Purist norms and language change: ideological approaches and changes from above
-
Chiara Monaco
Abstract
This article focuses on the relationship between ‘change from above’ and ‘change from below’ as intended in the purist tendencies of the Atticist lexicographers of the second century CE. The production of Atticist lexica in the second century CE – as a manifestation of the purist trend that characterized the Greco-Roman world since the first century BCE-sought to reproduce an alleged Classical Greek through the prescription of morphological, lexical and syntactic features. The purists’ attempt to promote a specific kind of language reflected a progressive tendency to use language to construct social categories. The community of educated speakers was defined by the selection of linguistic features that differed from those used by the masses and became distinctive signs of education and elitism. By analyzing examples from these lexica, I will examine the mechanisms purists use to cleanse contemporary language from the changes that have affected the Koine. In order to do this, I will use the frameworks of modern sociolinguistics and, in particular, I will refer to three semiotic processes proposed by Irvine and Gal. 1995. The boundaries of languages and disciplines: How ideologies construct difference. Social Research 62(4). 967–1001; Irvine and Gal. 2000. Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In Paul V. Kroskrity (ed.), Regimes of language: Ideologies, polities, and identities, 35–84. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press: 1) Iconization, which is expressed in the association that Atticist lexicographers make between supposedly pure/correct forms and certain social and ethnic groups (e.g., educated people/Attic writers/the ancients, etc.); 2) fractal recursivity, which is reflected in the Atticists’ projection of the opposition “Attic versus barbarian” onto the dualism “Attic versus non-Attic”; and 3) erasure, which is represented by the Atticists’ disregard for linguistic variation and their interpretation of Attic as a monolithic system. This analysis aims to describe the ideological factors that support linguistic purism and the mechanisms behind the prescription of a language consistently detached from contemporary usage.
Acknowledgments
This research has been carried out in the framework of the PRIN 2020 “Metalinguistic texts as a privileged data source for the knowledge of ancient languages” (CUP E63C22000350001) and as part of the FWO Postdoctoral Fellowship 12ZY122N at Ghent University. I thank Dr. Eleonora Serra for her comments on this piece, the two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions, and the editors.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Obituary
- In memoriam Prof. William Labov (1927–2024)
- Articles
- Along the stereotyping road: nineteenth and early twentieth centuries narratives of ukuhlonipha
- Gibraltar’s streetnames: an eighteenth-century Western Mediterranean spatial practice of civilian fort-servicers
- Historical reconstruction and media representation of the earliest known demand for Romani linguistic rights
- Linguistic ideologies, personae and practices in seventeenth-century France
- Sacred language ideology for Nomina Sacra between the second and fifth centuries CE
- Special collection: Language Change from Above and from Below in Greek and Latin; Guest Editors: Ezra la Roi and Dalia Pratali Maffei
- Sources and methods for detecting language change from above and below in Post-Classical Greek and Latin
- Doric features in Hellenistic inscribed epigrams: unveiling supra-regional and regional prestige in dialectal change
- Purist norms and language change: ideological approaches and changes from above
- Choosing how to say ‘a letter’ in a letter: variation between epistula and litterae in the corpus of Ciceronian epistolography
- Epilogue: Historical sociolinguistics and the classical languages
- Book Reviews
- Laurel J. Brinton: Pragmatics in the history of English
- Brenda Assendelft: Verfransing onder de loep. Nederlands-Frans taalcontact (1500–1900) vanuit historisch-sociolinguïstisch perspectief [Frenchification under scrutiny. Dutch-French language contact (1500–1900) from a historical-sociolinguistic perspective]
- Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, María E. Rodríguez-Gil and Javier Pérez-Guerra: New Horizons in Prescriptivism Research
- Caon, Luisella, Moragh S. Gordon and Thijs Porck: Unlocking the history of English: Pragmatics, prescriptivism and text types. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 364
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Obituary
- In memoriam Prof. William Labov (1927–2024)
- Articles
- Along the stereotyping road: nineteenth and early twentieth centuries narratives of ukuhlonipha
- Gibraltar’s streetnames: an eighteenth-century Western Mediterranean spatial practice of civilian fort-servicers
- Historical reconstruction and media representation of the earliest known demand for Romani linguistic rights
- Linguistic ideologies, personae and practices in seventeenth-century France
- Sacred language ideology for Nomina Sacra between the second and fifth centuries CE
- Special collection: Language Change from Above and from Below in Greek and Latin; Guest Editors: Ezra la Roi and Dalia Pratali Maffei
- Sources and methods for detecting language change from above and below in Post-Classical Greek and Latin
- Doric features in Hellenistic inscribed epigrams: unveiling supra-regional and regional prestige in dialectal change
- Purist norms and language change: ideological approaches and changes from above
- Choosing how to say ‘a letter’ in a letter: variation between epistula and litterae in the corpus of Ciceronian epistolography
- Epilogue: Historical sociolinguistics and the classical languages
- Book Reviews
- Laurel J. Brinton: Pragmatics in the history of English
- Brenda Assendelft: Verfransing onder de loep. Nederlands-Frans taalcontact (1500–1900) vanuit historisch-sociolinguïstisch perspectief [Frenchification under scrutiny. Dutch-French language contact (1500–1900) from a historical-sociolinguistic perspective]
- Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, María E. Rodríguez-Gil and Javier Pérez-Guerra: New Horizons in Prescriptivism Research
- Caon, Luisella, Moragh S. Gordon and Thijs Porck: Unlocking the history of English: Pragmatics, prescriptivism and text types. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 364
