Language Standardization and Language Change describes the formation of an early standard norm at the Cape around 1900. The processes of variant reduction and sociolinguistic focusing which accompanied the early standardization history of Afrikaans (or ‘Cape Dutch’ as it was then called) are analysed within the broad methodological framework of corpus linguistics and variation analysis. Multivariate statistical techniques (cluster analysis, multidimensional scaling and PCA) are used to model the emergence of linguistic uniformity in the Cape Dutch speech community. The book also examines language contact and creolization in the early settlement, the role of Afrikaner nationalism in shaping language attitudes and linguistic practices, and the influence of English. As a case study in historical sociolinguistics the book calls into question the traditional view of the emergence of an Afrikaans standard norm, and advocates a strongly sociolinguistic, speaker-orientated approach to language history in general, and standardization studies in particular.

Table of contents

List of figures xi List of tables xv Acknowledgements xix Introduction: Standardization, language standards and standard languages 1–11 I. History 1. Afrikaans sociohistorical linguistics: Reconstructing language formation 15–44 2. Afrikaner nationalism and the discovery of the vernacular 45–76 3. The Corpus of Cape Dutch Correspondence and the social context of language use in the nineteenth century 77–102 II. Variation analysis 4. On the analysis of variability and uniformity: An introduction to multivariate clustering techniques 105–133 5. The gradualness of morphosyntactic change 135–178 6. Morphological and syntactic variation 179–219 7. The Cape Dutch variety spectrum: Clusters, continua and patterns of language alternation 221–258 III. Establishing the norm 8. Engels, Engels, alles Engels: Language contact, conflict and purism 261–277 9. Social networks and the diffusion of standard Afrikaans 279–296 Epilogue: Language standardization and language change 297–304 Appendix: The Corpus of Cape Dutch Correspondence 305 References 315 Index 355