A holistic sociolinguistic perspective on the grammarians and ouisme in the phonetic history of French
Abstract
This study investigates early-modern grammarians of French and their accounts of an intriguing and famous phenomenon called ‘ouisme’. The research targets a gap in the field, as ‘ouisme’ has remained, paradoxically, little investigated. Drawing on sociolinguistic principles, the evidence base for the phenomenon is expanded, by treating the grammarians as legitimate subjects of study; scrutiny of their sociolinguistic attitude and behaviour is made an integral part of the explanation and analysis of ‘ouisme’, a vibrant variant of a linguistic variable, whose usage is examined in a complex social context. The results are rewarding, in two main respects: on the one hand, a completely new understanding of the phenomenon, its usage and the terminology employed to characterize it; on the other hand, the methodology of focusing on the grammarians’ testimonies and sociolinguistic attitude and behaviour provides a potential template for future work on historical features of French and other languages.
Citation
Anipa , K 2017 , ' A holistic sociolinguistic perspective on the grammarians and ouisme in the phonetic history of French ' , Revue Roumaine de Linguistique , vol. 2016 , no. 4 , pp. 335-359 . < https://www.lingv.ro/images/RRL%204_2016_02-KAntipa.pdf >
Publication
Revue Roumaine de Linguistique
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0035-3957Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2017, EDITURA ACADEMIEI ROMÂNE. This work has been made available online with permission from the pubisher. This is the final published version of the work, which was originally published at: http://www.lingv.ro/images/RRL%204_2016_02-KAntipa.pdf
Collections
Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.