Manual of Standardization in the Romance Languages

Manual of Standardization in the Romance Languages
Author: Franz Lebsanft
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 680
Release: 2020-01-20
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110456060
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Language standardization is an ongoing process based on the notions of linguistic correctness and models. This manual contains thirty-six chapters that deal with the theories of linguistic norms and give a comprehensive up-to-date description and analysis of the standardization processes in the Romance languages. The first section presents the essential approaches to the concept of linguistic norm ranging from antiquity to the present, and includes individual chapters on the notion of linguistic norms and correctness in classical grammar and rhetoric, in the Prague School, in the linguistic theory of Eugenio Coseriu, in sociolinguistics as well as in pragmatics, cognitive and discourse linguistics. The second section focuses on the application of these notions with respect to the Romance languages. It examines in detail the normative grammar and the normative dictionary as the reference tools for language codification and modernization of those languages that have a long and well-established written tradition, i.e. Romanian, Italian, French, Catalan, Spanish, and Portuguese. Furthermore, the volume offers a discussion of the key issues regarding the standardization of the ‘minor’ Romance languages as well as Creoles.

Language, Culture, and Hegemony in Modern France

Language, Culture, and Hegemony in Modern France
Author: Freeman G. Henry
Publisher: Summa Publications, Inc.
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2008
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 9781883479596
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In this panoramic study, Freeman Henry chronicles the rise to prominence of French language and culture. He meticulously analyzes the protracted government-sponsored efforts to foster and maintain that status and--ultimately--the latter-day challenges to France's national linguistic identity posed by Anglocentric globalization and a multicentric European Union. The internal history of the language is closely intertwined with its external history: phonology, morphology, lexicography, and orthography come alive against a backdrop of political, cultural, and institutional manifestations. A felicitous blend of documentary evidence and critical analysis serves to elucidate crucial stages, events, and concepts: 16th-century exuberance, 17th-century foundations, 18th-century expansionism, Revolutionary ideology. Restoration restructuring and commercialization, the advent of linguistic science, the coming of the media age, encroaching technocracy, and clamors for linguistic parity. Individual chapter focus on the plight of minority linguistic communities such as the blind and the deaf, language monitoring policies and legislation such as the Loi Toubon, as well as the feminization project legitimizing Madame la ministre. --Publisher description.

Ten Lectures on the Basics of Cognitive Grammar

Ten Lectures on the Basics of Cognitive Grammar
Author: Ronald Langacker
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 457
Release: 2017-07-31
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9004347453
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These lectures provide a basic introduction to the linguistic theory known as Cognitive Grammar. It is argued that a conceptualist semantics, well motivated in its own terms, provides the basis for a symbolic view of grammar. Consisting in the structuring and symbolization of conceptual content, grammar is inherently meaningful, and basic grammatical notions have conceptual characterizations. An account is given of grammatical categories, markings, and constructions. A number of central topics are examined in detail, including subjects, possessives, locatives, voice, and impersonals.

The Oxford Handbook of the French Language

The Oxford Handbook of the French Language
Author: Wendy Ayres-Bennett
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 1057
Release: 2024-07-08
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0192634410
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This volume provides the first comprehensive reference work in English on the French language in all its facets. It offers a wide-ranging approach to the rich, varied, and exciting research across multiple subfields, with seven broad thematic sections covering the structures of French; the history of French; axes of variation; French around the world; French in contact with other languages; second language acquisition; and French in literature, culture, arts, and the media. Each chapter presents the state of the art and directs readers to canonical studies and essential works, while also exploring cutting-edge research and outlining future directions. The Oxford Handbook of the French Language serves both as a reference work for people who are curious to know more about the French language and as a starting point for those carrying out new research on the language and its many varieties. It will appeal to undergraduate and graduate students as well as established scholars, whether they are specialists in French linguistics or researchers in a related field looking to learn more about the language. The diversity of frameworks, approaches, and scholars in the volume demonstrates above all the variety, vitality, and vibrancy of work on the French language today.