Cover not available
Part of
Contact, Variation, and Change in the History of English
Edited by Simone E. Pfenninger, Olga Timofeeva, Anne-Christine Gardner, Alpo Honkapohja, Marianne Hundt and Daniel Schreier
[Studies in Language Companion Series 159] 2014
► pp. 163–186

Colloquialization and “decolloquialization”

Phrasal verbs in formal contexts, 1650–1990

Given that phrasal verbs are generally related to colloquial styles in Present-day English, the increase of these structures in a particular text type can be interpreted as a sign of colloquialization. Conversely, a decrease in their use may imply the development of more formal, literate features or a tendency towards “decolloqualization”. The present paper examines the development of phrasal verbs in the most formal genres of ARCHER (A Representative Corpus of English Historical Registers), namely medicine, science and sermons. Findings show that the number of phrasal verbs decreases in medicine and science over time, thus displaying a clear tendency towards more literate styles or “decolloquialization”; in sermons, however, phrasal verbs tend to increase. In the light of this evidence, this paper analyzes the differences in use within formal genres, and also compares the use of phrasal verbs between formal and informal genres over time.
Published online: 11 September 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.159.09rod
References (48)
References
Akimoto, Minoji. 2006.“On the decline of after and forth in verb phrases. In Syntax, Style and Grammatical Norms: English from 1500–2000, Christiane Dalton-Puffer, Dieter Kastovsky, Nikolaus Ritt & Herbert Schendl (eds), 11–31. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
ARCHER 3.1 = A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers 3.1. 1990–1993/2002/2007/2010. Originally compiled under the supervision of Douglas Biber & Edward Finegan at Northern Arizona University & the University of Southern California. Modified and expanded by subsequent members of a consortium of universities. Current member universities are Northern Arizona, Southern California, Freiburg, Heidelberg, Helsinki, Uppsala, Michigan, Manchester, Lancaster, Bamberg, Zurich, Trier, Salford, and Santiago de Compostela.
Atkinson, Dwight. 1996. The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1675–1975: A sociohistorical discourse analysis. Language in Society 2(3): 333–371. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1999. Scientific Discourse in Sociohistorical Context. The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1675–1975. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas. 1988. Variation across Speech and Writing. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1989. A typology of English texts. Linguistics 27: 3–43. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2001. Dimensions of variation among Eighteenth-century speech-based and written registers. In Towards a History of English as a History of Genres, Hans-Jürgen Diller & Manfred Görlach (eds), 89–109. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter.Google Scholar
. 2003. Variation among university spoken and written genres: A new multi-dimensional analysis. In Corpus Analysis. Language Structure and Language Use, Pepi Lestyna & Charles F. Meyer (eds), 47–70. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas & Clark, Victoria. 2002. Historical shifts in modification patterns with complex noun phrase structures: How long can you go without a verb? In English Historical Syntax and Morphology, Teresa Fanego, Javier Pérez-Guerra & María José López-Couso (eds), 43–66. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Biber, Douglas & Finegan, Edward. 1989. Drift and the evolution of English style: A history of three genres. Language 65(3): 487–517. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1992. The linguistic evolution of five written and speech-based genres from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. In History of Englishes: New Methods and Interpretations in Historical Linguistics [Topics in English Linguistics 10], Matti Rissanen, Ossi Ihalainen, Terttu Nevalainen & Irma Taavitsainen (eds), 688–704. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
. 1994. Intra-textual variation within medical research articles. In Corpus-based Research into Language, Nelleke Oostdijk & Pieter de Haan (eds), 201–221. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
. 1997. Diachronic relations among speech-based and written registers in English. In To Explain the Present: Studies in the Changing English Language in Honour of Matti Rissanen, Terttu Nevalainen & Leena Kahlas-Tarkka (eds), 253–275. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique.Google Scholar
. 2001. Diachronic relations among speech-based and written registers in English. In Variation in English: Multi-dimensional Studies, Susan Conrad & Douglas Biber (eds), 66–83. London: Pearson.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Finegan, Edward, Atkinson, Dwight, Beck, Ann, Burges, Dennis & Burges, Jena. 1994. The design and analysis of the ARCHER corpus: A progress report. In Corpora across the Centuries: Proceedings of the First International Colloquium on English Diachronic Corpora , St. Catharine’s College Cambridge , 25–27 March 1993, Merja Kytö, Matti Rissanen & Susan Wright (eds), 3–6. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Conrad, Susan & Reppen, Randy. 1998. Corpus Linguistics: Investigating Language Structure and Use. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Johansson, Stig, Leech, Geoffrey, Conrad, Susan & Finegan, Edward. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight. 1971. The Phrasal Verb in English. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
BROWN = A Standard Corpus of Present-day Edited American English. Compiled by W. Nelson Francis and Henry Kucera. Department of Linguistics Brown University 1964, revised 1971, revised and amplified 1979.
Claridge, Claudia. 2000. Multi-word Verbs in Early Modern English: A Corpus-based Study. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Claridge, Claudia & Wilson, Andrew. 2002. Style evolution in the English sermon. In Sounds, Words, Texts and Change. Selected Papers from 11 ICEHL , Santiago de Compostela , 7–11 September 2000, Teresa Fanego, Belén Méndez-Naya & Elena Seoane (eds), 25–44. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
CONCE = A Corpus of Nineteenth-century English. Compiled by Merja Kytö (Uppsala University) and Juhani Rudanko(University of Tampere).
Culpeper, Jonathan & Kytö, Merja. 2010. Early Modern English Dialogues. Spoken Interaction as Writing. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Denison, David. 1981. Aspects of the History of English Group-verbs, with Particular Attention to the Syntax of the Ormulum . PhD dissertation, Oxford University.Google Scholar
Fraser, Bruce. 1976. The Verb-particle Combination in English. New York NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Görlach, Manfred. 2001. Eighteenth-century English. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter.Google Scholar
Gotti, Maurizio. 2011. The development of specialized discourse in the Philosophical Transactions . In Medical Writing in Early Modern English, Irma Taavitsainen & Päivi Pahta (eds), 204–220. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gray, Bethany, Biber, Douglas & Hiltunen, Turo. 2011. The expression of stance in early (1665–1712) publications of the Philosophical Transactions and other contemporary medical prose: Innovations in a pioneering discourse. In Medical Writing in Early Modern English, Irma Taavitsainen & Päivi Pahta (eds), 221–257. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Helsinki Corpus of English Texts 850–1710. 1991. Compiled by Matti Rissanen, et al. Department of English, University of Helsinki.Google Scholar
Hiltunen, Risto. 1994. Phrasal verbs in Early Modern English: Notes on lexis and style. In Studies in Early Modern English, Dieter Kastovsky (ed.), 129–140. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Huddleston, Rodney & Pullum, Geoffrey K. 2002. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Hundt, Marianne & Mair, Christian. 1999. ‘Agile’ and ‘uptight’ genres: The corpus-based approach to language change in progress. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 4(2): 221–242. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ishizaki, Yasuaki. 2009. A usage-based analysis of the distribution of forth in the history of English. Kindai Eigo Kenkyu (Studies in Modern English) 25: 41–61.Google Scholar
. 2012. A usage-based analysis of phrasal verbs in Early and late Modern English. English Language and Linguistics 16(2): 241–260. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
LOB = Lancaster-Oslo/Bergen Corpus. Compiled by Geoffrey Leech, Roger Garside (University of Lancaster), Stig Johansson (University of Oslo) and Knut Hofland (University of Bergen).
Mair, Christian. 1997. Parallel corpora: A real-time approach to the study of language change in progress. In Corpus-based Studies in English: Papers from the Seventeenth International Conference on English Language and Research on Computerized Corpora (ICAME 17) , Magnus Ljung (ed.), 195–209. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
OED = The Oxford English Dictionary. Online edition. [URL]
Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey & Svartvik, Jan. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Rodríguez-Puente, Paula. 2012. Talking ‘private’ with phrasal verbs: A corpus-based study of English phrasal verbs from 1650 to 1999. In Outposts of Historical Corpus Linguistics: From the Helsinki Corpus to a Proliferation of Resources [Studies in Variation, Contacts and Change in English 10], Jukka Tÿrkkö, Terttu Nevalainen, Matti Rissanen & Matti Kilpiö (eds). Helsinki: University of Helsinki. [URL]Google Scholar
Scott, Michael. 1999. WordSmith Tools, Version 3. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Smitterberg, Erik. 2008. The progressive and phrasal verbs: Evidence of colloquialization in nineteenth-century English? In The Dynamics of Linguistic Variation. Corpus Evidence on English Past and Present [Studies in Language Variation 2], Terttu Nevalainen, Irma Taavitsainen, Päivi Pahta & Minna Korhonen (eds), 269–289. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Taavitsainen, Irma. 2001. Changing conventions of writing: The dynamics of genres, text types, and text traditions. European Journal of English Studies 5(2): 139–150. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2010. Discourse and genre dynamics in the early modern English medical writing. In Early Modern English Medical Texts: Corpus Description and Studies, Irma Taavitsainen and Päivi Pahta (eds), 29–54. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Thim, Stefan. 2006. Phrasal verbs in Everyday English: 1500–1700. In Language and Text: Current Perspectives on English and Germanic Historical Linguistics and Philology, Andrew James Johnston, Ferdinand von Mengden & Stefan Thim (eds), 291–306. Heidelberg: Winter.Google Scholar
. 2012. Phrasal verbs. The English Verb-particle Construction and its History [Topics in English Linguistics 78]. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Valle, Ellen. 1999. A Collective Intelligence. The Life Sciences in the Royal Society as a Scientific Discourse Community, 1665–1965 [Anglicana Turkuensia 17]. PhD dissertation, University of Turku.Google Scholar
Yáñez-Bouza, Nuria. 2007. Preposition Stranding and Prescriptivism in English from 1500 to 1900: A Corpus-based Approach. PhD dissertation, The University of Manchester.Google Scholar
. 2012. ‘Have you ever written a diary or a journal?’ Modes of diurnal narrative in ARCHER. Paper presented at the VARIENG Research Seminar, May 2012, Helsinki.