference in language is not about place (e.g. rural vs. urban). In The C.J. Dennis Collection (Dennis 1923), the one speaker who utters youse is Ben Bowyang, a ‘rural filosofer and spelin reformer’ (Hutchinson 1987: 5). The text ‘Bowyang is Candid’, first published in The Herald (Melbourne), takes the form of a letter from Bowyang to his ‘dere frend’. Again, there is a lot of ‘nonstandard’ language and respellings which represent speech, including standard pronunciations (e.g. for know), as shown in (12). (12) so I no yous ull take it in good part an not rekin ime slingin orf when i points out 1 or 2 littel brakes yous made when yous was up ere. (Dennis 1923: 13)

4 Understanding the Place of yous(e)

69

The last two texts listed in Table 4.3 are from very different times but employ youse in the creation of a range number of characters. Jonah (Stone 1911) depicts inner working class and semi-criminal Sydney. Unlike the previous texts discussed, in this novel ‘nonstandard’ language forms, including youse, characterize the world of the book rather than providing a contrast between characters, as exemplified in (13). (13) “Yous git round, an’ ‘elp Mum wi’ the clothes,” snapped Jonah. “Me? No fear!” cried Ada, with a malicious grin. “I didn’t knock off work to carry bricks. Yous married me, an’ yer got ter keep me.” (Stone 1911: 65)

Here the contrast is seemingly anticipated between the fictional world and that of the reader but does less work in differentiating characters. While Crow on a Barbed Wire Fence (Lewis 1973) was written much later, it is set in 1910. Youse, is attributed to both ‘outback’ and working class ‘types’ (all male). The text dwells on ‘Australianness’ especially in contrast to the ‘Englishness’ of the narrator (and author). In (14), there is again an ain’t nearby. (14) “The kid’s improved, I tell yer,” said Mick with some enthusiasm. “Most of youse newchums can’t fight a damn, but now and again one comes up with everything. That’s how it is with Bluey. Maybe he ain’t a cert to win. But I give him a chance…” (Lewis 1973: 144)

In fact, the ‘Australianness’ of youse is suggested by the narrator saying that he is trying to sound local as shown in (15). (15) “Here he is,” he announced. “All the way from the Old Country just to play fer youse.” “Tell me what youse want me to play for youse,” I said, in my best Australian. (Lewis 1973: 32)

While it could be suggested the second part of (15) relates to an accent, there is no evidence for this. For instance, for is not spelt as it is for the publican in the previous line; thus it seems that the two occurrences of youse are his Australian. Blake (1981: 13) suggests that ‘nonstandard’ language forms in general are used by authors to index ‘urban working class’ rather than ‘rustic poor’ after the Industrial Revolution. However, it seems that in the texts in our corpus, which are all post Industrial Revolution, we find both with youse. While earlier discourse in Australia focussed on rural imagery as a locus of Australian uniqueness in the creation of nation, later discussions of life in Australia increasingly moved to the suburbs: from ‘national type’ (rural) to the ‘Australian way of life’ (suburban) (White 1981). Works set and written earlier and later seem to engage with these two different sets of Australian imagery. They depict life in Australia as rural (e.g. Back to Billabong (Bruce 1921), ‘Bowyang is Candid’ (Dennis 1923), and Crow on a Barbed Wire Fence (Lewis 1973)) or suburban (e.g. A Bunch of Ratbags (Dick 1965), Tim (McCullough 1975) and Cloudstreet (Winton 1991)) but youse has found a place in the continuation of both the older and newer imaginings. The interplay between authors and their styles could be a factor influencing later works (Bakhtin 1981; Blake 1981), especially as some of the earlier texts remain

70

J. Mulder and C. Penry Williams

highly regarded pieces of literature or noted for capturing something Australian and therefore may have influenced later writers. Overall, the analysis supports a folklinguistic view, as found in Sheard (2019), that for some speakers it is understood as unmarked and everyday talk whilst amongst others, youse indexes social difference. These authors utilize both understandings to indicate difference but on different scales (text to world vs. within text).

4.7 Conclusions Studying the place of youse in AuE via our sample of OzCorp, we believe, has reconfirmed that dialogue in literature can be a valuable source for insights into everyday understandings of particular forms (Mulder and Penry Williams 2018). The study has shown that there is an awareness that youse can be both plural or singular, challenging the original reasoning for such a form and illustrating its reinterpretation. The analysis of characters associated with youse suggested, overall, that it is attributed to a range of people, with limitations relating to unequal representation in texts. Texts with high occurrences associated with a small number of characters and the greatest distribution, both orient to the rustic rural and suburban working class, with these tied to previous descriptions of the use of ‘nonstandard’ language in fiction and depictions of Australia. It has also illustrated something of the life of ‘nonstandard’ features amongst those utilizing them in stylization rather than vernacular speech. While this chapter has added to our understandings of youse it has also satisfyingly left us with new questions to explore about its use and its social meanings in AuE. Acknowledgements We wish to thank Sue Butler and Alison Moore for generously providing the yous/youse citations from OzCorp and Clare McKenna for assiduously sourcing copies of many of the OzCorp texts.

References Agha, A. (2007). Language and social relations. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). Discourse in the novel. In M. Holquist (Ed.), The dialogic imagination (pp. 259–422). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Bednarek, M. (2017). The role of dialogue in fiction. In M. A. Locher & A. H. Jucker (Eds.), Pragmatics of fiction (pp. 129–58). de Gruyter Mouton: Berlin/New York. Blake, N. F. (1981). Non-standard language in English literature. London: Deutsch. Burridge, K., & Musgrave, S. (2014). It’s speaking Australian English we are: Irish features in nineteenth century Australia. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 34(1), 24–49. https://doi.org/10. 1080/07268602.2014.875454. Butler, S. (2014). The Haitch factor: Adventures in Australian English. Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia.

4 Understanding the Place of yous(e)

71

Butters, R. R. (2001). Data concerning putative singular Y’all. American Speech, 76(3), 335–6. https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-76-3-335. Corrigan, K. P. (2010). Irish English. Volume 1, Northern Ireland. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Delbridge, A. (1997). The Macquarie dictionary (3rd ed.). Sydney: Macquarie Library. Eckert, P. (2008). Variation and the indexical field. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 12(4), 453–76. Ferguson, N. (2008). Americanisation of Australian English: Attitudes, perceptions and usage. Honours thesis. Monash University, Melbourne. Hickey, R. (2003). Rectifying a standard deficiency: Pronominal distinctions in varieties of English. In I. Taavitsainen & A. H. Jucker (Eds.), Diachronic perspectives on address term systems (pp. 343–74). John Benjamins: Amsterdam/Philadelphia. Hodson, J. (2014). Dialect in film and literature. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Hudson, N. (1993). Modern Australian usage. Oxford/Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Hutchinson, G. (1987). Introduction: A prince of Australian writers. In G. Hutchinson (Ed.), The C. J. collection: From his ‘forgotten’ writings (pp. 1–9). Melbourne: Lothian. Leech, G. N., & Short, M. (2007). Style in fiction: A linguistic introduction to English fictional prose (2nd ed.). Harlow: Longman. Leitner, G. (2004). Australia’s many voices: Australian English—The national language. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Lippi-Green, R. (1997). English with an accent: Language, ideology, and discrimination in the United States. Abingdon/New York: Routledge. Lonergan, D. (2003). An Irish-centric view of Australian English. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 23(2), 151–9. Moore, B. (2008). Speaking our language: The story of Australian English. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Mulder, J., & Penry Williams, C. (2014). Documenting unacknowledged inheritances in contemporary Australian English. In L. Gawne & J. Vaughan (Eds.), Selected papers from the 44th conference of the Australian Linguistic Society, 2013 (pp. 160–77). Melbourne: University of Melbourne. Mulder, J., & Penry Williams, C. (2018). Understanding the place of Australian English: Exploring folk linguistic accounts through contemporary Australian authors. Asian Englishes, 20(1), 54–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/13488678.2018.1422323. Mulder, J., Thompson, S. A., & Penry Williams, C. (2009). Final but in Australian English conversation. In P. C. Collins, P. Peters, & A. Smith (Eds.), Comparative studies in Australian and New Zealand English (pp. 339–59). John Benjamins: Amsterdam/Philadelphia. The Mudcat Café: Aussie Glossary. (n.d.). https://mudcat.org/aussie/index.cfm. Pawley, A. (2004). Australian vernacular English: Some grammatical characteristics. In E. W. Schneider, B. Kortmann, K. Burridge, R. Mesthrie, & C. Upton (Eds.), A handbook of varieties of English: A multimedia reference tool (pp. 611–42). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Penry Williams, C. (2011). Exploring social meanings of variation in Australian English. PhD thesis. University of Melbourne. Penry Williams, C. (2019). Folklinguistics and social meaning in Australian English. Abingdon/New York: Routledge. Penry Williams, C. (in preparation). Learning about Melbourne and Australia through linguistic play and folklinguistic discourse (working title). Peters, P. (1995). The Cambridge Australian style guide. Cambridge/Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Peters, P. (2004). The Cambridge guide to English usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pluralising ‘You’ to ‘Youse’. (2013, August 30). Macquarie dictionary blog. Retrieved October 20, 2019, https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/blog/article/148/. Preston, D. R. (1985). The Lit’l Abner syndrome: Written representations of speech. American Speech, 60(4), 328–36.

72

J. Mulder and C. Penry Williams

Ramson, W. S. (1988). The Australian national dictionary. Oxford/Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Severin, A. A. (2017). Vigilance or tolerance? Younger speakers’ attitudes to Australian English usage. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 37(2), 156–81. https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2017. 1239521. Sheard, E. (2019). Variation, language ideologies and stereotypes: Orientations towards Like and Youse in Western and Northern Sydney. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 39(4), 485–510. https:// doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2019.1641066. Silverstein, M. (2003). Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life. Language & Communication, 23(3–4), 193–229. Stewart, L. (2017). Aussie slang dictionary (16th ed.). Melbourne: Brolga Publishing. Taylor, B. A. (1997). The inner-city working class English of Sydney, Australia, around 1900: A linguistic critique of Louis Stone’s novel Jonah. In H. Ramisch & K. Wynne (Eds.), Language in time and space: Studies in honour of Wolfgang Viereck on the occasion of his 60th birthday (pp. 258–70). Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Tillery, J., & Bailey, G. (1998). Yall in Oklahoma. American Speech, 73(3), 257–78. https://doi.org/ 10.2307/455825. Trudgill, P. (1986). Dialects in contact. Oxford: Blackwell. White, R. (1981). Inventing Australia: Images and identity 1788–1980. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Wingrove, K. (1987). The comic art of Norman Lindsay. Sydney: Angus & Robertson. Wright, S. (1997). “Ah M going for to give Youse a story today”: Remarks on second plural pronouns in Englishes. In J. Cheshire & D. Stein (Eds.), Taming the vernacular: From dialect to written standard language (pp. 170–84). London: Longman.

Jean Mulder is an honorary senior fellow at the University of Melbourne. Her research interests embrace minority language documentation, grammatical and discourse analysis and educational linguistics, with published work on a variety of languages including Australian, New Zealand and Indonesian Englishes, Sm’algyax (Canada), siSwati (Swaziland), Cree (Canada), and the Philippine languages. Her current projects centre around sociohistorical aspects of Australian English and grammatical topics in Sm’algyax. Sharing many interests, Jean and Kate Burridge worked extensively together in establishing VCE English Language, a senior secondary subject in Victoria, and have co-authored several textbooks, including English in Australia and New Zealand (Oxford). Email: [email protected]. Cara Penry Williams is a lecturer at the University of Derby, UK. Her research interests centre on sociolinguistics and discourse analysis. Her recent publications include the monograph Folklinguistics and social meaning in Australian English (Routledge) and Appeals to semiotic registers in ethno-metapragmatic accounts of variation (Journal of Linguistic Anthropology). With Jean Mulder and other colleagues, Cara has published on other grammatical and discourse features in Australian English including sort of and final but. Cara was taught by Kate Burridge in her undergraduate degree at La Trobe University and many years later she was an examiner of Cara’s Ph.D. thesis. Email: [email protected].

Chapter 5

Language Literally Changes: Usage Guides and Their Influence on Language Attitudes Alyssa A. Severin

Abstract Usage guides are a phenomenon which receives a lot of attention from linguists studying prescriptivism (see, e.g., Anderwald 2012; Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2010, 2011; Lukaˇc 2018). Such research focuses on the pronouncements they contain and their influence on past language change; however, the role usage guides play in current metalinguistic discussion is less clear. In this chapter, I draw on data from the HUGE database (Straaijer 2014) and the website Reddit to examine metalinguistic discussion of emphatic literally. I explore what influence, if any, usage guides have on current metalinguistic discourse online. A comparison of the supporting justification advocates and opponents of emphatic literally provide to support their position suggests that usage guides may have some influence in the nature of the arguments made online; however, usage guides themselves do not serve as supporting authorities in that space. Keywords Prescriptivism · Descriptivism · Usage guides · CMC · Reddit · English

5.1 Introduction On the discussion website Reddit (www.reddit.com), there exists a forum (known on the site as a ‘subreddit’) called r/badlinguistics. R/badlinguistics (https://www. reddit.com/r/badlinguistics) is a place where users of the site, known as ‘redditors’, congregate to share and discuss ‘the worst linguistics-related content of Reddit’. Content shared there can relate to violations of any teaching of the field of linguistics; however, other redditors’ prescriptivism proves a frequent topic. Links to redditors complaining about two English usages in particular, emphatic literally and could care less, appeared so frequently that moderators of r/badlinguistics instated a moratorium on those posts in 2015 in order to save members from being inundated with repetitive content. Yet, while frequent posts about emphatic literally may have proved repetitive A. A. Severin (B) Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 K. Allan (ed.), Dynamics of Language Changes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6430-7_5

73

74

A. A. Severin

for readers of the subreddit, they serve as a repository of lay normative arguments for and against an example of language change in action. Much of the literature on normative assessments of language relates to usage surveys, sociolinguistic interviews, or studies of published usage literature (for research using usage surveys, see, e.g. de Bres 2010; Ebner 2017; Severin 2017; for sociolinguistic interviews, see, e.g., Ebner 2017; Penry Williams 2011; for research on usage guides, see, e.g., Anderwald 2012; Bax 2008; Lukaˇc 2018; Tieken-Boon van Ostade 2010, 2011). Our understanding of arguments about change in usage made by non-linguists thus relies heavily on constructed contexts rather than spontaneous naturally occurring discourse. The internet, however, provides a source of insight into lay attitudes towards usages and the arguments used to support or refute them in everyday interaction. Internet discussions such as those linked to r/badlinguistics provide a source of spontaneous metalinguistic discussion, giving a unique insight into the nature of metalinguistic arguments made by members of the public. In this chapter, I examine the arguments made in published usage literature entries for literally that appear in the Hyper Usage Guide of English (HUGE) database (Straaijer 2014), a database of 77 English usage guides published from 1770 to 2010 (Straaijer 2018: 25), and compare them to the arguments made by redditors for and against emphatic literally.1 In undertaking this comparison, I seek to understand how English-language commentators advocate or refute emphatic literally in online discourse and whether the arguments used to support their assessments align with or differ from those used within usage literature. In so doing, I seek to understand how relevant usage literature is to lay understandings of questions of English usage.

5.2 Background Peters (2006: 761) argues that from the eighteenth to twentieth century, usage guide writers were on a ‘quest for authority’, seeking to validate their language edicts. From the eighteenth century onwards, grammarians have attempted to align English with the Greco-Latin tradition—e.g. by shoe-horning English into eight parts of speech and proscribing split infinitives and clause-final prepositions (Peters 2006). They also make use of mathematical logic—e.g. by proscribing double negatives under the assumption that two negatives make a positive (Peters 2006). However, Peters (2006) notes that, in making these proclamations, grammarians made little use of external sources to support their arguments and instead assess the English language according to subjective ipse dixit judgments, relying heavily on their own authority and, in the case of Fowler, even openly admitting that they possess no technical knowledge or understanding of the historical context of usage (see Fowler and Fowler 1905, cited in Burchfield 1979: 9). Nevertheless, Peters (2006) argues that the twentieth century also saw the emergence of descriptive usage advice, where authors’ reliance on

1I

thank Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade for granting me access to the HUGE database.

5 Language Literally Changes: Usage Guides …

75

empirical research—including, most recently, the use of electronic corpora—rather than on subjective personal judgments bolstered the authority of their usage advice. While writers of English usage guides sought to establish their own authority, members of the public discussing English usage have been noted to seek out authority from external sources to support their usage judgments. Severin (2018: 236) identifies that participants in online metalinguistic discourse displaying both prescriptive and descriptive stances regularly call upon authorities to support their arguments, albeit in different ways: ‘descriptive discourse calls upon authorities which [are perceived] as reflecting usage … while prescriptive discourse exploits the authority of perceived enforcers of norms’. Moreover, van der Meulen’s (2019) work on online debates about pronunciation of gif suggests that speakers favouring the non-standard pronunciation, /dZIf/, seek out a supporting authority when making their prescriptive arguments. Notably, however, this reliance upon authority is not universal within the debate; while it is the dominant technique of those advocating the non-standard pronunciation, it is eschewed by speakers advocating the standard form, /gIf/, who instead make appeals to logic and systematicity. Thus, while the authors of usage literature have been seeking to carve out their role as linguistic authorities, members of the public relying on authority to support their usage judgments have been seeking to have that role filled by others. Usage literature is written in order to serve as an authority for lay speakers and to guide them towards correct usage; however, it remains to be seen whether that literature is regularly called upon in everyday discourse by members of the public, either through explicit reference or implicitly through use of similar arguments that may have permeated broader cultural understandings of English usage. This chapter will compare the arguments made in published usage literature and online usage-related discourse on emphatic literally in order to establish whether this is indeed occurring.

5.3 Methods In order to investigate the influence of usage literature on attitudes members of the public hold towards emphatic literally, I collected all Reddit discussion threads shared to the r/badlinguistics subreddit during three separate months over an 18month period before r/badlinguistics moderators implemented the moratorium on such posts in late 2015. This dataset comprises 140 Reddit discussion threads. The dataset was entered into NVivo Qualitative Analysis Software (Version 12, 2018) and searched for instances of literally. This search returned 658 results across 70 discussion threads, within which two types of comments featuring literally were evident: 207 comments across 19 discussion threads where literally proved to be the topic of discourse and the remainder where literally was used in discourse (e.g. in a discussion about a redditor’s attempt at home-made ramen, one redditor commented, ‘It’s literally ramen noodles in a broth topped with meat and scallions. How is it not ramen?’). These discursive uses of literally were excluded from analysis. The remaining 207 instances of metalinguistic discussion of literally were then coded

76

A. A. Severin

in NVivo according to the redditor’s stance towards emphatic literally (i.e. whether they were advocating or admonishing its use) and what argument or evidence they provided to support their position (if any). This process was an inductive one—i.e. I examined the results and based my subcategories on what was present within the data. Research on redditors’ publicly available comments was undertaken with ethics approval from the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee.2 In order to help maintain users’ privacy, only comments where users have since deleted their accounts (and thus where their posts are now published on the site under ‘[deleted]’ rather than an individual username) will be reproduced here. In order to undertake comparative analysis of usage literature, I collected all usage guide entries referencing literally from the HUGE database (Straaijer 2014). There are 48 entries sourced from 47 different usage guides; Garner (1998) appears twice— once for the entry for literally itself and once for the entry for slipshod extension in which literally is also mentioned. As mentioned above, the HUGE database includes 77 English usage guides (Straaijer 2018: 25); thus, over half the guides featured in the database turn their attention to literally. The guides which include entries for literally range in publication date from 1918 to 2010; full publication details for the usage guides have been provided as an Appendix to this chapter. These entries were entered into NVivo and coded in the same fashion as the Reddit data—i.e. according to the author’s position towards emphatic literally and the argument and/or evidence used to support their position.

5.4 Arguments Against Literally in Usage Guides Of the 48 usage guide entries which include reference to literally, 46 are entries for literally and two are entries which mention literally as a related word (one entry each for psychotic and slipshod extension). The vast majority (93.8%; n = 45) of these entries admonish emphatic literally and actively recommend against its use. A further two attempt to take a more balanced approach, leaving their overall stance towards the usage unclear, with the entry from Fowler and Burchfield (1999) arguing against its use ‘when the effect might be distracting or comic’ but otherwise endorsing it and the entry from Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage (1989) highlighting the potential for ‘ludicrous’ meanings to arise but leaving readers to ‘judge for [themselves]’ whether or not the usage is appropriate. Only a single entry, from Peters (2004), supports the use of emphatic literally, labelling it ‘tantalizing’. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the evidence given in support of the arguments for or against emphatic literally differs demonstrably. In advocating for emphatic literally, Peters (2004) explains this usage by acknowledging the word’s ability to be exploited for the purpose of hyperbole and/or emphasis. She supports this by addressing its long-term use in English: 2 Project

number CF15/2437 – 2015000980.

5 Language Literally Changes: Usage Guides …

77

(1) for most of the last two centuries it has also been used to underscore figures of speech or turns of phrase which could never be taken at face value.

This assertion is backed up by authoritative (descriptive) sources; she notes the presence of emphatic literally in corpus data and dictionaries: (2) This use of literally is recognized in all major dictionaries, though some add cautionary labels or usage notes … Examples of such use are readily found in BNC data.

Thus, according to Peters (2004), literally has dual senses but both are valid linguistic choices used by English speakers, even if one use is sometimes labelled by dictionaries as informal. In contrast, usage entries against emphatic literally principally address the contradictory meanings attributed to literally, suggesting that the newer emphatic sense defies logic and leads to confusion and/or ‘ludicrous’ statements. For example, Brians (2003) makes this argument: (3) It should be used to distinguish between a figurative and a literal meaning of a phrase. … Don’t say of someone that he “literally blew up” unless he swallowed a stick of dynamite.

Usage guide authors admonishing emphatic literally rely on a variety of other supporting explanations against the usage; however, when they provide any supporting evidence for their rejection of the form, highlighting confusing or illogical meaning contrasts makes up at least part of their justification in all but one case. Table 5.1 shows the different types of supporting evidence authors provide in their guidance about the usage and the rates at which those strategies are used by the authors represented within the HUGE dataset. While establishing the contradiction of the two senses of literally is by far the most common strategy implemented by usage guide authors, those arguing against its use often identify its use as hyperbolic or emphatic, just as Peters (2004) did when advocating for the usage. However, in these cases, hyperbole is seen to explain but not justify this usage. For example, Wilson (1993) presents hyperbole as a ‘problem’: (4) literally, figuratively (advs.) Literally means “actually” or “virtually,” as in He was literally six feet eleven inches tall. The chief problem is caused by our penchant for hyperbole: She felt literally dead from fatigue is much too much, unless she is truly dead (figuratively is what is meant). Literally is a bad intensifier, almost always overkill.

Moreover, 17.8% of usage guide authors (n = 8) explain their aversion to emphatic literally by proposing that it is redundant. For example, Heffer (2010) begins his entry by labelling the use of emphatic literally as unnecessary:

78

A. A. Severin

Table 5.1 Supports used in arguments for and against emphatic literally in HUGE entries (Some authors used more than one supporting explanation; hence, some entries are counted more than once in these figures) Support

For

Against

Unclear

Total

n

%

n

%

n

%

n

%

Meaning difference

1

100.0

43

95.6

2

100.0

46

95.8

Hyperbole

1

100.0

13

28.9

2

100.0

16

33.3

Redundancy

0

0

8

17.8

0

0

8

16.7

History of long-term use

1

100.0

2

4.4

0

0

3

6.3

Common usage 0

0

1

2.2

0

0

1

2.1

Laziness

0

0

1

2.2

0

0

1

2.1

External authority

1

100.0

4

8.9

1

50.0

6

12.5

No reason (ipse dixit)

0

0

1

2.2

0

0

1

2.1

Total entries

1

–

45

–

2

–

48

Explanation

–

(5) Literally is one of the more abused words in our tongue. Should you find yourself about to write it, pause and consider whether it is really necessary; it almost never is. … [L]iterally, according to the dictionary in this sense, means “with exact fidelity of representation”. One cannot say “he literally died” unless he is dead, and died as a result of the event being described; but people do say it when “he” still lives and breathes. To make matters worse, circumstances in which one could use the adverb accurately would almost always render its use tautological. If one has fallen down the stairs, nothing is added to the statement “I fell down the stairs” by extending it to “I literally fell down the stairs”. So avoid this usually pointless, and often silly, word.

Of the 45 entries which contest the use of emphatic literally, only one entry, Lamb (2010), rejects literally being used in this way without further explanation: (6) 25. I was literally dead with fatigue 25. Misuse of literally

In providing explanations for their preference against emphatic literally, usage guide authors within the dataset shy away from the blatant ipse dixit statements which characterized early usage literature (see Sect. 5.2; Peters 2006). Yet, usage guide authors are nevertheless not immune from such behaviour. Heffer’s argument against literally, shown in example (5), aligns with the majority of usage guide entries: in addition to highlighting the word’s redundancy, he addresses the contradictory senses the word has acquired. What sets Heffer’s entry apart, however, is that he makes use of a supporting authority to consolidate his argument (albeit without reference to any particular publication but rather a statement which treats the dictionary as a monolithic reliquary of knowledge). The entry is one of just six (12.5%) within the dataset to do so (and just one of four arguing against the usage). Therefore, while

5 Language Literally Changes: Usage Guides …

79

usage guide authors are for the most part not making unsupported pronouncements based on their personal intuitions alone, they are nevertheless mostly relying on their own authority when making usage pronouncements rather than on empirical evidence, presenting their opinions instead as the product of logic and linguistic fact. Such a strategy aligns the usage guides within the database with earlier usage literature described by Peters (2006; see Sect. 5.2); however, it is worth noting that all of the entries come from guides published in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (34 and 14 entries from each century respectively). If a movement towards descriptive usage guides does exist as Peters (2006; see Sect. 5.2) suggests, it is one which is largely unrepresented within the HUGE database.

5.5 Arguments Against Literally on Reddit Within the Reddit dataset, there are 207 comments which include metalinguistic discussion of literally. Within the comments considered for analysis, there are 77 comments made against emphatic literally (37.0%), 125 made in support (60.6%), and 5 (2.4%) where the commenter’s position towards emphatic literally is unclear— e.g. where emphatic literally is described as a ‘vocal filler’ without further assessment. Thus, in contrast to usage literature, Reddit is a place where emphatic literally is more likely to be advocated than admonished.

5.5.1 Arguments Against Emphatic Literally Similar to the usage guide dataset, those arguing against emphatic literally most often use meaning difference as an explanation of their contestation. For instance, in example (7),3 a redditor establishes that emphatic literally causes confusion due to its contradictory meaning: (7) The biggest problem with the use of “literally” as an intensifier is that, at best, it adds nothing to the sentence and, at worst, leads to confusion. Pointless: “I literally died” “No, you didn’t.” Confusing: “She literally shit on my chest.” “What, literally?” “No, not literally. That’s disgusting.”

3 Examples

are repeated verbatim and retain original spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

80

A. A. Severin

Table 5.2 Supports used in arguments for and against emphatic literally in Reddit posts (Again, some authors used more than one supporting explanation; hence, some entries are counted more than once in these figures) Support

For n

Explanation

Meaning difference

60

Against

Unclear

Total

%

n

%

n

%

n

%

48.0

57

74.0

1

20.0

118

57.0

Hyperbole

38

30.4

5

6.5

1

20.0

44

21.3

Counterexamples

21

16.7

6

7.8

1

20.0

28

13.5

History of long-term use

31

24.8

0

0

0

0

31

15.0

Stupidity/ignorance

7

5.6

15

19.5

1

20.0

23

11.1

Common usage

9

7.2

2

2.6

1

20.0

12

5.8

Redundancy

1

0.8

6

7.8

0

0

7

3.4

Inevitability of language change

7

5.6

0

0

0

0

7

3.4

Aesthetics

0

0

2

2.6

0

0

2

1.0

32

25.6

5

6.5

1

20.0

38

18.4

7

5.6

7

9.1

1

20.0

15

7.2

–

5

–

External authority No reason (ipse dixit) Total comments

125

–

77

207

–

Having a long history of use doesn’t make it not stupid, and objections to its use in that manner are just as old.

However, the rate of this reasoning was lower than in the HUGE usage guide data; redditors did not rely almost exclusively on this one type of evidence (only 74.0% of comments against emphatic literally included this strategy). Table 5.2 features the different types of evidence that redditors use in their comments to support their metalinguistic assessments. As seen in example (7), redditors arguing against emphatic literally addressed the form’s role in hyperbole/intensification but, as with usage guide writers, saw this as a ‘problem’ rather than a justification of its use. The reference in example (7) to emphatic literally ‘[adding] nothing to the sentence’ aligns with usage guide writers’ accusations of redundancy. Nevertheless, these explanations for the proposed aberrance of emphatic literally are exploited at lower rates in the Reddit dataset than they are by usage guide writers (6.5% of Reddit comments discuss hyperbole versus 28.9% of usage guides; 7.8% versus 17.8% respectively for redundancy). One key strategy used by redditors that is not used by usage guide authors in the HUGE dataset is the attribution of emphatic literally to stupidity. This includes references the usage itself being inherently ‘stupid’ (as seen in example (7)) as well as accusations against the people who use it (see example (8)).

5 Language Literally Changes: Usage Guides …

81

(8) I’ll just say I have never heard an intelligent person throw around the world “literally” like that. In fact if you’ve ever watched Parks and Recreation the character who does it constantly sounds ridiculous (on purpose).

Of the 77 comments made against emphatic literally in the Reddit dataset, 15 (19.5%) associate its use with a lack of intelligence. This connection is in some ways hardly surprising: Chapman (2012) notes that complaints relating non-standard variation to stupidity are highly popular; moreover, a connection between stupidity and language is indeed framed within the literature as a hallmark of prescriptivism (see Milroy and Milroy 2012: 33). Also distinct from usage guides among Reddit comments against emphatic literally is the use of illustrative counterexamples. These counterexamples serve as a feigned logical extension of arguments in support of emphatic literally with the intention of undermining those arguments—that is, they take arguments to their logical extreme in order to present them as ridiculous and thus undermine them. For instance, example (9) features a comment made in response to a redditor who argues that dictionaries reflect usage and that updated definitions of literally reflect emphatic literally’s widespread use. In challenging this assertion, the commenter provides examples of words spelt incorrectly that they believe to be unworthy of entry into the dictionary (and thus akin to emphatic literally)—i.e. the commenter equates common spelling errors to widespread grammatical use of new forms, a misrepresentation of descriptive arguments: (9) I think you’re misrepresenting the point that [the other redditor] was making. MirriamWebster has added a new definition for ‘literally’ supposedly because many people use the word incorrectly. Well, a great many people mispell ‘definitely’ (I see it spelled ‘definately’ more frequently than the correct spelling), so should Mirriam-Webster just add alternate spellings for frequently mispelled words too? Wouldn’t that defeat the primary purpose of a dictionary - to provide the correct spellings and meanings of words?

The redditor in example (9) presents updated definitions of words as undermining the integrity of the dictionary. A complaint such as this is not unique to Reddit; Curzan (2014: 104) notes that changes or new additions to dictionaries cause members of the public to question the legitimacy of that publication’s authority. This redditor’s expectations contradict the descriptive values that most dictionaries adhere to in the twenty-first century (Curzan 2014); however, they align with wider social expectations of the role the dictionary (and lexicographers) should serve. As Green (1996: 468) states, ‘[t]he lexicographer has traditionally been asked to take on the role of God, or at least that of a priestly interpreter’, expected to offer up language edicts to anxiously awaiting members of the public. While the redditor in example (9) upholds the value of the (monolithic) dictionary as a bastion of correctness, reliance on authorities amongst redditors against emphatic literally is quite low (only 6.5% of comments (n = 5) make reference to authorities in this way). Despite the argument put forth by the redditor in example (9), dictionaries such as the Oxford English Dictionary (2011) and Merriam-Webster (2019) support

82

A. A. Severin

the use of emphatic literally and thus cannot reliably be called upon as supporting authorities; indeed, four of the five references to authority acknowledge this presence in dictionaries but dismiss it as the product of widespread incorrect (rather than changing) use. It is apparent from the HUGE dataset that there are many usage guides that redditors could use to bolster their argument; however, redditors do not do so. While usage guides receive a great amount of attention from linguists concerned with prescriptivism (see Sect. 5.1), they do not appear to garner any attention from members of the public displaying prescriptive stances in quotidian usage discussions on the internet.

5.5.2 Arguments for Emphatic Literally Redditors who argue in favour of emphatic literally show markedly different behaviour in their discussion of the usage from those who argue against it. While this may seem a truism, Severin (2018) establishes that opposing metalinguistic arguments can and indeed often do take similar forms and thus this distinction is in fact noteworthy. Many of the common strategies used by redditors to advocate for the usage align with those used by Peters (2004) in the HUGE dataset. For instance, in advocating for emphatic literally, 30.4% (n = 38) of redditors promoting emphatic literally address its use for hyperbole and/or emphasis: (10) It’s not my opinion, it’s a fact: language can be used ironically, and only people literally (and I mean that literally) on the autistic spectrum have a problem/objection to being expected to determine irony based on context, tone, body language etc. … The rest of us are fine reading irony and hyperbole from context and don’t expect that sort of linguistic fundamentalism from others.

This hyperbolic use is presented not as a ‘problem’ as it is by redditors and usage guide authors, but instead as something that is useful and whose meaning is easily ascertained from context. Like Peters (2004), redditors advocating emphatic literally also highlight its long history of use (24.8% of comments; n = 31): (11) They [the Merriam-Webster dictionary] didn’t really change the definition. People have been using literally in this way as a literary device for hundreds of years in print and spoken word. They added the usage definition so twats would quit saying you’re using the word wrong, when there is nothing wrong with using a word in a context where the denotative meaning doesn’t fit. … What is this madness. Language.

Nine comments (7.2%) further supplement this by making reference to its widespread use:

5 Language Literally Changes: Usage Guides …

83

(12) Well, seeing as though ‘I literally pissed myself laughing’ is quite a common phrase, they said it metaphorically. It’s pretty obvious if someone actually pissed themselves, if you can’t infer what they’re actually saying from how they say it, then you can’t have much common sense. If they actually pissed themselves, you would be able to see the piss stains or them walking funny or whatever. It really doesn’t take a genius to deduce the meaning.

These comments present emphatic literally as a matter of linguistic fact. Widespread and long-term use of emphatic literally is presented as a challenge to the claim that English speakers might be confused by its use; because emphatic literally is common—and has been for some time—only those speakers who are either ignorant or being deliberately obtuse will be confused by its use. That is, as stated by the redditor in example (12), if the potential meaning difference poses difficulty for you as an English speaker, ‘then you can’t have much common sense’. The potentially contradictory meanings of literally (i.e. its general and emphatic usage) are acknowledged by 48.0% of commenters (n = 60). However, as seen in example (13), this meaning difference is not presented as a source of potential confusion as it is in those comments arguing against emphatic literally: (13) “In these cases the word literally is literally useless.” Well, no. Not really. In both of your cases whether they mean it literally or figuratively doesn’t really matter to the meaning. It’s a really scary thing. Does it really matter whether it’s actually the scariest thing they’ve ever seen? No. You still get what they’re saying. Meaning conveyed. It’s not ambiguous at all. You’re just being needlessly pedantic like half this thread.

The redditor in example (13) presents the potentially contradictory meanings as something that simply does not matter. To these redditors, the relevant meaning of literally is something that can be derived from context by people who are not being deliberately difficult. In addition to this insistence on the insignificance of the potentially contradictory meanings, there are redditors advocating emphatic literally who acknowledge the meaning difference but champion it as something to be exploited rather than a source of potential confusion: (14) Every time literally gets brought up on reddit, it’s pointed out that the word has been intentionally used in print “incorrectly” as a literary device for hundreds of years. This is not a recent adulteration of the word. In fact, it was never wrong to use it this way. Intentionally using a word that adds connotation, but isn’t a denotative fit is kind of what this whole “language” is all about. Prefacing a metaphor with ‘literally’ forces the audience to consider the literal meaning before translating, which is oftentimes quite funny.

To these redditors, the contrasting meanings of emphatic literally are exactly what gives emphatic literally its value. It is through exploiting these senses that it gains its illustrative abilities. It is precisely this potential that Peters (2004) alludes to when she labels the usage ‘tantalizing’.

84

A. A. Severin

Like Peters’ (2004) usage guide entry, redditors advocating emphatic literally make use of external authorities to support their arguments in approximately one quarter of comments (25.6%; n = 32). In the majority of cases (65.6%; n = 21), these redditors make use of a dictionary (or a generic reference to ‘the dictionary’) to support their argument: (15) The dictionaries give it as a tertiary definition, I’m sure, just to let people know that the ironic/hyperbolic use is ok. They don’t have to do this for every word, but “literally” apparently started enough disputes that they saw the need to include the hyperbolic usage as a separate definition as a way of saying “yes, even literally may be used nonliterally.”

Eight comments from redditors advocating emphatic literally also make reference to notable literary figures and five to linguists. Example (16) includes reference to both literary figures and links to an online article by a linguist: (16) It’s been used as an intensifier of figurative statements for several centuries [hyperlink to an article by linguist Stan Carey]. Some of the greatest writers in English (Fitzgerald, Joyce, Dickens, Brontë, Nabokov) have used it this way. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. It’s being used precisely the same way that the following words in bold are used: Although I’m actually laid-back on usage peeves in general, using “literally” as an intensifier really makes my blood boil. It’s truly a plague on the English language. Do you see how those uses are identical, yet no one minds? Does that in any way change your view on the matter?

In addition to citing authoritative sources, redditors also give linguistic counterexamples to the argument that emphatic literally is confusing in 16.7% of cases (n = 21). This includes instances of other intensifiers, as in example (16), and examples of non-literal or metaphorical language use, as in example (17): (17) If I had gold I’d give it to you. I’ve been saying this for years. Just like when people get offended by the word “fucking” or Christians try and call it a sin. If Jesus were to stand in front of me, and my broken down car, hypothetically speaking, and I said, “My fuck’n car broke down”, he would know exactly what I meant, and wouldn’t get offended. Unlike virtually everyone else in this world, he knows that by saying “fuck’n” I’m not insinuating that my car has any kind of sexual anatomy, and is engaging in sexual intercourse.

These linguistic counterexamples present emphatic literally as a logical feature of language which adheres to its systematicity. Emphatic literally is not an illogical anomaly as it presented by its opponents but rather a symptom of various systems of the English language. In supporting their arguments with evidence from authoritative sources such as dictionaries and linguists and with linguistic evidence, these commenters align themselves with the descriptive tradition and attempt to place their arguments into the

5 Language Literally Changes: Usage Guides …

85

realm of scientific fact. In presenting their arguments as based in science, they position opposing arguments as illogical, unsubstantiated, and based in ignorance. Order in language serves as a proxy for ‘moral, social and political’ order (Cameron 2012: 25) and redditors’ proclamations serve to affirm this order. Advocates for emphatic literally do not make use of usage guides to support the arguments they make on Reddit; however, the arguments they do make mirror the single usage guide entry which advocates for emphatic literally. These redditors welcome the descriptive tradition and make use of resources that align with that tradition. Moreover, they reject arguments made in prescriptive usage guides and, while they never address the existence of these directly, they openly challenge the arguments contained within them when they are made by opponents of emphatic literally in online discourse.

5.6 Conclusion I have explored the ways in which usage guide authors within the HUGE database and redditors advocate and oppose emphatic literally. Opponents of emphatic literally on Reddit engage in similar strategies to usage guide authors when justifying their usage judgments. The same can be said of advocates of the usage (although, admittedly, only one usage guide entry strongly supports emphatic literally); however, while the strategies redditors and usage guide authors use may be similar, there is a noticeable lack of reference to usage guides as a linguistic authority within the Reddit dataset. The similarities across the Reddit and HUGE datasets suggest that the arguments made in usage guides have potentially entered broader cultural understandings of language—even if members of the public are not aware of the source of those arguments; however, it is also equally possible that usage guides reflect pre-existing understandings of language. As Peters (2006) notes, prescriptive usage literature is characterized by a prevalence of authors’ personal subjective opinions on usage. Thus, it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine which came first: public distaste for emphatic literally or pronouncements against it in usage guides. Did aversion to emphatic literally begin as an author’s individual preference and spread into Anglophone culture—or was it the reverse? Do pronouncements by usage guide authors reflect the (metalinguistic) zeitgeist of their time of writing? Given the dearth of readily available everyday metalinguistic discussion from historical sources, it is unclear if such a question may ever conclusively be answered.

Appendix: Usage Guides from 1918–2010 Amis, K. (1997). The King’s English: A Guide to Modern Usage. London: HarperCollins Publishers. Ayto, J. (2002). Good English! 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

86

A. A. Severin

Bailie, J. & Kitchin, M. (1988). The Essential Guide to English Usage. 2nd edn. London: Chancellor Press. Batko, A. (2004). When Bad Grammar Happens to Good People: How to Avoid Common Errors in English. Franklin Lakes, NJ: Career Press. Blamires, H. (1994). The Queen’s English. London: Bloomsbury. Brians, P. (2003). Common Errors in English Usage. Wilsonville, OR: William James and Co. Bryson, B. (1984). The Penguin Dictionary of Troublesome Words. London: Guild Publishing. Burchfield, R. W. (1981). The Spoken Word: A BBC Guide. London: BBC. Burchfield, R. W., Weiner, E. & Hawkins, J. (1984). The Oxford Guide to the English Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Burt, A. (2002). The A to Z of Correct English. 2nd edn. Oxford: How To Books Ltd. Butterfield, J. (ed.) (2007). Oxford A-Z of English Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dear, I. C. B. (ed.) (1986). Oxford English: A Guide to the Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ebbitt, W. R. & Ebbitt, D. R. (1978). Writer’s Guide and Index to English. 6th edn. Glenview, Cook County, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company. Evans, B. & Evans, C. (1957). A Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage. New York: Random House. Fogarty, M. (2008). Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin. Follett, W. (1966). Modern American Usage: A Guide. New York: Hill & Wang. Fowler, H. W. (1926). A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Fowler, H. W. (1965). A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. 2nd edn. [Revised by Ernest Gowers]. New York: Oxford University Press. Fowler, H. W. & Burchfield, R. W. (1996). The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage. 3rd edn. New York: Oxford University Press. Fowler, H. W. & Burchfield, R. W. (1999). Pocket Fowler’s Modern English Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Garner, B. A. (1998). A Dictionary of Modern American Usage. New York: Oxford University Press. Gilman, E. W. (ed.) (1989). Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage. Springfield, MA: MerriamWebster. Greenbaum, S. & Whitcut, J. (1988). Longman Guide to English Usage. Harlow: Longman. Heffer, S. (2010). Strictly English: the correct way to write … and why it matters. London: Random House. Howard, G. (1993). The Good English Guide. London and Basingstoke: Pan Macmillan Publishers Ltd. Krapp, G. P. (1927). A Comprehensive Guide to Good English. New York: Rand McNally. Lamb, B. C. (2010). The Queen’s English and how to use it. London: Michael O’Mara Books Ltd. Marriott, S. & Farrell, B. (1992). Chambers Common Errors in English. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. Mello Vianna, F. de, Steinhardt, A. D. & La Mond, C. (eds.) (1977). The Written Word. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Morris, W. & Morris, M. (1975). Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage. London: Harper & Row. Nicholson, M. (1957). A Dictionary of American-English Usage: Based on Fowler’s Modern English Usage. New York: Oxford University Press. O’Conner, P. (1996). Woe is I. New York: Riverhead Books. Partridge, E. (1942). Usage and Abusage. London: Hamish Hamilton. Peters, P. (2004). The Cambridge Guide to English Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pickett, J. P., Kleinedler, S. & Spitz, S. (eds.) (2005). The American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin. Randall, B. (1988). Webster’s New World Guide to Current American Usage. New York: Prentice Hall, Simon & Schuster.

5 Language Literally Changes: Usage Guides …

87

Sayce, K. (2006). What Not to Write: A Guide to the Dos and Don’ts of Good English London: Words at Work. Stilman, A. (1997). Grammatically Correct: The Writer’s Essential Guide to Punctuation, Spelling, Style, Usage and Grammar. Cincinnati, OH: Writer’s Digest. Strunk, W. (1918). The Elements of Style. New York: Privately published. Sutcliffe, A. J. (ed.) (1994). The New York Public Library Writer’s Guide to Style and Usage. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. Taggart, C. (2010). Her Ladyship’s Guide to the Queen’s English. London: National Trust. Trask, R. L. (2001). Mind the Gaffe: The Penguin Guide to Common Errors in English. London: Penguin Books. Vallins, G. H. (1951). Good English: How to Write It. London: Pan Books. Vallins, G. H. (1953). Better English. London: André Deutsch. Weiner, E. & Delahunty, A. (1994). The Oxford Guide to English Usage. 2nd edn. London: BCA. Wilson, K. G. (1993). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. New York: Columbia University Press. Wood, F. T. (1962). Current English Usage. London: Macmillan.

References Anderwald, L. (2012). Clumsy, awkward or having a peculiar propriety? Prescriptive judgements and language change in the 19th century. Language Sciences, 34(1), 28–53. https://doi.org/10. 1016/j.langsci.2011.06.002. Bax, R. C. (2008). Foolish, foolisher, foolishest: Eighteenth-century English grammars and the comparison of adjectives and adverbs. In I. Tieken-Boon van Ostade (Ed.), Grammars, grammarians and grammar-writing in eighteenth-century England (pp. 279–288). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Burchfield, R. W. (1979). The Fowlers: Their achievements in lexicography and grammar. Presidential Address to the English Association. London: The English Association. Cameron, D. (2012). Verbal hygiene (2nd ed.). London/New York: Routledge. Chapman, D. (2012). You say nuclear; i say your stupid: Popular prescriptivism in the politics of the United States. In C. Percy & M. C. Davidson (Eds.), The languages of nation: Attitudes and norms (Multilingual Matters) (Vol. 148, pp. 192–207). Bristol/Buffalo: Multilingual Matters. Curzan, A. (2014). Fixing English: Prescriptivism and language history. New York: Cambridge University Press. de Bres, J. (2010). Attitudes of non-Maori New Zealanders towards the use of Maori in New Zealand English. New Zealand English Journal, 24, 2–14. Ebner, C. (2017). Proper English usage: A sociolinguistic investigation of attitudes towards usage problems in British English. LOT 468. Utrecht: Landelijke Onderzoekschool Taalwetenschap PhD. Green, J. (1996). Chasing the sun: Dictionary makers and the dictionaries they made (1st American ed.). New York: Henry Holt. Lukaˇc, M. (2018). From usage guides to language blogs. In I. Tieken-Boon van Ostade (Ed.), English usage guides: History, advice, attitudes (pp. 107–126). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Merriam-Webster.com. (2019). literally, adverb. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lit erally. Milroy, J., & Milroy, L. (2012). Authority in language: Investigating standard English (4th ed.). London/New York: Routledge. NVivo qualitative data analysis software. (2018). Version 12. QSR International Pty Ltd. OED Online. Oxford University Press. www.oed.com/view/Entry/109061.

88

A. A. Severin

Penry Williams, C. (2011). Exploring social meanings of variation in Australian English. Melbourne: The University of Melbourne. PhD thesis. Peters, P. (2006). English usage: Prescription and description. In B. Aarts & A. McMahon (Eds.), The handbook of English linguistics (pp. 759–780). Williston, ND: Blackwell. Severin, A. A. (2017). Vigilance or tolerance? Younger speakers’ attitudes to Australian English usage. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 37(2), 156–181. https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602. 2017.1239521. Severin, A. A. (2018). The nature of prescriptivism and descriptivism online: The case of Reddit and r/badlinguistics. Melbourne: Monash University. PhD thesis. Straaijer, R. (2014). Hyper usage guide of English (HUGE) database. Bridging the unbridgeable: Linguists, prescriptivists and the general public. http://huge.ullet.net. Straaijer, R. (2018). The usage guide: Evolution of a genre. In I. Tieken-Boon van Ostade (Ed.), English usage guides: History, advice, attitudes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 11–30. Tieken-Boon van Ostade, I. (2010). The usage guide: Its birth and popularity. English Today, 26(2), 14–23. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266078410000052. Tieken-Boon van Ostade, I. (2011). The bishop’s grammar: Robert Lowth and the rise of prescriptivism in English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. van der Meulen, M. (2019). Obama, SCUBA or gift?: Authority and argumentation in online discussion on the pronunciation of GIF. English Today, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1017/S02660784190 00142.

Alyssa A. Severin completed her Ph.D. in linguistics at Monash University in 2018 under the supervision of Kate Burridge, Julie Bradshaw and Louisa Willoughby. She currently teaches linguistics at Macquarie University and the University of New England. While her current work focuses on prescriptivism in online spaces, she has previously published her work on Australian English speakers’ language attitudes in the Australian Journal of Linguistics. Her most recent work with Kate Burridge on prescriptivism among Australian English speakers is due to be published in 2020. Email: [email protected].

Chapter 6

Closing Salutations in Email Messages: User Attitudes and Interpersonal Effects Simon Musgrave

Abstract The header section of an email message specifies the identity of the sender (at least for personal accounts) and therefore repeating this information in the body of the message is redundant. Nevertheless, email messages do often include some closing salutation with the writer’s name, a phatic expression, or both. Using data from an online survey of email users, this study looks at the range of expressions used by writers and establishes that most users have a repertoire of closing salutations from which they choose for individual messages. Comments revealing users’ attitudes to the various possibilities which they read and write show that this is an element of email communication where users consciously make choices to advance interpersonal goals. In particular, politeness (or its lack) is seen as important. For at least some users, politeness in this context is construed as the acceptance of an imposition by the writer: making the effort to include a salutation (or a more extended version of one) is seen as indicating politeness. Keywords Computer Mediated Communication · Email · Politeness

6.1 Introduction The initial impetus for the research reported here was the observation that Kate Burridge, on occasion, closes email messages with the salutation Ooroo. This prompted me to ask the question: Is Kate unique? (at least in this respect—her friends and colleagues already know the answer to the question more generally). At this point with more than 800 responses to a survey, the hypothesis that Kate is unique has not been falsified—but a counterexample could be waiting in the next message that you or I open.

S. Musgrave (B) School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC 3800, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 K. Allan (ed.), Dynamics of Language Changes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6430-7_6

89

90

S. Musgrave

My initial observation also leads to other questions. Not all of Kate’s emails messages end with Ooroo, she makes choices about what to include or leave out. As Sherblom (1988: 44) points out, adding one’s name and possibly some salutation to the end of an email message is informationally redundant given that standard email clients display a From field for all messages. What Sherblom calls a signature is therefore ‘a paralinguistic reflection of the hierarchical and communication relationships between the … sender and the receiver’, it is a locus of interpersonal activity in email exchanges. Previous research has looked at how various interpersonal factors might be reflected in the use of closing salutation, but the results have not always been consistent (as will be discussed shortly). There is an abundance of advice available online about good and bad endings for email messages,1 and such advice presupposes that this is an aspect of communication which users can consciously manipulate, but little if any research has looked at the perceptions email users have of closing salutations, either as senders or as recipients. Some early research on the characteristics of email as a communicative form (e.g. Sherblom 1988) noted the importance of the section which followed the informative part of the message. Sherblom called this element the signature, but this term has now acquired a special meaning in relation to email and cannot be used for this section which may include some phatic formula and a name. Others, especially those coming from a conversation analysis perspective (Godson 1994; Harrison 2002), use the term closing and others extend this to complementary closing (Scheyder 2003). It is not clear, however, what the scope of a closing is. Where would we draw the boundary for an email message which closed thus: (1) Thanks. Best, X. My focus here is on the last line in (1), the part which includes either some phatic formula or some name or both. As the structure mirrors the possibility of the opening salutation (Hi, Sue and Hi Sue are all possible), I will use the term closing salutation in what follows.2 The absence of any kind of closing salutation in a message is one factor which has been discussed in relation to interpersonal factors. Sherblom (1988) reported that hierarchical relations affected the proportion of messages which had no closing salutation (signature in his terminology); Table 6.1 summarises these findings. ‘Direction’ in the table refers to relative position in the relevant hierarchy, a message ‘Upward’ is from a person lower in the hierarchy to someone higher in the hierarchy.

1 Examples include: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/how-to-end-an-email (How to End an Email:

9 Best and Worst Email Sign-Offs) and https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/ how-to-end-an-email (How to End an Email (With Examples)). 2 A participant in the survey commented that ‘closing salutation is an oxymoron’. But although salute is etymologically grounded in greeting, it has broadened its meaning: a salute can be used either for greeting or for leave-taking.

6 Closing Salutations in Email Messages: User Attitudes …

91

Table 6.1 Percentage of closings (signatures) across various conditions (data from Sherblom 1988) Direction

Signature Yes (%)

Upward

No (%)

33

67

Downward

0

100

Horizontal

13

87

For other offices

39

61

Totals

21

79

A number of subsequent studies have therefore included this as a variable to investigate, on the assumption that it can be an indicator of hierarchical relationships between senders and recipients. Findings from some of these studies are summarised in Table 6.2, where it is evident that the proportion of messages without a closing salutation varies widely (between 0% and 35%; if Sherblom’s results are included, the range extends up to 100% for one condition). These studies cover a variety of sociocultural environments; with the exception of Bou-Franch (2011), they do not control for a variable whose importance will be confirmed by my results: position of a message in a thread. Taken together, these results suggest that without very careful control of a wide range of variables, studies of formal aspects of closing salutations cannot tell us a great deal about the interpersonal effect of those elements. Therefore, investigating users’ perceptions of how they Table 6.2 Percentage of messages with no closing as reported in various studies Study

% no closing

Sample size

Data source

Orlikowski and Yates (1994)

35

1332

Group working on software standardisation

8

62

Company UK

25

76

University HK

13

77

Interpersonal HK

0

500?

34

394

Gains (1999) Lan (2000) Crystal (2001) Waldvogel (2007)

Author’s personal files Educational organisation

Chiluwa (2010)

0

49

Bou-Franch (2011)

3

240

University Spain

Félix-Brasdefer (2012)

2

320

Student/instructor messages

Li and McGrgegor (2012)

17

111

Company HKa

Hallajian and David (2014)

13

91

McKeown and Zhang (2015)

23

387

Company UK

Huang (2016)

20

919

Taiwanese and Italian EFL students

a This

Hoax emails

Student/supervisor messages

figure may be too high; the authors acknowledge that it is possible that some material was removed before the data was released to them

92

S. Musgrave

deploy closing salutations and how they respond to these elements in messages which they receive may be a profitable research strategy. The basis of such research is the assumption that email users do make choices about elements they include or omit. This means that it is also important to assess the extent and range of variation which individuals use in their email practice. Sherblom noted in 1988 that research on email had followed two paths: experimental studies and survey studies. He rightly pointed out that surveys are inherently limited: ‘Drawing conclusions on how people use electronic mail from how respondents to a survey say they use it is inherently problematic’ (1988: 42). However, this objection carries less weight when the focus of the research is on the attitudes which users of email have to their own use of closing salutations and that of their interlocutors and nowadays an online survey is an appropriate tool to use for at least initial research. Online surveys make it possible to reach large populations easily and cheaply although this comes at the cost of having little or no control over who participates in the survey. Because such a survey can be completely anonymous, consent is straightforward (which is not the case for studies which collect actual email from users). In the current study, this was true even though a small amount of actual use data was collected. The nature of this (three examples of closing salutations) was such as to not raise any ethical concerns and simple consent procedures were approved by the Monash Human Research Ethics Committee. The survey reported here had four main aims (aside from uncovering other Ooroo users): 1. To investigate the range of closing salutations used by a large sample of email users. 2. To assess the extent to which users were aware of the effect of contextual factors in determining their usage. 3. To collect a small sample of actual usage of closing salutations from a large sample of email users as a check on the self-report data. 4. To collect information about attitudes to the email users’ own practice for closing salutations and to the practice of their correspondents. Such data will establish the range of closing salutations used across a variety of contexts, the extent to which the use of salutation differs between at least two contexts (work-related and other), the extent to which what email users claim is their practice corresponds to their actual usage, and how email users perceive the interpersonal effect of different kinds of closing salutation. Sherblom’s observation about the limits of survey data is addressed at least in part by this approach; the data is inevitably limited, but it does allow us to make some observations which can serve as the basis for further research.

6 Closing Salutations in Email Messages: User Attitudes …

93

6.2 Methodology 6.2.1 Data Collection The data for this study was collected using an online survey, the complete text of which is given as Appendix 6.1 to this chapter. The survey was distributed using the Qualtrics platform. The existence of the survey was announced on Facebook and Twitter, and various friends and colleagues reposted these announcements to their networks. The survey was open for responses for 12 days and 805 responses were received in that time. The first ten responses were submitted by friends and colleagues who were invited to preview the survey. Some changes were made on the basis of their feedback and those initial responses were discarded from analysis. Basic demographic data was collected: gender, age (within a range), and whether English was the respondent’s primary language. Not all participants completed these questions but the analysis presented here only uses these variables in looking at one question. Incomplete responses were discarded for that analysis only; elsewhere, I took the position that in an exploratory study, any data are of value. The demographic make-up of the sample was as follows. The sample included 473 females (62%),3 264 males (35%) and 23 people who chose not to specify a gender identity (3%). 452 respondents were between 18 and 40 years of age (59%), 268 were between 40 and 60 (35%) and 50 were over 60 (6%).4 Only a small minority of the sample did not have English as their primary language: 74 of the 782 participants who answered that question (9%).

6.2.2 Categorisation Question 12 allowed participants to select which of a range of common salutations they used. Question 13 asked participants to supply salutations which they used which were not options in question 12, while questions 14, 15, and 18 asked participants to report the use of salutations. Many responses to these questions were variants of the possibilities offered in question 12. For example, Thanks was an option in question 12 and 131 responses to question 13 were variant expressions of gratitude such as Many thanks, Thank you and Thanks again, and abbreviations such as Ta, Thx and TIA. All of these responses to questions 12 and 13 were grouped under the general title Thanks. Yongyan (2000) adopts a broad division between closing formulae which indicate good will, express gratitude or express expectation. Other scholars use specific lists based on the data in their samples (Gains 1999; Li and McGregor 2012), and I have followed this practice. In general, the categories used here are based on the forms 3 Percentages are calculated for the total responses to the question not the total number of participants. 4 There

were two respondents who chose not to specify an age (0.2%).

94

S. Musgrave

used and did not attempt to make a semantic categorisation; one partial exception to this is discussed later in this paragraph. A grouping was constructed for all salutations which included the word Regards, and another for all salutations which included the word Wishes. These two groups included the expressions Best regards and Best wishes respectively, but expressions which included the word best without a modified noun were counted in a separate category. The basis for keeping these groups separate is firstly syntactic: in an expression such as All the best, it is not clear exactly what is included in the best; the superlative form is treated as a noun rather than modifying another word. The distinction is also semantic; expressions such as Best regards name a kind of beneficial feeling which is being transmitted, but with All the best, this content has to be inferred.5 The category of Names included all personally identifying expressions: initials, just first name, first name and last name, and nicknames. The expression Cheers is a category on its own; it is unusual here in being consistently a single form. Inevitably, there is an Other category, which includes a wide range of possibilities some of which are described in the following section.

6.3 Results 6.3.1 Range of Salutations Questions 12 and 13 aimed to investigate the range of salutations used in email messages. Question 12 elicited 2645 choices and question 13 added another 538 responses.6 With 795 respondents in total, this means that the average number of salutations listed is 3.78 per participant. Many of the responses given to question 13 were variants of possibilities offered in question 12 and these were categorised as described above. Figure 6.1 shows the proportion of responses in each of these categories. The Other category consists of 305 responses which are broken into categories in Table 6.3. Again, the categorisation here is based on forms, with the exception of the category Religion which included expressions with religious content regardless of form. The category titled Love consists of all reported salutations which included the word love while the category Emotion includes other expressions of affection such as hugs or xxx. Five other categories are based on specific words: Take care is a consistent expression; soon includes expressions such as See you soon and Talk soon; yours includes salutations taken from traditional letter writing such as Yours sincerely and Yours faithfully, but also bare Yours; looking forward includes expression consisting of those words and various anticipated events, such as looking forward to your reply or looking forward to hearing from you; have a includes expressions enjoining the reader to have a good day or have a great weekend and variants; and the Adverb category 5 This

lack of specific content is one factor in the strong antipathy to Best reported by several respondents, see below. 6 Some responses at Q13 included options already given in Q12 and these were not counted again.

6 Closing Salutations in Email Messages: User Attitudes …

95

Fig. 6.1 Reported use of salutations by category

Table 6.3 Categories within the Other group

Category

Count

Love

59

Emotion

32

Language other than English

18

Religion Soon

7 33

Yours

35

Take care

16

Adverb

13

Looking forward

13

Have a..

16

Uncategorised

63

includes salutations consisting of bare adverbs such as Cordially or Warmly. The languages other than English (LOTEs) which respondents reported using included French, Italian and M¯aori amongst others. Three respondents reported using Salam as a salutation; this was categorised with the LOTE responses rather than in the Religion category which therefore consisted only of Christian salutations such as God bless. The responses which remain uncategorised include a range of expression such as Happy [x]day, In solidarity, some expressions which had specific uses (Yours furiously, With sisterly love), as well as some responses which I take to be facetious (I remain, Sir/Madam, your humble servant. In total, 191 types were given as responses to question 13.

96

S. Musgrave

Fig. 6.2 Responses to Q12 by gender (%)

Fig. 6.3 Responses to Q12 by age (%)

6.3.2 Age and Gender Responses to question 12 were broken down on the basis of gender (Fig. 6.2) and age (Fig. 6.3).7 There are some small differences in responding between females and males. Males chose Cheers a little more than females, and females had a tendency to choose longer forms where that was possible; they chose [full name] more than males, and preferences for Regards and Kind regards are complementary. This tendency may be related to a view which equates politeness with effort on the part of the writer; this is discussed later (Sect. 6.4). 7 In

these two figures, Best wishes includes With best wishes and Warmest wishes.

6 Closing Salutations in Email Messages: User Attitudes …

97

The most striking item in Fig. 6.3 is Best wishes, which was chosen twice as often by the oldest group compared to the younger groups. Four choices show a pattern of fewer responses across the groups from youngest to oldest (Best, Thanks, [first name] and [full name]), while three show the opposite pattern (Kind regards, All the best and [initials]).

6.3.3 Use of Signatures Signatures are blocks of material (typically text but also including images such as logos) which are automatically added to the end of all messages sent from an email account. Such signatures often consist of the writer’s name, positions held (if relevant) and contact details. It is possible to include a salutation in this block, but this was not the preferred option for the respondents. There were 752 responses to question 8, which asked about use of a signature (i.e. 84.5% of respondents answered); 515 respondents answered that they used a signature for at least one account and 237 did not use signatures at all (i.e. 68.5% of respondents to the question use a signature and 31.5% do not and 64.0% of all respondents answered yes and 29.4% of all respondents answered no). Question 10 asked whether respondents included a salutation in their signature; responses to this question in relation to (a) answers to just question 8, (b) answers to question 10, and (c) all responses are detailed in Table 6.4. Question 11 asked for information about salutations which were used in signatures. The responses were grouped in the same way as responses to question 12 (discussed above) with the addition that Yours salutations were included in the main categorisation as they were more prominent in the signature responses. Figure 6.4 compares the proportions of these major categories of salutations as reported for general use and for use in signatures. We can see that the Regards category is proportionally used much more in signatures and that the Yours category, while still small, is proportionally used twice as much in signatures as in general. The other four categories are all used less in signatures, with the Wishes category showing the largest difference (2.51% in signatures compared to 10.1% in general). Several responses to question 11 made it clear that respondents included a salutation in work emails only, for example: Table 6.4 Salutations in signatures

Includes salutation

No salutation included

Responses to Q10

132

505

% responses Q10

20.7

79.3

% responses Q8

17.6

67.2

% total respondents

16.4

62.7

98

S. Musgrave

Fig. 6.4 Proportions of salutations overall compared to proportions of salutations in signatures

(2) “Thanks!” In my work email. (3) “Best” from professional account. (4) Work email—Regards, personal email—none. This suggests that the results displayed in Fig. 6.4 can be interpreted as indicating that Regards and Yours are viewed as more appropriate for a work-related email account, and that the other possibilities are seen as less suitable. Although the question was intended to elicit responses only from participants who did include a salutation in a signature, many responses were given stating explicitly that the respondent used a signature without a salutation. There were 137 such responses, which is more than were recorded for any category of salutations—there were 102 responses for the Regards category which was the largest other group of responses. Within this group of responses, there were also ten participants who explicitly stated that they added salutations on a message by message basis: (5) I personally write every salutation, its not included in my signature. (6) Just my name and info, I personalize the salutations. (7) I will always add the salutation in myself. There were a total of 300 responses to this question; therefore almost half of the responses (45.7%) recorded non-use of a salutation, which suggests that the idea of including a salutation in a signature may have been surprising to some respondents. The results for this group of questions also suggest that most email users prefer to retain at least the possibility of varying the salutation they use to close a message.

6 Closing Salutations in Email Messages: User Attitudes …

99

Fig. 6.5 Comparison of salutations used in work-related and non-work-related messages

6.3.4 Work-Related and Non-work-Related Usage Questions 14 and 15 asked respondents whether their use of salutations varied between work-related emails and non-work-related emails.8 There were 564 responses to the questions about work-related messages (question 14) and 479 responses to question 15. In both cases, some of the responses listed more than one salutation. Figure 6.5 shows the comparative proportions of different types of salutations in the two domains. There are very obvious differences in the reported usage. The salutation categories which consist of a conventionalised phatic formula are more common in work settings, with the Regards category being eight times more common there than in the other setting. The exception to this, is Cheers, which is a dispreferred option for work messages. On the other hand, emotional phatic formulae (which includes some abbreviations and emoticons) only occur in the non-work environment. Minimal closings with just a name or nothing at all are almost not used in work-related communications, suggesting that respondents see such messages as almost requiring them to close with some phatic gesture, but one of a rather impersonal kind. The range of possibilities used in non-work related messages is also wider: one category (Yours) is only minimally represented in the non-work-related domain, while two categories are entirely absent from the work domain, two others are only minimally present, and the proportion of responses which did not fall into any of the coding categories was larger.

8 For

many respondents, this would also involve using different accounts.

100

S. Musgrave

Fig. 6.6 Comparison of percentages of categories for last three emails

Fig. 6.7 Comparison of percentages of salutations reported at Q12/13 and at Q18

6.3.5 Actual Usage All the data presented so far is based on introspection: participants were asked to report on their usage of salutations in the abstract. Question 18 asked participants to report the salutations actually used in the last three emails which they sent, from memory if possible or by checking if necessary. Figure 6.6 compares the percentages of salutations across the sets of responses. The patterns are very similar, suggesting that whatever other factors might be influencing usage, they did not vary for the three occasions reported. The majority of respondents had all three responses in the same category (371 out of 547, 68%), whilst 17% (91 responses) included two categories and 16% (85 responses) had three different categories.9 Figure 6.7 compares the responses from questions 12 and 13 with the responses from question 18. Figure 6.7 shows us that the intuitions which participants have about their use of closing salutations are generally very close to actual usage (to the extent that such 9 Percentages

do not sum to 100 due to rounding.

6 Closing Salutations in Email Messages: User Attitudes …

101

usage is accurately represented by the small sample considered here). This is not true, however, for Name only closings, where actual usage is less than half the claimed rate of occurrence, and for the None category, where actual usage is about twice the claimed rate.

6.3.6 Attitudes to Use of Salutations Question 16 was an open invitation for participants to comment on their own use of salutations, or that of others; 275 participants responded to this question and several themes emerge from their answers. Firstly, many answers show that participants are aware that their usage is dependent on context. Several answers noted differences in usage in different locations and for different varieties of English10 : (8)

I’m in the US so this undoubtedly different but many of the others you list would seem weird to me, like “kind regards”, except “cheers” which would seem charmingly non American. (9) Different for UK, US and international. Int most formal, UK cheers, US: best. (10) UK English. I adopted salutations on moving to the UK and realising my US salutations were sometimes considered less appropriate. The perceived level of formality of an exchange is also a contextual factor which many responses described as important: (11) “Cheers” always seems out of place to me in formal or work contexts. (12) Content of email (request or otherwise), level of formality in relationship. (13) How I use closing salutations mainly depends on whether the email is formal/informal. Another contextual factor mentioned by many responses is the position of a message within a thread. All such responses indicated a tendency to reduce or eliminate salutations as a thread progressed: (14) In long email threads, even for work related emails, both greetings AND salutations tend to get dropped. Especially if the replies are being sent in quick succession. (15) My salutations become less formal within a thread as familiarity increases. A related idea expressed by a number of responses is that the use of salutation should be symmetrical; this can apply to an exchange from the start, but also can apply in relation to changing usage within a thread: (16) If I am responding to an existing thread, I take cues from people who have previously written something and often become more casual as the thread continues. 10 No

alterations have been made to these responses.

102

S. Musgrave

(17) When I was working, I monitored opening and closing salutations to try and reciprocate. (18) If I send a closing salutation and they don’t send one back, I’ll stop using one and mimic their closing in my subsequent replies. This last response makes explicit the general point underlying this research: closings are not treated as automatic or formulaic in email writing but are subject to user choice. A number of responses express strong antipathy to some closing salutation. Best is the most common target of this dislike, but not the only one: (19) I strongly dislike ‘yours’ and ‘best’. Yours sounds weirdly personal these days, like you’re a guy at work you’re not mine! And best is annoying because it’s like they think they’re too busy to type out “all the”. (20) Just writing ‘Best’ makes me cringe. Nobody says that in real life. Ever. It’s some weird affectation that spreads like a disease. (21) I hate ‘Best.’ It is the most impersonal and icky of the lot. Never use it, cringe when I read it. (22) I hate the expression “kind regards”! One respondent would prefer to do away with closing salutations altogether, but the opposite point of view also was expressed: (23) I hate them and would prefer not to use them. I think they’re stupid and redundant especially in emails to people you have to contact everyday. (24) I find it simple courtesy to use a closing salutation, no matter how short the email. No responses express levels of liking for salutations, overall or individually, comparable to the negative views, but many responses nevertheless emphasised the perceived importance of closing salutations as part of interpersonal positioning, and I now turn to these topics. (24) introduces another important theme in the open responses, politeness and rudeness. Some responses talk explicitly of rudeness: (25) I find that a simple ‘thanks’ is sufficient. Some people don’t even write their name, which I find quite rude. (26) I find “best” on it’s own rude. It implies that the sender didn’t consider the recipient worthy of the time it takes to type “wishes”. In other cases, words like abrupt are used: (27) I feel like they don’t have a purpose other than avoiding abruptness. (28) I notice when others don’t use a salutation, it changes the tone of the email and sounds much more efficient and abrupt to me. Another theme deals with a dimension which is related to politeness, warmth and its opposite, coldness.

6 Closing Salutations in Email Messages: User Attitudes …

103

(29) Kind or warm regards feels a bit too emotional to me, even though I like it when others use these as they appear more open and warm somehow. (30) Regards and kind regards feel cold to me—I only use these in relation to problematic issues. One answer clearly relates the two dimensions, with abruptness and lack of warmth brought together: (31) I think salutations soften an email and make it warmer, especially to people you know (whether friends or colleagues). I always notice an abrupt end to emails with no salutation and feel they are less warm. A surprising theme in this data focuses on the notion of passive-aggressive behaviour.11 There are two aspects to this theme. Firstly, some respondents report that they perceive certain salutations to be passive-aggressive, and in some cases, they have changed their own usage in response to such perceptions: (32) I stopped using “cheers” after I heard it could be construed as passive aggressive. (33) I used to always use regards until I read a tweet indicating that many people perceive that to be passive aggressive, and now I’m not sure what to do. The second aspect of this is represented by responses in which participants explain how they consciously use salutations in what they think is a passive-aggressive manner: (34) I use ‘Best’ passive-aggressively to mean ‘me, I’m the best.’ (35) Anything other than “Thanks” or “Thankyou” I use mostly passiveaggressively, varying by situation; appearing helpful and polite, but actually quite frustrated that something has taken more than two emails to resolve when I am a thorough and wordy writer. In one instance, the writer acknowledges that their intention may not actually be communicated: (36) I use best regards in a passive-aggressive manner, such as when someone did not read my email for the relevant information that they then follow up about. I don’t think the other person reads it that way, but it helps me not yell at them in an email. This theme shows again that at least some email writers do not treat closings as formulaic, rather seeing them as having potential for achieving interpersonal goals.

11 The

Oxford English Dictionary defines passive-aggressive (in part) as ‘a personality type … in which aggression is expressed through passively obstructive behaviour’.

104

S. Musgrave

6.4 Discussion The results presented above show that, for the most part, the introspective responses of the participants about their use of closing salutations correspond well with a limited sample of their actual usage and, on that basis, we can take those introspective responses as the starting point for some discussion. The results show that individuals do have varied repertoires of closing salutations, with the average number of possibilities reported being 3.78 per participant, suggesting that email writers choose amongst a range of possibilities. This mean tells us nothing about the frequency with which writers use the different forms and it is therefore not inconsistent with the finding that for 68% of respondents their last three emails used the same closing salutation. This point also needs to be kept in mind when considering the results concerning age and gender. There were few differences in reported usage, but the frequency of use of various possibilities may well be different. It is interesting that only two comments offered in question 16 mention gender as a factor influencing usage: (37) I think sometimes that regards seems a bit formal but it’s just habit and I generally try to convey warmth in the email. However, also a bit conflicted about that given discussions about women using weak language. (38) I always use more formal salutations when I’m emailing women, someone older than me, or someone who I am not yet familiar with. Both of these comments also exemplify the way in which email writers may consciously use elements such as the closing salutation to advance their interactive goals. The data presented here has a rate for the absence of a closing which is at the low end of the ranges previously reported, but comments from participants make it clear that the rate would vary if position in a thread was a factor which had been considered here. The low rate of messages without a closing salutation is, however, consistent with the concern for politeness expressed by several participants, shown in a bare statement by one (see also (24) above): (39) I believe in being polite. There is also a connection made between politeness and some degree of effort on the part of the writer, and this in turn is related to the antipathy to Best noted above (previous example repeated, see also (26)): (26) I find “best” on it’s own rude. It implies that the sender didn’t consider the recipient worthy of the time it takes to type “wishes”. This attitude may apply more generally and be related to other elements in email communication. Lan (2000: 24) quotes a university student participating in an online discussion of the use of Standard English in emails saying: ‘I have received messages from professors that had more words misspelled than spelled correctly, and to me that says that they really did not feel that I was worth their time.’ Much of the work

6 Closing Salutations in Email Messages: User Attitudes …

105

on impoliteness following from Culpeper (1996) has focused on the commission of communicative acts; these comments suggest that omission of some communicative acts is perceived as impolite also. In terms of the classic account of politeness (Brown and Levinson 1987), these omissions could be construed as a lack of attention to the positive face needs of the recipient. But the comments quoted above, including that from Lan’s study, suggest that interactants see self-imposed imposition, that is, writers disregarding their own negative face needs, as a polite move. The idea that politeness involves effort on the writer’s part can also be related to the comparative absence of abbreviations in this data. Some earlier studies (e.g. Crystal 2001) have taken abbreviations to be a feature of email communication, including in closing salutations. Not many abbreviations were given as responses in this survey; there are nine which appear in the responses to question 13, and ATB (for All the best) was a response elsewhere, and 11 uses of abbreviations were reported in question 18. It is possible that this rather low use of abbreviations is also a manifestation of the attitude that politeness includes typing an expression in full. But it is also possible that the rarity of abbreviations here is a change over time related to the more recent ubiquity of messaging. The hypothesis would be that email users today see the medium as being higher on the scale of formality than messaging and that they therefore avoid features which they see as very characteristic of messaging, such as extensive use of abbreviations. It should be noted that this hypothesis concerns perceptions about the frequency of abbreviations in messaging; actual rates of use are low (Tagliamonte and Denis 2008). The data from this survey give an overall picture of the use of closing salutations in email messages which has writers using a range of possibilities in different contexts. The factors which influence those choices offer rich possibilities for further research, especially research which probes the choices and motivations of the writers. Such research could build on the attitudinal data presented here which shows that email users are aware of the interpersonal effect of the choices they make in adding (or omitting) a closing salutation for a message, and that at times they attempt to use their choices to achieve specific interactional goals rather than using the closing salutation as a formulaic element in the message. Acknowledgements I am grateful to the colleagues and friends who assisted me by being pilot subjects, especially Brook Bolander whose comments helped me to make important improvements to the survey, and to Michael Haugh for helpful discussion of (im)politeness. I am also grateful to Kate Burridge as a colleague and a friend—and for unwittingly inspiring me to carry out this study.

Appendix 6.1—Survey 1. 2. 3.

Do you regularly use email in English? [Y/N] (exit point) What is your age: Under 18 (exit point); 18–40; 40–60; over 60; prefer not to say What gender do you identify with? Female; Male; Other; Prefer not to say

106

4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12.

13. 14. 15. 16.

17.

18.

S. Musgrave

Is English your primary language? [Y/N] If not, for how long have you used English as one of your languages? Less than 5 years; 5–10 years; More than 10 years Do you regularly use more than one email account? [Y/N] If you use more than one account, what is the main purpose for which you use each one (for example, work messages, personal messages etc)? [Open text] Do you use an email signature? [Y/N] If you use multiple accounts, is your answer the same for all of them? [Y/N] Does your signature (or signatures) include a closing salutation? [Y/N] What salutation(s) are included in your signature(s)? If you have different signatures for different accounts which include different salutations, please report the salutation used and the main purpose of the account. [Open text] Which of the following closing salutations do you use (if any)? Cheers | Best wishes | Best | Kind regards | Regards | Thanks | With best wishes | All the best | Warmest wishes | [first name] | [full name] | [initials] | [no salutation] Do you use other closing salutations? If so, what are they? [Open text] Do you use one closing salutation more commonly in work related messages? If so, which one? [Open text] Do you use one closing salutation more commonly in non-work related messages? If so, which one? [Open text] (Numbered Q18 in online version) If you can remember (or if you can check easily), please enter below the closing salutations of the last three email messages you wrote. [Open text] (Numbered Q19 in online version) If your three answers to the last question were not the same, are you aware of any reasons why you chose one salutation rather than another? [Open text] (Numbered Q16 in online version) If you have any comments about how you use closing salutations or about how you perceive the usage of others, please enter them here. [Open text]

References Bou-Franch, P. (2011). Openings and closings in Spanish email conversations. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(6), 1772–1785. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.11.002. Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. Chiluwa, I. (2010). The pragmatics of hoax email business proposals. Linguistik Online, 43(3), 3–17. Crystal, D. (2001). Language and the internet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Culpeper, J. (1996). Towards an anatomy of impoliteness. Journal of Pragmatics, 25(3), 349–367. Félix-Brasdefer, C. (2012). Email openings and closings: Pragmalinguistic and gender variation in learner-instructor cyber consultations. In E. A. Soler & P. S. Jordà (Eds.), Discourse and language learning across L2 instructional settings. Utrecht Studies in Language and Communication (Vol. 24, pp. 223–248). Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi.

6 Closing Salutations in Email Messages: User Attitudes …

107

Gains, J. (1999). Electronic mail—A new style of communication or just a new medium?: An investigation into the text features of e-mail. English for Specific Purposes, 18(1), 81–101. Godson, L. I. (1994). Conversational structure in electronic mail exchanges. Dissertations and theses. Paper 4848. https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.6724. Hallajian, A., & David, M. K. (2014). “Hello and Good Day to you Dear Dr. …” Greetings and closings in supervisors-supervisees email exchanges. Procedia—Social and Behavioral Sciences, 118, 85–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.02.012. Harrison, S. M. (2002). The discourse structure of email discussions. Birmingham: University of Central England Ph.D. Huang, H.-C. (2016). Openings and closings in intercultural email communication: A case study of Taiwanese, Japanese, and Italian students. In Y.-S. Chen, D.-H. V. Rau, & G. Rau (Eds.), Email discourse among Chinese using English as a Lingua Franca (pp. 185–204). Singapore: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-888-5_9. Lan, L. (2000). Email: A challenge to standard English? English Today, 16(4), 23–29. Li, L., & McGregor, L. (2012). English in tiers in the workplace: A case study of email usage. In G. Forey & J. Lockwood (Eds.), Globalization, communication and the workplace: Talking across the world (pp. 8–24). New York: Continuum. McKeown, J., & Zhang, Q. (2015). Socio-pragmatic influence on opening salutation and closing valediction of British workplace email. Journal of Pragmatics, 85, 92–107. https://doi.org/10. 1016/j.pragma.2015.06.012. Orlikowski, W. J., & Yates, J. (1994). Genre repertoire: The structuring of communicative practices in organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 39, 541–574. Scheyder, E. C. (2003). The use of complementary closing in emails: American English examples. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 19(1), 27–42. Sherblom, J. (1988). Direction, function, and signature in electronic mail. Journal of Business Communication, 25(4), 39–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/002194368802500403. Tagliamonte, S. A., & Denis, D. (2008). Linguistic ruin? LOL! instant messaging and teen language. American Speech, 83(1), 3–34. https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-2008-001. Waldvogel, J. (2007). Greetings and closings in workplace email. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(2), 456–477. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00333.x. Yongyan, L. (2000). Surfing e-mails. English Today, 16(4), 30–34. https://doi.org/10.1017/S02660 78400000523.

Simon Musgrave is a lecturer in linguistics at Monash University who locates much of his work in recent years in the field of Digital Humanities continuing a longstanding interest in the use of computational tools for linguistic research. This interest has been focused recently on the use of Vector Space Models for semantic analysis, including collaborating in textual analysis with scholars in other disciplines. Other current research projects include developing combinatorial search strategies for corpus-based study of pragmatic phenomena and exploiting the affordances of online presentation to make grammatical description more accessible. Email: [email protected].

Chapter 7

What Do You Think This Is, Bush Week? Construction Grammar and Language Change in Australia Alexander Bergs

Abstract Australian English is prototypically characterized by pronunciation features, a wealth of peculiar lexical items (Sheila, yakka, ute), idioms (blind Freddy, bush week, fair suck), and words ending in -ie, as in bikkie, brekkie, or Aussie, socalled hypocoristics. This chapter looks into Australian lexical items, idioms, as well as morphology, and their development, from a constructional perspective. It suggests that a constructional account is not only an elegant way of describing and analyzing these phenomena, but that the Australian context is also of particular value for testing and exemplifying constructional models of linguistic change. Section 7.1 outlines some basic ideas of usage-based construction grammar. Section 7.2 describes some exemplary lexical items, idioms, and hypocoristics in Australian English. Section 7.3 offers a picture of Australian English as a ‘sandbox of linguistic change’—a context in which linguistic changes, especially from a usage-based constructional perspective, can be studied in detail. Keywords Australian English · Language change · Construction grammar · Idioms · Hypocoristics

7.1 Construction Grammar and Language Change Construction Grammar (CxG) assumes that linguistic competence materializes in constructions, i.e. conventionalized form-meaning pairings, stored systematically in a so-called constructicon. For words, this idea is fairly old and can be traced back to the Saussurean sign, with a signifier conventionally and arbitrarily associated with a signified. CxG claims that exactly the same applies to more complex structures, such as idioms, for example, where a complex linguistic form (sometimes even with variable slots) is combined with a particular, usually non-compositional, meaning. This is illustrated in (1a, b) below.

A. Bergs (B) Osnabrück University, Osnabrück, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 K. Allan (ed.), Dynamics of Language Changes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6430-7_7

109

110

A. Bergs

Table 7.1 Constructional taxonomy (simplified) Complexity

Abstraction

Example

Simple

Concrete

WORD (apple)

Simple

Abstract

WORD CLASS (noun)

Complex

Concrete

IDIOM (A stitch in time saves nine)

Complex

Concrete/Abstract

IDIOM (NP pull-tns NP’s leg)

Complex

Abstract

DITRANSITIVE Subj V Obj1 Obj2 (He baked her a cake)

(1)

(a) FORM [æpl] (noun) ↔ “malus domestica” (b) FORM Elvis has left the building ↕ ↕ MEANING “the show/event/action is over”

MEANING

In both cases (a) and (b), we see an arbitrary and conventional link between the signifier and the signified; speaker/hearers have to ‘know’ what [æpl] and Elvis has left the building mean in order to encode or decode the message. Note that in the case of this particular idiom, the individual parts are not variable, i.e. Elvis has left the pool is equally infelicitous as Jason Donavan has left the building or Elvis has entered the building. All three utterances can of course be parsed, and it makes sense to assume that they will be parsed in relation to the original idiom. But they are not conventionally equal in their proposition to the original construction. Construction Grammar expands this idea to even larger and more abstract units, such as the ‘caused motion construction’ (2). Here, the form of subject plus verb, object and oblique (path/location) object is conventionally associated with the meaning that the subject causes the object to move in a particular direction or to/from a particular place by performing the action described in the verb. This movement and the respective path/location can also be metaphorical as the example in (2) shows. (2) FORM ↕ MEANING

Subj V Obj Oblpath/loc ↕ Subj causes Obj to move Oblpath/loc by V-ing

e.g. ‘They laughed him out of the science community..’ (COCA1 1995) Constructions may thus differ in complexity (from simple to complex) and in abstraction (from concrete to abstract). This is summarized in Table 7.1. In usage-based constructions grammars, constructions are not seen as innate, but are learned through exposition and use throughout a lifetime. Prototypically, constructions are characterized by non-compositionality on their form or meaning side, i.e. either meaning or their form is unpredictable and must be learned (like in (1) above). Goldberg (2006), however, expands this notion and argues that highly frequent structures can also be stored as constructions, even when they are fully compositional. This, in some sense, is also what we see in morphology, where 1 Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA, 560 million words), available at https://www.

english-corpora.org/coca/.

7 What Do You Think This Is, Bush …

111

combinations of words and morphemes can be assembled every time they are used, or, alternatively, combinations are stored as ready-made chunks, or both. The more frequent a particular combination is used, the more likely it is that its ready-made chunk is taken from storage, rather than putting it together on the fly. Constructions are stored in the so-called constructicon, which, like an extended mental lexicon, represents a complex and systematic network of concrete and abstract constructions (Hilpert 2019; Jurafsky 1993). Constructions may be connected by a variety of different links, such as instantiation, polysemy, subpart, or metaphorical links. For example, the basic ditransitive construction ‘X causes Y to receive Z’ as in John gave Mary the book is linked by polysemy links to related senses such as ‘X causes Y not to receive Z’ as in Peter refused John a beer or ‘X intends to cause Y to receive Z’ as in Billy baked Bobby a cake. All these constructions inherit their structural properties from the prototypical ditransitive construction, and their meaning are related or polysemic extensions of the original sense (Boas 2013: 246). Traugott (2008a, b) introduces another important taxonomical perspective. She distinguishes between constructs, micro-, meso- and macro-constructions. The abstract macro-construction ‘ditransitives’, for example, subsumes various mesoconstructions, such as the group of constructions with give or send that allow for an indirect object and a direct object or, alternatively a direct object plus a prepositional complement with to (in contrast, e.g., to ditransitives with buy or bake). Mesoconstructions in turn are groups or families of micro-constructions (i.e. individual construction types), e.g. give IndObj DirObj versus send IndObj DirObj. Finally, constructs are concrete instances or attested tokens of individual micro-constructions (e.g. John gave Bill the book). This is illustrated in Fig. 7.1. As constructions are learned at any point in a speaker’s lifetime, albeit perhaps with different ease and speed. If we assume that linguistic knowledge ultimately lies in the constructicon (i.e. constructions and their systematic network), then linguistic change must essentially involve one or more of the following phenomena: – new constructions are added to the constructicon; – constructions are deleted from the constructicon; – constructions change in form, in meaning, or both. MACRO

ditransitives

MESO

give/send

MICRO

give

CONSTRUCTS

buy/bake send

buy

John gave Bill the book

…. bake

…. ….

Mary sent Peter flowers

Fig. 7.1 A constructional taxonomy, from macro-construction to construct

…. ….

112

A. Bergs

The former two are fairly easy to spot and document, for example when new words (which are, by definition, constructions) are added to the constructicon, or when a new idiom is coined. Elvis has left the building is one such example. Allegedly, this idiom goes back to December 1956, just about a year before Kate Burridge was around. Elvis Presley performed, for the last time, on Louisiana Hayride, a radio show. When he was done, the producer of the show tried to calm the raging crowd by announcing ‘All right, all right, Elvis has left the building’. Other announcers on other shows (such as Al Dvorin) picked up on that and used the same phrase to let the audience know that Elvis’s show was over. The phrase even made it onto a live recording at Madison Square garden in 1972. Uttered at a time when Elvis had actually left the building, this was not a construction or an idiom as such. It was a fully compositional, comparatively rare sentence of the abstract transitive pattern Subj V Obj. Some constructional frameworks suggest the term construct for occurrences such as these. However, as soon as the phrase was uttered in a contextually inappropriate (metaphorical) way, i.e. when Elvis had not been present at all, it gained new, non-compositional meaning i.e. “the show is over”. A construct turns into a construction, an idiom is born and we see the addition of a new construction to the constructicon. Needless to say, this would at first only be an innovative act. It would have to catch on in the speech community and diffuse in order for communal language change (or language change ‘proper’, see Labov 1972) to happen. In the case of Elvis has left the building it obviously did. This is also what Traugott (2008a) identifies as the main mechanism of linguistic change: change arises in language use, i.e. in individual acts of innovation, which have to be adopted by other speakers in order for ‘real’ change in the language community to happen. In this model, constructs are seen as the locus of innovation. Deleting constructions from the constructicon is the reverse process, i.e. the loss of words or expressions. One example would be the word sard (late Middle English “fuck, seduce a woman”) or the expression Fire, quoth the fox, when he pissed on the ice (said about someone who is unrealistically expecting too much from a situation or plan). Over time, speakers used these constructions less frequently, and with less exposition, they are less likely to become part of other speakers’ constructicons, which in turn leads to lesser frequency and exposition, and so on. The same can happen with more abstract constructions, such as the dual in Old English, which gradually disappeared in the early Middle English period. Changes in form and/or meaning of existing constructions are probably the most difficult to trace and document. Starting again with simple, concrete constructions, one can say that changes in word meaning are one such example, e.g. when nice turned from Middle English “foolish” into present-day English “charming”. The same can be seen in changes in form, without changes in meaning, e.g. when a nadder became an adder in the late Middle English period. Changes in form can also be seen, e.g., in the univerbation of going to into gonna (without any changes in meaning). Simultaneous changes in form and meaning are somewhat rarer, but do occur. Traugott (2008a), for example, discusses the development of NP of NP patterns. She shows that from 1650 to 1750 the micro-construction a bit of changes from [NP1 ] of [NP2 ] to Adv_A in terms of form, and that, simultaneously, the downtoner or approximation function

7 What Do You Think This Is, Bush …

113

is complemented by an additional hedging function. A degree modifier thus turns into a degree adverb by a simultaneous change in form and function.

7.2 Australian Vocabulary, Idioms, and Hypocoristics In this Section, we will look at the development of exemplary vocabulary, idioms and hypocoristics in Australian English from the perspective of usage-based construction grammar. Australian vocabulary and idioms stem from a number of different sources, including dialects and languages of Britain, Ireland, Australia, the US, and varieties thereof. • bingle2 (1945) probably comes from a Cornish dialect (bing “a thump/blow”), with the original meaning of ‘fight, skirmish, collision’ (see AND3 s.v. bingle), now means “a minor crash or upset, as in a car or on a surfboard” (https://www.collinsdi ctionary.com/dictionary/english/bingle). This means that the original innovation (borrowing) underwent change on the meaning side of the construction. • sheila (1828) probably comes from Irish proper name Sheila and signifies “a girl or young woman” (AND, s.v. sheila). ‘It was initially used in Australia to refer to a woman of Irish origin, but from the 19th century onwards it became a general term for a woman or girl’ (ANUDP, s.v. Sheila). Again we see a change in meaning for this construction, while the form stays the same. • noah (1945, “a shark” < Noah’s ark), Al capone “phone”, Barry Crocker “shocker” and billy lid “kid” are probably derived from (Cockney) rhyming slang. • larrikin (1868) “a young, urban rough, esp. a manner of a street gang; a hooligan” (in a more historical sense), “one who acts with apparently careless disregard for social or political conventions” (AND s.v. larrikin) comes from other British dialects “a mischievous or frolicsome youth”. • From Australian languages we get yakka (1888) “work, strenuous labor” (from Yagara, Brisbane, yaga “work” via Australian Pidgin, see ANUDP, s.v. yakka) or yowie “ape-like monster supposed to inhabit parts of eastern Australia” (1975, from Yuwaalaraay, New South Wales, yuwi “dream spirit”, AND s.v. yowie). These lexical items (=constructions) were added to the Australian constructicon by borrowing them from other languages or dialects. Consequently, some of them underwent changes in meaning. The richness of dialect and language sources of 2 The following examples and their etymologies are all taken from ANU’s dictionary project (http://

slll.cass.anu.edu.au/centres/andc/meanings-origins/all), henceforth ANUDP. National Dictionary on Historical Principles (AND), 1st edition, edited by Ramson (1988), available online at https://australiannationaldictionary.com.au/oupnewindex1.php. Note that the dictionary, now in its second edition, ed. by Moore (2016), is an invaluable tool and resource for tracing word and phrase origins in Australian English. Unfortunately, the second edition was not available to the author at the time of writing.

3 Australian

114

A. Bergs

Australian English (see also Sect. 7.3 below) is one of the reasons for the particular mixture of vocabulary here. As discussed in Sect. 7.1 above, idioms are also prototypical constructions in the technical sense, i.e. they are conventionalized from-meaning pairings, typically with non-compositional meaning. They may vary in complexity and in variability, from completely fixed to semi-schematic. Australian English is characterized by a number of typical idioms, which, like lexical items, are borrowed from other languages or taken from dialects of English and then sometimes modified to fit into the cultural context. Some examples include the following: • on the wallaby “be on the move” (wallaby, from Sydney aboriginal languages (e.g. Dharug), “smaller marsupials”, borrowed late 18th or early 19th century; AND s.v. wallaby) • ant’s pants “the best of its kind, impressive” (probably adapted from US bee’s knees and cat’s whiskers, used from about 1930 onwards) • mad as a cut snake/mad as a meat axe/mad as a gumtree full of galahs “extremely angry” (from English English mad as a hatter, mad as a march hare, mad as a box of frogs) • to get the rough end of the pineapple (English English to get the short end of the stick) • give something a burl “give something a try”; cp. English “a whirl”. Burl is northern English/Scots for “spin, twirl” (recorded from the early 20th century onwards, AND s.v. burl). What is interesting about these idiomatic fixed form-meaning pairings is that they borrow the abstract, structural side from their donor languages and the actual meaning, but then change certain elements to make them Australia specific. This is particularly obvious in mad as a cut snake (Australia) versus mad as a march hare (England). While snakes are probably more common, noticeable, and salient in Australian culture, the same holds true for rabbits or hares in England (even though, of course, introduced rabbits have proved to be a major threat to Australian agriculture). The same applies to mad as a gumtree full of galahs, which not only includes Australian specific lexical items, but also employs some interesting alliteration, perhaps to increase salience and memorability. So, many idioms of Australian English were indeed borrowed from other Englishes, but often only the abstract pattern and meaning is kept and new lexical items are introduced for some ‘local favor’. Other Australian idioms were not borrowed, but created with reference to particular facts of Australian history and culture: • What do you think this is, bush week? “do you think I am stupid?” (from the 1940s onwards). During bush week, people from the country come to the cities to sell bush produce etc. or to celebrate bush produce, activities and the like. • beyond the black stump, “beyond civilization”. A black stump marked the end of inhabited territory.

7 What Do You Think This Is, Bush …

115

• as game as Ned Kelly, “fearless in the face of odds, foolhardy”. ‘The phrase derives from the name of Australia’s most famous bushranger, who was hanged for his crimes in 1880. Opinion on Kelly has remained divided, his critics seeing him as the worst type of colonial thug, while others have represented him as a champion of the underdog, a brave opponent of heartless authority, and a staunch Australian nationalist.’ (ANUDP s.v. Ned Kelly). • do a Melba, ‘used allusively of a person who retires but returns to their profession, especially one who makes repeated ‘farewell’ performances or comebacks. The phrase refers to Australian operatic soprano Dame Nellie Melba (Helen Porter Mitchell) 1861–1931, whose stage name derived from her birthplace, Melbourne. She announced her retirement in 1924, but gave ‘farewell’ performances at Covent Garden in 1926, in Sydney, Melbourne, and Geelong in 1928, and then sang in England over the next two years. The phrase is recorded from the 1940s’ (ANUDP s.v. Melba). • shoot through (something) like a Bondi tram, “hasty departure, speedy action”. Bondi is a suburb of Sydney with a great beach. There was one express tram from Darlinghurst to Bondi Junction. The phrase was first recorded in 1943, the last tram ran in 1960, the phrase remains a part of Australian idiomatic expressions. • Blind Freddy “a very unperceptive person” ‘Legend has it that there was a blind hawker in Sydney in the 1920s, named Freddy, whose blindness did not prevent his moving freely about the central city area. Other commentators suggest a character who frequented various Sydney sporting venues in the first decades of the 20th century could be the original Freddy. The term itself is first recorded in 1911’ (ANUDP, s.v. Blind Freddy). These idioms were created, probably intentionally, with explicit reference to particular Australian history and culture. This means that the additions to the Australian constructicon come from borrowings, or borrowings that were modified, and from explicit intentional creations. Some idioms are entirely fixed, others still allow for some variability, yet others seem to encourage new ‘snowclones’ (cf. Pullum 2004; Bergs 2018) in the sense that they provide a schema (e.g. as mad as X), with a variable slot that can be filled with new, interesting, witty or funny material. In the next Section, I will turn away from lexical items and idioms, and focus on morphological patterns instead. As mentioned before, a salient phenomenon in Australian English are hypocoristics, i.e. word pairs with a full form on the one hand and another form (shortened, shortened and suffixed, suffixed) on the other. The most prototypical forms appear to be those that end in -ie or -o, as in barbie < barbecue, bikkie < biscuit, brekkie < breakfast, Tassie < Tasmania, Aussie < Australian or arvo < afternoon, smoko < smoke break, Davo < Dave, journo < journalist. Simpson (2004), however, points out that there are several more templates that yield these particular alternatives, including simple shortening, e.g. pav < pavlova, the plus N, e.g. The Don, The Weal, and several more. Some hypocoristics such as blockie or stackie do not have a single word alternative, but describe particular people, i.e. “person who has a farm on a block” and “library officer who takes books to and from the stacks”. Similarly, the actual use of hypocoristics is subject to a great deal

116

A. Bergs

of individual variability. Some speakers use certain hypocoristics all the time, others never, yet others vary. For the speakers who do vary, the connotation of the alternatives might be different. For example, McAndrew (1992) and Wierzbicka (1984) describe the -ie forms as affectionate, familiar, informal, markers of solidarity, while the -o forms are more associated with coarseness, vigorousness, toughness, maleness, and anti-intellectualism. We will come back to this question when we discuss the constructional status of hypocoristics and the question of no synonymy. Before doing so, let us take a look at the patterns identified by Simpson (2004). As mentioned before, one very well-known pattern involves shortening and suffixation with -ie. The mechanism of reduction and suffixation is fairly complex. In order to produce a disyllabic output, speakers clip the first syllable of the stem and affix long [i:] as in (3). If there is only one syllable, there is only affixation of [i:] as in (4). (3)

(4)

σ σ ∆ | Con|ductor /i/ σ σ ∆ | block | /i/

→

→

connie

blockie

As a more complex case, if a polysyllabic word has a word internal short [ı] or long [i:] the clipping may just involve the final syllable plus a slight change in vowel when necessary, as in (5). (5)

σ σ ∆ card i gan

→

cardie

[ı]

[i:]

Simpson (2004) also discusses other shortenings (without additional suffixation) such as ump/umpire in this context (6). (6)

σ ∆ Ump|ire

→

ump

Simpson (2001, 2004) identifies nine such patterns for hypocoristics and lists them according to frequency:

7 What Do You Think This Is, Bush …

117

Fig. 7.2 Hypocoristics as micro- and mesoconstructions

•

[i:]

coldie, gladdie

47%

(824)

•

[o]

prawno, journo

19%

(333)

•

monosyllabic

pav, ump

11%

(200)

•

{-er}/ {-a}

boozer, ekka

8%

(145)

•

{-as}

chockers, Tuggers

3%

(48)

•

{-s}

scrotes, Jules

2%

(34)

•

disyllabic

crysanth, Mullum

1%

(17)

•

acronyms

E, KI

1%

(14)

•

‘the’

The Don

7%

(125)

(major templates for forming hypocoristics in AusE, based on Simpson 2004: 645–6)4 Coming back to Traugott’s (2008a, b) suggestion that we can distinguish between micro-, meso-, and macro-constructions, I would like to suggest that the nine different types of hypocoristics form nine different micro-constructions, which, together with the other patterns discussed by Simpson (2004), form the meso-construction of hypocoristics in Australian English. What unites these is a meso-construction, the hypocoristic construction, which is slightly more abstract than the individual micro-constructions, and yet gives all of these a certain unity in form and meaning (Fig. 7.2).5 From a constructional perspective, at least two aspects are interesting here. First, one of the mainstays of construction grammar is the principle of no synonymy (Bolinger 1968; Goldberg 1995: 67; but cf. Uhrig 2015 for a critical perspective). The simple idea is that a difference in form always entails a difference in meaning, and vice versa. It is fairly obvious that this cannot only apply to propositional meaning, but must include collocations, connotations and extra-linguistic information, otherwise we would be forced to say that couch and sofa form perfect synonyms, which they obviously do not. I would like to argue that this principle also applies to hypocoristic alternations, although matters are slightly more complicated here. First, we must exclude speakers that do not alternate with certain items. If there is no alternation, there cannot be any difference items, obviously. Second, for those speakers who do 4 The

data for this study comes from a collection of 1740 hypocoristics ‘from Australian speakers and written sources, other author’s works […], talk-back radio, and our observations over the last sixteen years’ (Simpson 2004: 643–4). 5 Note that not all constructional taxonomies necessarily involve macro-constructions as the highest level of abstraction. Some do not even have a micro-level. In this case, I would argue, the abstraction stops at the meso-level (cf. Traugott 2008b).

118

A. Bergs

show hypocoristic alternations (e.g. surfer/surfy or Australia/Oz) these alternatives may signify a range of different functions. They may assign -ie forms to babytalk, and -o forms to masculinity (cp. kiddie versus kiddo), or some forms may express solidarity, affectionateness, or roughness and anti-intellectualism. In any case, for those speakers who do show alternatives, the hypocoristic form generally seems to be associated with a lower level of formality and, most importantly, with being Australian and speaking Australian English (cf. Wierzbicka 1986). In this sense, they do function, broadly speaking, as sociolinguistic markers and serve identify forming purposes. So, while there is probably little to no propositional difference between the forms, they do show differences in terms of stylistics, pragmatics, and/or sociolinguistics. Second, the frequency list developed by Simpson (2001, 2004) also illustrates the usage-based nature of constructions, in that certain micro-constructions are more common and prototypical than others. Thus, -ie clearly stands out as the prototypical hypocoristic pattern, followed by -o and monosyllabic shortening. At least for -ie this is also mirrored in the historical development. While there is still a lack of comprehensive studies on the development of hypocoristics in Australian English, most evidence so far points towards -ie and -er/-a as the most common and salient patterns in the 1890s, at least in Melbourne (Simpson 2004: 652). -o and -ers/as seem to be later developments. McAndrews (1992) points out that -o seems to have been more common in former penal colonies. The association of -o with antiintellectualism and male toughness may have to do with this, or with the fact that most inhabitants of these colonies came from Ireland, and that Irish English also had an -o hypocoristic. As the Irish were mostly underclass males, this could explain why the forms were recorded so late and why they were associated with male toughness, rather than affection or baby talk (Simpson 2004: 652; Taylor 1992: 520). Another interesting aspect of the micro/meso model of hypocoristics outlined here is that it can also be applied in a similar way to other varieties of English. While Australian English is prototypically characterized by frequent use of hypocoristics, other varieties show similar patterns, albeit perhaps less frequently and with different forms and constraints. In English English, for example, we find shortened personal names with/without an -ie suffix: Suzanne/Suzie/Suz, Lawrence/Larry, Benjamin/Benny/Ben, Thomas/Tom, Penelope/Penny etc. Scots also has some regular nouns and bird names with this pattern potatoes/tatties, lad/laddie, lass/lassie, blackbird/blackie, greenfinch/greenie. It stands to reason that most, if not all, varieties have a more abstract meso- hypocoristic construction which subsumes individual and perhaps typical micro-constructions. When dialects are in contact with each other (as in the history of Australian English), constructs, (and ultimately microconstructions) can be borrowed and thus enrich the inventory of micro-constructions of the borrowing variety. Future research will have to explore this further.

7 What Do You Think This Is, Bush …

119

7.3 Australia as the ‘Sandbox of Linguistic Change’ Australia and Australian English are of particular interest for historical linguistics. Australian English developed only about two hundred years ago, in the 1820s, as a distinct variety of English. This means that it is comparatively young and comparatively mixed in the sense that many varieties of English and other languages, such as Mandarin, have contributed to its development. With Australia’s history as a penal colony, about 162.000 convicts were shipped from Britain to Australia between 1788 and 1868. Their journey took between four and six months. 65% of these convicts came from England, Scotland and Wales, about 35% from Ireland. It stands to reason that this particular situation on those boats led to very intensive language contact situations. After all, between 100 and 200 convicts spent several months together on board and must have communicated with each other. The convict ship Isabella, for instance, sailed to Australia in 1832, with 224 men who were ‘convicted in counties in England, Scotland and Wales—Gloucester, Devon, Sussex, Leicester, Durham, Somerset, Stafford, Lancaster, Chester, Bristol, Cornwall, London, Derby, Middlesex, Northampton, Warwick, Dorset, York, Wiltshire, Westmoreland, Cumberland, Bedford, Glamorgan, Carnarvon, Monmouth, Aberdeen, Inverness, Glasgow, Perth, Ayr. There were also several who had been tried or court-martialed in other places—Demerary, Salford CM, Leith CM, Fort George, North Britain CM and Grenada’.6 While the court of conviction is no foolproof evidence of the place of birth or living of the convicted, it can give us a rough idea about the geographical origins of the people on board. We only have limited evidence of what communication on board of these ships took place and what it looked like. However, a few contemporary sources commented on it. John Haslam, ship surgeon on the convict ship Mariner, for example, complained in 1816: ‘The first difficulty I had to encounter was the want of reciprocal communication; they comprehended sufficiently everything I said to them, but in their discourse with each other, they spoke a language wholly unknown to me’ (Haslam 1819, quoted in Humphrey 1990: 70). Haslam also speaks of a ‘mysterious dialect’ and ‘copious and figurative vocabulary’ (see Humphrey 1990: 70). Humphrey (1990: 70) goes on: During the voyage dialect, and what would now be seen as sub-cultural ‘lingo’ played a large part in constraining the full supervision and division of the prisoners along ‘rationalised lines. […] Like, Haslam, Cunningham found convict discourse of particular concern. He complained of the difficulty he found in controlling chattering and storytelling in which the prisoners would boast of their deeds and engage in the telling and re-telling of ‘thieves tales’, a particularly ‘corrupting’ influence on the young. Browning was one surgeon who imposed strict controls on this communication. He was a stickler for ‘correct language’ and he consequently banned everything which destroyed ‘social harmony’ such as nicknames, improper gestures, bad language and slang. Like Haslam and Cunningham, however, Browning reported great difficulty in completely implementing these controls.

While we lack concrete evidence for communication on board, descriptions such as these can provide us with some kind of ‘ex negativo’ evidence: the fact that 6 https://www.jenwilletts.com/convict_ship_isabella_1832.htm.

120

A. Bergs

surgeons and captains were worried about convict discourse, found it hard to understand, and tried to separate convicts and restrict their communication all points towards a situation with intensive communication and dialect contact, with peculiar new forms and constructions. This may already have been the beginning of pronunciation levelling, which ultimately led to the current more or less uniform pronunciation of Australian English in terms of region and its differentiation in terms of broadness (cf. Burridge and Mulder 2002: 37). But we may also assume that in this melting pot we find lexical items and idioms from many different varieties. Some of these survive, others do not. Some remain intact, others get modified. Ultimately, language use in such a speech community can and must have led to a mixed and distinctive constructicon through the addition and modification of a number of lexical and idiomatic constructions. Delgado (2019), referring to earlier work by Trudgill (2004), also explicitly discusses the possibility that ‘Ship English’ may form a new and distinct variety (which ultimately gave rise to Australian English). We can only speculate what happened on board of these ships within the six months on their voyage to Australia. It seems safe to assume that varieties mixed, and it seems equally likely that certain features of pronunciation may already have begun to be leveled here. The lexicon (including idioms) seems to be a different question though, as this is far more salient to the average speaker/hearer and more open to intentional manipulation than most pronunciation features. I would expect speaker/hearers to pick and mix when it comes to lexical items and idioms, along the conversational maxims outlined by Keller (1994). Keller assumes an underlying ‘hypermaxim’ for all communicative acts: ‘Talk in such a way that you are socially successful, at the lowest possible cost’ (1994: 102). This breaks down into several independent, sometimes even contradictory maxims. Two of these maxims promote stasis and homogeneity: Talk in such a way that you are recognized as a member of the group (1994: 96) Talk in such a way that you do not attract attention (1994: 96)

Others, however, foster dynamics and change: Talk in such a way that you are noticed. (1994: 97) Talk in such a way that you are not recognizable as a member of the group. (1994: 97) Talk in an amusing, funny etc. way. (1994: 97) Talk in an especially polite, flattering, charming, etc. way. (1994: 97) Talk in such a way that you do not expend superfluous energy. (1994: 98)

The situation on the ships required both kinds of maxims. On the one hand, speakers probably wanted to signal membership to a particular group (speech community) when they met other members from that community. So, the Irish, for example, probably signaled their Irishness when they came into contact with other Irish in order to show solidarity and community. But in other contexts they may have found being noticeable, funny, charming, not recognizable, etc. more important. It is in those situations that lexical items and idioms were borrowed and/or modified. Needless to say, similar principles, qua being universal, would also have been at

7 What Do You Think This Is, Bush …

121

work on board of regular ships en route to Australia. Once penal settlements turned into colonies and the ‘regular’ settlement of Australia was well under way, we see what Trudgill (2004) and others have characterized as a period of stabilization and simplification. It was less important to be recognizable as a member of an individual immigrant group, but rather as Australian: ‘The lingo of the day became an important way of fitting in and avoiding the label “stranger” or “new chum” in both Australia and also New Zealand’ (Burridge and Peters 2012: 253). So particular Australian idioms and expressions became the expected norm, rather than the playful exception. So, while we see dialect levelling on the level of pronunciation, we also see the establishment of a mixed and distinctive constructicon, at least when it comes to lexical items and idioms. This is the situation that we recognize today. Australians no longer identify as Irish, or Cockney, or Scottish. They identify as Australians. In a recent study, the marketing research company McCrindle asked Australians which geographic area they would most strongly identify with. Figure 7.3 illustrates the results. It becomes quite clear that Australians first and foremost identify as Australians, not as members of the local community or town, state or territory, and least as part of the Asia-Pacific region. This also points in the direction that the Australian constructicon is characterized both by distinctness and overall uniformity. At the same time, the Martin Prosperity Institute found in its 2015 study that Australians rank No. 1 on the Global Creativity Index, followed by Sweden, the US, New Zealand and Canada (Florida et al. 2015). While this index does not directly measure artistic or linguistic creativity, it may serve as a broad and general indicator of how open, tolerant and inventive a particular group may be. The very flexible, tolerant, creative and dynamic use of language that we see in Australia (e.g. with idiom creativity, with acceptable and widely used hypocoristic alternations, and a remarkably relaxed attitude towards swearing, see Burridge and

Fig. 7.3 Strength of connection and identification by region (586 respondents, see McCrindle 2013)

122

A. Bergs

Peters 2012: 253; Allan and Burridge 2009) may have to do with the high ranking on this index and a very general attitude towards life in Australia (cf. Burridge and Peters 2012). In sum, it seems that Australian English can be the prefect sandbox for historical linguistics. Its development took place fairly recently and over a short period of time (less than 250 years); it is comparatively well documented and offers some phenomena which are rare if not non-existent in other varieties of English (cf. Burridge and Peters 2012). While morphology and syntax may not be the most salient key features here (though some phenomena can be found, see Collins and Peters 2004), both pronunciation and the constructicon provide ample food for thought. For the latter, a usage-based construction grammar approach seems particularly suitable as this can help us not only to describe lexical items and fixed idioms as they are, but also their dynamics and observable variability. Australian English underwent (and is still undergoing) tremendous and highly interesting constructional changes by adding new constructions to the constructicon or changing the form and/or meaning of existing ones, e.g. by snow-cloning or adding new lexical material to underlying abstract patterns. All these changes are subject to well-known frequency effects. The development and currently observable productivity and salience of the -ie suffix is just a case in point. Acknowledgements My heartfelt thanks go to Keith Allan, not only for his angelic patience with a tardy author, but also for various excellent suggestions and his help with one or the other lexeme. Thanks also go to friends and colleagues at Bayreuth university for their input on an earlier version, and to an anonymous referee for catching some potentially very embarrassing slips of the pen.

References Allan, K., & Burridge, K. (2009). Swearing and taboo language in Australian English. In P. Peters, P. Collins, & A. Smith (Eds.), Comparative studies in Australian and New Zealand English: Grammar and beyond (pp. 359–384). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Bergs, A. (2018). Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist (Picasso): Linguistic abberrancy from a constructional perspective. Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 66(3), 277–293. Boas, H. (2013). Cognitive construction grammar. In T. Hoffmann & G. Trousdale (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of construction grammar (pp. 233–254). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bolinger, D. (1968). Entailment and the meaning of structure. Glossa, 2, 119–127. Burridge, K., & Mulder, J. (2002). English in Australia and New Zealand. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Burridge, K., & Peters, P. (2012). English in Australia and New Zealand. In R. Hickey (Ed.), Areal features in the anglophone world (pp. 233–258). de Gruyter: Berlin, New York. Collins, P., & Peters, P. (2004). Australian English: Morphology and syntax. In B. Kortmann, K. Burridge, R. Mesthrie, E. W. Schneider, & C. Upton (Eds.), A handbook of varieties of English. Vol. 2 morphology and syntax (pp. 593–610). Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Delgado, S. J. (2019). Ship English. Sailors’ speech in the early colonial Caribbean. Berlin: langsci Press.

7 What Do You Think This Is, Bush …

123

Florida, R., Melander, C., & King, K. (2015). The global creativity index 2015. http://martinprospe rity.org/media/Global-Creativity-Index-2015.pdf. Goldberg, A. (1995). Constructions. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Goldberg, A. (2006). Constructions at work. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Haslam, J. (1819). Convict ships. A narrative of a voyage to New South Wales in the year 1816 in the ship Mariner, describing the nature of the accommodations, stores, diet. Together with an account of the medical treatment and religious superintendence of these unfortunate persons. London: Taylor and Hessey. Hilpert, M. (2019). Construction grammar and its application to English (2nd ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Humphrey, K. (1990). A new era of existence: Convict transportation and the authority of the surgeon in colonial Australia. Labour History, 59, 59–72. Jurafsky, D. (1993). A cognitive model of sentence interpretation: The construction grammar approach. Technical Report TR-93-077, International Computer Science Institute. Berkeley: University of California at Berkeley. Keller, R. (1994). On language change. The invisible hand in language. London: Routledge. Labov, W. (1972). Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press. McAndrews, A. (1992). Hosties and Garbos; a look behind diminutives and pejoratives in Australian English. In C. Blank (Ed.), Language and civilization: A concerted profusion of essays and studies in honour of Otto Hietsch (pp. 166–184). Frankfurt/M.: Peter Lang. McCrindle, M. (2013). The trust report 2013. https://2qean3b1jjd1s87812ool5ji-wpengine.netdnassl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/The-Trust-Report-2013_Who-Australians-Most-Trust. pdf. Moore, B. (Ed.). (2016). Australian National Dictionary (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pullum, G. (2004). Snowclones: Lexicographical dating to the second. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/ ~myl/languagelog/archives/000350.html. Ramson, W. S. (Ed.). (1988). Australian National Dictionary on historical principles. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Simpson, J. (2001). Hypocoristics of place-names in Australian English. In D. Blair & P. Collins (Eds.), English in Australia (pp. 89–112). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Simpson, J. (2004). Hypocoristics in Australian English. In B. Kortmann, K. Burridge, R. Mesthrie, E. W. Schneider, & C. Upton (Eds.), A handbook of varieties of English. Vol. 2 morphology and syntax (pp. 643–656). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Taylor, B. A. (1992). Otto 988 to Ocker 1988: The morphological treatment of personal names in Old High German and colloquial Australian English. In C. Blank (Ed.), Language and civilization: A concerted profusion of essays and studies in honour of Otto Hietsch (pp. 505–536). Frankfurt/M.: Peter Lang. Traugott, E. (2008a). Grammaticalization, constructions, and the incremental development of language: Suggestions from the development of degree modifiers in English. In R. Eckhardt, G. Jäger, & T. Veenstra (Eds.), Variation, selection, development: Probing the evolutionary model of language (pp. 219–250). de Gruyter: Berlin/New York. Traugott, E. C. (2008b). ‘All that he endeavoured to prove was …’: On the emergence of grammatical constructions in dialogual and dialogic contexts. In R. Cooper & R. Kempson (Eds.), Language in flux: Dialogue coordination, language variation, change and evolution (pp. 143–177). London: Kings College Publications. Trudgill, P. (2004). New-dialect formation: The inevitability of Colonial Englishes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Uhrig, P. (2015). Why the principle of No Synonymy is overrated. Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 63(3), 323–337. Wierzbicka, A. (1984). Diminutives and deprecatives: Semantic representation for derivational categories. Quaderni di Semantica, 5, 123–130. Wierzbicka, A. (1986). Does language reflect culture? Evidence from Australian English. Language in Society, 15, 349–374.

124

A. Bergs

Alexander Bergs is Full Professor and Chair of English Language and Linguistics at Osnabrück University, Germany. His research interests include, among others, language variation and change, constructional approaches to language, and cognitive poetics. His works include several authored and edited books (Social Networks and Historical Sociolinguistics, Modern Scots, Contexts and Constructions, Constructions and Language Change), a short textbook on Synchronic English Linguistics, one on Understanding Language Change (with Kate Burridge) and the two-volume Handbook of English Historical Linguistics (ed. with Laurel Brinton; now available as 5 volume paperback) as well as more than fifty papers in high profile international journals and edited volumes. Email: [email protected].

Chapter 8

On Cups Keith Allan

Abstract This essay surveys and critically comments upon four lexicographic (semantic) descriptions offered for the English noun cup. Labov (New ways of analyzing variation in English. Georgetown University Press, Washington D.C., pp. 340–73, 1973), Katz (Philos Stud 31: 1–80, 1977), Wierzbicka (Aust J Linguistics 4: 257–281, 1984), Goddard (Semantic analysis: a practical introduction. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011), all restricted themselves to tea/coffee cups. The Oxford English Dictionary allows for other kinds of cups as well, including acorncups, and bra-cups. This essay offers an alternative account of what is common to the different denotata for the word cup: all but one kind are hollow hemispheroids. It speculates on the relevance of cupped hands in the sizing of cups, and finally proposes that a proper semantics for cup should be cognisant of the lexical extensions discussed here. Keywords Breast volume · Containers · Hemispheroid · Lexical extension · Lexicography · Semantics

8.1 Introduction It will be shown that, with one exception (see (52)), the criterial characteristic of a cup is that it is configured as a hollow hemispheroid (a half sphere) with a diameter

K. Allan (B) Monash University, Peregian Springs, QLD 4573, Australia e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 K. Allan (ed.), Dynamics of Language Changes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6430-7_8

125

126

K. Allan

greater than or equal to its depth. The salient (or default)1 meaning for cup is of a drinking vessel that is an impermeable oblate hemispheroid (a squashed half sphere), i.e. a container for liquid with a capacity of about 250 ml. Such cups are very possibly modelled on a human’s cupped hands.2 Both the two human hands cupped together and a single cupped hand are (if we ignore the attached arm) similar in shape to a hollow oblate hemispheroid. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) does not list cupping one’s hands together, but a good definition for this idiom occurs in the Free Dictionary online: cup (one’s) hands together To hold one’s hands together to catch something (typically a liquid) in them. I cupped my hands together under the running water and splashed my face. (Farlex Idioms and Slang Dictionary 2017)

The variation I would offer on the definition of to cup one’s hands (together) is: To hold one’s hands together into a cup-shape to catch something (typically a liquid) in them. To cup one’s ear is: To form a hand into a cup-shape with the thumb behind the ear. A typical cup (I prefer the term typical to prototypical or stereotypical for reasons explained in Allan 2001: 334–336) holds around 250 millilitres, which is similar to the capacity of adult male cupped hands. A single hand cupped holds around 125 ml, roughly equivalent to the capacity of an espresso coffee cup (demitasse) or a traditional Chinese or Middle-Eastern tea or coffee cup—which is bowl-like (i.e. handle-less). Thus, a typical cup, which, for instance, Americans, Australians, British, and Poles (among many others) use for tea, coffee, and other hot drinks, is a hollow oblate hemispheroid impermeable container with a flat base at the pole so that it can easily stand alone; it is open at the wide end for easy access by human lips to the liquid it contains. It is designed to be readily manipulated by the thumb and fingers of a single human hand. A rectangular cup is atypical because it would be comparatively impracticable as a drinking vessel, but nonetheless it could function as a cup. However, I will ignore such monstrosities in this essay.

1 What

qualifies something to become the default is its salience in the absence of any contextual motivation to prefer an alternative. Giora (2003: 34, 37) defines salience as what is foremost in the mind based on ‘such factors as familiarity, conventionality, and frequency of occurrence’. This applies to lexicon entries which comprehend as wide a range of contexts as possible; the default meaning is that one which is utilized more frequently by more people and normally with greater certitude than any alternative. Thus, default meanings are largely similar to salient meanings except that the latter, according to Giora, are foremost in the mind of an individual: ‘Salience […] is relative to an individual. What is foremost on one’s mind need not necessarily be foremost on another’s’ (Giora 2003: 37). We can distinguish between a linguist’s model of the mental lexicon as an abstraction or generalization over the hypothetical lexicon of a typical individual and the real-life internalized lexicon of particular individuals in which different meanings may be salient because of each individual’s unique experience. 2 I am not suggesting that the lexical derivation went in this direction; it certainly did not.

8 On Cups

127

8.2 Lexicographic Descriptions of Cups In Sect. 8.2, I review lexicographic descriptions of cups by William Labov, Jerrold J. Katz, the OED, and Cliff Goddard. The focus is on dictionary meaning, which is a kind of informal semantic description.

8.2.1 Labov In the early 1970s William Labov sought to differentiate cups from mugs and proposed the following denotation conditions on cup—which are equivalent to a lexicographic description. The term cup is regularly used to denote round containers with a ratio of width to depth of 1 ± r where r ≤ rb, and rb = α1 + α2+ ... αν and α1 is a positive quantity when the feature i is present and 0 otherwise. feature 1 = with one handle 2 = made of opaque vitreous material 3 = used for consumption of food 4 = used for consumption of liquid food 5 = used for consumption of hot liquid food 6 = with a saucer 7 = tapering 8 = circular in cross-section Cup is used variably to denote such containers with ratios of width to depth of 1 ± r where rb ≤ r ≤ rt with a probability of rt – r/rt – rb. The quantity r ± rb expresses the distance from the modal value of width to height. (Labov 1973: 366f)

To properly interpret rb and rt (and subsequently r) it is useful to appeal to Labov’s figure for the invariant core and variable range for the denotation of items (i.e. potential cups) by speakers. We see from Fig. 8.1 that all seven speakers (a sample of fluent English speakers) categorise items a–d as cup (on the basis of ratio of width to depth) but fewer than half of them categorise items a–h as cup; no one finds item k to be a cup. Thus, according to Labov, the boundary, r, of what counts as a cup lies somewhere between items e and j. Labov’s account of the lexical semantics of cup incorporates the configuration (features 1, 7, 8 in the description quoted), material of construction (feature 2), function (features 3, 4, 5), a characteristic supplement (6), and a fuzzy boundary feature, which is bound to the configuration expressed as the probable value of rt – r/rt –rb based on samples of speaker judgment. All five of these characteristics are relevant, but Labov limits himself to only the salient kind of cup—the (American,

128

K. Allan

Fig. 8.1 Core and range for the denotation of items (Fig. 19 in Labov 1973: 368)

etc.) drinking vessel. The salient/default meaning refers to the first concept/image of a cup that comes to mind when the word cup is uttered (or, simply, cognized) outside of some particular context. By contrast with this, for example in a sporting context, the salient cup is chalice-like and usually much larger than the typical 250 ml capacity tea or coffee cup.

8.2.2 Katz Take the following ‘dictionary representation’ of cup given by Jerrold J. Katz: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Physical Object Inanimate Vertical Orientation Upwardly concave Height about equal to top diameter Top diameter greater than bottom diameter Artefact Made to serve as a container from which to drink liquid.

(Katz 1977: 49. The line numbering is added.)

Katz’s description seems adequate and very much simpler than Labov’s ‘denotation conditions’. It is, however, once again limited to the salient drinking cup. The ontology of a cup is identified in lines 1, 2, and 7. Configuration is specified in 3, 4, 5, and 6. Function is given in feature 8. The material from which a cup is constructed is unspecified but is implied by 8.

8 On Cups

129

8.2.3 OED If anything, the meaning given for the salient sense of cup in the Oxford English Dictionary is simpler still: 1. A small open vessel for liquids, usually of hemispherical or hemi-spheroidal shape, with or without a handle; a drinking-vessel. The common form of cup (e.g. a tea-cup or coffee-cup) has no stem; but the larger and more ornamental forms (e.g. a wine-cup or chalice) may have a stem and foot, as also a lid or cover; in such cases cup is sometimes applied specifically to the concave part that receives the liquid.

The OED also admits of other kinds of cups, which I shall discuss in Sect. 8.3.

8.2.4 Goddard Let us next consider an elaborate semantics for cup presented in Goddard (2011). It is a version revised from a similar account in Goddard (1998) which itself is modelled on the 830 word lexicographic description (semantics) for cup given in Wierzbicka (1984). I have examined Wierzbicka’s account in some detail in Allan (2021) and won’t do so here; instead I prefer to examine the account in Goddard (2011) because it is (a) more recent than Wierzbicka’s and (b) more closely sticks to the principles of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) which Wierzbicka (1984) supposedly uses, but in fact does not. The expressions used in a semantic representation in NSM are supposed to match those that (a) children acquire early and (b) have counterparts in all languages (Goddard 1994: 12). NSM is deliberately anthropocentric and subjective, referring to the natural world of sensory experience rather than intellectualized abstractions; thus, red is described as the colour of blood (Wierzbicka 1980, 1990) or fire (Wierzbicka 1990, 1992) rather than as an electromagnetic wave focally around 695 nanometres in length. Here is Goddard’s semantics for cup to which I have, for convenience in discussion, added numbers (1–44).

130

K. Allan

(1) a cup: FUNCTIONAL CATEGORY (2) (3) a. something of one kind (4) at many times people do something with something of this kind when they are drinking [m] something hot [m] (5) when someone is drinking [m] something like this, before it is inside this someone’s mouth [m], it is for some time inside something of this kind (6) (7) b. things of this kind are like this: (8) – they are not big (9) – someone can hold [m] one in one hand [m] (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21) (22)

SIZE

PART FOR HOLDING

many things of this kind have a small thin [m] part on one side when someone is drinking [m], this someone can hold [m] this part with the fingers [m] of one hand [m] OTHER PARTS

the other parts are like this: – the sides [m] are like the sides [m] of something round [m] – they are thin [m] – the top [m] part of the sides has a smooth [m] round [m] edge [m] – the bottom [m] part of something of this kind is flat [m] – someone can think that the bottom [m] part is small, if this someone thinks about the top [m] part at the same time MATERIAL

things of this kind are made of [m] something hard [m] this something is smooth [m]

8 On Cups (23) (24) (25) (26) (27) (28) (29) (30) (31) (32) (33) (34) (35) (36) (37) (38) (39) (40) (41) (42) (43) (44)

131 USE SEQUENCE

c. when someone is doing something with something of this kind because this someone is drinking [m] something hot [m], it happens like this: – at some time this something is in one place for some time, at this time the bottom [m] part is touching something flat [m] – at this time there is something like hot [m] water [m] inside this thing – it can be tea [m], it can be coffee [m], it can be something of another kind – it is inside this thing because some time before someone did some things because this someone wanted it to be like this – after this, someone picks up [m] this something with the fingers [m] of one hand [m] – after this, this someone does something else to it with the hand [m] – after this, because of this, part of the edge [m] at the top [m] of this thing touches one of this someone’s lips [m] for a short time, as this someone wants – during this time, this someone’s fingers [m] move as this someone wants – because of this, a little bit of something like hot [m] water [m) moves, as this someone wants – because of this, after this it is not inside this thing anymore, it is inside this someone’s mouth [m] – after this, this someone puts [m] this thing down [m] on something flat [m] – after this, this someone can do this a few more times SAUCER

sometimes when someone is drinking [m] something in this way, this someone wants not to hold [m] this thing for a short time when it is like this, this someone can put [m] this thing down [m] on something of another kind, in the middle [m] of this other kind of thing these other things are made of [m] the same hard [m], smooth [m] stuff they are round [m], they are flat [m] the edge [m] of something or this kind is above the middle [m] ARTEFACT STATUS

d. many people want to drink [m] things of some kinds like this at many times because of this, some people make [m] things of this kind

(Goddard 2011: 228–229)

In addition to so-called ‘semantic primes’ such as something, things, kind, many, people, times, etc. Goddard’s analysis includes ‘semantic molecules’ such as ‘fingers’, ‘hand’, ‘drinking’, ‘making’ things, and being ‘hot’ or ‘hard’, which are marked by a subsequent [m].

132

K. Allan

These are non-primitive meanings (hence, ultimately decomposable into semantic primes) that can function as units in the semantic structure of other, yet more complex words. [… S]emantic molecules must be meanings of lexical units in the language concerned. From a conceptual point of view, the NSM claim is that some complex concepts are semantically dependent on other less complex, but still non-primitive, concepts. For example, semantic explications for words like sparrow and eagle include ‘bird’ as a semantic molecule; the cognitive claim is that the concept of sparrow includes and depends on the concept of ‘bird’. In this case, the relationship is taxonomic: sparrows and eagles are both ‘birds [m] of one kind’ (molecules are marked in explications with the notation [m]). (Goddard 2010: 124)

Although it is said that all semantic molecules are reducible to semantic primes, this has only been demonstrated for a few (e.g. Goddard 2011: 125–130). Long though it is, Goddard’s semantics for cup has only 66 paragraphs instead of the 76 in Wierzbicka (1984). Nevertheless, it includes some extraneous information while at the same time omitting some criterial information. It is sectioned into four parts: (a), (2–5), identifies a cup’s primary function. (b), (6–22), describes the configuration of a typical cup and the material from which it is made. (c), (23–42), describes how a cup is used and what it is used for, then brings in saucers; and (d), (43–44), says the cups are in wide use and many are manufactured. (2–5) identify a cup as, primarily, a vessel for containing hot liquid. Although true, this characteristic is not a critical characteristic of cups. It may well be that this is one motivation for attaching handles to cups, nevertheless, a drinking vessel properlynamed cup may lack handles. (6–19) identify the typical configuration: a cup is the kind of thing (7–9) that can be held by the fingers of one hand, for which reason it has a handle (10–12)—though again this is not a necessary accessory to a cup. A cup is a hollow oblate hemispheroid with a flat bottom (13–19). (20–22) describe the material from which a cup is made as smooth and hard. It is not specifically noted that, necessarily, the material from which a cup is constructed is impermeable. (23–36) describe the use of a cup for the drinking of hot liquid (24, 26), mentioning that a cup is several times raised to the lips for drinking (31, 36) and lowered onto a flat surface (25, 35): although commonly true, (23–36) carry superfluous information that has no part in defining what a cup is. (37–42) describe the configuration and constituency of a saucer but fail to offer a satisfactory account of a saucer’s function. Finally, (43–44), says that because people like drinking hot liquids, cups are manufactured to that purpose. I re-affirm my earlier comment that cups are occasionally used for cool and cold liquids. Wierzbicka (1984) was explicitly a refutation of Labov’s denotation conditions for cup (Labov 1973: 366f, quoted above), on the grounds that they ‘need the help of a mathematician to understand’ them and do not give the lexicographic meaning (Wierzbicka 1984: 207). She claims ‘the denotation conditions can be deduced from the meaning’ (1984: 209) and Goddard supports this view. An important question arises about the playoff between the effectiveness of a definition and its accuracy.

8 On Cups

133

What is the purpose of the semantic or lexicographic description? Who or what is the lexicographic/semantic specification that results from the analyses in this essay designed for? Anyone capable of reading any of the descriptions of cup presented here will already know what a cup is, so a brief and accurate description is all that is necessary; as Alan Cruse once wrote: ‘For dictionary purposes, the concept has only to be identified, not fully specified’ (Cruse 1990: 396). In my own account of the semantics of cup (below, (45)–(46)) I do identify the concept and furthermore specify it fully for the more commonly denoted kinds of cup.

8.3 A New(ish) Proposal First, a bit of history. Based on dates in the OED, the earliest uses of cup—around 1000 CE—are for the drinking vessel. The extension to acorn-cups dates from around 1500; the extension to bra-cups not until the 1930s. Medieval cups were more like bowls, mugs, tankards, and goblets than the shapes described by Labov, Katz, Wierzbicka, and Goddard. The traditional Chinese and Japanese tea cups traded to Europe in the 16th century were bowl-like and the earliest European copies were similar. Handles only began to be attached to cups in Europe in the early 18th century; saucers appeared around the same time. Although the salient cup (for e.g. Americans, Australians, British, Poles, among many others) is the kind of drinking vessel described by Labov, Katz, Wierzbicka, and Goddard and discussed above, there are other applications of the noun. 4. A natural organ or formation having the form of a drinking-cup; e.g. the rounded cavity or socket of certain bones, as the shoulder-blade and hip-bone; the cup-shaped hardened involucrum (cupule) of an acorn (acorn-cup); the calyx of a flower, also the blossom itself when cup-shaped; a cup-shaped organ in certain Fungi, or on the suckers of certain Molluscs; a depression in the skin forming a rudimentary eye in certain lower animals (also eye-cup or cupeye). [6]c. That part of a brassière which is shaped to contain or support one of the breasts. (Oxford English Dictionary)

In the light of these quotations, I re-affirm that the criterial characteristic of the denotatum of cup is that it is a hollow hemispheroid in form. And note that there is even a partial overlap between the capacity/volume of the drinking cup and the bracup. Although bra sizes are not universally standardised, a AA cup is around 125 ml and a B cup around 250 ml; however, any match is complicated by the fact that band size also needs to be taken into account: ‘For example, a 12D cup is approximately 350 ml while a 16D corresponds to 1,100 ml’ (Mcghee and Steele 2011: 356). Like other items of clothing the configuration of the bra is determined by the configuration

134

K. Allan

of the human body, consequently bra cups are paired, typically connected by a band below that circles the chest. In offering my own account of the semantics of cup I seek to capture the characteristics of the drinking vessels referred to as cups and also the two extensions of the term cup to bra cups and acorn cups. (45) IF something is properly called a cup it is a hollow hemispheroid usually with a diameter greater than or equal to its depth GOTO (46) ELSE (52). (46) IF the cup is a flat-bottomed hollow oblate hemispheroidal drinking vessel3 it is a tea/coffee/etc. cup ELSE. (47) IF the cup is a flat-bottomed hollow oblate hemispheroidal drinking vessel with a vertical handle and a capacity of about 250 ml, it is a typical Western style tea/coffee/etc. cup that is typically accompanied by a matching saucer ELSE. (48) IF the cup is a flat-bottomed hollow oblate hemispheroidal drinking vessel with a vertical handle and a capacity of about 125 ml, it is a typical Western espresso style coffee cup (demitasse) that is often accompanied by a matching saucer ELSE. (49) IF the cup is a flat-bottomed hollow oblate hemispheroidal drinking vessel with a capacity of about 125 ml, it is a typical Chinese style tea cup and/or a typical MiddleEastern style tea/coffee cup ELSE. (50) IF the cup is a hollow oblate hemispheroid made of fabric and one of a pair that constitute the principal parts of a brassiere, each cup being shaped to contain and support one of a woman’s breasts ELSE. (51) IF the cup is a hollow oblate hemispheroid that forms the woody seat of an acorn (its cupule) it is an acorn-cup END.

The relevance of any particular condition (45)–(52) depends on context and consequent suppression of inappropriate conditions (see Allan 2020 for more on context and Gernsbacher 1990 on suppression of inappropriate conditions). For example, if the relevant context is a garment, then (50) will be selected and conditions (46)–(49) and (51)–(52) will be suppressed. If the context is drinking then all of conditions (46)–(49) and (52) are relevant and the particular condition must determined by other contextual factors such as configuration. The ‘END’ command in (51) is strictly incorrect because there are additional possibilities such as the rounded cavity or socket of certain bones, the calyx of a flower, also the blossom itself when cup-shaped, a cup-shaped organ in certain fungi, or on the suckers of certain molluscs, and a depression in the skin forming a rudimentary eye in certain lower animals (OED). Although the primary motivation for what has become a standard for drinking cup sizes is their functionality as manipulable with a single hand by an adult human, it is likely that the cup’s volume of about 250 ml is modelled on the volume of the two cupped human hands while the volume of about 125 ml is modelled on the volume of a single cupped human hand.4 The fact that the cups manufactured for human use only approximate the standard cup sizes matches the fact that human hand sizes vary a great deal, with consequent variation in their cupped volume. 3 And

therefore impermeable.

4 It is interesting that by Middle Eastern tradition using the left hand when eating is tabooed, so only

the cupped right hand would be acceptable in drinking. Could this influence the standard Middle Eastern cup size? Perhaps, but a similar argument fails for Chinese teacups.

8 On Cups

135

The ‘ELSE’ command in (45) directs to (52): (52) IF the cup is a flat-bottomed hollow tapered cylindrical drinking vessel having a

diameter less than its depth and made of water-proof paper, plastic, polystyrene, or similar material with a capacity between approximately 250–500ml, it is a throw-away cup that typically lacks a handle and invariably lacks a saucer.

Throw-away (disposable/take-away) cups are tapered by approximately 5 degrees from the vertical in order to facilitate stacking before use. Being cylindrical and not hemispheroidal as well as usually having a diameter less than its depth, a throw-away cup is more similar in shape to a mug than the default cup and this begs the question of how they come to be called ‘cups’ and not ‘mugs’. The only feasible answer lies with (46): the salience of cup as the default term for the vessel for drinking tea, coffee, hot chocolate and the like—i.e. the name is determined by the principal function of the denotatum rather than its shape.5 Although the typical (drinking vessel) cup is an oblate hemispheroid, in reality some are (hollow) cylinders. Being cylindrical, they are similar to short mugs because although some mugs are (hollow) prolate hemispheroids, most are shell cylinders; the principal difference between cylindrical cups and mugs is that whereas the diameter of the upper rim of the cup is approximately equal to or greater than the cup’s height, the height of a mug is greater than, and often much greater than, its diameter.

8.4 Conclusions In this essay I have compared several accounts of a lexicographic description (informal semantics) for cup with the aim of comparing their adequacy. The several accounts are constructed for different reasons and none of them (not even mine) is fully adequate as a complete semantic/lexicographic account of the English word cup. Only one, that of Goddard (2011), can properly claim to be presented within a particular theory of semantics—in other words to form part of a set of such semantic/lexicographic descriptions. I don’t have the space to argue the point here, but I do not believe that a claim to superiority on this basis has any validity at all: I admire the attempt, but the demonstrated inadequacy of (1)–(44), the fact that it differs from Goddard (1998) and Wierzbicka (1984), make vacuous any claim to superiority simply on grounds of its adherence to a particular linguistic theory (see Allan 2008 for comments on NSM). I could have attempted to write (45)

5 The slightly old-fashioned idiom be in one’s cups

meaning “drunk” also derives from the salience of cup as a drinking vessel. Cups are rarely used for alcoholic drinks, which are normally served in glasses, (beer-)mugs, bottles, or cans.

136

K. Allan

using more formal expressions such as ∀(x)[cup(x) → λ(y)[HOLLOW(y) & HEMISPHEROID(y)](x)],6 but these formalisms invariably need to be translated back into everyday informal language in order to be comprehensively understood by most of humanity. We have seen that a lexical form such as cup is applied (not necessarily figuratively) to a variety of denotata whose differences create extensions to the meaning of the lexical item. This is commonplace: the word window, for instance, was originally applied to a wooden shutter that let light and air into a home (a wind-door); today window denotes a functionally similar but visually and cognitively distinct transparent screen of glass in a frame. These sorts of examples demonstrate one kind of within-language change over time. A topically relevant example of crosslanguage change is the fact that English cup derives indirectly from Latin cuppa “barrel, cask”—a vessel with a capacity at least 500 times greater than 250 ml. Acknowledgements I am grateful to three referees whose comments on earlier versions of this chapter led to many improvements. All remaining faults are mine.

References Allan, K. (2001). Natural language semantics. Oxford/Malden MA: Blackwell. Allan, K. (2008). Review of B. Peeters (Ed.), Semantic Primes and Universal Grammar: Empirical evidence from the Romance languages. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins [Studies in Language Companion Series, Vol. 81] xvi + 374 pp. (ISBN 90 272 3091 9). Studies in Language 32: 445–54. Allan, K. (2020). The semantics and pragmatics of three potential slurring terms. In K. Mullan, B. Peeters, & L. Sadow (Eds.), Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural semantics, and intercultural communication: Ethnopragmatics and semantic analysis,(pp. 163–83). Singapore: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9983-2_9. Allan, K. (2021). On the semantics of cup. In H. Bromhead & Z. Ye (Eds.), Meaning, life and culture: In conversation with Anna Wierzbicka. Canberra: ANU Press. Cruse, D. A. (1990). Prototype theory and lexical semantics. In S. L. Tsohatzidis (Ed.), Meanings and prototypes: Studies in linguistic categorization (pp. 382–402). London: Routledge. Farlex Idioms and Slang Dictionary (2017). https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com. Parteen, Co. Clare: Farlex International. Gernsbacher, M. (1990). Language comprehension as structure building. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Giora, R. (2003). On our mind: Salience, context, and figurative language. New York: Oxford University Press. Goddard, C. (1994). Semantic theory and semantic universals. In C. Goddard & A. Wierzbicka (Eds.), Semantic and lexical universals: Theory and empirical findings (pp. 7–29). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Goddard, C. (1998). Semantic analysis: A practical introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goddard, C. (2011). Semantic analysis: A practical introduction (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 6 See

Allan (2020) for many examples. There is also the conundrum that HEMISPHEROID is a more complex and rarer concept than CUP.

8 On Cups

137

Katz, J. J. (1977). A proper theory of names. Philosophical Studies, 31, 1–80. Labov, W. (1973). The boundaries of words and their meanings. In C.-J. Bailey & R. Shuy (Eds.), New ways of analyzing Variation in English, pp. 340–73. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Mcghee, D. E., & Steele, J. R. (2011). Breast volume and bra size. International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology, 23, 351–360. https://doi.org/10.1108/09556221111166284. Oxford English Dictionary. http://www.oed.com. Wierzbicka, A. (1980). Lingua mentalis: The semantics of natural language. Sydney: Academic Press. Wierzbicka, A. (1984). Cups and mugs: lexicography and conceptual analysis. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 4, 257–281. Wierzbicka, A. (1990). The semantics of color terms: semantics, culture, and cognition. Cognitive Linguistics, 1, 99–150. Wierzbicka, A. (1992). Semantic primitives and semantic fields. In E. Kittay & A. Lehrer (Eds.), Frames, fields, and contrasts (pp. 209–227). Norwood NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Keith Allan MLitt., Ph.D. (Edinburgh), FAHA. Emeritus Professor, Monash University. Selected books: Linguistic Meaning (Routledge, 1986; 2014); Euphemism and Dysphemism: Language Used as Shield and Weapon (with Kate Burridge, OUP, 1991); Natural Language Semantics (Blackwell, 2001); Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language (with Kate Burridge, CUP, 2006); Concise Encyclopaedia of Semantics (Elsevier, 2009); The Western Classical Tradition in Linguistics Second Expanded Edition (Equinox, 2010); Cambridge Handbook of Pragmatics (with Kasia Jaszczolt, CUP, 2012); Oxford Handbook of the History of Linguistics (OUP, 2013); Routledge Handbook of Linguistics (2016); Oxford Handbook of Taboo Words and Language (OUP, 2018) Homepage: http://users.monash.edu.au/~kallan/homepage.html.

Part II

Language Changes: Looking Across Languages

Chapter 9

Partial Semantic False Friends and the Indeterminacy of Translation in Philosophical Texts Pedro J. Chamizo-Domínguez

Abstract The aim of this chapter is to analyse and discuss some translation difficulties that emerge when one signifier develops different meanings in two particular languages. When it is the case that, as a result of some semantic change, two languages share one signifier and that this signifier shares, at least, one of its meanings in both languages while it differs with regard to the rest, problems for translating from one to the other language emerge. Such problems become more significant when, in addition, each language’s signifier belongs to different sociolects and/or two alternative interpretations of a given text are reasonably possible. All these points are analysed in published translations of philosophical texts. Although I study other cases, the core of this chapter is devoted to the problems that emerge when the English noun actuality and its cognates in Romance languages appear in philosophical texts. Keywords Actuality · Diversity of interpretations · False friends · Partial synonymy · Philosophical meaning · Translation

9.1 Introduction: Semantic False Friends It is very frequent that two languages share certain signifiers, either because two given terms derive from a unique term in a third language or because one of the languages borrowed the term in question from the other (Nefedova 2017). Or even by means of a calque as is the case of the adjective eventueel in Dutch and Afrikaans, since this adjective means “possible” in the Dutch whereas it means “final” in Afrikaans due to the influence of the meaning of the English adjective eventual (Gouws et al. 2004: 803–4). If it is the case that a term also shares its meanings in both languages, translating one into another can be considered a merely mechanical task. Nevertheless, frequently, the fact that two terms share signifiers—even when both derive from a common word in a third language—does not imply they also share their meanings. On the contrary, they often differ, partially or fully, with regard to their meanings. P. J. Chamizo-Domínguez (B) University of Malaga, Málaga, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 K. Allan (ed.), Dynamics of Language Changes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6430-7_9

141

142

P. J. Chamizo-Domínguez

These terms, which share a same etymological origin as well as some identity or similitude in their signifiers but differ with regard to their meanings, are known as semantic false friends (Chamizo-Domínguez 2008: 3–20). Semantic false friends originated in the fact that, at some point in the past, at least one of the terms changed its meaning. This change usually consisted in adding one new meaning in one of the languages under consideration whereas this did not happen or happened in a different direction in the other language. The study of these semantic changes affords unexpected surprises (Chamizo-Domínguez and Nerlich 2002; Frunza and Inkpen 2009). From a synchronic point of view, semantic false friends can be divided into two groups: 1) full semantic false friends, or those pairs of words that, in spite of the fact they share a common origin, do not share any of their meanings; and 2) partial semantic false friends, or those pairs of words that share their origin and at least one of their meanings.

9.2 When the Author Means “Possible” and the Translator “Final” and Vice Versa In a given synchronic stage, full semantic false friends usually cause fewer translation problems, since the contexts of occurrence can help to disambiguate their meanings. However, it is also possible to document cases where the meaning of the resulting target language (TL, hereafter) text clearly differs from the meaning of the source language (SL, hereafter) text. By way of illustration, let us consider how a full semantic false friend and a partial one have been translated from English into Spanish in a published text written by a British philosopher. We shall consider the English adjective eventual with regard to its Spanish cognate eventual, and the English noun indifference with regard to its Spanish cognate indiferencia. Both the English adjective eventual, as well as its Spanish cognate eventual, derive from the Latin adjective eventualis, either directly, as is the case of the Spanish adjective, or via French éventuel, as seems to be the history of the English adjective. Despite this shared origin, their salient meanings are ‘happening in due course of time; ultimate’ (Collins 2018) and ‘sujeto a cualquier evento o contingencia’ [literally, subject to any unforeseen happening or contingence] (DLE 2018), respectively. This makes the English adjective denote something that will be realised for sure at the end of a process or activity. Conversely, the Spanish adjective denotes something that may or may not happen, it is to say, something that is contingent. This means that, obviously, if something will necessarily happen, it cannot be subject to contingence by definition; and, quite the opposite, it is impossible to know whether something will happen or will not, if it is subject to contingence. This results in the impossibility of substituting one adjective by another and maintaining the salva veritate principle. If it is the case that the Spanish adjective eventual is translated into English as eventual, the resulting sentence in the TL might make sense, but its meaning will

9 Partial Semantic False Friends and the Indeterminacy …

143

necessarily differ from the meaning of the SL’s sentence. This is what, in fact, occurs in a text that happens to deal with semantic change since its author alludes to how the meanings of the Spanish nouns república and monarquía have changed over time: (1) ¡República, monarquía! Dos palabras que en la historia cambian constantemente de sentido auténtico, y que por lo mismo es preciso en todo instante triturar para cerciorarse de su eventual enjundia (Ortega y Gasset 1930a: 258. Original italics).

Since the meanings of the nouns república and monarquía changed as time went by, its actual sense (“substance”, in Ortega y Gasset’s peculiar jargon) will always be contingent, uncertain or circumstantial and depend on the time and context of use. In other words, in (1), the adjective eventual refers to something as a mere possibility, not to something that will necessarily happen. However, (1) has been translated into English as: (1 ) Republic! Monarchy! Two words which in history are constantly changing their authentic sense, and which for that reason it is at every moment necessary to reduce to fragments in order to ascertain their actual essence (Ortega y Gasset 1932: 92. Original italics).

According to what (1 ) says to any English reader, what was a mere possibility or contingence in the SL’s text became something that is real or present, since the salient meanings of the English adjective actual are: 1) ‘existing in reality or as a matter of fact’ and/or 2) ‘existing at the present time; current’ (Collins 2018). (1 ) is particularly interesting inasmuch as the unknown translator must have thought the English adjective eventual was extremely strange in this context, since there is no series of events with regard to which something might be the last one. However, the event in question should be something actually existing, not a mere possibility. An analogous phenomenon to that previously described can be found when reading texts translated from English into Spanish. Let us consider the following text: (2) The indifference of the English language to the gender of nouns sufficiently demonstrates the superfluity of this particular grammatical feature. For the purpose of eventual metaphysical inference, gender is an accidental, a nonessential, grammatical category (Black 1962: 2).

(2) is particularly interesting because the problem with the adjective eventual emerges again and, in addition, a new problem arises as well: the problem of translating terms that are partial semantic false friends and that, for that very reason, are partial synonyms as well. Indeed, given that the English noun indifference can mean either 1) ‘the fact or state of being indifferent; lack of care or concern’ or 2) ‘lack of importance; insignificance’ (Collins 2018), one has to choose between their two possible meanings in (2). In other words, before translating the noun indifference into Spanish the translator has to decide whether Max Black intended to mean that the English language is neutral with regard to the gender of nouns or that the gender of nouns is insignificant or not relevant in English. And the fact is that (2) was translated into Spanish as:

144

P. J. Chamizo-Domínguez

(2 ) La indiferencia de la lengua inglesa para con el género de los hombres hace patente la superfluidad de este rasgo gramatical concreto. Con vistas a una eventual inferencia metafísica, el género es una categoría gramatical accidental, no esencial (Black 1966: 14).

However, the Spanish noun indiferencia is monosemic, since it only means ‘Estado de ánimo en que no se siente inclinación ni repugnancia hacia una persona, objeto o negocio determinado’ (DLE), which matches up with the first meaning of English indifference, but not with the second. Consequently, what (2 ) says is: (2 ) The lack of interest of the English language to the gender of men1 sufficiently demonstrates the superfluity of this particular grammatical feature. For the purpose of possible (potential or contingent) metaphysical inference, gender is an accidental, a nonessential, grammatical category.

9.3 The Noun Actuality as Translation of Aristotle’s ™νšργ εια, and Kant’s and Hegel’s Wirklichkeit In order to achieve greater depth, as a case study, let us focus on the English noun actuality and its cognates in the Romance languages. The analysis of the semantic shifts of the noun actuality and its cognates in the Romance languages offers a paradigmatic example of terms that, in spite of the fact they share a common origin, have developed such different meanings as to cause serious problems for interpreting a given text and, consequently, translating it. In fact, while the French noun actualité and the Spanish one actualidad 2 can be substituted one for the other without changing either the meaning or the truth values of the sentences in which the change is carried out, none of them can be substituted by its English cognate actuality, except in a few particular philosophical contexts. In the last analysis, all of them derive from the Latin noun actualitas, coined in the Middle Ages to translate Aristotle’s ™ν šργ εια and ™ντ ελšχ εια (Preus 2015: 29). So, actualitas and its derivatives in modern languages became terms of art in Aristotelian and scholastic jargon, so that all of them share their respective meanings. In the case of the English language, the fact that Aristotle’s translators usually render ™ν šργ εια as actuality has probably contributed to spreading its use. For instance, there is the well-known passage ´ δ’ where Aristotle says that ™ν šργ εια and ™ντ ελšχ εια are synonymous: ‘™ληλυθε ` ™ντελšχειαν συντιθεμšνη, κα`ι ™π`ι τα` ¥λλα ¹ ™νšργεια τoÜνoμα, ¹ πρ`oς την ™κ τîν κιν»σεων μ£λιστα’ (Metaphysics 1047a30). This passage was translated into English as ‘The term ‘actuality,’ with its implication of ‘complete reality,’ has 1 Although it has little to do with my topic, I cannot resist mentioning a funny erratum in (2 ), which

is detectable only when one knows (2). It deals with ‘género de los hombres’ (literally, “the gender of men”), which has been possible because of the graphic similitude between the Spanish terms hombre (man) and nombre (noun, name). According to what (2 ) literally says, Black would be speaking of the gender of people, not of the gender of words! 2 What is said about the French and Spanish nouns can also be said about the Italian noun attualità, the Portuguese noun actualidade/atualidade, and even the German noun Aktualität.

9 Partial Semantic False Friends and the Indeterminacy …

145

been extended from motions, to which it properly belongs, to other things’ (Aristotle 1933: 439) and as ‘The word ‘actuality’, which we connect with ‘complete reality’, has, in the main, been extended from movements to other things’ (Aristotle 1928: 1047a30).3 This technical meaning in the Aristotelian and scholastic jargon became, broadly speaking,4 the standard use of the noun actuality in ordinary English, where actuality means: 1) ‘true existence; reality’; and 2) ‘(sometimes plural) a fact or condition that is real’ (Collins 2018). From this very point, the evolution of the English noun actuality, on the one hand, and the rest of its cognates, on the other hand, diverges in common usage. In this use, the meaning of the English noun remains very close to its philosophical sense, which has disappeared in the common use of the rest of the languages mentioned. By contrast and at the same time, they develop the salient meanings of present time or topicality. Thus, the English noun actuality and its cognates in the rest of the European modern languages became partial semantic false friends. Translators of German idealist philosophers into English usually render the German noun Wirklichkeit into English as actuality as well, while this is not the case among the translators into Romance languages. In order to prove this, I will refer to the translations into English and Romance languages of two different collocations from two German idealist leading philosophers: Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Concerning Kant, the collocation ‘das Schema der Wirklichkeit’ (Kant 1998a: 245) is rendered as ‘the schema of actuality’ (Kant 1996: 217; 1998b: 275; 2007: 185) in recent versions of Kant’s work, although the translation ‘the schema of reality’ can be found as well in older versions (Kant 1890: 111; 1922: 118). Conversely, since the salient meaning of the cognates of actuality—French actualité, Italian attualità, Spanish actualidad, and Portuguese atualidade/actualidade—in Romance languages is “present time”, translators avoid such a noun and the published translations of Kant’s work into such languages fluctuate between translating the noun Wirklichkeit either as reality or as effectuality, or even as a mixture of both concepts, as seen in the following cases: 1) as reality, Spanish ‘el esquema de la realidad’ [the schema of reality] (Kant 1928: 130, and Kant 1998c: 187); French ‘le schème de la réalité’ [the schema of reality] (Kant 2019: 113); Italian ‘lo schema della realtà’ [the schema of reality] (Kant, 2008: 196); and Portuguese ‘o esquema da realidade’ [the schema of reality] (Kant 2001: 212); 2) as effectuality, Italian ‘lo schema dell’effettualità’ [the schema of effectuality] (Kant 1999: 223); and 3 Conversely, the translations of Aristotle’s work into Romance languages prefer the noun act. Thus,

for instance, ‘Le mot d’Acte, appliqué à la realisation complète d’une chose, a été emprunté surtout des mouvements, pour être transporté de là à tout le reste’ (Aristote 2008: 171) and ‘La palabra ‘acto’, vinculada a la realización plena, se ha extendido también a otras cosas, fundamentalmente a partir de los movimientos’ (Aristóteles 1994: 370), in French and Spanish, respectively. 4 To be precise, the noun actuality has three different senses even within scholastic philosophy, namely, “act”, “act thought of abstractly”, and ‘the state of being in act or of being real and complete’ (Wuellner 2012: 5. S.v. actuality). Properly speaking, only the third sense is shared with its standard use in English.

146

P. J. Chamizo-Domínguez

3) as a mixture of both, Italian ‘lo schema della realtà effettuale’ [the schema of effectual reality] and ‘lo schema della realtà effettiva’ [the schema of effective reality] (Kant 1967: 194; and Kant 2012: 311, respectively); and Spanish ‘el esquema de la realidad efectiva’ [the schema of effective reality] (Kant 2009: 198).

Furthermore, the translators of Hegel’s works into English—with an unusual unanimity—render the German noun Wirklichkeit into English as actuality as well. This is true to such extent that the collocation ‘die reine Wirklichkeit’ (Hegel 1907: 15) is unanimously translated as ‘pure actuality’ in the five translations of Hegel’s Vorrede to his Phänomenologie des Geistes I know (Hegel 1910: 20; 1977: 12; 2018a: 14; 2018b: 12; Yovel 2005: 106). Again, the versions of the collocation die reine Wirklichkeit into Romance languages clearly differ from its translations into English. To be precise, the collocation in question has actually been translated: 1) as reality, Spanish ‘la realidad pura’ [the pure reality] (Hegel 1966: 17) and Italian ‘la pura realtà’ [the pure reality] (Hegel 1863: 12); 2) as effectiveness, Spanish ‘la efectividad pura’ [the pure effectiveness] (Hegel 2010: 188) and Portuguese ‘a efetividade pura’ [the pure effectiveness] (Hegel 2003: 37); and 3) as a mixture of both, French ‘la pure réalité effective’ [the pure effective reality] (Hegel 1941: 20).

Likewise, British and American idealist philosophers, out of necessity, widely use the noun actuality in their works originally written in English, e.g. Bradley (1883: 6, 146, 147, 184, and 393); McTaggart (1910: 155–186) and Royce (1919: 176, 194, 223, and 225).

9.4 The Noun Actuality Condemned to Ostracism by 20th Century British and American Philosophers In spite of the fact that the standard sense of the noun actuality is closely related to its sense in some philosophical jargons—or perhaps because of the fact it has a marked Aristotelian-scholastic and/or Kantian/Hegelian flavour—this noun has almost disappeared from the jargon of other philosophers. This absence is particularly notorious in the 20th century great philosophical works originally written in English by philosophers belonging to the neopositivist and/or analytic traditions. John L. Austin, for instance, never uses either the noun actuality or its derivative actualization. Nor does Gilbert Ryle use the noun actuality in his masterpiece The Concept of Mind, although he uses its derivative actualization (2009: 31–33 and 72–73). Similarly, the term actuality is also absent from John Rawls’s major works. Rawls only uses actuality—specifically in the collocation ‘actuality of freedom’ as opposed to the possibility of freedom (Rawls 1999: 517)—only once when alluding to and glossing a text from Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason.5 On his 5 The passage alluded to by Rawls literally reads: ‘nämlich das der Freiheit, von der das moralische

Gesetz, welches selbst keiner rechtfertigenden Gründe bedarf, nicht bloß die Möglichkeit, sondern

9 Partial Semantic False Friends and the Indeterminacy …

147

part, Willard van Orman Quine does not use either the noun actuality or its derivative actualization in his main work Word and Object (1960).6 As far as I know, the noun actuality only appears in two passages of Quine’s work. Once in the plural, actualities, as conceptually and logically opposed to possibilities: ‘The four-dimensional view affords a place in the sun to all future actualities, however unpredictable, but offers no aid nor comfort to mere possibilities that are never due to be actualized’ (Quine 1987: 75. S.v. future). The other place where the noun actuality appears in Quine’s work is more interesting for my purposes since I have been able to check its translation into Spanish. In this second passage, Quine criticises and makes fun of two (imaginary?) idealist philosophers—McX and Wyman—whom he ironically describes as ‘subtler minds’. Given Quine’s humorous side, even in his most serious, philosophical writings,7 I dare to suggest that ‘McX’ is a clear allusion to John E. McTaggart and ‘Wyman’ a veiled allusion to some other idealist or scholastic philosopher. Irrespective of whether my suggestion is correct or not, the passage in question is the following: (3) Wyman,8 by the way, is one of those philosophers who have united in ruining the good old word ‘exist’. Despite his espousal of unactualized possibles, he limits the word ‘existence’ to actuality (Quine 1963: 3).

Before rendering (3) into Spanish, the translator had to decide which one is the better of the two possible options—or the less bad, at least: rendering the noun actuality into Spanish either as actualidad or as realidad. The first option has in its favour that it maintains Quine’s allusion to scholasticism and/or idealism by means of using a term of art which typically belongs to these philosophical jargons but, unfortunately, an overwhelming majority of the Spanish readers could misunderstand. The second option has in its favour that makes the understanding of the semantic meaning of (3) easier, but, conversely, can be criticised for hiding the peculiarities of the text, die Wirklichkeit an Wesen beweiset, die dies Gesetz als für sie verbindend erkennen’ (Kant 2011: 64). This passage has been translated into English as ‘viz., the power of freedom, the freedom of which the moral law, which itself needs no justifying grounds, proves not only the possibility but the actuality in beings who cognize this law as obligating for them’ (Kant 2002: 66), and as ‘namely the faculty of freedom, of which the moral law, which itself has no need of justifying grounds, proves not only the possibility but the reality in beings who cognize this law as binding upon them’ (Kant 2015: 41). 6 Instead of the marked term actuality, Quine resorts to its synonym factuality. For instance, in Quine (1969: 52) or Quine (1992: 43). Indeed, Quine avoids the noun actuality to the extent of creating the collocation “what there is” in a seminal article (Quine 1948) so as not to use either actuality or reality. 7 For instance, the title From a Logical Point of View itself is a jocular allusion to a comic Trinidad calypso that Harry Belafonte was singing in a night spot and that ended: ‘And so, from a logical point of view, / Always marry a woman uglier than you’ (Quine 1985: 228). 8 Although it only tangentially has to do with my topic, I want to consider the name Wyman. This name can be understood either as a common family name or as the name of the letter Y (wy or wye). In fact there are two German translations of From a Logical Point of View showing both interpretations are reasonable: Wyman was translated into German as ‘Ypsiloner’ (Quine 1979: 10) and elsewhere ‘Wyman’ (Quine 2011: 11).

148

P. J. Chamizo-Domínguez

particularly Quine’s allusion to a particular philosophical jargon. Actually, (3) was rendered into Spanish as: (3 ) El señor Y Griega es naturalmente uno de esos filósofos que se han confabulado en la empresa de arruinar la buena y vieja palabra ‘existir’. A pesar de su adhesión a los posibles no actualizados, Y Griega limita la palabra ‘existencia’ a la actualidad (Quine 1962: 27).

Given that the salient, usual meanings of the Spanish noun actualidad are “present time”, “topicality” or “current affairs” and all of them could make some sense in (3 ), the Spanish reader will probably not be conscious s/he is misunderstanding Quine’s thought.

9.5 When Different Interpretations Are Possible Whereas both philosophical and common senses of the English noun actuality largely coincide to such an extent that this noun can be considered monosemic, its cognates in Romance languages have two different meanings. On the one hand, a salient meaning that has to do with the present and is typically the first sense that comes to the mind of any native speaker. This is the meaning that a reader finds when consulting the entries in standard dictionaries for the cognates of the noun actuality in Romance languages. Indeed, the definitions one finds in some Romance languages and German, are the following: 1) Spanish actualidad: ‘tiempo presente’ [present time] (DLE, 2018). 2) Portuguese actualidade: ‘O tempo presente’ [Literally, present time] (Priberam 2018). 3) French: actualité: ‘Qualité de ce qui appartient ou convient au moment présent’ [Literally: Quality of what belongs or is suitable in the present moment] (Larousse 2018). 4) Italian attualità: ‘L’esser sentito come vivo e presente, modernità’ [Literally, The being (existent) felt as alive and present, modernity] (Treccani 2018). 5) German Aktualität: ‘gegenwärtige Wirklichkeit’ [Literally, present reality/actuality] (Duden 2018).

And, on the other hand, there is a second meaning, that most of the speakers do not know, that belongs to philosophical jargon and that, broadly speaking, coincides with the meaning of the English noun actuality. This second meaning is absent in all the dictionaries listed above, except in Treccani (2018), which includes ‘l’essere in atto’ [Literally, being (existent) in act], although making clear that such meaning belongs to philosophical jargon. In fact, not even an excellent technical dictionary of philosophy, such as the one by Lalande (1926), devotes an entry to actualité,9 although the word itself is used in this dictionary from time to time. 9 Lalande

himself explains this absence as follow: ‘Actuel et actualité n’ayant plus guère en français qu’une valeur temporelle, réel et realité ont hérité de ce sens, et il leur appartient bien incontestablement, même dans la langue usuelle’ (1926: 691. S.v. réel).

9 Partial Semantic False Friends and the Indeterminacy …

149

Because of this divergence of meanings, the translator into English of a philosophical text written in Spanish, in which the noun actualidad appears, has to cope with several traps in addition to the ones a translator can find in any translation. In order to avoid such traps the translator has to interpret the text s/he is translating according to two considerations: 1) Whether the author is using the noun actualidad according to its philosophical sense, in which case the Spanish noun can be substituted by its English cognate without changing its referential meaning. 2) And whether the author is using the noun actualidad according to its sense in ordinary Spanish, in which case the Spanish noun cannot be substituted by its English cognate.

When the translator does not take into account these considerations, the resulting text runs the risk of saying something very different with regard to what the SL text says. Let us see how several translators have approached these considerations when translating into English texts written by the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset, where he uses the noun actualidad. Three notable examples can be found in the translations of Ortega’s writings into English, namely, 1) that actualidad means “reality” in the text of the SL; 2) that actualidad means “present time” in the text of the SL; and 3) that the text of the SL is ambiguous enough as to admit both interpretations. Thus, from de translator’s point of view, the most desirable situation is the one in which s/he finds a SL text where Ortega means reality when using actualidad, either according to its Aristotelian sense or to its Hegelian one. This is the case of the following example: (4) Es ésta [la realidad de la vida] un conocimiento de lo que hemos sido que la memoria nos conserva y que encontramos siempre acumulado en nuestro hoy, en nuestra actualidad o realidad (Ortega y Gasset 1941a: 37).

Since Ortega himself makes clear that actualidad is synonymous with realidad in (4),10 its translator into English had no need of further complications and, in fact, translated (4) as (4 ) [The reality of life] is a knowledge of what we had been that memory has preserved for us and that lies always to hand, accumulated in our today, in our actuality or reality (Ortega y Gasset 1941b: 209).

The second situation, when the Spanish noun means the present or the present time, is a frequent source of misunderstanding that gives rise to the fact the TL’s text might make sense, but a sense pretty different from what the SL’s text really means. This is the case of (5) El filólogo es también ciego para el porvenir. También él retrograda, busca a toda actualidad un precedente, al cual llama, con lindo vocablo de égloga, su “fuente” (Ortega y Gasset 1930a: 257). 10 I disregard the fact that it is probable as well that, in (4), the author was playing on (or alluding to) the two meanings of the Spanish noun actualidad—it does not matter whether consciously or unconsciously—since he also speaks of our today.

150

P. J. Chamizo-Domínguez

It is clear to any speaker of Spanish that, when using the noun actualidad, Ortega had in mind the present time or, since he is speaking of a philologist, the present moment or, in Saussurian terms, the synchronic moment of a language. And regarding the synchronic moment of a given language is how the philologist intends to find precedents. However, (5) was in fact translated as (5 ) The philologue [sic] is also blind to the future. He also looks backward, searches for a precedent for every actuality, which he calls in his pretty idyllic language, a “source” (Ortega y Gasset 1932: 174).

According to what (5 ) says, readers may understand that Ortega was speaking of reality, or, what could be worse, that one of the philologist’s jobs is to look for the basis of reality itself. In other words, it might seem that Ortega is attributing to philologists one of the jobs traditionally attributed to philosophers. Finally, the most frequent situation is the one in which the Spanish noun actualidad in the SL’s text is susceptible of being interpreted in two ways: either as present time, which is the interpretation that native speakers of Spanish make, or as actuality or reality, which is the interpretation that Ortega’s translators into English make. In these cases, translators tried out three different strategies: 1) substituting the SL’s word by the noun actuality itself; 2) substituting the SL’s word by its synonym reality; and 3) substituting the SL’s word by a periphrasis as ambiguous as the SL’s text is. One finds the first case in the following quote: (6) Su verdadero mundo [del hombre], el que corresponde a la plena actualidad, es enormemente complejo, preciso y exigente (Ortega y Gasset 1930b: 344).

In spite of the fact that native speakers of Spanish, in all probability, would understand that, in (6), the noun actualidad means present time, it is not less true that it can be understood as meaning reality. Indeed, this is the interpretation that the translator of (6) into English actually made: (6 ) [Man’s] real world, the world that corresponds to the whole of actuality, is one of enormous complexity and grim urgency (Ortega y Gasset 2014: 67).

The second case happens with the same Spanish collocation and in the same work as (6): (7) La Universidad tiene que estar también abierta a la plena actualidad; más aún: tiene que estar en medio de ella, sumergida en ella (Ortega y Gasset 1930b: 352).

As in the case of (6), the Spanish collocation la plena actualidad can be interpreted as meaning either of full topicality (or full current affairs, in its case) or of full actuality. Again, in spite of the fact that Spanish speakers would understand Ortega y Gasset intended to mean the first option, the translator of (7) into English did choose a plausible synonym of actuality, reality: (7 ) The university must be open to the whole reality of its time. It must be in the midst of real life, and saturated with it (Ortega y Gasset 2014: 76).11 11 This

cannot be attributed to the translator’s ignorance of the Spanish language and/or lack of skill in his/her job. In fact, the same translator rendered actualidad into current affairs in another

9 Partial Semantic False Friends and the Indeterminacy …

151

The final option appears in the English translation of one of Ortega y Gasset’s early works, whose Spanish title is El tema de nuestro tiempo (1923) and whose English translation is The Modern Theme (1961): (8) Como si el tiempo, espectral fluencia, simplemente corriendo, pudiese ser causa de nada y hacer verosímil lo que es en la actualidad inconcebible (Ortega y Gasset 1923: 238).

Although, in all probability, Ortega y Gasset intended to mean either nowadays or currently, or at present or presently when he used the adverbial phrase en la actualidad, the fact is that interpreting such phrase as in actuality/reality is possible as well. Consequently, the translation of (8) was in fact: (8 ) It is assumed that time, that ghostly river, by merely elapsing, can be an efficient cause12 and make what is actually inconceivable a probability (Ortega y Gasset 1961: 146).

In (8 ) the Spanish adverbial phrase has been substituted by an English adverb, which is at least as ambiguous as the SL’s phrase is, since the English adverb actually can be understood as meaning either ‘as an actual fact; really’ or ‘at present’ (Collins 2018). Consequently, (8 ) maintains the original ambiguity of (8), although, perhaps, the salient meaning of this context might be really.

9.6 Conclusions Two given terms, which have a common origin, become semantic false friends when they develop different meanings with the passing of time. When it is the case that such terms share at least one meaning whereas they differ with regard to the others, such terms are partial semantic false friends. The translation of these terms requires a particular interpretative effort since they can be replaceable or do not, depending on the context. In this contribution I have studied some instances where sometimes the translator’s particular interpretation of such partial semantic false friends resulted in striking or meaningless TL texts; while, at other times the TL text makes perfectly sense, but a sense that is very far from what the author of the SL text intended to mean. Acknowledgements I am grateful to Keith Allan and Claudia Fernández for comments and insights on the first draft of this chapter. No one but me is responsible for infelicities that remain.

passage of the same page where it is patently clear that the Spanish noun cannot mean in any way reality/actuality. Actually, Ortega’s assertion ‘la única fuerza espiritual que por oficio se ocupa de la actualidad: la Prensa’ (Ortega y Gasset 1930b: 352), was, in fact ‘the only spiritual force which necessarily concerns itself with current affairs – the press’ (Ortega y Gasset, 2014: 76). 12 Although this point does not have any bearing on the main topic I am discussing, I cannot overlook the fact that the translator makes an Aristotelian reading of Ortega y Gasset when he renders causa into efficient cause. The term causa eficiente is completely alien to Ortega y Gasset’s idiolect. He only uses the term causa eficiente once in the 12 volumes of his Complete Works to explain a debate on the different causes among the Aristotle’s heirs who ruled the Lyceum (Ortega y Gasset 1958: 166).

152

P. J. Chamizo-Domínguez

References Aristote. (2008). Métaphysique. French translation by Pascale Nau. http://philotextes.info/spip/spip. php?article4. Aristóteles. (1994). Metafísica. Spanish translation by Tomás Calvo Martínez. Madrid: Gredos. Aristotle. (1933). The Metaphysics. Books I-IX. With an English translation by Hugh Tredennick. London: William Heinemann. Aristotle. (1928). Metaphysica. In The works of Aristotle, VIII. Translated into English under the Editorship of W.D. Ross. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Black, M. (1962). Models and metaphors: Studies in language and philosophy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Black, M. (1966). Modelos y metáforas. Spanish translation by Víctor Sánchez de Zavala. Madrid: Tecnos. Bradley, F. H. (1883). The principles of logic. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. Chamizo-Domínguez, P. J. (2008). Semantics and pragmatics of false friends. London/New York: Routledge. Chamizo-Domínguez, P. J., & Nerlich, B. (2002). False friends: Their origin and semantics in some selected languages). Journal of Pragmatics, 34, 1833–49. Collins. (2018). English dictionary. https://www.collinsdictionary.com. DLE. (2018). Diccionario de la lengua española. http://dle.rae.es. Duden. (2018). Wörterbuch Duden online. https://www.duden.de/woerterbuch. Frunza, O., & Inkpen, D. (2009). Identification and disambiguation of cognates, false friends, and partial cognates using machine learning techniques. International Journal of Linguistics, 1, 1–37. Gouws, R. H., Prinsloo, D. J., & de Schryver, G.-M. (2004). Friends will be friends—True or false. Lexicographic approaches to the treatment of false friends. In G. Williams & S. Vesler (Eds.), Euralex 2004 proceedings. Lexicological issues of lexicographical relevance (pp. 797– 806). Lorient: Université de Bretagne-Sud. Hegel, G. W. F. (1863). La fenomenologia dello spirito. Italian translation by A. Novelli. Naples: Presso F. Rossi-Romano. Hegel, G. W. F. (1907 [1807]). Phänomenologie des Geistes. Edited by Georg Lasson. Leipzig: Verlag der Dürr’schen Buchhandlung. Hegel, G. W. F. (1910). The phenomenology of mind. Translated by J. B. Baillie. London: Swan Sonnenschein. Hegel, G. W. F. (1941). La phénoménologie de l’esprit. French translation by Jean Hyppolite. Paris: Aubier-Montaigne. Hegel, G. W. F. (1966). Fenomenología del espíritu. Spanish translation by Wenceslao Roces. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Hegel, G. W. F. (1977). Phenomenology of spirit (A. V. Miller, Trans.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hegel, G. W. F. (2003). Fenomenologia do espirito. Portuguese translation by Paulo Meneses. Petrópolis/Bragança Paulista: Vozes/Universidade São Francisco. Hegel, G. W. F. (2010). Fenomenología del espíritu. Spanish translation by Joaquín Chamorro Mielke. Madrid: Gredos. Hegel, G. W. F. (2018a). The phenomenology of spirit (T. Pinkard, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hegel, G. W. F. (2018b). The phenomenology of spirit. Translated by with introduction and commentary by Michael Inwood. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kant, I. (1890). Critique of pure reason (J. M. D. Meikeljohn, Trans.). London: George Bell and Sons. Kant, I. (1922). Critique of pure reason (F. Max Müller, Trans.). London: Macmillan. Kant, I. (1928). Crítica de la razón pura. Spanish translation by Manuel García Morente. Madrid: Victoriano Suárez.

9 Partial Semantic False Friends and the Indeterminacy …

153

Kant, I. (1967). Critica della ragion pura. Italian translation by Pietro Chiodi. Turin: Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinense. Kant, I. (1996). Critique of pure reason (W. S. Pluhar, Trans.). Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett. Kant, I. (1998a [1787]). Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Edited by Jens Timmermann. Hamburg: Felix Meiner. Kant, I. (1998b). Critique of pure reason. Translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (1998c). Crítica de la razón pura. Spanish translation by Pedro Ribas. Madrid: Alfaguara. Kant, I. (1999). Critica della ragione pura. Italian translation by Giogio Colli. Milan: Adelphi. Kant, E. (2001). Crítica da razão pura. Portuguese translation by Manuela Pinto dos Santos and Alexandre Fradique Morujão. Lisbon: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. Kant, E. (2002). Critique of practical reason (W. S. Pluhar, Trans.). Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett. Kant, I. (2007). Critique of pure reason (N. K. Smith, Trans.). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Kant, I. (2008). Critica della ragion pura. Italian translation by Giovanni Gentile and Giuseppe Lombardo-Radice. Milan: Mondadori. Kant, I. (2009). Crítica de la razón pura. Spanish translation by Mario Caimi. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Kant, I. (2011 [1788]). Kritik der praktischen Vernunft. Cologne: Anaconda. Kant, I. (2012). Critica della ragion pura. Italian translation by Costantino Esposito. Milan: Bompiani. Kant, I. (2015). Critique of practical reason (M. Gregor, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (2019). Critique de la raison pure. French translation by Jacques Auxenfants. http://classi ques.uqac.ca/classiques/kant_emmanuel/Critique_de_la_raison_pure/Critique_de_la_raison_ pure.html. Lalande, A. (1926). Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie. Paris: Félix Alcan. Larousse. (2018). Dictionnaire de français. https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais. McTaggart, J. E. (1910). A commentary on Hegel’s logic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nefedova, L. (2017). English multi-word expressions as false friends between German and Russian: Corpus-driven analyses of phraseological units. In Europhras 2017 (pp. 154–161). Geneva: Éditions Tradulex. http://rgcl.wlv.ac.uk/europhras2017/proceedings. Ortega y Gasset. (1923). El tema de nuestro tiempo. In Obras completas III (pp. 143–242). Madrid: Alianza. Ortega y Gasset, J. (1930a). La rebelión de las masas. In Obras completas IV (pp. 113–310). Madrid: Alianza. Ortega y Gasset, J. (1930b). Misión de la Universidad. In Obras completas IV (pp. 308–53). Madrid: Alianza. Ortega y Gasset, J. (1932). The revolt of the masses. Anonymous translation. London: Allen and Unwin. Ortega y Gasset, J. (1941a). Historia como sistema. In Obras completas VI (pp. 11–50). Madrid: Alianza. Ortega y Gasset, J. (1941b). History as a system. In Toward a philosophy of history (W. C. Atkinson, Trans.). New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Ortega y Gasset, J. (1958). La idea de principio en Leibniz y la evolución de la teoría deductiva. In Obras completas VIII (pp. 61–356). Madrid: Alianza. Ortega y Gasset, J. (1961 [1931]). The modern theme. Translated from the Spanish by James Cleugh. New York: Harper Torchbooks. Ortega y Gasset, J. (2014 [1946]). Mission of the university. Translated with an Introduction by Howard Lee Nostrand. London/New York: Routledge. Preus, A. (2015). Historical dictionary of ancient Greek philosophy. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Priberam. (2018). Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa. https://dicionario.priberam.org.

154

P. J. Chamizo-Domínguez

Quine, W. van O. (1948). On what there is. The Review of Metaphysics, 2(5), 21–38. Reprinted in Quine (1963). Quine, W. van O. (1962). Desde un punto de vista lógico. Spanish translation by Manuel Sacristán. Barcelona: Ariel. Quine, W. van O. (1963 [1949/1953]). From a logical point of view. Logico-philosophical essays. New York: Harper & Row. Quine, W. van O. (1969). Ontological relativity and other essays. New York: Columbia University Press. Quine, W. van O. (1979). Von einem logischen Standpunkt: neun logisch-philosophische Essays. From a logical point of view. German translation by Peter Bosch. Frankfurt am Main: Ullstein. Quine, W. van O. (1985). The time of my life. An autobiography. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Quine, W. van O. (1987). Quiddities: An intermittently philosophical dictionary. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Quine, W. van O. (1992 [1990]). Pursuit of truth (Revised edn.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Quine, W. van O. (2011). From a logical point of view. Three selected essays. Von einem logischen Standpunkt aus. Drei ausgewählte Aufsätze. German translation by Roland Bluhm. Stuttgart: Reclam. Rawls, J. (1999). Themes in Kant’s moral philosophy. In S. Freeman (Ed.), John Rawls. Collected papers (pp. 497–528). Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press. Royce, J. (1919). Lectures on modern idealism. New Haven: Yale University Press. Ryle, G. (2009 [1949]). The concept of mind. 60th Anniversary Edition with a Critical Commentary by Julia Tanney. New York: Routledge. Treccani. (2018). Vocabolario italiano on line. Retrieved November, 2018, from http://www.trecca ni.it. Wuellner, B. (2012). Dictionary of scholastic philosophy. Fitzwilliam: Loreto Publications. Yovel, Y. (2005). Hegel’s preface to the phenomenology of spirit. Translation and running commentary by Yirmiyahu Yovel. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Pedro J. Chamizo-Domínguez is a Full Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the University of Malaga (Spain), where he currently teaches the subjects of Philosophy of Language and Translation of Philosophical Texts. His most recent publications deal with metaphor, taboo language, and theory of translation, particularly on false friends. He has devoted a book to this last topic: Pragmatics and Semantics of False Friends (New York: Routledge, 2010). He is currently working on (1) the relation between ambiguity/vagueness and euphemism, and (2) the way that a philosopher’s thought can be understood from the translations of his/her works. Email: [email protected].

Chapter 10

Both a Borrower and a Lender Be: English as Importer and Exporter Barry J. Blake

Abstract English has long been recognised as an importer of words, but it is also a major exporter. This chapter illustrates the influence of English on the vocabulary of other languages in two contrasting contexts. The first is where indigenous peoples are confronted with English, a situation illustrated with Australian examples. The second is the effect on languages generally of the prestige of some aspects of Anglo culture, particularly pop culture, and of American innovation in communications technology leading to large-scale spreading of English vocabulary. Keywords Aboriginal languages · Borrowing · Calques · Language contact · Loanwords · Vocabulary

10.1 Introduction It has long been commonplace to point out that English has been and still is a great borrower of words from other languages. Crystal (2006: 59) writes, ‘English is a vacuum cleaner of a language. It sucks words in from any language it makes contact with.’ It is now becoming common to note the extent to which English is a major exporter of words. On the same page Crystal averts to this, ‘In the twentieth century, as English became an increasingly global language, there was a reverse movement in the direction of borrowing. All over the world, languages found themselves inundated with English words.’ In this paper I will point out the range of influence English is having on the vocabulary of other languages by comparing two situations. The first is where indigenous languages are first confronted with English, a situation found first on the east coast of North America in the early seventeenth century and repeated in India, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, the Pacific and Australasia over the next 400 years. I shall use examples from Australian languages. The second situation is a recent phenomenon where the prestige of some aspects of Anglo culture,

B. J. Blake (B) La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 K. Allan (ed.), Dynamics of Language Changes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6430-7_10

155

156

B. J. Blake

particularly pop culture, and American innovation in communications technology has led to large-scale spreading of English vocabulary.

10.2 The Make-up of English Vocabulary The importing of words and their exporting are related since the pool available for export is affected by imports, a big factor in the case of English where something like three-quarters of the vocabulary has been imported over the last millennium. English is a Germanic language, but it differs from sister languages such as German and Swedish in having a learned stratum of vocabulary derived from Latin and Greek. In the eleventh century England was conquered by the Normans and fell under a French-speaking ruling class. This affected the vocabulary substantially. In particular, it led to the borrowing of around 10,000 French words, almost all ultimately from the classical languages, mostly Latin. There were some everyday words mainly to do with lifestyle, words such as such as cloak, lace and mutton, but most of the borrowings were to do with government (sovereign, parliament), the law (defendant, advocate) and the church (sacrament, vestment). There were also loans direct from Latin including explicit, infinite and moderate.1 In the Renaissance with a renewed interest in Graeco-Roman civilisation scholars all over Europe took to translating Greek and Latin literature. In England translators coming across new concepts, particularly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, tended to borrow words from Greek and Latin whereas the other Germanic languages typically composed their own equivalents, often closely calquing the Latin. For instance, where English borrowed inexorable, German used its own roots to compose un-er-bitt-lich and where English borrowed co-operate German composed mit-wirken (with-work). English acquired another 10,000 or more words from the classical languages in this period and the use of Greek and Latin continued, particularly the use of Greek and Latin elements as prefixes (pre-record, de-centralise, re-initialise, super-tanker, mega-event, peri-urban, cis-gendered) or as combining elements (tele-phone, peri-scope). In the late sixteenth century Britain joined the other western European powers in acquiring colonial possessions and by the twentieth century Britain had acquired an enormous empire with possessions in South Asia, Africa, the Far East, Australasia, the Caribbean and North America, though the United States became independent in 1776. This led to English absorbing numerous words from languages of its colonies, mostly to do with fauna, flora and their derivative, food. From India, for instance, English acquired bamboo (Kannada), bandicoot (Telugu), cheetah (Hindi), chutney (Hindi) and curry (Tamil). It also acquired words from the colonies of other powers, mainly Spain. Examples include cocaine, llama and puma, all ultimately from Quechua. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries a lot of the borrowing has been 1 Sources for loanwords in English include Blake (2019), Durkin (2014), Grant (2009) and Kastovsky

(2006).

10 Both a Borrower and a Lender Be: English as Importer and Exporter

157

from immigrant groups, particularly in the realm of food and drink. Obvious examples include cappuccino, lasagne and risotto from Italian and enchilada, margarita, salsa, taco, tequila and tortilla from Mexican Spanish. All languages have means of word formation and these formations are part of the pool available for export. English makes heavy use of compounding (crowd-sourcing, to cherry-pick) and affixation (deforestation) and in some cases removes affixes or other formatives (babysit < babysitter, surveil < surveillance, vape < vapour). Blends have become increasingly popular over the last 100 years or so. Recent formations include adware (advertisement-software), blog (web-log), email (electronic mail), malware (malicious-software), sexting (sex-texting) and Wikipedia, which is a blend of Hawaiian wikiwiki “quick” and encyclopedia. A well-known feature of English is its tendency to switch words from one word– class to another, particularly noun to verb as in: ‘She claimed she had been voyeured’, ‘The concession had been sunsetted’ and ‘They had been phoenixed’, i.e. duped by a failed company reappearing under a new name. It has become common recently to use clipped or shortened forms such as app (application), abs (abdominal muscles) and satnav (satellite navigation), acronyms such as PIN (personal identification number) and alphabetisms such as LGBTIQ (lesbian gay bisexual transgender or transsexual intersex queer or questioning). The use of texting on ‘devices’ and online typed conversation has led to a whole host of alphabetisms coming into wide use, some old (omg ‘oh my God’) and some new (lol ‘laughing out loud’).2

10.3 English Loans in Australian Languages In Australia Aboriginal people were confronted with English-speaking troops, squatters, administrators, police and missionaries first around Sydney in the late eighteenth century but as late as the early twentieth century in parts of central and northern Australia. Across the country native peoples tended to borrow words for previously unfamiliar items of material culture such as clothing (coat, shirt, trousers, boots), food (flour, sugar, tea), implements (blanket, pannikin, pot, frying pan and firearms) and animals (sheep, bullock, cow, chook/chicken). In these early contact situations the recipient language is exposed to spoken forms and adapts them or integrates them into its phoneme inventory and phonotactics. In Haugen’s terms borrowers are substituting patterns similar to those in the model (Haugen 1950: 212). Australian languages across the continent tend to have very similar phonologies and the adaption was similar over most of the continent. With marginal exceptions Australian languages lack fricatives and English fricatives were converted to stops. They generally lack onset clusters and many lack word-final consonants. There are usually only three vowel phonemes, /i, a, u/, long and short. 2 See

Ayto (1999, 2006) for recent additions to the English vocabulary. For the relative frequency of word-formation processes see Algeo (1998) and Bauer (1994).

158

B. J. Blake

The effect of these restrictions can be seen in the following examples from the Western Desert language. Pintji is “fence” with a palatal stop substituted for the fricative /s/ and an echo vowel to ensure the word is vowel-final. Kiripi is “grape”, where /i/ corresponds to /eI/ and is also inserted to break up the onset cluster and to avoid a final consonant. There is no voiced/voiceless distinction in stops and stops are conventionally represented as either all voiceless or all voiced so the /g/ of grape is written as k.3 An /s/ in an onset is omitted so kuula is “school” in several languages, tuwa “store” and muuka “smokes, tobacco”. In the early stages of contact speakers of the receiving language are unaware that their attempts to pronounce words of the donor language are not faithful reproductions, though they may be conscious that their efforts are not accurate when speakers of the donor language fail to understand their own words filtered through an unfamiliar phonology. Haugen (1950: 216) mentions that it is possible that speakers ‘touch up the form of an older word and introduce a more “correct” form.’ In fact, it is quite regular for words to be borrowed with different degrees of approximation to the original; consider how speakers of English make different approximations to French loanwords. More notable is the fact that a later generation that is in control of English phonology may not recognise the adapted forms as being English. This is particularly the case where a current meaning does not reflect the source word. For instance, rankapu is “chain” in Western Desert but has its origin in “handcuffs”, tiika “fox” derives from dog and tapula “hem” is from double. Arrernte luthepe “matches” is from Lucifers, an obsolete brand name, and parrike “fence” is from paddock (Henderson and Dobson 1994), a shift repeated in a number of languages. Luthepe illustrates another feature of English loanwords, namely that they often reflect English of generations gone by. For instance, babuligarr “public house” is pub in Yuwaalaraay (Ash et al. 2003) and several other languages. Other widespread examples of obsolete English are forms such as matjkit or makita “musket” to cover guns in general, mutuka “motor car” for vehicles, kaunu “gown” for dress, tina “midday meal” (dinner) and tjapa “evening meal” (supper).4 Where peoples without a common language come into contact and need to communicate, simplified pidgin forms of language come into use. With the first British settlement in the Sydney area from 1788 a pidgin form of English was used. It was not entirely original for it included words from earlier pidgins such as lingo, picaninny and savvy, but it developed a local character incorporating words from the Sydney area and it spread over the continent with advancing frontiers. In some areas of northern Australia pidgin became creole, the first language of some people and often a lingua franca for others. Words borrowed into indigenous languages sometimes came via pidgin. For instance, in Modern Tiwi there is apinim “open” and karrimap

3 Examples

from dialects of the Western Desert language are from Goddard (1996), Glass and Hackett (2003). 4 Foley (1986: 41) relates that in the Papuan language Yimas verbs are negated by a preceding particle ina. This is from i no in Tok Pisin, the English-based lingua franca, but speakers of Yimas are unaware of the origin of ina.

10 Both a Borrower and a Lender Be: English as Importer and Exporter

159

“carry on shoulders” where -im is the marker of transitive verbs as in Pidgin (Lee 1987: 370, 380). English or Pidgin English also sometimes served as a conduit by which words passed from one language to another. In Australia yarraman “horse”, a word of obscure origin but presumably Aboriginal, was picked up in coastal New South Wales, used in English, and carried across the continent to be established in a number of languages. Other transported words, which enjoyed some currency in English, include gunyah “hut”, bindji “belly” and myall, originally “stranger, outsider” in the Sydney region it came to refer to Aborigines living traditional lifestyle. Almost all the English loan words in the Australian languages are nouns. This is natural enough when you consider that in languages generally nouns easily outnumber verbs, and nouns can be used in isolation for easy perception. Moreover, while many European artefacts were new to Aboriginal people, the uses to which they are put were not new. A few verbs were borrowed. In most Australian languages they appear with a verb-deriving suffix even though they are verbs in English. For instance, in the Western Desert language paku-rri-ngku “buck” (of a horse) has -rri marking it as intransitive, and pulu-pu-ngku “pull something” has -pu marking it as transitive. In the north of the continent predicates typically consist of an uninflected word plus a grammatical verb. In such languages an English verb enters the language uninflected and is accompanied by one of a set of grammatical verbs. For instance, in Tiwi to express “see” or “look at” using the English loanword luk, one essentially says, “do a look”: Luk pirimi yingati tiwi, literally, “look they-do plenty men”, ‘They saw a lot of men’ (Lee 1987: 207). Most of the English words that are candidates for borrowing are monomorphemic or at least appear to have no internal structure (e.g. biscuit, bullock). Even when they have internal structure, this is lost in the transfer. For instance, cup of tea is borrowed as one word, kaparti in the Western Desert language, and mouth organ as maatjukin (pa). In the early stages of contact there is little chance of speakers of the recipient language perceiving internal structure and therefore little chance of calques. Hybrid formations combining English and Aboriginal material are not common other than with the use of verbalising morphology as mentioned above. In the Western Desert language kurukirlaapa “eye glasses” combines kuru “eye” and English glass. In Paakantyi (also Baagandji) thinabuta “shoe” combines Paakantyi thina “foot” and English boot (Hercus 1993). It is a commonplace of the literature on borrowing that lexical items are the most easily borrowed, so the question arises of whether with prolonged and more intimate contact there was borrowing of function words, syntactic patterns, and so on. The sad fact is that the intrusion of English speakers resulted in the loss of most Australian languages but some that survive are influenced by English in more than lexical items. For instance, Tiwi before the intrusion of English speakers was a polysynthetic language, but modern Tiwi is much more analytic and uses English prepositions such as fo “for”, withi “with” and abat “about” as well as extending the use of inherited prepositions (Lee 1987: 251ff). Where languages have ceased to be handed down to the next generation, attempts are currently under way to revive them

160

B. J. Blake

from written records. These records are meagre on syntax and English is used to fill in the gaps by default. A final point. Although Aboriginal people borrowed English words for unfamiliar items, they also extended the meaning of existing words, for instance, in Tiwi japarra “moon” was extended to “banana” and yilogha/yilowa “bladder” to “football” (Lee 1987: 369–75). The most common word-formation strategies were, as in English, compounding and affixation. The Djadjawurrung compounded wurrung “mouth” and tjalup “mussel shell” to form wurrungi-tjalup “spoon” and the Tjapwurrung used a suffix -pil meaning “having” with karip “thigh” to form karipil for “trousers”.

10.4 Modern Borrowing As the colonial expansion of English came to an end in the early twentieth century, another type of borrowing from English into a wide variety of languages began, one that has accelerated over the last one hundred years. The phenomenon is well recognised and there is a A dictionary of European anglicisms compiled by Manfred Görlach (2001) covering 16 languages. However, this dictionary and any like it quickly become out of date. As Muhvi´c-Dimanovski (2004: 142) remarks, ‘Since 2001 when the dictionary was published the number of Anglicisms (in Croatian as well as in other languages) has extremely increased and we are witnessing a constant influx on an almost daily basis.’ The concentration of loanwords can be quite strong. Consider the following example from German where there are three loanwords in a short sentence. Sie nutzt ihr Iphone um in der Kamara-App ihr Make-up zu überprüfen.5 She uses her i-phone to check her make-up in the camera-app. Something of the flavour of the phenomenon can be seen in another post where a customer goes into a coffee-shop and asks for take-away coffee using mitnehman “with-take”, and the salesgirl checks that she means “to go”.6 Kunde: Ich hätte gerne einen Kaffee zum mitnehmen. Customer: I’d like a coffee to take away. Sehr junge verunsicherte Verkäuferin schaut irritiert. Wie? To go also? The very young unsure saleswoman looks annoyed. How? To go then? Kunde: Ja, to go. Customer: Yes, to go. Loanwords from English are concentrated in two domains. One is communications technology. The other centres around entertainment and an attractive if not glamourous lifestyle. As Ostler says (2005: 542), ‘English is consciously associated with technical progress and popular culture in every part of the world. This kind of 5 Neon 6 Neon

Täglich: Deutsche Geschichten 20/10/2014. Täglich: Deutsche Geschichten 30/10/2015.

10 Both a Borrower and a Lender Be: English as Importer and Exporter

161

high prestige … is based on the perception of wealth, as it may be made to flow from scientific advance and its rational application.’ The predominance and penetration of English-language movies and TV programs must be a major factor in creating this prestige. The fascination with English comes out in popular magazines. A quick glance at the pages of the French lifestyle magazine Elle revealed beauty routine, bikini, le body-shaming, happenings, it-bag, outdoor, sa story Instagram, showbiz, star, superwoman and troll, and a single issue of the Italian celebrity gossip magazine Chi contained fan (devotee), fashion star, film, follower, freezer, nuovo album, politically correct, pop, red carpet, selfie, sexy, society, superstar and top model. The names of sports such as football, golf, hockey and tennis and the word sport itself have been adopted in numerous other languages for over a century, and more recent additions include skating and surfing.7 Clothing figures prominently among loanwords, Jumper is an early loanword into German. Italian has pullover along with il top, i leggings and la zip. Jeans is to be found in most languages around the world (cf. Tadmor 2009: 65). With food and drink sandwich and beefsteak have been well established in a large number of languages for some time, the latter for what is generally just called steak in English. Hot dog, hamburger and popcorn have spread more recently. Drug terminology such as coke, crack and ice have travelled including the word drug itself, doraggu in Japanese. With popular music the term pop itself is found in numerous languages along with the names of types of music such as jazz, blues, rock, punk and rap. A number of terms to do with sex and relationships have been exported including the word sex itself and the adjective sexy. In Italy you can talk about il mio ex “my ex”, il partner or il boyfriend. Gay and variations on transsexual such as trans and transex are widespread, as is the acronym AIDS. Red-light districts advertise their offerings in English with terms such as girls, hostess club, lap dance, live peep show, sex shop, strip club and topless entertainment, presumably aimed at English-speaking tourists. Outside the fields where English exports are concentrated there are numerous other borrowings. Weekend has been borrowed into French and Italian as has babysitter and snob, the latter also in Spanish as un esnob. German has das Baby along with babysitten “to babysit”. With computers and associated technology and activities there has been wholesale exporting of the relevant terminology including the word computer itself. In Italian you will find terms such as il pc, il monitor, il link, la mail and un click sul sito “a click on the site”. Japanese has int¯anetto “internet”, mausu “mouse”, monit¯a “monitor”, rinku “link” and webbusaito “website”. German has imported a lot of English terms such as der Bug, bloggen “to blog”. der Email, googlen “to google”, das Internet, das Web and die Webcam.8 However, it also uses its own resources. Besides der Computer there is der Rechner, besides der Cursor there is der Mauszeiger “mouse pointer” 7 Breznik

and Voršiˇc (2011) illustrate the extensive use of English sporting terms in Slovene.

8 Operating terminology such as save, copy and delete is not normally borrowed. The corresponding

words in each language are extended to cover computer senses.

162

B. J. Blake

and besides der Monitor there is der Bildschirm “picture-screen”. There are also a number of calques such as die Netzwerkkarte “network card” and doppelklicken “to double click”. In a number of languages English chat has become the word for conversing on line. In German there is chatten “to chat online” and der Chat “the chat, chatroom”, Japanese has chatto, in Italian there is chattare “to chat” and video chat, and Modern Hebrew has forms such as chotátnu “we chatted” (Tadmor 2009: 63). Not surprisingly forms of social media carry their brand names around the world with their associated terminology, Twitter with its tweets, Facebook and Instagram with their likes and Messenger with its waves. Varga et al. (2011: 73–4) use a classification proposed by Muhvi´c-Dimanovski (2005) that divides loanwords into denotative and connotative. The former term applies to new products or concepts, the latter a response to the prestige of a particular language and its culture. Ljubiˇci´c refers to the latter as ‘loanwords of luxury’ or ‘snobbisms’ (Ljubiˇci´c 2011: 13). Varga et al. compare broadsheet newspapers in French and Italian and note that in their corpus ‘Italian journalistic discourse abounds in loanwords of the connotative type, while the denotative type of loanword dominates the French journalistic texts’. My own observations suggest that while borrowings to do with technology are of the denotative type, most others are of the connotative type. Many of the Italian examples quoted above, words such as superstar and top model, fall into the connotative category. Some of the borrowings reflect usage that is quite new in English. For instance, in Italian one finds relax as a noun in pieno relax “fully relaxed” and un momento di relax “a moment of relaxation”) and message as a verb Mi ha messaggiato “He messaged me”.9 In French, as in English, there is now plogging, which refers to the practice of picking up litter while out jogging. It is a blend of Swedish plocka upp “pick up” and jogging. It is doubtful whether all the English words sprinkled over texts in other languages are actual loans. Quite a few of them would appear to be ad hoc or nonce usages A loan has to be established, part of the user’s lexicon. The question arises of whether they are single-word examples of code-switching (Haspelmath 2009: 40–2, Wohlgemuth 2009: 53 and Masica 1991: 74 on modern Indo-Aryan languages). Code-switching is switching between two or more languages in the course of speech or writing, often within a sentence, usually triggered by perhaps a referent better known through another language, and usually not deliberate. The plucking of words from the English lexicon and inserting them into another language is deliberate, and if we are talking about ‘loans of luxury’, unnecessary. The plucked words are like quotes from another language. We might compare the Shakespearian scholar who sprinkles his speech with expressions such as hoist with his own petard or neither a borrower or a lender be. Nonce borrowings can be imitated, by both bilinguals and monolinguals. Then they are no longer nonce words, but neither are they loanwords until taken up into regular use by a sizable majority. 9 Technically

message as a verb is not new in English, but it was little used before the advent of the smartphone, and since there is a noun messaggio the verb usage is a kind of calque on the English.

10 Both a Borrower and a Lender Be: English as Importer and Exporter

163

Loans from English have not always been unopposed. During the Fascist period in Italy (1922–1943) using foreign words was frowned upon. In 1923 a tax was put on foreign words used in shop signs and in 1939 the government posted signs telling people to Boicottate le parole straniere ‘Boycott foreign words.’ They were apparently oblivious to the fact that boicottare was an adapted borrowing from English (Lepschy and Lepschy 1977: 29). In fact, boycott has been borrowed widely around the world. The use of English words in French is known as Franglais and the use of English words where a French word is available is banned in official publications by L’académie Française and several other government bodies (Varga et al. 2011: 76). Interestingly, many of the recent borrowings into Franglais are words borrowed into English from French in centuries past, words such as budget (bougette “wallet”), challenge, fuel, gay, humour, jury, mess, pedigree, record, squat, standard, suspense, ticket, toast, tunnel and vintage. Icelandic is well known for its resistance to Anglicisms and ‘the The Árni Magnússon Institute of Icelandic Studies, along with around 50 voluntary committees works to replace anglicisms that arise in the media, society, science, and technology by creating native Icelandic alternatives’ (Albury 2014: 110).10 Although a language may try to be purist and reject loanwords, the social pressure to adopt them is strong. Trade names such as CocaCola/Coke and Big Mac are unavoidable, as are quasi proper names such as jazz and hip-hop. Moreover, many English terms for new inventions and notions have the convenience of being short. There are blends such as blog, alphabetisms such as PC and VIP and acronyms such as AIDS, and words like bikini, blog and blues would be difficult to capture succinctly in another language. Even Icelandic accepts words like bikini, blog and blues. In Europe speakers generally aim to pronounce English loanwords as English, but in some other languages words tend to be adapted to the phonology of the receiving language. In Japan the only permissible syllable-final consonant is n as in pasokon “personal computer” and vowels are usually added to avoid unfamiliar final consonants as in hotto doggu “hot dog”, rokku “rock (music)” and kakuteru “cocktail” with substitution of r for l. Onset clusters are broken up with an epenthetic vowel thus doraggu for “drug”.11 It is similar in Thai where “steak” is sàték. Thai has tones so all syllables are allotted tones. Syllable-final stops are devoiced so the Web is wép and final [s] is converted to [t] as in t h ennít “tennis” (Suthiwan and Tadmor 2009: 609). In Tagalog a prothetic [i] is added to English loans with an sC- onset, e.g. istrap “strap”. English loanwords in Indonesian need little modification to fit Indonesian phonology but verbs in Indonesian in the typical transitive construction take a prefix meN- where N stands for a homorganic nasal that replaces voiceless obstruents and thus disguises the root. English shooting is syuting but as a transitive verb menyuting (Wohlgemuth 2009: 94 quoting Anthony Jukes).

10 See

also Kvaran and Svavarsdóttir (2002).

11 There are some deviations from Japanese phonology. A [t] or [d] before a high-front vowel would

be affricated to conform to Japanese phonology, but alongside [pa:ˇci] ‘party’ there is also [pa:ti] and alongside [žisko]‘disco’ there is [disko] (Tasaku Tsunoda, pers. comm.).

164

B. J. Blake

If English is a source of loanwords, one would expect that a speaker of English encountering an English loan in another language would be able to understand it. This not necessarily the case. The forms that are borrowed from English are often ones that are not familiar to native English speakers or are used in senses unfamiliar to English speakers. The term footing is found in a number of languages including French and Spanish for what in English is called jogging. In French le footing is just one of a number of -ing forms that seem strange to speakers of English. Le dancing is where you dance, le dressing is a dressing room or walk-in wardrobe, le camping is where you camp, le parking is where you park and le relooking is a makeover.12 In French and in a number of other languages a dinner jacket (American tuxedo) is le smoking (el smoking, der Smoking, etc.) derived from smoking jacket, a term not much used in English, a term for which OED gives only one citation from 1878: Appearing in a radiant smoking-jacket that matched the cigar-case.13 In Hindi wouldbe is used for “fiancé(e)”, opticals for “glasses”, time-pass for “pastime” and air-dash for “rapid air travel”. In Korean window shopping is eye-shopping. In Iraqi Arabic the word shoe has been borrowed from the Americans, but it covers boots as well as shoes. The common word handy becomes in German das Handy a mobile/cell phone. The English word look has been borrowed as a noun for the way something looks. In French one can have un nouveau look, un look chic, un look factory or le total look. Feeling has been borrowed into Italian in the sense of romantic feeling. In Thailand the English word fan covers boyfriend and girlfriend. Tom is a “tomboy”, but also a more masculine lesbian as opposed to a dee, from English “lady” for a more feminine one. And hi-so, in both Thai and Thai English, refers to anyone who has money, class or sophistication. It is an abbreviation of high society. She had her own car and a job, she is a hi so! She had an iPhone 5 and paid for her own meal on our date, she’s a hi so!14 Besides loanwords there are loan translations or calques from English. Given that loans from English are via bilinguals, it will regularly be the case that the make-up of polymorphemic expressions will be transparent to would-be borrowers, especially in Germanic and Romance languages. French le tapis rouge is a calque of “red carpet”, Italian aria condizionata is a calque of air-conditioned and Spanish tarjeta de crédito is a calque of credit-card. In Mandarin Chinese hot-dog is calqued as rè gˇou (hot dog) and honeymoon as mì yuè (honey moon). A more subtle form of borrowing is the borrowing of a new sense. German überziehen is literally “over-pull, over-draw” and means “to pull something over” or “to draw something over”, but recently it has taken on the additional sense of “overdraw one’s bank account” from the matching English word overdraw. Diller (1993: 399) reports that Thai do:y, which formerly meant “by” in the locative sense, 12 Spanish 13 English

has un parking and un camping. jacket has been borrowed into a number of languages, including Indonesian, Japanese

and Thai. 14 Examples from Website A Farang Abroad (https://afarangabroad.com).

10 Both a Borrower and a Lender Be: English as Importer and Exporter

165

has been extended to cover by expressing the agent of the passive in imitation of English.

10.5 Conclusion In this chapter 1 have contrasted borrowing from English at two extremes. The first is where people come into contact with English for the first time. Loanwords are orally transmitted and fully integrated into the phonology of the receiving language. The second is the present-day situation where there is bilingualism and borrowing via both speech and writing, probably more via the latter, and where borrowers tend to aim at English pronunciation, at least in Europe. The two situations are the beginning and endpoint of the spread of empire. The empire is the British Empire, which effectively includes the United States despite early independence, and its legacy is a widespread English language on which is built a cultural empire sustained and strengthened by the dominance of the United States in popular culture and technology, a dominance ultimately made possible by the wealth of conquered territory. The loanwords from English, particularly over the last fifty years or so are concentrated in entertainment and communications technology and glamourous lifestyle and celebrity culture, and the two are connected inasmuch as the radio, television and the cinema and are the platform on which stars are created. The terminology for technology is almost all of the denotative type, whereas the lifestyle vocabulary is largely connotative. It is hardly necessary. It reflects a fascination with Anglo culture, something that is evident when one come across words like beauty in a French magazine alongside beauté and baby alongside bébé. The influence of English goes beyond what I have indicated here. Firstly, there is regular translation from international languages such as English, Spanish and French into other languages, particularly from English. Secondly, English is a widespread lingua franca and perhaps half the people on the planet have some knowledge of English.15 These factors combine to produce a Europeanised genre to be found in various languages in the everyday conversation of sophisticated speakers and in newspapers, magazines and perhaps more in amateur postings on the Web. Peyraube (2000), although suggesting that the influence of English on Chinese has sometimes been exaggerated, admits that there have been changes in prose style through translations of Western languages. Kanittanan (1979: 55) reports that the Thai of educated Thais can be hard for other Thais to understand. ‘One often hears remarks such as, “You almost have to be able to speak English to understand this Thai article”’. In some areas the influence goes beyond style to syntax. Blake (2001) reports syntactic changes in various languages of East Asia such as regular marking of plural, introduction of dummy subjects and the extension of passives with agents, which can plausibly be attributed to English influence. 15 An

estimate extrapolated from figures in sources such as Ostler (2010) and taking into account the extent to which English is taught as a second language in populous countries such as China.

166

B. J. Blake

References Albury, N. (2014). Fearing the known: English and the ramifications of globalizing Iceland. Journal of Globalization Studies, 5, 105–122. Algeo, J. (1998). Vocabulary. In S. Romaine (Ed.), The Cambridge history of the English language (Vol. 4, pp. 57–91). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ash, A., Giacon, J., & Lissarague, A. (2003). Gamilaraay, Yuwaalaraay and Yuwaalayaay dictionary. Alice Springs: IAD Press. Ayto, J. (1999). Twentieth century words. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ayto, J. (2006). Movers and shakers: A chronology of words that shaped our age. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bauer, L. (1994). Watching English change: An introduction to the study of linguistic change’ in Standard Englishes in the Twentieth Century. London: Addison, Wesley, Longman (Republished by Routledge 2013). Blake, B. J. (2001). Global trends in language. Linguistics, 39, 1009–1028. Blake, B. J. (2019). English vocabulary today: Into the 21st century. Abingdon: Routledge. Breznik, I. S., & Voršiˇc, I. (2011). Word-formational productivity of the Slovene language in the case of sports neologisms. Linguistics, 51, 23–38. Crystal, D. (2006). Words, words, words. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Diller, A. (1993). Diglossic grammaticality in Thai. In W. A. Foley (Ed.), The role of theory in language description (pp. 393–420). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Durkin, P. (2014). Borrowed words: A history of loanwords in English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Foley, W. A. (1986). The Papuan languages of New Guinea. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Glass, A., & Hackett, D. (2003). Ngaanyatjarra and Ngaatjatjarra to English dictionary. Alice Springs: IAD Press. Goddard, C. (1996). Pitjantjatjara/Yankuntjatjara to English dictionary. Alice Springs: IAD Press. Görlach, M. (2001). A dictionary of European anglicisms. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Grant, A. P. (2009). Loanwords in British English. In M. Haspelmath & U. Tadmor (Eds.), Loanwords in the world’s languages: A comparative handbook (pp. 360–385). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Haspelmath, M. (2009). Lexical borrowing: Concepts and issues. In M. Haspelmath & U. Tadmor (Eds.), Loanwords in the world’s languages: A comparative handbook (pp. 35–54). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Haugen, E. (1950). The analysis of linguistic borrowing. Language, 26, 210–231. Henderson, J., & Dobson, V. (1994). Eastern and Central Arrernte to English dictionary. Alice Springs: IAD. Hercus, L. A. (1993). Paakantyi dictionary. Canberra: AIATSIS. Kanittanan, W. (1979). How much is English influencing the language of the Bangkok educated Thais? In N. D. Liem (Ed.), South-East Asian linguistic studies (Vol. 4, pp. 55–59). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Kastovsky, D. (2006). Vocabulary. In R. Hogg & D. Denison (Eds.), A history of the English Language (pp. 199–270). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kvaran, G., & Svavarsdóttir, Á. (2002). Icelandic. In M. Görlach (Ed.), English in Europe (pp. 82– 107). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lee, J. R. (1987). Tiwi today: A study of language change in a contact situation. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Lepschy, A. L., & Lepschy, G. (1977). The Italian language today. London: Hutchinson. Ljubiˇci´c, M. (2011). Posudenice i lažni parovi. Hrvatski, talijanski i jeziˇcno posredovanje. Zagreb: FF Press. Masica, C. P. (1991). The Indo-Aryan languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

10 Both a Borrower and a Lender Be: English as Importer and Exporter

167

Muhvi´c-Dimanovski, V. (2004). New concepts and new words: How do languages cope with the problem of neology? Collegium Anthropologicum, 28(supplement 1), 139–146. Muhvi´c-Dimanovski, V. (2005). Neologizmi: problemi teorije i primjene. Zagreb: Filozofski Fakultet, Zavod za Lingvistiku. Ostler, N. (2005). Empires of the word: A language history of the world. London: Harper Perennial. Ostler, N. (2010). The last lingua franca: English until the return of Babel. New York: Walker and Company. Peyraube, A. (2000). Westernization of Chinese grammar in the 20th century: Myth or reality? Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 28, 1–25. Suthiwan, T., & Tadmor, U. (2009). Loanwords in Thai. In M. Haspelmath & U. Tadmor (Eds.), Loanwords in the world’s languages: A comparative handbook (pp. 599–618). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Tadmor, U. (2009). Loanwords in the world’s languages: Findings and results. In M. Haspelmath & U. Tadmor (Eds.), Loanwords in the world’s languages: A comparative handbook (pp. 55–75). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Varga, D., Dvorski, L. O., & Bjelobaba, S. (2011). English loanwords in French and Italian daily newspapers (pp. 71–84). LVI: Studia Romanica et Anglica Zagrabiensa. Wohlgemuth, J. (2009). A typology of verbal borrowings. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Barry Blake is Emeritus Professor of Linguistics, La Trobe University, His long-term research has been in comparative-historical linguistics, especially case systems and Aboriginal languages. Since retiring in 2003 he has published Playing with words: humour in the English language (2007), All about language (2008). Secret language (2010) and English vocabulary today: into the twenty-first century (2019). Email [email protected].

Chapter 11

What’s the Score? Kersti Börjars and Nigel Vincent

Abstract The way words can be passed from language to language is a topic that has aroused both scholarly and popular interest for centuries. In this chapter we examine two case-histories involving items that move from one language to another and then back again several centuries later. We track the etymological trails and consider the implications of such patterns for the views of both the specialist scientific community and the general public concerning the effects of linguistic borrowing at the lexical level. Keywords Loanwords · Semantic change · Language contact · English · North Germanic · Italian

Abbreviations DOB NAOB OED SAOB

Det Danske Ordbog, available at https://ordnet.dk/ddo Det Norske Akademis Ordbok, available at https://www.naob.no/ Oxford English Dictionary, available at https://www.oed.com/ Svenska Akademiens Ordbok, available at https://www.saob.se/

K. Börjars (B) St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, England e-mail: [email protected] N. Vincent The University of Manchester, Holsteinborgvej 215, 4243 Rude, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 K. Allan (ed.), Dynamics of Language Changes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6430-7_11

169

170

K. Börjars and N. Vincent

11.1 Introduction In these global times much is made of the way English words and expressions have passed into other languages, leading to the coining of such scornful labels as italiese (