Describing Prescriptivism: Usage Guides and Usage Problems in British and American English

By Ingrid Tieken Van Ostade and Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade

Book Overview

Describing Prescriptivism provides a topical and thought-provoking analysis of linguistic prescriptivism in British and American English, from a historical as well as present-day perspective. Focusing on usage guides and usage problems, the book takes a three-fold approach to present an in-depth analysis of the topic, featuring:

a detailed study of the advice provided in usage guides over the years; an authoritative comparison of this advice with actual usage as recorded in British and American corpora, including the HUGE (Hyper Usage Guide of English) database - developed specifically to enable this line of study - as well as more mainstream corpora such as COCA, COHA and the BNC; a close analysis of the attitudes to particular usage problems among the general public, based on surveys distributed online through the "Bridging the Unbridgeable" research project's blog.*

With extensive case studies to illustrate and support claims throughout, this comprehensive study is key reading for students and researchers of prescriptivism, the history of English and sociolinguistics.

*Found at https: //bridgingtheunbridgeable.com/

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1032337877
• ISBN13: 9781032337876
• Release Date: June 2022
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.0"