Diachronic Corpora, Genre, and Language Change by Whitt Richard J.;

Author:Whitt, Richard J.; [Whitt, Richard J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Published: 2018-10-23T11:34:30+00:00

The discussion above is summarized in Table 2. It is significant that our findings from a Greek diachronic corpus concur with the understanding of the role of genre in recent language change in other languages e.g. with regard to the contribution of speech-like genres (Culpeper & Kytö 2010) and especially private letters (cf. Dossena & Del Lungo Camiciotti 2012). It also confirms the importance of using diachronic corpora (see e.g. Taavitsainen et al. 2015).

Our findings, moreover, can provide some preliminary evidence for a better understanding of recent language change in Greek. We can thus attempt to sketch what it would take to reply to the unanswered questions of Greek diglossia, pointed out in the Introduction. For instance, as regards the question of how many varieties appear to have existed in the Greek of the 20th century, our analysis concurs with the existence of two poles (demotic and katharévousa or L and H), although the possibility of co-existing variants within text types or even individual texts cannot be excluded. However, the main purport of our study has been to underline the central role of genre in trying to formulate an answer to this question. Thus, from the perspective of academic texts or literature there seems to be no choice of varieties available, since for most of the century one or the other appears exclusively, and this would seem to confirm Ferguson’s strict separation of domains, although this is not the case with other genres, as we have seen.

As regards the range of registers available, we have pointed out the importance of dimensions such as conventionality, planning and (perceived) spontaneity, in addition to the well-known parameter of formality. Greek diglossia seems to have been an effect of factors belonging to multiple dimensions and, for this reason, cannot be collapsed to a simple spoken vs. written dichotomy. Although the distinction between spoken and written language may seem clear, e.g. in the description of Fergusonian diglossia, recent developments like mediated communication and the observed conversationalization of public discourse (Fairclough 1995) have put into question the value of such a strict distinction and have led to an understanding of spoken and written as comprised by a cluster of characteristics which are not shared by all text types (cf. Culpeper & Kytö 2010). As we have seen in the genres studied, there have also been, among other things, different conceptions of what ‘speech’ looks like. Our investigation of Greek genres indicates e.g. that public speeches followed different norms than literary or film dialogue and, as a result, were designed to widely varying representations of real interaction.

We have already discussed the timing of changes that is of central importance to any account of Greek diglossia and have suggested that time periods such as the beginning of the 20th century, the 1960s to 1970s, and the 1980s have been crucial points in terms of language change.

Finally, our research points to the need for further empirical studies on what actual speakers of Greek did in the course of the 20th century before we start exploring the question of how attitudes affected language use.

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