1,721,199 research outputs found
Dynamic resonance and social reciprocity in language change : The case of Good morrow
Full text linkEntrenchment (i.e. Langacker, 1987) does not necessarily lead to predictable behaviour. This study aims at complementing the usage-based model of language change by oper- ationalising the role of dialogic creativity as a mechanism that can be in competition with conventionalization and grammaticalization. We provide a distinctive collexeme analysis (i.e. Hilpert, 2006) focussing on the constructionalization of the dialogic pair [A: good morrow B e B: (good) morrow (A)] from the 15th up to the 18th century. After reaching the highest degree of entrenchment and automatisation, the dialogic pair will show an increasing tendency to be creatively re-modelled with ad-hoc meanings during online exchanges by means of dynamic resonance (Du Bois, 2014) and non-reciprocal behaviour. We define this creative process of large-scale alteration as entrenchment inhibition. From our data it will emerge that entrenchment inhibition is triggered by spontaneous attempts of producing a creative ‘surplus’ over the expected social reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960) of conventionalized exchanges. This tendency will be shown to be driven by marked attempts of polite and impolite behaviour
The development of play-texts : from manuscript to print
No full textIt is an axiom of historical linguistics, and indeed historical studies generally, that our present-day assumptions are not a reliable basis for the analysis and interpretation of language data from earlier periods. Assumptions, not just about language but any kind of human experience, help people make sense of the world in a cognitively efficient way. But those very assumptions interact with the phenomena to which they pertain, and together they change over time. Present-day assumptions form the endpoint of diachronic change. The first task for the historian is to describe earlier states of the language and its contexts, including the likely assumptions of contemporaries, and begin to understand why it is as it is. The second task is to explain the processes of change which have led to the current situation today. This paper aims to show how present-day assumptions about early modern play-texts are inappropriate or misleading. It explores how the dialogue of earlier plays was shaped by particular manuscript practices, and compares this with the dialogue of present-day plays that are shaped by the context of printing
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