Linguistic authority, language ideology, and metaphor : the Czech orthography wars / by Neil Bermel.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bermel, Neil.

Series:

Language, power, and social process ; 17.

Language, power and social process ; 17

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Czech language--Orthography and spelling--History.

Czech language.

Czech language--Reform--History.

Language planning--Czech Republic.

Language planning.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (384 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, c2007.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

How does a country find itself 'at war' over spelling? This book focuses on a crucial juncture in the post-communist history of the Czech Republic, when an orthographic commission with a moderate reformist agenda found itself the focus of enormous public controversy. Delving back into history, Bermel explores the Czech nation's long tradition of intervention and its association with the purity of the language, and how in the twentieth century an ascendant linguistic school - Prague Functionalism - developed into a progressive but centralizing ideology whose power base was inextricably linked to the communist regime. Bermel looks closely at the reforms of the 1990's and the heated public reaction to them. On the part of language regulators, he examines the ideology that underlay the reforms and the tactics employed on all sides to gain linguistic authority, while in dissecting the public reaction, he looks both at conscious arguments marshaled in favor of and against reform and at the use, conscious and subconscious, of metaphors about language. Of interest to faculty and students working in the area of language, cultural studies, and history, especially that of transitional and post-communist states, this volume is also relevant for those with a more general interest in language planning and language reform. The book is awarded with the "The George Blazyca Prize in East European Studies 2008".

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Chapter 1 Orthographic reform and language planning

Chapter 2 Standard Czech in its social and linguistic setting

Chapter 3 Spelling reform in Czech, 1400...1900

Chapter 4 Spelling reform in Czech, 1900...1980

Chapter 5 Czech orthographic reform, 1980...1994

Chapter 6 The actors in spelling reform: Issues and debates

Chapter 7 Debating linguistics, authority, and legitimacy

Chapter 8 Metaphors and the conceptualization of language

Chapter 9 Conclusions

Back matter

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

ISBN:

9786612194030

9781282194038

1282194038

9783119166409

3119166405

9783110197662

3110197669

OCLC:

290492567