Cover not available
Article published In:
International Journal of Corpus Linguistics
Vol. 29:2 (2024) ► pp.131–154

Pinpointing prescriptive impact

Using change point analysis for the study of prescriptivism at the idiolectal level

ORCID logo | University College London
This paper presents a single-author case study which demonstrates that the statistical modelling technique change point analysis (CPA) can provide compelling evidence of prescriptive impact at an idiolectal level. It has been hypothesized that Late Modern English review periodicals consistently pushed a prescriptive agenda, and that this impacted language use (McIntosh, 1998; Percy, 2009). A lack of empirical research has, however, left these claims unsubstantiated, partly because evaluating prescriptivist endeavours has proven challenging. Using a purpose-built 3-million-token idiolectal corpus spanning 7 decades, this paper reports that it is possible to discern a striking change in usage. Use of CPA enables this change to be located precisely, and correlated to the author’s exposure to a prescriptive review of her work. In demonstrating how effectively CPA can provide a sophisticated correlation indicative of causality, this paper showcases the suitability of this technique to the study of prescriptivism.
Keywords: prescriptivism, Late Modern English, modelling, change point analysis, idiolect
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Evaluating prescriptive success in Late Modern English
    • 2.1Measuring prescriptive impact
    • 2.2“[T]he cant of Clermont”: Burney and the Monthly Review
    • 2.3Flat adverbs
  • 3.Data and method
    • 3.1Data
    • 3.2Method
  • 4.Assessing idiolectal prescriptive impact using CPA
    • 4.1Aggregated dual-form adverb data
    • 4.2Disaggregated dual-form adverb data
    • 4.3Generating a posteriori hypotheses
  • 5.Conclusions
  • References
Published online: 26 September 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.22001.mal
References (54)
References
Anderwald, L. (2012). Clumsy, awkward or having a peculiar propriety? Prescriptive judgements and language change in the 19th century. Language Sciences, 34 1, 28–53. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2014). Measuring the success of prescriptivism: Quantitative grammaticography, corpus linguistics and the progressive passive. English Language and Linguistics, 18 (1), 1–21. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2016). Language between Description and Prescription: Verbs and Verb Categories in the Nineteenth-Century Grammars of English. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2019). Empirically charting the success of prescriptivism. In C. Suhr, T. Nevalainen, & I. Taavitsainen (Eds.), From Data to Evidence in English Language Research. Brill.Google Scholar
Auer, A. (2009). The Subjunctive in the Age of Prescriptivism: English and German Developments during the Eighteenth Century. Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Auer, A., & González-Díaz, V. (2005). Eighteenth-century prescriptivism in English: A re-evaluation of its effects on actual language usage. Multilingua – Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication, 24(4), 317–341. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baker, F. (1980). The Works of John Wesley. Vol. 25, Letters I1, 1721–1729. Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Basker, J. (1988). Tobias Smollett: Critic and Journalist. Associated University Presses.Google Scholar
Baugh, A., & Cable, T. (1993). A History of the English Language (4th ed.). Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brezina, V. (2018). Statistics in Corpus Linguistics: A Practical Guide. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brodsky, B., & Darkhovsky, B. S. (1993). Nonparametric Methods in Change Point Problems. Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Burney, F. (1778). Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World. In a Series of Letters. Vol. 1–3. (1st ed.). T. Lowndes. [URL]
(1782). Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress. Vol. 1–5. (1st ed.). T. Payne and Son; Cadell. [URL]
(1793). Brief Reflections Relative to the Emigrant French Clergy: Earnestly Submitted to the Humane Consideration of the Ladies of Great Britain. (1st ed). Cadell. [URL]
(1796). Camilla: or, a Picture of Youth. Vol.1–5. (1st ed.). Payne, Cadell and Davies. [URL]
(1814). The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties. Vol.1–5. (1st ed.). London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown. [URL]
(1832). Memoirs of Doctor Burney, arranged from his own manuscripts, from family papers, and personal recollections, by his daughter, Madame D’Arblay. Vol.1–3. (1st ed.). Moxon, 1832. [URL]
Chen, J., & Gupta, A. K. (2013). Parametric Statistical Change Point Analysis. Springer.Google Scholar
Crump, J. (Ed.). (2002). A Known Scribbler: Frances Burney on Literary Life. Broadview.Google Scholar
Enfield, W. (1796). Mrs D’Arblay’s Camilla . The Monthly Review, XXI 1, 156–163.Google Scholar
Hemlow, J. (Ed.). (1973). The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, vol. IV1. Clarendon Press. [URL]
(Ed.). (1975). The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, vol. V1. Oxford University Press. [URL]
Hemlow, J., Boutilier, P., & Douglas, A. (Eds.). (1972). The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, vol. III1. Clarendon Press. [URL]
Hemlow, J., Cecil, C. D., & Douglas, A. (Eds.). (1972). The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, vol. I1. Clarendon Press. [URL]
Hemlow, J., & Douglas, A. (Eds.). (1972). The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, vol. II1. Clarendon Press. [URL]
Jarrett, R. G. (1979). A note on the intervals between coal-mining disasters. Biometrika, 661, 191–193. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jones, C. (1989). A History of English Phonology. Longman.Google Scholar
Labov, W. (1994). Principles of Linguistic Change. 1: Internal Factors (repr). Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Leonard, S. A. (1929). The Doctrine of Correctness in English Usage, 1700–1800. University of Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Maguire, B. A., Pearson, E. S., & Wynn, A. H. A. (1952). The time intervals between industrial accidents. Biometrika, 38 1, 168–180. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Malory, B. (2021). Prescriptivism in Action: Evaluating the Production and Reception of Reviewer Prescriptivism in Late Modern English [Doctoral dissertation, Lancaster University]. Lancaster EPrints. DOI logo
(2022). The transition from abortion to miscarriage to describe early pregnancy loss in British medical journals: A prescribed or natural lexical change? Medical Humanities, 48 (4), 489–496. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(forthcoming). A lifetime in writing: Using a linguistic corpus to explore change and continuity in Burney d’Arblay’s adverbs. Burney Journal.
McIntosh, C. (1998). The Evolution of English Prose, 1700–1800: Style, Politeness, and Print Culture. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Milroy, J., & Milroy, L. (1992). Authority in Language: Investigating Standard English (2nd ed.). Routledge.Google Scholar
(2012). Authority in Language: Investigating Standard English (4th ed.). Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moodie, P., & Johnson, D. (2022). Applied Regression and ANOVA Using SAS. CRC Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nevalainen, T. (2008). Social variation in intensifier use: constraint on –ly adverbialization in the past? English Language and Linguistics, 12 1, 289–315. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Percy, C. (2009). Periodical reviews and the rise of prescriptivism: The Monthly (1749–1844) and Critical Review (1756–1817) in the eighteenth century. In I. Tieken-Boon van Ostade & W. van der Wurff (Eds.), Current Issues in Late Modern English (pp.117–150). Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Petré, P., Anthonissen, L., Budts, S., Manjavacas, E., Standing, W., & O. Strik. (2018). The EMMA Corpus (release 1.0). Early Modern Multiloquent Authors. [URL]
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartik, J. (1985). A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Longman.Google Scholar
Rafferty, A. E., & Akman, V. E. (1986). Bayesian analysis of a Poisson process with a change point. Biometrika, 73 (1), 85–89. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rissanen, M. (2000). Standardisation and the language of early statutes. In L. Wright (Ed.), The Development of Standard English: Theories, Descriptions, Conflicts (pp. 117–130). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Roper, D. (1978). Reviewing before the Edinburgh: 1788–1802. Methuen.Google Scholar
Sairo, A. (2009). Language and Letters of the Bluestocking Network: Sociolinguistic Issues in Eighteenth-Century Epistolary English. Société Néophilologique de Helsinki.Google Scholar
Sorensen, J. (2020). Strange Vernaculars: How Eighteenth-Century Slang, Cant, Provincial Languages, and Nautical Jargon Became English. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sundby, B., Bjørge, A. K., & Haugland, K. E. (1991). A Dictionary of English Normative Grammar 1700–1800. John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thaddeus, J. (2000). Frances Burney: A Literary Life. Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tieken-Boon van Ostade, I. (2011). The Bishop’s Grammar. Robert Lowth and the Rise of Prescriptivism. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
(2014). In Search of Jane Austen: The Language of the Letters. Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2019). Describing Prescriptivism: Usage Guides and Usage Problems in British and American English. Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Troide, L. E., & Cooke, S. J. (Eds.). (1994). The Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, Volume III: The Streatham Years Part I, 1778–1779. Clarendon Press; McGill-Queen’s University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wollstonecraft, M. (1796). Camilla: or, A Picture of Youth. By the Author of Evelina and Cecilia. Analyical Review, 24 1. 144.Google Scholar
Yáñez-Bouza, N. (2008). Preposition stranding in the eighteenth century: Something to Talk About. In Tieken-Boon van Ostade (Ed.), Grammars, Grammarians and Grammar: Writing in Eighteenth Century England (pp. 251–277). Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Malory, Beth
2024. “A vulgarity of style which lies deeper than grammatical solecisms”: developing a corpus-assisted approach to identifying prescriptive and normative discourses. Corpora 19:2 ► pp. 157 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 11 september 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.