Germanic Language Histories 'from Below' (1700-2000) - Elspaß, Stephan 1963-; Langer, Nils 1969-; Scharloth, Joachim 1972-; Vandenbussche, Wim 1973- (De Gruyter, 2007)
Includes bibliographical references and index
Biographical note: Stephan Elspaß, University of Augsburg, Germany; Nils Langer, University of Bristol, UK; Joachim Scharloth, University of Zurich, Switzerland; Wim Vandenbussche ,Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Main description: Focusing on the sociolinguistic history of Germanic languages, the current volume challenges the traditional teleological approach of language historiography. The 30 contributions present alternative histories of ten 'big' as well as 'small' Germanic languages and varieties in the last 300 years. Topics covered in this book include language variation and change and the politics of language contact and choice, seen against the background of standardization processes of written and oral text genres and from the viewpoint of larger sections of the population
Review text: "Insgesamt handelt es sich um ein sehr detailreiches Buch, das dem an variationslinguistischen Fragestellungen interessierten Leser Einblicke in die historische Soziolinguistik und historische Pragmatik bietet und zahlreiche Forschungsperspektiven aufzeigt."Verena Teschke in: Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik 2/2009 "There is much to admire about this book. The breadth of languages discussed is impressive, as is the use of sources of data that have been neglected in more traditional approaches to historical linguistics."Marc Pierce in: Linguist List 19.2184
Keywords: Geschichte 1700-2000; Geschichte; Politik; Germanic languages -- History; Germanic languages -- Standardization -- History; Germanic languages -- Standardization -- Political aspects; Germanic languages -- Variation; Sprachvariante; Soziale Schichtung; Marginalität; Germanische Sprachen; Electronic books; Konferenzschrift -- 2005 -- Bristol