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Beware of the weeds

Understanding Flemish linguistic purism as a utopian discourse
  • Kevin Absillis and Jürgen Jaspers EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: October 4, 2016

Abstract

Research into linguistic purism often reflects a critical, if not contemptuous attitude towards its subject of inquiry. The reasons for this are purists’ prescriptivist stance, as well as their frequent association with ethno-linguistic nationalism, an ideology in moral disrepute. We argue that this approach of purism produces blind spots. Following Pratt’s suggestion, we reconsider linguistic purism in this article as the effect of a utopian discourse and show how a desire for (linguistic) purity is at the very heart of the project of modernity. We apply our theoretical framework to the history of purism in modern Flanders (nineteenth to twenty-first century).

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant for Jürgen Jaspers from The Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS). The authors wish to thank Marlou de Bont for her editorial help.

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Published Online: 2016-10-4
Published in Print: 2016-11-1

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