Describing Prescriptivism: Usage guides and usage problems in British and American English

by IngridTieken-BoonvanOstade (Author)

• New

  Illustrated
  2019

  $172.87

  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/